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RECENT WORKS BY G.J. ROMANES, M. A, 
 
 DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN: An Exposition of 
 the Darwinian Theory, and a Discussion of Post-Dar- 
 winian Questions. 
 Part i. The Darwinian Theory. Cloth, $2.00. 
 Part 2. Post-Darwinian Questions. (In press.) 
 Edited by C. Lloyd Morgan. 
 AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM. Cloth $2.00. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 
THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 GEORGE JOHN ROMANES 
 
 M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES GORE, M.A. 
 
 CANON OF WESTMINSTER 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 CHICAGO 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1895 
 
A-^303 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Editor's Preface 5 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The Influence of Science upon Religion. 
 
 Essay I .37 
 
 Essay II . 58 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Notes for a Work on a Candid Examination 
 of Religion. 
 
 Introductory Note by the Editor ... 97 
 
 § 1. Introductory I04 
 
 § 2. Definition of Terms and Purpose of this 
 
 Treatise 
 
 § 3. Causality 
 
 § 4. Faith 
 
 § 5. Faith in Christianity ..... 
 Concluding Note by the Editor 
 
 no 
 123 
 140 
 164 
 196 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The late Mr. George John Romanes — the 
 author within the last few years of Darwin and 
 After Darwin, and of the Examination of Weismann- 
 ism — occupied a distinguished place in contem- 
 porary biology. But his mind was also continu- 
 ously and increasingly active on the problems of 
 metaphysics and theology. And at his death in 
 the early summer of this year (1894), he left 
 among his papers some notes, made mostly in the 
 previous winter, for a work which he was intend- 
 ing to write on the fundamental questions of 
 religion. He had desired that these notes should 
 be given to me and that I should do with them as 
 I thought best. His literary executors accord- 
 ingly handed them over to me, in company with 
 some unpublished essays, two of which form the 
 first part of the present volume. 
 
 After reading the notes myself, and obtaining 
 the judgment of others in whom I feel confidence 
 upon them, I have no hesitation either in publishing 
 by far the greater part of them, or in publishing 
 them with the author's name in spite of the fact 
 that the book as originally projected was to have 
 been anonymous. From the few words which 
 George Romanes said to me on the subject, I have 
 
 5 
 
6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 no doubt that he realized that the notes if pub- 
 lished after his death must be published with his 
 name. 
 
 I have said that after reading these notes I 
 feel no doubt that they ought to be published. 
 They claim it both by their intrinsic value and by 
 the light they throw on the religious thought of 
 a scientific man who was not only remarkably able 
 and clear-headed, but also many-sided, as few 
 men are, in his capacities, and singularly candid 
 and open-hearted. To all these qualities the 
 notes which are now offered to the public will 
 bear unmistakable witness. 
 
 With more hesitation it has been decided to 
 print also the unpublished essays already referred 
 to. These, as representing an earlier stage of 
 thought than is represented in the notes, naturally 
 appear first. 
 
 Both Essays and Notes, however, represent 
 the same tendency of a mind from a position of 
 unbelief in the Christian Revelation toward one 
 of belief in it. They represent, I say, a tendency 
 of one 'seeking after God if haply he might feel 
 after Him and find Him,' and not a position of 
 settled orthodoxy. Even the Notes contain in 
 fact many things which could not come from a 
 settled believer. This being so it is natural that 
 I should say a word as to the way in which I have 
 understood my function as an editor. I have 
 decided the question of publishing each Note 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 7 
 
 solely by the consideration whether or no it was 
 sufficiently finished to be intelligible. I have 
 rigidly excluded any question of my own agree- 
 ment or disagreement with it. In the case of one 
 Note in particular, I doubt whether I should have 
 published it had it not been that my decided dis- 
 agreement with its contents made me fear that I 
 might be prejudiced in withholding it. 
 
 The Notes, with the papers which precede 
 them, will, I think, be better understood if I give 
 some preliminary account of their antecedents, 
 that is, of Romanes* previous publications on the 
 subject of religion. 
 
 In 1873 an essay of George Romanes gained 
 the Burney Prize at Cambridge, the subject being 
 Christian Prayer considered in relation to the belief 
 that the Almighty governs the world by general laws. 
 This was published in 1874, with an appendix on 
 The Physical Efficacy of Prayer, In this essay, writ- 
 ten when he was twenty-five years old, Romanes 
 shows the characteristic qualities of his mind and 
 style already developed. The sympathy with 
 the scientific point of view is there, as might be 
 expected perhaps in a Cambridge 'Scholar in 
 Natural Science:' the logical acumen and love 
 of exact distinctions is there : there too the nat- 
 ural piety and spiritual appreciation of the nature 
 of Christian prayer — a piety and appreciation 
 which later intellectual habits of thought could 
 never eradicate. The essay, as judged by the 
 
8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 standard of prize compositions, is of remarkable 
 ability, and strictly proceeds within the limits of 
 the thesis. On the one side, for the purpose of 
 the argument, the existence of a Personal God is 
 assumed, 1 and also the reality of the Christian 
 Revelation which assures us that we have reason 
 to expect real answers, even though conditionally 
 and within restricted limits, to prayers for physical 
 goods. 2 On the other side, there is taken for 
 granted the belief that general laws pervade the 
 observable domain of physical nature. Then the 
 question is considered — how is the physical effi- 
 cacy of prayer which the Christian accepts on 
 the authority of revelation compatible with the 
 scientifically known fact that God governs the 
 world by general laws? The answer is mainly 
 found in emphasizing the limited sphere within 
 which scientific inquiry can be conducted and 
 scientific knowledge can obtain. Special divine 
 acts of response to prayer, even in the physical 
 sphere, may occur — force may be even originated 
 in response to prayer — and still not produce any 
 phenomenon such as science must take cogni- 
 zance of and regard as miraculous or contrary to 
 the known order. 
 
 On one occasion the Notes refer back to this 
 essay, 3 and more frequently, as we shall have 
 occasion to notice, they produce thoughts which 
 had already been expressed in the earlier work but 
 
 I p, 6. 'p. 183. 3 See p. 115. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 9 
 
 had been obscured or repudiated in the interval. 
 I have no grounds for knowing whether in the main 
 Romanes remained satisfied with the reasoning and 
 conclusion of his earliest essay, granted the theistic 
 hypothesis on which it rests. But this hypothesis 
 itself, very shortly after publishing this essay, he 
 was led to repudiate. In other words, his mind 
 moved rapidly and sharply into a position of 
 reasoned scepticism about the existence of God 
 at all. The Burney Essay was published in 
 1874. Already in 1876 at least he had written 
 an anonymous work with a wholly sceptical con- 
 clusion, entitled * A Candid Examination of The- 
 ism/ by Physicus} As the Notes were written 
 with direct reference to this work, some detailed 
 account of its arguments seems necessary ; and 
 this is to be found in the last chapter of the work 
 itself, where the author summarizes his arguments 
 and draws his conclusions. I venture therefore 
 to reproduce this chapter at length. 2 
 
 '■§ 1. Our analysis is now at an end, and a 
 very few words will here suffice to convey an 
 
 1 Published in Triibner's English and Foreign Philosophical 
 Library in. 1 878, but written * several years ago' (preface). 'I 
 have refrained from publishing it, 1 the author explains, ' lest, after 
 having done so, I should find that more mature thought had mod- 
 ified the conclusions which the author sets forth.' 
 
 2 At times I have sought to make the argument of the chap- 
 ter more intelligible by introducing references to earlier parts of 
 the book or explanations in my own words. These latter I have 
 inserted in square brackets. 
 
io THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 epitomized recollection of the numerous facts 
 and conclusions which we have found it necessary 
 to contemplate. We first disposed of the con- 
 spicuously absurd supposition that the origin of 
 things, or the mystery of existence "[i. e. the fact 
 that anything exists at all ] , admits of being 
 explained by the theory of Theism in any further 
 degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it 
 was shown that the argument "Our heart requires 
 a God" is invalid, seeing that such a subjective 
 necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient 
 to prove — or even to render probable — an object- 
 ive existence. And with regard to the further 
 argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations 
 points to God as to their explanatory cause, it 
 became necessary to observe that the argument 
 could only be admissible after the possibility of 
 the operation of natural causes [in the production 
 of our theistic aspirations] had been excluded. 
 Similarly the argument from the supposed intui- 
 tive necessity of individual thought [i. e. the 
 alleged fact that men find it impossible to rid 
 themselves of the persuasion that God exists] was 
 found to be untenable, first, because even if the 
 supposed necessity were a real one, it would only 
 possess an individual applicability ; and second, 
 that, as a matter of fact, it is extremely improbable 
 that the supposed necessity is a real necessity even 
 for the individual who asserts it, while it is abso- 
 lutely certain that it is not such to the vast 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. II 
 
 majority of the race. The argument from the 
 general consent of mankind, being so obviously 
 fallacious both as to facts and principles, was passed 
 over without comment ; while the argument from 
 a first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. 
 Lastly, the argument that, as human volition is 
 a cause in nature, therefore all causation is probably 
 volitional in character, was shown to consist in 
 a stretch of inference so outrageous that the argu- 
 ment had to be pronounced worthless. 
 
 '§ 2. Proceeding next to examine the less 
 superficial arguments in favor of Theism, it was 
 first shown that the syllogism, All known minds 
 are caused by an unknown mind ; our mind is a 
 known mind ; therefore our mind is caused by an 
 unknown mind — is a syllogism that is inadmissible 
 for two reasons. In the first place, it does not 
 account for mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a 
 prior mind for its origin ; and therefore, although 
 the hypothesis, if admitted, would be an explana- 
 tion of known mind, it is useless as an argument for 
 the existence of the unknown mind, the assump- 
 tion of which forms the basis of that explanation. 
 Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind 
 is so far an entity sui generis that it must be either 
 self-existing or caused by another mind, there is 
 no assignable warrant for the assertion. And this 
 is the second objection to the above syllogism ; 
 for /anything within the whole range of the possi- 
 ble may, for aught that we can tell, be competent 
 
12 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus 
 an objector to the above syllogism need not hold 
 any theory of things at all ; but even as opposed 
 to the definite theory of materialism, the above 
 syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis 
 to stand upon. We know that what we call matter 
 and force are to all appearances eternal, while we 
 have no corresponding evidence of a mind that 
 is even apparently eternal. Further, within expe- 
 rience mind is invariably associated with highly 
 differentiated collocations of matter and distribu- 
 tions of force, and many facts go to prove, and 
 none to negative, the conclusion that the grade 
 of intelligence invariably depends upon, or at 
 least is associated with, a corresponding grade of 
 cerebral development. There is thus both a quali- 
 tative and a quantitative relation between intelli- 
 gence and cerebral organization. And if it is 
 said that matter and motion cannot produce con- 
 sciousness because it is inconceivable that they 
 should, we have seen at some length that this is 
 no conclusive consideration as applied to a sub- 
 ject of a confessedly transcendental nature, and 
 that in the present case it is particularly inconclu- 
 sive, because, as it is speculatively certain that 
 the substance of mind must be unknowable, it 
 seems a priori probable that, whatever is the cause 
 of the unknowable reality, this cause should be 
 more difficult to render into thought in that 
 relation than would some other hypothetical sub- 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 13 
 
 stance which is imagined as more akin to mind. 
 And if it is said that the more conceivable cause 
 is the more probable cause, we have seen that it 
 is in this case impossible to estimate the validity 
 of the remark. Lastly, the statement that the 
 cause must contain actually all that its effects can 
 contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and 
 contradicted by everyday experience ; while the 
 argument from the supposed freedom of the 
 will and the existence of the moral sense was 
 negatived both deductively by the theory of 
 evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of 
 utilitarianism/ The theory of the freedom of 
 the will is indeed at this stage of thought 
 utterly untenable; 1 the evidence is overwhelm- 
 ing that the moral sense is the result of a purely 
 natural evolution, 2 and this result, arrived at 
 on general grounds, is confirmed with irresist- 
 ible force by the account of our human con- 
 science which is supplied by the theory of utilita- 
 rianism, a theory based on the widest and most 
 unexceptionable of inductions. 3 'On the whole, 
 then, with regard to the argument from the exist- 
 ence of the human mind, we were compelled to 
 decide that it is destitute of any assignable weight, 
 there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion 
 that our mind has been caused by another mind, 
 than to the conclusion that it has been caused by 
 anything else whatsoever. 
 
 z p, 25. a p. 29. 3 p. 29. 
 
14 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 '§ 3- With regard to the argument from Design, 
 it was observed that Mill's presentation of it [in 
 his Essay on Theism] is merely a resuscitation of 
 the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and 
 Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first- 
 named writer treated this whole subject with a 
 feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in him ; 
 for while he has failed to assign anything like due 
 weight to the inductive evidence of organic 
 evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a 
 supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. 
 Moreover, he has failed signally in his analysis 
 of the Design argument, seeing that, in common 
 with all previous writers, he failed to observe that 
 it is utterly impossible for us to know the relations 
 in which the supposed Designer stands to the 
 Designed — much less to argue from the fact that 
 the Supreme Mind, even supposing it to exist, 
 caused the observable products by any particular 
 intellectual process. In other words, all advocates 
 of the Design argument have failed to perceive 
 that, even if we grant nature to be due to a creat- 
 ing Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to 
 conclude that this Mind can only have exerted its 
 creative power by means of such and such cogi- 
 tative operations. How absurd, therefore, must 
 it be to raise the supposed evidence of such cogi- 
 tative operations into evidences of the existence 
 of a creating Mind ! If a theist retorts that it is, 
 after all, of very little importance whether or not 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 15 
 
 we are able to divine the methods of creation, so 
 long as the facts are there to attest that, in some 
 way or other, the observable phenomena of nature 
 must be due to Intelligence of some kind as their 
 ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this 
 remark. It has always appeared to me one of the 
 most unaccountable things in the history of specu- 
 lation that so many competent writers can have 
 insisted upon Design as an argument for Theism, 
 when they must all have known perfectly well 
 that they have no means of ascertaining the 
 subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind 
 whose existence the argument is adduced to 
 demonstrate. The truth is, that the argument, 
 from teleology must, and can only, rest upon the 
 observable facts of nature, without reference to 
 the intellectual processes by which these facts may 
 be supposed to have been accomplished. But, 
 looking to the " present state of our knowledge," 
 this is merely to change the teleological argument 
 in its gross Paleyian form, into the argument from 
 the ubiquitous operation of general laws.' 
 
 '§ 4.' This argument was thus * stated in con- 
 trast with the argument from design. 'The argu- 
 ment from design says, There must be a God, 
 because such and such an organic structure must 
 have been due to such and such an intellectual 
 process. The argument from general laws says, 
 There must be a God, because such and such an 
 
 x p. 45. 
 
1 6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 organic structure must in some way or other have been 
 ultimately due to intelligence/ Every structure 
 exhibits with more or less of complexity the 
 principle of order ; it is related to all other things 
 in a universal order. This universality of order 
 renders irrational the hypothesis of chance in 
 accounting for the universe. ' Let us think of the 
 supreme causality as we may, the fact remains 
 that from it there emanates a directive influence of 
 uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous 
 magnitude and exact precision worthy of our 
 highest conceptions of deity/ 1 The argument 
 was developed in the words of Professor Baden 
 Powell. ' That which requires reason and thought 
 to understand must be itself thought and reason. 
 That which mind alone can investigate or express 
 must be itself mind. And if the highest con- 
 ception attained is but partial, then the mind and 
 reason studied is greater than the mind and reason 
 of the student. If the more it is studied the 
 more vast and complex is the necessary 
 connection in reason disclosed, then the more 
 evident is the vast extent and compass of the 
 reason thus partially manifested and its reality as 
 existing in the immutably connected order of objects 
 examined, independently of the mind of the 
 investigator.' This argument from the universal 
 Kosmos has the advantage of being wholly inde- 
 pendent of the method by which things came 
 'p. 47. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 17 
 
 to be what they are. It is unaffected by the 
 acceptance of evolution. Till quite recently it 
 seemed irrefutable. T 
 
 'But nevertheless we are constrained to 
 acknowledge that its apparent power dwindles to 
 nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if 
 force and matter have been eternal, all and every 
 natural law must have resulted by way of 
 necessary consequence. ... It does not admit 
 of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly 
 true that all the exquisite beauty and melodious 
 harmony of nature follow necessarily as inevi- 
 tably from the persistence of force and the 
 primary qualities of matter as it is certainly true 
 that force is persistent or that matter is extended 
 or impenetrable. 2 ... It will be remembered 
 that I dwelt at considerable length and with much 
 earnestness upon this truth, not only because of 
 its enormous importance in its bearing upon our 
 subject, but also because no one has hitherto con- 
 sidered it in that relation.' It was also pointed 
 out that the coherence and correspondence of the 
 macrocosm of the universe with the microcosm of 
 the human mind can be accounted for by the fact 
 that the human mind is only one of the products 
 of general evolution, its subjective relations 
 necessarily reflecting those external relations of 
 which they themselves are the product. 3 
 
 '§5. The next step, however, was to mitigate 
 
 1 p. 51. 3 p. 62. 3p, 60. 
 
1 8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the severity of the conclusion that was liable to be 
 formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all 
 the possible arguments in favour of Theism. 
 Having fully demonstrated that there is no shadow 
 of a positive argument in support of the theistic 
 theory, there arose the danger that some persons 
 might erroneously conclude that for this reason 
 the theistic theory must be untrue. It therefore 
 became necessary to point out that although, as 
 far as we can see, nature does not require an 
 Intelligent Cause to account for any of her phe- 
 nomena, yet it is possible that, if we could see 
 farther, we should see that nature could not be 
 what she is unless she had owed her existence to 
 an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the 
 probability there is that an Intelligent Cause is 
 unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
 nature is only equal to the probability there is 
 that the doctrine of the persistence of force is 
 everywhere and eternally true. 
 
 ' As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we 
 altogether quitted the region of experience, and 
 ignoring even the very foundations of science, 
 and so all the most certain of relative truths, we 
 carried the discussion into the transcendental 
 region of purely formal considerations. And here 
 we laid down the canon, "that the value of any 
 probability, in its last analysis, is determined by 
 the number, the importance, and the definiteness 
 of the relations known, as compared with those of 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 19 
 
 the relations unknown;" and, consequently, that 
 in cases where the unknown relations are more 
 numerous, more important, or more indefinite than 
 are the known relations, the value of our inference 
 varies inversely as the difference in these respects 
 between the relations compared. From which 
 canon it followed, that as the problem of Theism 
 is the most ultimate of all problems, and so 
 contains in its unknown relations all that is to man 
 unknown and unknowable, these relations must be 
 pronounced the most indefinite of all relations 
 that it is possible for man to contemplate ; and, 
 consequently, that although we have here the 
 entire range of experience from which to argue, 
 we are unable to estimate the real value of any 
 argument whatsoever. The unknown relations 
 in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite, 
 both in respect of their number and importance, 
 as compared with the known relations, it is 
 impossible for us to determine any definite prob- 
 ability either for or against the being of a God. 
 Therefore, although it is true that, so far as human 
 science can penetrate or human thought infer, we 
 can perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no 
 right on this account to conclude that there is no 
 God. The probability, therefore, that nature is 
 devoid of Deity while it is of the strongest kind 
 if regarded scientifically — amounting, in fact, to 
 a scientific demonstration — is nevertheless wholly 
 worthless if regarded logically. Although it is 
 
20 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 as true as is the fundamental basis of all science 
 and of all experience that, if there is a God, His 
 existence, considered as a cause of the universe, 
 is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if 
 there had never been a God, the universe could 
 never have existed. 
 
 'Hence these formal considerations proved 
 conclusively that, no matter how great the proba- 
 bility of Atheism might appear to be in a relative 
 sense, we have no means of estimating such 
 probability in an absolute sense. From which 
 position there emerged the possibility of another 
 argument in favour of Theism — or rather, let us 
 say, of a reappearance of the teleological argu- 
 ment in another form. For, it may be said, seeing 
 that these formal considerations exclude legiti- 
 mate reasoning either for or against Deity in an 
 absolute sense, while they do not exclude such 
 reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet remain 
 any theistic deductions which may properly be 
 drawn from experience, these may now be 
 adduced to balance the atheistic deductions from 
 the persistence of force. For although the latter 
 deductions have clearly shown the existence of 
 Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the 
 formal considerations in question have no less 
 clearly opened up beyond the sphere of science a 
 possible locus for the existence of Deity ; so that 
 if there are any facts supplied by experience for 
 which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 21 
 
 to account, we are still free to account for them 
 in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. 
 And, it may be urged, we do find such an unex- 
 plained residuum in the correlation of general 
 laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It 
 signifies nothing - , the argument may run, that we 
 are unable to conceive the methods whereby the 
 supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic 
 harmony ; nor does it signify that its operation 
 must now be relegated to a super-scientific 
 province. What does signify is that, taking a 
 general view of nature, we find it impossible to 
 conceive of the extent and variety of her har- 
 monious processes as other than products of 
 intelligent causation. Now this sublimated form of 
 the teleological argument, it will be remembered, 
 I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order 
 sharply to distinguish it from all previous forms 
 of that argument, which, in contradistinction, I 
 denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinc- 
 tion, it will be remembered, consisted in this — 
 that while all previous forms of teleology, by 
 resting on a basis which was not beyond the 
 possible reach of science, laid themselves open to 
 the possibility of scientific refutation, the meta- 
 physical system of teleology, by resting on a 
 basis which is clearly beyond the possible reach 
 of science, can never be susceptible of scientific 
 refutation. And that this metaphysical system of 
 teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable ; 
 
22 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 for while it accepts the most ultimate truths of 
 which science can ever be cognizant — viz. the 
 persistence of force and the consequently neces- 
 sary genesis of natural law — it nevertheless 
 maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as 
 the ultimate cause of things is not on this account 
 removed; and, therefore, that if science now 
 requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be 
 posited in a super-scientific sphere, then in a 
 super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited. No 
 doubt this hypothesis at first sight seems gratui- 
 tous, seeing that, so far as science can penetrate, 
 there is no need of any such hypothesis at all — 
 cosmic harmony resulting as a physically neces- 
 sary consequence from the combined action of 
 natural laws, which in turn result as a physically 
 necessary consequence of the persistence of force 
 and the primary qualities of matter. But although 
 it is thus indisputably true that metaphysical tele- 
 ology is wholly gratuitous if considered scientific- 
 ally, it may not be true that it is wholly gratui- 
 tous if considered psychologically. In other words, 
 if it is more conceivable that Mind should be the 
 ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the 
 persistence of force should be so, then it is not 
 irrational to accept the more conceivable hypoth- 
 esis in preference to the less conceivable one, pro- 
 vided that the choice is made with the diffidence 
 which is required by the considerations adduced 
 in Chapter V [especially the Canon of probability 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 23 
 
 laid down in the second paragraph of this section, 
 
 'I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of 
 metaphysical teleology, although in a physical 
 sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense 
 legitimate. But as against the fundamental posi- 
 tion on which alone this argument can rest — viz. 
 the position that the fundamental postulate of 
 Atheism is more inconceivable than is the funda- 
 mental postulate of Theism — we have seen two 
 important objections to lie. 
 
 ' For, in the first place, the sense in which the 
 word " inconceivable" is here used is that of the 
 impossibility of framing realizable relations in the 
 thought ; not that of the impossibility of framing 
 abstract relations in thought. In the same sense, 
 though in a lower degree, it is true that the com- 
 plexity * of the human organization and its func- 
 tions is inconceivable ; but in this sense the word 
 "inconceivable" has much less weight in an 
 argument than it has in its true sense. And, with- 
 out waiting again to dispute (as we did in the case 
 of the speculative standing of Materialism) how 
 far even the genuine test of inconceivability ought 
 to be allowed to make against an inference which 
 there is a body of scientific evidence to substan- 
 tiate, we went on to the second objection against 
 this fundamental position of metaphysical tele- 
 ology. This objection, it will be remembered, 
 was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic 
 
24 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 harmony as an effect of Mind [i. e. Mind being 
 what we know it in experience to be] as it is to 
 conceive of it as an effect of mindless evolution. 
 The argument from inconceivability, therefore, 
 admits of being turned with quite as terrible an 
 effect on Theism, as it can possibly be made to 
 exert on Atheism. 
 
 ' Hence this more refined form of teleology 
 which we are considering, and which we saw to 
 be the last of the possible arguments in favour of 
 Theism, is met on its own ground by a very crush- 
 ing opposition : by its metaphysical character it 
 has escaped the opposition of physical science, 
 only to encounter a new opposition in the region 
 of pure psychology to which it fled. As a con- 
 clusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved 
 on us to determine the relative magnitudes of these 
 opposing forces. And in doing this we first ob- 
 served that, if the supporters of metaphysical tele- 
 ology objected a priori to the method whereby 
 the genesis of natural law was deduced from the 
 datum of the persistence of force, in that this 
 method involved an unrestricted use of illegiti- 
 mate symbolic conceptions ; then it is no less open 
 to an atheist to object a priori to the method 
 whereby a directing Mind was inferred from the 
 datum of cosmic harmony, in that this method 
 
 involved the postulation of an unknowable cause, 
 
 and this of a character which the whole history 
 of human thought has proved the human mind 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 25 
 
 to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate 
 as the cause of natural phenomena. On these 
 grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as 
 their respective standing a priori is concerned, 
 both theories may be regarded as about equally 
 suspicious. And similarly with regard to their 
 standing a posteriori] for as both theories require 
 to embody at least one infinite term, they must 
 each alike be pronounced absolutely inconceiv- 
 able. But, finally, if the question were put to me 
 which of the two theories I regarded as the more 
 rational, I observed that this is a question which 
 no one man can answer for another. For as the 
 test of absolute inconceivability is equally 
 destructive of both theories, if a man wishes to 
 choose between them, his choice can only be 
 determined by what I have designated relative 
 inconceivability — i.e. in accordance with the 
 verdict given by his individual sense of probabil- 
 ity as determined by his previous habit of thought. 
 And forasmuch as the test of relative inconceiv- 
 ability may be held in this matter legitimately to 
 vary with the character of the mind which applies 
 it, the strictly rational probability of the question 
 to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or 
 otherwise presented, the only alternative for any 
 man in this matter is either to discipline himself 
 into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to 
 refuse in thought to entertain either a probability 
 or an improbability concerning the existence of 
 
26 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 a God ; or else to incline in thought towards an 
 affirmation or a negation of God, according as his 
 previous habits of thought have rendered such 
 an inclination more facile in the one direction than 
 in the other. And although, under such circum- 
 stances, I should consider that man the more 
 rational who carefully suspended his judgment, 
 I conclude that if this course is departed from, 
 neither the metaphysical teleologist nor the scien- 
 tific atheist has any perceptible advantage over 
 the other in respect to rationality. For as the 
 formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are 
 undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the for- 
 mal conditions of a speculative atheism are as 
 undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus 
 in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein 
 the pendulum of thought is free to swing in which- 
 ever direction it may be made to swing by the 
 momentum of preconceived ideas. 
 
 '§ 6. Such is the outcome of our investigation, 
 and considering the abstract nature of the subject, 
 the immense divergence of opinion which at the 
 present time is manifested with regard to it, as 
 well as the confusing amount of good, bad and 
 indifferent literature on both sides of the contro- 
 versy which is extant; — considering these things, 
 I do not think that the result of our inquiry can 
 be justly complained of on the score of its lack- 
 ing precision. At a time like the present, when 
 traditional beliefs respecting Theism are so 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 27 
 
 generally accepted, and so commonly concluded 
 as a matter of course to have a large and valid 
 basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but 
 feel that a perusal of this short essay, by showing 
 how very concise the scientific status of the sub- 
 ject really is, will do more to settle the minds of 
 most readers as to the exact standing at the 
 present time of all the probabilities of the 
 question, than could a perusal of all the rest of 
 the literature upon this subject. And, looking to 
 the present condition of speculative philosophy, 
 I regard it as of the utmost importance to have 
 clearly shown that the advance of science has 
 now entitled us to assert, without the least hesita- 
 tion, that the hypothesis of Mind in nature is as 
 certainly superfluous to account for any of the 
 phenomena of nature, as the scientific doctrine of 
 the persistence of force and the indestructibility 
 of matter is certainly true. 
 
 ' On the other hand, if any one is inclined to 
 complain that the logical aspect of the question 
 has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as 
 has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, 
 in any matter which does not admit of actual 
 demonstration, some margin must of necessity be 
 left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he 
 bears this consideration in mind, I feel sure that he 
 cannot properly complain of my not having done 
 my utmost in this case to define as sharply as pos- 
 sible the character and the limits of this margin. 
 
28 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 '§ 7. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is 
 desirable to state that any antecedent bias with 
 regard to Theism which I individually possess is 
 unquestionably on the side of traditional beliefs. 
 It is therefore with the utmost sorrow that I find 
 myself compelled to accept the conclusions here 
 worked out; and nothing would have induced me 
 to publish them, save the strength of my convic- 
 tion that it is the duty of every member of 
 society to give his fellows the benefit of his 
 labours for whatever they may be worth. Just as 
 I am confident that truth must in the end be the 
 most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded 
 that every individual endeavour to attain it, pro- 
 vided only that such endeavour is unbiased and 
 sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the 
 common property of all men, no matter in what 
 direction the results of its promulgation may 
 appear to tend. And so far as the ruination of 
 individual happiness is concerned, no one can 
 have a more lively perception than myself of the 
 possibly disastrous tendency of my work. So far 
 as I am individually concerned, the result of this 
 analysis has been to show that, whether I regard 
 the problem of Theism on the lower plane of 
 strictly relative probability, or on the higher 
 plane of purely formal considerations, it equally 
 becomes my obvious duty to stifle all belief of the 
 kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to 
 discipline my intellect with regard to this matter 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 29 
 
 into an attitude of the purest scepticism. And 
 forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree 
 with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine 
 of the "new faith" is a desirable substitute for 
 the waning splendour of "the old/' I am not 
 ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation 
 of God the universe to me has lost its soul of 
 loveliness ; and although from henceforth the pre- 
 cept to "work while it is day" will doubtless but 
 gain an intensified force from the terribly intensi- 
 fied meaning of the words that "the night cometh 
 when no man can work," yet when at times I 
 think, as think at times I must, of the appalling 
 contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed 
 which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of 
 existence as now I find it, — at such times I shall 
 ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang 
 of which my nature is susceptible. For whether 
 it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently 
 advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or 
 whether it be due to the memory of those sacred 
 associations which to me at least were the sweet- 
 est that life has given, I cannot but feel that for 
 me, and for others who think as I do, there is a 
 dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton, — 
 Philosophy having become a meditation, not 
 merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
 know thyself has become transformed into the 
 terrific oracle to CEdipus — 
 
 " Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art." ' 
 
3° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 This analysis will have been at least sufficient 
 to give a clear idea of the general argument of 
 the Candid Examination and of its melancholy con- 
 clusions. What will most strike a somewhat 
 critical reader is perhaps ( I ) the tone of certainty, 
 and (2) the belief in the almost exclusive right 
 of the scientific method in the court of reason. 
 
 As evidence of ( 1 ) I would adduce the follow- 
 ing brief quotations : — 
 
 P. xi. ' Possible errors in reasoning apart, the 
 rational position of Theism as here defined must 
 remain without material modification as long as 
 our intelligence remains human.' 
 
 P. 24. ' I am quite unable to understand how 
 any one at the present day, and with the most 
 moderate powers of abstract thinking, can possibly 
 bring himself to embrace the theory of Free-will.' 
 
 P. 64. 'Undoubtedly we have no alternative 
 but to conclude that the hypothesis of mind in 
 nature is now logically proved to be as certainly 
 superfluous as the very basis of all science is cer- 
 tainly true. There can no longer be any more 
 doubt that the existence of a God is wholly 
 unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
 the universe, than there is doubt that if I leave 
 go of my pen it will fall upon the table.' 
 
 As evidence of (2) I would adduce from the 
 preface — 
 
 'To my mind, therefore, it is impossible to 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 3 1 
 
 resist the conclusion that, looking to this undoubted 
 pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to 
 truth, whether or not there is a God, the question 
 as to his existence is both more morally and more 
 reverently contemplated if we regard it purely as 
 a problem for methodical analysis to solve, than 
 if we regard it in any other light.' 
 
 It is in respect both of (i) and (2) that the 
 change in Romanes' thought as exhibited in his 
 later Notes is most conspicuous. 1 
 
 At what date George Romanes' mind began to 
 react from the conclusions of the Candid Exam- 
 ination I cannot say. But after a period of ten 
 years — in his Rede lecture of 1 88 5* — we find 
 his frame of mind very much changed. This 
 
 x With reference to the views and arguments of the Candid 
 Examination^ it may be interesting to notice here in detail that 
 George Romanes (1) came to attach much more importance to the 
 subjective religious needs and intuitions of the human spirit (pp. 
 131 If.); (2) perceived that the subjective religious consciousness 
 can be regarded objectively as a broad human phenomenon (pp. 
 147 f.); (3) criticized his earlier theory of causation and returned 
 towards the theory that all causation is volitional (pp. 102, 118); 
 (4) definitely repudiated the materialistic account of the origin of 
 mind (pp. 30, 31); (5) returned to the use of the expression 'the 
 argument from design,* and therefore presumably abandoned his 
 strong objection to it; (6) 'saw through' Herbert Spencer's refu- 
 tation of the wider teleology expressed by Baden Powell, and felt 
 the force of the teleology again (p. 72); (7) recognized that the 
 scientific objections to the doctrine of the freedom of the will are 
 not finally valid (p. 128). 
 
 3 See Contemporary Review < t July, 1885, p. 93. 
 
32 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 lecture, on Mind and Motion, consists of a severe 
 criticism of the materialistic account of mind. 
 On the other hand 'spiritualism' — or the theory 
 which would suppose that mind is the cause of 
 motion — is pronounced from the point of view 
 of science not impossible indeed but ' unsatisfac- 
 tory/ and the more probable conclusion is found 
 in a ' monism' like Bruno's — according to which 
 mind and motion are co-ordinate and probably 
 co-extensive aspects of the same universal fact — 
 a monism which may be called Pantheism, but 
 may also be regarded as an extension of con- 
 tracted views of Theism. 1 The position repre- 
 sented by this lecture may be seen sufficiently 
 from its conclusion : — 
 
 'If the advance of natural science is now 
 steadily leading us to the conclusion that there is 
 no motion without mind, must we not see how the 
 independent conclusion of mental science is thus 
 independently confirmed — the conclusion, I mean, 
 
 x In some * Notes' of the Summer of 1893 I find the statement, 
 'The result (of philosophical inquiry) has been that in his millen- 
 nial contemplation and experience man has attained certainty with 
 regard to certain aspects of the world problem, no less secure than 
 that which he has gained in the domain of physical science, e. g. 
 Logical priority of mind over matter. 
 Consequent untenability of materialism. 
 Relativity of knowledge. 
 
 The order of nature, conservation of energy and indestructibility 
 of matter within human experience, the principle of evolution 
 and survival of the fittest.' 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 33 
 
 that there is no being without knowing ? To me, 
 at least, it does appear that the time has come 
 when we may begin, as it were in a dawning light, 
 to see that the study of Nature and the study of 
 Mind are meeting upon this greatest of possible 
 truths. And if this is the case — if there is no 
 motion without mind, no beingwithout knowing — 
 shall we infer, with Clifford, that universal being 
 is mindless, or answer with a dogmatic negative 
 that most stupendous of questions, — Is there 
 knowledge with the Most High ? If there is no 
 motion without mind, no being without knowing, 
 may we not rather infer, with Bruno, that it is in 
 the medium of mind, and in the medium of 
 knowledge, we live, and move, and have our 
 being ? 
 
 'This, I think, is the direction in which the 
 inference points, if we are careful to set out the 
 logical conditions with complete impartiality. But 
 the ulterior question remains, whether, so far as 
 science is concerned, it is here possible to point 
 any inference at all ; the whole orbit of human 
 knowledge may be too narrow to afford a parallax 
 for measurements so vast. Yet even here, if it be 
 true that the voice of science must thus of neces- 
 sity speak the language of agnosticism, at least 
 let us see to it that the language is pure; 1 let us 
 not tolerate any barbarisms introduced from the 
 side of aggressive dogma. So shall we find that 
 
 'For the meaning of *pure' agnosticism see below, p. 113* 
 
34 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 this new grammar of thought does not admit of 
 any constructions radically opposed to more ven- 
 erable ways of thinking ; even if we do not find 
 that the often-quoted words of its earliest formu- 
 lator apply with special force to its latest dialects 
 — that if a little knowledge of physiology and a 
 little knowledge of psychology dispose men to 
 atheism, a deeper knowledge of both, and, still 
 more, a deeper thought upon their relations to 
 one another, will lead men back to some form of 
 religion, which if it be more vague, may also be 
 more worthy than that of earlier days.' 
 
 Some time before 1889 three articles were writ- 
 ten for the Nineteenth Century on the Influence of 
 Science upon Religion. They were never published, 
 for what reason I am not able to ascertain. But 
 I have thought it worth while to print the first 
 two of them as a ' first part ' of this volume, both 
 because they contain — written in George Romanes' 
 own name — an important criticism upon the Can- 
 did Examination which he had published anony- 
 mously, and also because, with their entirely scep- 
 tical result, they exhibit very clearly a stage in 
 the mental history of their author. The antece- 
 dents of these papers those who have read this 
 Introduction will now be in a position to under- 
 stand. What remains to be said by way of fur- 
 ther introduction to the Notes had better be 
 reserved till later. C. G. 
 
PART I. 
 
 35 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE 
 UPON RELIGION. 
 
 I. 
 
 I propose to consider, in a series of three 
 papers, the influence of Science upon Religion. 
 In doing this I shall seek to confine myself to the 
 strictly rational aspect of the subject, without 
 travelling into matters of sentiment. Moreover, 
 I shall aim at estimating in the first instance the 
 kind and degree of influence which has been 
 exerted by Science upon Religion in the past, and 
 then go on to estimate the probable extent of this 
 influence in the future. The first two papers will 
 be devoted to the past and prospective influence 
 of Science upon Natural Religion, while the third 
 will be devoted to the past and prospective influ- 
 ence of Science upon Revealed Religion. 1 
 
 Few subjects have excited so much interest of 
 late years as that which I thus mark out for dis- 
 cussion. This can scarcely be considered a mat- 
 ter of surprise, seeing that the influence in ques- 
 tion is not only very direct, but also extremely 
 
 x [The third paper is not published because Romanes* views 
 on the relation between science and faith in Revealed Religion 
 are better and more maturely expressed in the Notes. — Ed.] 
 
 37 
 
38 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 important from every point of view. For genera- 
 tions and for centuries in succession Religion 
 maintained an undisputed sway over men's minds 
 — if not always as a practical guide in matters of 
 conduct, at least as a regulator of belief. Even 
 among the comparatively few who in previous 
 centuries professedly rejected Christianity, there 
 can be no doubt that their intellectual conceptions 
 were largely determined by it: for Christianity 
 being then the only court of appeal with reference 
 to all these conceptions, even the few minds which 
 were professedly without its jurisdiction could 
 scarcely escape its indirect influence through the 
 minds of others. But as side by side with the 
 venerable institution a new court of appeal was 
 gradually formed, we cannot wonder that it should 
 have come to be regarded in the light of a rival 
 to the old — more especially as the searching 
 methods of its inquiry and the certain character 
 of its judgments were much more in consonance 
 with the requirements of an age disposed to scep- 
 ticism. And this spirit of rivalry is still further 
 fostered by the fact that Science has unquestion- 
 ably exerted upon Religion what Mr. Fiske terms 
 a 'purifying influence.' That is to say, not only 
 are the scientific methods of inquiry after truth 
 more congenial to sceptical minds than are the 
 religious methods (which may be broadly defined 
 as accepting truth on authority), but the results of 
 the former have more than once directly contra- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 39 
 
 dieted those of the latter : science has in several 
 cases incontestably demonstrated that religious 
 teaching has been wrong as to matters of fact. 
 Further still, the great advance of natural knowl- 
 edge which has characterized the present century, 
 has caused our ideas upon many subjects con- 
 nected with philosophy to undergo a complete 
 metamorphosis. A well-educated man of the 
 present day is absolutely precluded from regard- 
 ing some of the Christian dogmas from the same 
 intellectual standpoint as his forefathers, even 
 though he may still continue to accept them in 
 some other sense. In short, our whole key of 
 thinking or tone of thought having been in cer- 
 tain respects changed, we can no longer anticipate 
 that in these respects it should continue to har- 
 monize with the unalterable system of theology. 
 Such I conceive to be the ways in which 
 Science has exerted her influence upon Religion, 
 and it is needless to dwell upon the potency of 
 their united effect. No one can read even a 
 newspaper without perceiving how great this 
 effect has been. On the one hand, sceptics are 
 triumphantly confident that the light of dawning 
 knowledge has begun finally to dispel the darkness 
 of superstition, while religious persons, on the 
 other hand, tremble to think what the future, if 
 judged by the past, is likely to bring forth. On 
 both sides we have free discussion, strong lan- 
 guage, and earnest canvassing. Year by year stock 
 
4° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 is taken, and year by year the balance is found 
 to preponderate in favour of Science. 
 
 This being the state of things of the present 
 time, I think that with the experience of the kind 
 and degree of influence which Science has exerted 
 upon Religion in the past, we have material 
 enough whereby to estimate the probable extent 
 of such influence in the future. This, therefore, 
 I shall endeavour to do by seeking to define, on 
 general principles, the limits within which it is 
 antecedently possible that the influence in question 
 can be exercised. But in order to do this, it is 
 necessary to begin by estimating the kind and 
 degree of the influence which has been exerted by 
 Science upon Religion in the past. 
 
 Thus much premised, we have in the first place 
 to define the essential nature both of Science and 
 of Religion : for this is clearly the first step in an 
 analysis which has for its object an estimation of 
 the actual and possible effects of one of these 
 departments of thought upon the other. 
 
 Science, then, is essentially a department of 
 thought having exclusive reference to the Proxi- 
 mate. More particularly, it is a department of 
 thought having for its object the explanation of 
 natural phenomena by the discovery of natural 
 (or proximate) causes. In so far as Science 
 ventures to trespass beyond this her only legiti- 
 mate domain, and seeks to interpret natural 
 phenomena by the immediate agency of super- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 41 
 
 natural or ultimate causes, in that degree has she 
 ceased to be physical science, and become onto- 
 logical speculation. The truth of this statement 
 has now been practically recognized by all 
 scientific workers ; and terms describing final 
 causes have been banished from their vocabulary 
 in astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and 
 even in psychology. 
 
 Religion, on the other hand, is a department 
 of thought having no less exclusive reference to 
 the Ultimate. More particularly, it is a depart- 
 ment of thought having for its object a self- 
 conscious and intelligent Being, which it regards 
 as a personal God, and the fountain-head of all 
 causation. I am, of course, aware that the term 
 Religion has been of late years frequently used 
 in senses which this definition would not cover ; 
 but I conceive that this only shows how frequently 
 the term in question has been abused. To call 
 any theory of things a Religion which does not 
 present any belief in any form of Deity, is to 
 apply the word to the very opposite of that which 
 it has hitherto been used to denote. To speak of 
 the Religion of the Unknowable, the Religion of 
 Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity, and so forth, 
 where the personality of the First Cause is not 
 recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to 
 speak of the love of a triangle, or the rationality 
 of the equator. That is to say, if any meaning is 
 to be extracted from the terms at all, it is only to 
 
4 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 be so by using them in some metaphorical sense. 
 We may, for instance, say that there is such a 
 thing as a Religion of Humanity, because we may 
 begin by deifying Humanity in our own estima- 
 tion, and then go on to worship our ideal. But 
 by thus giving Humanity the name of Deity we 
 are not really creating a new religion : we are 
 merely using a metaphor, which may or may not 
 be successful as a matter of poetic diction, but 
 which most assuredly presents no shred of value 
 as a matter of philosophical statement. Indeed, 
 in this relation it is worse than valueless : it is 
 misleading. Variations or reversals in the mean- 
 ings of words are not of uncommon occurrence in 
 the ordinary growth of languages ; but it is not 
 often that we find, as in this case, the whole mean- 
 ing of a term intentionally and gratuitously 
 changed by the leaders of philosophical thought. 
 Humanity, for example, is an abstract idea of our 
 own making : it is not an object any more than 
 the equator is an object. Therefore, if it were 
 possible to construct a religion by this curious 
 device of metaphorically ascribing to Humanity 
 the attributes of Deity, it ought to be as logically 
 possible to construct, let us say, a theory of 
 brotherly regard towards the equator, by meta- 
 phorically ascribing to it the attributes of man. 
 The distinguishing features of any theory which 
 can properly be termed a Religion, is that it 
 should refer to the ultimate source, or sources of 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 43 
 
 things : and that it should suppose this source to 
 be of an objective, intelligent, and personal 
 nature. To apply the term Religion to any other 
 theory is merely to abuse it. 
 
 From these definitions, then, it appears that 
 the aims and methods of Science are exclusively 
 concerned with the ascertaining and the proof of 
 the proximate How of things and processes 
 physical : her problem is, as Mill states it, to 
 discover what are the fewest number of (phe- 
 nomenal) data which, being granted, will explain 
 the phenomena of experience. On the other 
 hand, Religion is not in any way concerned with 
 causation, further than to assume that all things 
 and all processes are ultimately due to intelligent 
 personality. Religion is thus, as Mr. Spencer 
 says, ' an a priori theory of the universe 1 — to 
 which, however, we must add, ' and a theory which 
 assumes intelligent personality as the originating 
 source of the universe.' Without this needful 
 addition, a religion would be in no way logically 
 distinguished from a philosophy. 
 
 From these definitions, then, it clearly follows 
 that in their purest forms, Science and Religion 
 really have no point of logical contact. Only if 
 Science could transcend the conditions of space 
 and time, of phenomenal relativity, and of all 
 human limitations, only then could Science be in 
 a position to touch the supernatural theory of 
 Religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, 
 
44 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 she would cease to be Science. In soaring above 
 the region of phenomena and entering the tenuous 
 aether of noumena, her present wings, which we 
 call her methods, would in such an atmosphere be 
 no longer of any service for movement. Out of 
 time, out of place, and out of phenomenal relation, 
 Science could no longer exist as such. 
 
 On the other hand, Religion in its purest form 
 is equally incompetent to affect Science. For, as 
 we have already seen, Religion as such is not con- 
 cerned with the phenomenal sphere : her theory 
 of ontology cannot have any reference to the How 
 of phenomenal causation. Hence it is evident 
 that, as in their purest or most ideal forms they 
 move in different mental planes, Science and 
 Religion cannot exhibit interference. 
 
 Thus far the remarks which I have made apply 
 equally to all forms of Religion, as such, whether 
 actual or possible, and in so far as the Religion is 
 pure. But it is notorious that until quite recently 
 Religion did exercise, upon Science, not only an 
 influence, but an overpowering influence. Belief 
 in divine agency being all but universal, while the 
 methods of scientific research had not as yet been 
 distinctly formulated, it was in previous genera- 
 tions the usual habit of mind to refer any natural 
 phenomenon, the physical causation of which had 
 not been ascertained, to the more or less imme- 
 diate causal action of the Deity. But we now see 
 that this habit of mind arose from a failure to 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 45 
 
 distinguish between the essentially distinct char- 
 acters of Science and Religion as departments of 
 thought, and therefore that it was only so far as 
 the Religion of former times was impure — or 
 mixed with the ingredients of thought which 
 belong to Science — that the baleful influence in 
 question was exerted. The gradual, successive, 
 and now all but total abolition of final causes from 
 the thoughts of scientific men, to which allusion 
 has already been made, is merely an expression of 
 the fact that scientific men as a body have come 
 fully to recognize the fundamental distinction 
 between Science and Religion which I have stated. 
 Or, to put the matter in another way, scientific 
 men as a body — and, indeed, all persons whose 
 ideas on such matters are abreast of the times — 
 perceive plainly enough that a religious explana- 
 tion of any natural phenomenon is, from a scien- 
 tific point of view, no explanation at all. For a 
 religious explanation consists in referring the 
 observed phenomenon to the First Cause — i. e. to 
 merge that particular phenomenon in the general 
 or final mystery of things. A scientific explana- 
 tion, on the other hand, consists in referring the 
 observed phenomenon to its physical causes, and 
 in no case can such an explanation entertain the 
 hypothesis of a final cause without abandoning its 
 character as a scientific explanation. For example, 
 if a child brings me a flower and asks why it has 
 such a curious form, bright colour, sweet perfume, 
 
46 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 and so on, and if I answer, Because God made it 
 so, I am not really answering the child's question : 
 I am merely concealing my ignorance of Nature 
 under a guise of piety, and excusing my indolence 
 in the study of botany. It was the appreciation 
 of this fact that led Mr. Darwin to observe in his 
 Origin of Species that the theory of creation does 
 not serve to explain any of the facts with which it 
 is concerned, but merely re-states these facts as 
 they are observed to occur. That is to say, by 
 thus merging the facts as observed into the final 
 mystery of things, we are not even attempting to 
 explain them in any scientific sense : for it would 
 be obviously possible to get rid of the necessity 
 of thus explaining any natural phenomenon what- 
 soever by referring it to the immediate causal 
 action of the Deity. If any phenomenon were 
 actually to occur which did proceed from the 
 immediate causal action of the Deity, then ex 
 hypothesis there would be no physical causes to 
 investigate, and the occupation of Othello, in the 
 person of a man of science, would be gone. Such 
 a phenomenon would be miraculous, and therefore 
 from its very nature beyond the reach of scientific 
 investigation. 
 
 Properly speaking, then, the religious theory of 
 final causes does not explain any of the phenomena 
 of Nature : it merely re-states the phenomena as 
 observed — or, if we prefer so to say, it is itself an 
 ultimate and universal explanation of all possible 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 47 
 
 phenomena taken collectively. For it must be 
 admitted that behind all possible explanations of a 
 scientific kind, there lies a great inexplicable, which 
 just because of its ultimate character, cannot be 
 merged into anything further — that is to say, 
 cannot be explained. 'It is what it is,' is all that 
 we can say of it : * I am that I am * is all that it 
 could say of itself. And it is in referring phe- 
 nomena to this inexplicable source of physical 
 causation that the theory of Religion essentially 
 consists. The theory of Science, on the other hand, 
 consists in the assumption that there is always 
 a practically endless chain of physical causation to 
 investigate — i. e. an endless series of phenomena 
 to be explained. So that, if we define the process 
 of explanation as the process of referring observed 
 phenomena to their adequate causes, we may say 
 that Religion, by the aid of a general theory of 
 things in the postulation of an intelligent First 
 Cause, furnishes to her own satisfaction an ulti- 
 mate explanation of the universe as a whole, and 
 therefore is not concerned with any of those proxi- 
 mate explanations or discovery of second causes 
 which form the exclusive subject-matter of Science. 
 In other words, we recur to the definitions already 
 stated, to the effect that Religion is a department 
 of thought having, as such, exclusive reference to 
 the Ultimate, while Science is a department of 
 thought having, as such, no less exclusive reference 
 to the Proximate. When these two departments 
 
48 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of thought overlap, interference results, and we 
 find confusion. Therefore it was that when the 
 religious theory of final causes intruded upon the 
 field of scientific inquiry, it was passing beyond its 
 logical domain ; and seeking to arrogate the func- 
 tion of explaining this or that phenomenon in 
 detail, it ceased to be a purely religious theory, 
 while at the same time and for the same reason 
 it blocked the way of scientific progress. 1 
 
 This remark serves to introduce one of the chief 
 topics with which I have to deal — viz. the doc- 
 trine of Design in Nature, and thus the whole 
 question of Natural Religion in its relation to 
 Natural Science. In handling this topic I shall 
 endeavor to take as broad and deep a view as I 
 can of the present standing of Natural Religion, 
 without waiting to show step by step the ways and 
 means by which it has been brought into this 
 position, by the influence of Science. 
 
 In the earliest dawn of recorded thought, 
 teleology in some form or another has been the 
 most generally accepted theory whereby the 
 order of Nature is explained. It is not, however, 
 
 'To avoid misunderstanding I may observe that in the above 
 definitions I am considering Religion and Science under the con- 
 ditions in which they actually exist. It is conceivable that under 
 other conditions these two departments of thought might not be 
 so sharply separated. Thus, for instance, if <x Religion were to 
 appear carrying a revelation to Science upon matters of physical 
 causation, such a Religion (supposing the revelation were found 
 by experiment to be true) ought to be held to exercise upon 
 Science a strictly legitimate influence. 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 49 
 
 my object in this paper to trace the history of 
 this theory from its first rude beginnings in 
 Fetichism to its final development in Theism. I 
 intend to devote myself exclusively to the ques- 
 tion as to the present standing of this theory, 
 and I allude to its past history only in order to 
 examine the statement which is frequently made, 
 to the effect that its general prevalence in all ages 
 and among all peoples of the world lends to it a 
 certain degree of 'antecedent credibility.' With 
 reference to this point, I should say, that, whether 
 or not the order of Nature is due to a disposing 
 Mind, the hypothesis of mental agency in Nature 
 — or, as the Duke of Argyll terms it, the hypoth- 
 esis of * anthropopsychism ' — must necessarily 
 have been the earliest hypothesis. What we find 
 in Nature is the universal prevalence of causation, 
 and long before the no less universal equivalency 
 between causes and effects — i. e. the universal 
 prevalence of natural law — became a matter of 
 even the [vaguest] appreciation, the general fact 
 that nothing happens without a cause of some 
 kind was fully recognized. Indeed, the recogni- 
 tion of this fact is not only presented by the lowest 
 races of the present day, but, as I have myself 
 given evidence to show, likewise by animals and 
 infants. 1 And therefore, it appears to me probable 
 that those psychologists are right who argue that 
 the idea of cause is intuitive, in the same sense 
 
 x Mental Evolution in Animals , pp. I55~S. 
 
5° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 that the ideas of space and time are intuitive — 
 i. e. the instinctive or [inherited] effect of ances- 
 tral experience. 
 
 Now if it is thus a matter of certainty that 
 the recognition of causality in Nature is co-exten- 
 sive with, and even anterior to, the human mind, 
 it appears to me no less certain that the first 
 attemptatassigningacauseto this or that observed 
 event in Nature — i. e. the first attempts at a 
 rational explanation of the phenomena of Nature 
 — must have been of an anthropopsychic kind. 
 No other explanation was, as it were, so ready to 
 hand as that of projecting into external Nature 
 the agency of volition, which was known to each 
 individual as the apparent fountain-head of causal 
 activity so far as he and his neighbors were con- 
 cerned. To reach this most obvious explanation 
 of causality in Nature, it did not require that 
 primitive man should know, as we know, that the 
 very conception of causality arises out of our 
 sense of effort in voluntary action ; it only required 
 that this should be the fact, and then it must 
 needs follow that when any natural phenomenon 
 was thought about at all with reference to its 
 causality, the cause should be one of a psychical 
 kind. I need not wait to trace the gradual inte- 
 gration of this anthropopsychic hypothesis from 
 its earliest and most diffused form of what we 
 may term polypsychism (wherein the causes 
 inferred were almost as personally numerous as 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 51 
 
 the effects contemplated), through polytheism 
 (wherein many effects of a like kind were 
 referred to one deity, who, as it were, took spe- 
 cial charge over that class), up to monotheism 
 (wherein all causation is gathered up into the 
 monopsychism of a single personality): it is 
 enough thus briefly to show that from first to last 
 the hypothesis of anthropopsychism is a neces- 
 sary phase of mental evolution under existing 
 conditions, and this whether or not the hypothesis 
 is true. 
 
 Thus viewed, I do not think that 'the general 
 consent of mankind ' is a fact of any argumenta- 
 tive weight in favour of the anthropopsychic 
 theory — so far, I mean, as the matter of causa- 
 tion is concerned— whether this be in fetichism 
 or in the teleology of our own day : the general 
 consent of mankind in the larger question of the- 
 ism (where sundry other matters besides causa- 
 tion fall to be considered) does not here concern 
 us. Indeed, it appears to me that if we are to 
 go back to the savages for any guarantee of our 
 anthropopsychic theory, the pledge which we 
 receive is of worse than no value. As well might 
 we conclude that a match is a living organism, 
 because this is to the mind of a savage the most 
 obvious explanation of its movements, as con- 
 clude on precisely similar grounds that our belief 
 in teleology derives any real support from any of 
 the more primitive phases of anthropopsychism. 
 
52 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 It seems to me, therefore, that in seeking to 
 estimate the evidence of design in Nature, we 
 must as it were start de novo, without reference to 
 anterior beliefs upon the subject. The question 
 is essentially one to be considered in the light of 
 all the latest knowledge that we possess, and by 
 the best faculties of thinking that we (the heirs 
 of all the ages) are able to bring to bear upon it. 
 I shall, therefore, only allude to the history of 
 anthropopsychism in so far as I may find it neces- 
 sary to do so for the sake of elucidating my 
 argument. 
 
 And here it is needful to consider first what 
 Paley called * the .state of the argument ' before 
 the Darwinian epoch. This is clearly and tersely 
 presented by Paley in his classical illustration of 
 finding a watch upon a heath — an illustration so 
 well known that I need not here re-state it. I 
 will merely observe, therefore, that it conveys, as 
 it were in one's watch-pocket, the whole of the 
 argument from design ; and that it is not in my 
 opinion open to the stricture which was passed 
 upon it by Mill where he says, — 'The inference 
 would not be from marks of design, but because 
 I already know by direct experience that watches 
 are made by men.' This appears to me to miss 
 the whole point of Paley's meaning, for there 
 would be obviously no argument at all unless he 
 be understood to mean that the evidence of 
 design which is supposed to be afforded by 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 53 
 
 examination of the watch, is supposed to be 
 afforded by this examination only, and not from 
 any of the direct knowledge alluded to by Mill. 
 For the purposes of the illustration, it must clearly 
 be assumed that the finder of the watch has no 
 previous or direct knowledge touching the manu- 
 facture of watches. Apart from this curious mis- 
 understanding, Mill was at one with Paley upon 
 the whole subject. 
 
 Again, it is no real objection to the argument 
 or illustration to say, as we often have said, that 
 it does not account for the watchmaker. The 
 object of the argument from design is to prove 
 the existence of a designer : not to explain that 
 existence. Indeed, it would be suicidal to 
 the whole argument in its relation to Theism, if 
 the possibility of any such explanation were 
 entertained ; for such a possibility could only be 
 entertained on the supposition that the being of 
 the Deity admits of being explained — i. e. that 
 the Deity is not ultimate. 
 
 Lastly, the argument is precisely the same as 
 that which occurs in numerous passages of Scrip- 
 ture and in theological writings all over the world 
 down to the present time. That is to say, every- 
 where in organic nature we meet with innumerable 
 adaptations of means to ends, which in very many 
 cases present a degree of refinement and com- 
 plexity in comparison with which the adaptations 
 of means to ends in a watch are but miserable 
 
54 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 and rudimentary attempts at mechanism. No one 
 can know so well as the modern biologist in 
 what an immeasurable degree the mechanisms 
 which occur in such profusion in nature surpass, 
 in every form of excellence, the highest triumphs 
 of human invention. Hence at first sight it does 
 unquestionably appear that we could have no 
 stronger or better evidence of purpose than is 
 thus afforded. In the words of Paley : * arrange- 
 ment, disposition of parts, subserviency of means 
 to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply 
 the presence of intelligence and mind.' 
 
 But next the question arises, Although such 
 things certainly [may] 1 imply the presence of 
 mind as their explanatory cause, are we entitled 
 to assume that there can be in nature no other 
 cause competent to produce these effects ? This 
 is a question which never seems to have occurred 
 to Paley, Bell, Chalmers, or indeed to any of the 
 natural theologians up to the time of Darwin. 
 This, I think, is a remarkable fact, because the 
 question is one which, as a mere matter of logical 
 form, appears to lie so much upon the surface. 
 But nevertheless the fact remains that natural 
 theologians, so far as I know without exception, 
 were satisfied to assume as an axiom that mechan- 
 ism could have no cause other than that of a 
 designing mind ; and therefore their work was 
 
 1 [I have put ' may ' in place of ' do ' for the sake of argument. 
 —Ed.] 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 55 
 
 restricted to tracing out in detail the number and 
 the excellency of the mechanisms which were to be 
 met with in nature. It is, however, obvious that 
 the mere accumulation of such cases can have no 
 real, or logical, effect upon the argument. The 
 mechanisms which we encounter in nature are so 
 amazing in their perfections, that the attentive 
 study of any one of them would (as Paley in his 
 illustration virtually, though not expressly, con- 
 tends) be sufficient to carry the whole position, 
 if the assumption be conceded that mechanism 
 can only be due to mind. Therefore the argu- 
 ment is not really, or logically, strengthened by 
 the mere accumulation of any number of special 
 cases of mechanism in nature, all as mechanisms 
 similar in kind. Let us now consider this argu- 
 ment. 
 
 If we are disposed to wonder why natural 
 theologians prior to the days of Darwin were 
 content to assume that mind is the only possible 
 cause of mechanism, I think we have a ready 
 answer in the universal prevalence of their belief 
 in special creation. For I think it is unquestion- 
 able that, upon the basis of this belief, the assump- 
 tion is legitimate. That is to say, if we start with 
 the belief that all species of plants and animals 
 were originally introduced to the complex con- 
 ditions of their several environments suddenly 
 and ready made (in some such manner as watches 
 are turned out from a manufactory), then I think 
 
56 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 we are reasonably entitled to assume that no con- 
 ceivable cause, other than that of intelligent pur- 
 pose, could possibly be assigned in explanation 
 of the effects. It is, of course, needless to observe 
 that in so far as this previous belief in special 
 creation was thus allowed to affect the argument 
 from design, that argument became an instance of 
 circular reasoning. And it is, perhaps, equally 
 needless to observe that the mere fact of evolution, 
 as distinguished from special creation — or of the 
 gradual development of living mechanisms, as 
 distinguished from their sudden and ready-made 
 apparition — would not in any way affect the 
 argument from design, unless it could be shown 
 that the process of evolution admits the possibil- 
 ity of some other cause which is not admitted 
 by the hypothesis of special creation. But this 
 is precisely what is shown by the theory of evolu- 
 tion as propounded by Darwin. That is to say, 
 the theory of the gradual development of living 
 mechanisms propounded by Darwin, is something 
 more than a theory of gradual development as 
 distinguished from sudden creation. It is this, 
 but it is also a theory of a purely scientific kind 
 which seeks to explain the purely physical causes 
 of that development. And this is the point where 
 natural science begins to exert her influence upon 
 natural theology — or the point where the theory 
 of evolution begins to affect the theory of design. 
 As this is a most important part of our subject, 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 57 
 
 and one upon which an extraordinary amount of 
 confusion at the present time prevails, I shall in 
 my next paper carefully consider it in all its 
 bearings. 
 
II. 
 
 Suppose the man who found the watch upon 
 a heath to continue his walk till he comes down to 
 the sea-shore, and suppose further that he is as 
 ignorant of physical geography as he is of watch- 
 making. He soon begins to observe a number 
 of adaptations of means to ends, which, if less 
 refined and delicate than those that formed the 
 object of his study in the watch, are on the other 
 hand much more impressive from the greatly 
 larger scale on which they are displayed. First, 
 he observes that there is a beautiful basin hollowed 
 out in the land for the reception of a bay; that 
 the sides of this basin, which from being near its 
 opening are most exposed to the action of large 
 rolling billows, are composed of rocky cliffs, 
 evidently in order to prevent the further encroach- 
 ment of the sea, and the consequent destruction 
 of the entire bay; that the sides of the basin, 
 which from being successively situated more inland 
 are successively less and less exposed to the action 
 of large waves, are constituted successively of 
 smaller rocks, passing into shingle, and eventually 
 into the finest sand : that as the tides rise and fall 
 with as great regularity as was exhibited by the 
 movements of the watch, the stones are carefully 
 
 58 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 59 
 
 separated out from the sand to be arranged in 
 sloping layers of themselves, and this always 
 with a most beautiful reference to the places round 
 the margin of the basin which are most in danger 
 of being damaged by the action of the waves. He 
 would further observe, upon closer inspection, that 
 this process of selective arrangement goes into 
 matters of the most minute detail. Here, for 
 instance, he would observe a mile or two of a 
 particular kind of seaweed artistically arranged in 
 one long sinuous line upon the beach ; there he 
 would see a wonderful deposit of shells ; in another 
 place a lovely little purple heap of garnet sand, the 
 minute particles of which have all been carefully 
 picked out from the surrounding acres of yellow 
 sand. Again, he would notice that the streams 
 which come down to the bay are all flowing in 
 channels admirably dug out for the purpose ; and, 
 being led by curiosity to investigate the teleology 
 of these various streams, he would find that they 
 serve to supply the water which the sea loses by 
 evaporation, and also, by a wonderful piece of 
 adjustment, to furnish fresh water to those animals 
 and plants which thrive best in fresh water, and 
 yet by their combined action to carry down suffi- 
 cient mineral constituents to give that precise 
 degree of saltness to the sea as a whole which 
 is required for the maintenance of a pelagic life. 
 Lastly, continuing his investigations along this 
 line of inquiry, he would find that a thousand 
 
6o THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 different habitats were all thoughtfully adapted 
 to the needs of a hundred thousand different forms 
 of life, none of which could survive if these 
 habitats were reversed. Now, I think that our 
 imaginary inquirer would be a dull man if, as the 
 result of all this study, he failed to conclude that 
 the evidence of Design furnished by the marine 
 bay was at least as cogent as that which he had 
 previously found in his study of the watch. 
 
 But there is this great difference between the 
 two cases. Whereas by subsequent inquiry he 
 could ascertain as a matter of fact that the watch 
 was due to intelligent contrivance, he could make 
 no such discovery with reference to the marine 
 bay : in the one case intelligent contrivance as a 
 cause is independently demonstrable, while in the 
 other case it can only be inferred. What, then, 
 is the value of the inference? 
 
 If, after the studies of our imaginary teleolo- 
 gist had been completed, he were introduced to 
 the library of the Royal Society, and if he were 
 then to spend a year or two in making himself 
 acquainted with the leading results of modern 
 science, I fancy that he would end by being both 
 a wiser and a sadder man. At least I am certain 
 that in learning more he would feel that he is 
 understanding less — that the archaic simplicity 
 of his earlier explanations must give place to a 
 matured perplexity upon the whole subject. To 
 begin with, he would now find that every one of 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 6 1 
 
 the adjustments of means to ends which excited 
 his admiration on the sea-coast were due to phys- 
 ical causes which are perfectly well understood. 
 The cliffs stood at the opening of the bay because 
 the sea in past ages had encroached upon the 
 coast-line until it met with these cliffs, which then 
 opposed its further progress ; the bay was a 
 depression in the land which happened to be there 
 when the sea arrived, and into which the sea con- 
 sequently flowed ; the successive occurrence of 
 rocks, shingle, and sand was due to the actions 
 of the waves themselves ; the segregation of sea- 
 weeds, shells, pebbles, and different kinds of 
 sand, was due to their different degrees of specific 
 gravity ; the fresh-water streams ran in channels 
 because they had themselves been the means of 
 excavating them ; and the multitudinous forms 
 of life were all adapted to their several habitats 
 simply because the unsuited forms were not able 
 to live in them. In all these cases, therefore, our 
 teleologist in the light of fuller knowledge would 
 be compelled to conclude at least this much — that 
 the adaptations which he had so greatly admired 
 when he supposed that they were all due to con- 
 trivance in anticipation of the existing phenomena, 
 cease to furnish the same evidence of intelligent 
 design when it is found that no one of them 
 was prepared beforehand by any independent or 
 external cause. 
 
 He would therefore be led to conclude that if 
 
62 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the teleological interpretation of the facts were to 
 be saved at all, it could only be so by taking a 
 much wider view of the subject than was afforded 
 by the particular cases of apparent design which 
 at first appeared so cogent. That is to say, he 
 would feel that he must abandon the supposition 
 of any special design in the construction of that 
 particular bay, and fall back upon the theory of 
 a much more general design in the construction of 
 one great scheme of Nature as a whole. In short 
 he would require to dislodge his argument from 
 the special adjustments which in the first instance 
 appeared to him so suggestive, to those general 
 laws of Nature which by their united operation 
 give rise to a cosmos as distinguished from a 
 chaos. 
 
 Now I have been careful thus to present in all 
 its more important details an imaginary argument 
 drawn from inorganic nature, because it furnishes 
 a complete analogy to the actual argument which 
 is drawn from organic nature. Without any ques- 
 tion, the instances of apparent design, or of the 
 apparently intentional adaptation of means to 
 ends, which we meet with in organic nature, are 
 incomparably more numerous and suggestive than 
 anything with which we meet in inorganic nature. 
 But if once we find good reason to conclude that 
 the former, like the latter, are all due, not to the 
 immediate, special and prospective action of a 
 contriving intelligence (as in watch-making or 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 63 
 
 creation), but to the agency of secondary or phys- 
 ical causes acting under the influence of what we 
 call general laws, then it seems to me that no 
 matter how numerous or how wonderful the adap- 
 tations of means to ends in organic nature may 
 be, they furnish one no other or better evidence 
 of design than is furnished by any of the facts of 
 inorganic nature. 
 
 For the sake of clearness let us take any special 
 case. Paley says, ' I know of no better method of 
 introducing so large a subject than that of com- 
 paring a single thing with a single thing ; an eye, 
 for example, with a telescope/ He then goes 
 on to point out the analogies between these two 
 pieces of apparatus, and ends by asking, ' How 
 is it possible, under circumstances of such close 
 affinity, and under the operation of equal evidence, 
 to exclude contrivance in the case of the eye, yet 
 to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having 
 been employed, as the plainest and clearest of all 
 propositions in the case of the telescope?' 
 
 Well, the answer to be made is that only upon 
 the hypothesis of special creation can this analogy 
 hold : on the hypothesis of evolution by physical 
 causes the evidence in the two cases is not equal. 
 For, upon this hypothesis we have the eye begin- 
 ning, not as a ready-made structure prepared 
 beforehand for the purposes of seeing, but as a 
 mere differentiation of the ends of nerves in the 
 skin, probably in the first instance to enable them 
 
64 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 better to discriminate changes of temperature. 
 Pigment having been laid down in these places 
 the better to secure this purpose (I use teleologi- 
 cal terms for the sake of brevity ) , the nerve-ending 
 begins to distinguish between light and darkness. 
 The better to secure this further purpose the sim- 
 plest conceivable form of lens begins to appear 
 in the shape of small refractive bodies. Behind 
 these sensory cells are developed, forming the 
 earliest indication of a retina presenting a single 
 layer. And so on, step by step, till we reach the 
 eye of an eagle. 
 
 Of course the teleologist will here answer — 
 'The fact of such a gradual building up is no 
 argument against design : whether the structure 
 appeared on a sudden or was the result of a slow 
 elaboration, the marks of design in either case 
 occur in the structure as it stands.' All of which 
 is very true ; but I am not maintaining that the 
 fact of a gradual development in itself does affect 
 the argument from design. I am maintaining 
 that it only does so because it reveals the possi- 
 bility (excluded by the hypothesis of sudden or 
 special creation) of the structure having been 
 proximately due to the operation of physical 
 causes. Thus, for the value of argument, let us 
 assume that natural selection has been satisfac- 
 torily established as a cause adequate to account 
 for all these effects. Given the facts of heredity, 
 variation, struggle for existence, and the conse- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 65 
 
 quent survival of the fittest, what follows ? Why 
 that each step in the prolonged and gradual 
 development of the eye was brought about by the 
 elimination of all the less adapted structures in 
 any given generation, i. e. the selection of all the 
 better adapted to perpetuate the improvement of 
 heredity. Will the teleologist maintain that this 
 selective process is itself indicative of special 
 design ? If so, it appears to me that he is logi- 
 cally bound to maintain that the long line of sea- 
 weed, the shells, the stones and the little heap of 
 garnet sand upon the sea-coast are all equally 
 indicative of special design. The general laws 
 relating to specific gravity are at least of as much 
 importance in the economy of nature as are the 
 general laws relating to specific differentiation ; 
 and in each illustration alike we find the result 
 of the operation of known physical causes to be 
 that of selection. If it should be argued in reply 
 that the selection in the one case is obviously 
 purposeless, while in the other it is as obviously 
 purposive, I answer that this is pure assumption. 
 It is perhaps not too much to say that every 
 geological formation on the face of the globe is 
 either wholly or in part due to the selective influ- 
 ence of specific gravity, and who shall say that the 
 construction of the earth's crust is a less important 
 matter in the general scheme of things (if there is 
 such a scheme) than is the evolution of an eye ? 
 Or who shall say that because we see an appar- 
 
66 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 ently intentional adaptation of means to ends as 
 the result of selection in the case of the eye, there 
 is no intention served by the result of selection 
 in the case of the sea-weeds, stones, sand, mud ? 
 For anything that we can know to the contrary, 
 the supposed intelligence may take a greater 
 delight in the latter than in the former process. 
 For the sake of clearness I have assumed that 
 the physical causes with which we are already 
 acquainted are sufficient to explain the observed 
 phenomena of organic nature. But it clearly 
 makes no difference whether or not this assump- 
 tion is conceded, provided we allow that the 
 observed phenomena are all due to physical causes 
 of some kind, be they known or unknown. That 
 is to say, in whatever measure we exclude the 
 hypothesis of the direct or immediate intervention 
 of the Deity in organic nature (miracle), in that 
 measure we are reducing the evidence of design 
 in organic nature to precisely the same logical 
 position as that which is occupied by the evidence 
 of design in organic nature. Hence I conceive 
 that Mill has shown a singular want of penetra- 
 tion where, after observing with reference to 
 natural selection, * creative forethought is not 
 absolutely the only link by which the origin of 
 the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be con- 
 nected with the fact of sight,' he goes on to say, 
 * leaving this remarkable speculation (i. e. that of 
 natural selection) to whatever fate the progress 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 67 
 
 of discovery may have in store for it, in the pres- 
 ent state of knowledge the adaptations in nature 
 afford a large balance of probability in favor of 
 creation by intelligence/ I say this passage 
 seems to me to show a singular want of penetra- 
 tion, and I say so because it appears to argue that 
 the issue lies between the hypothesis of special 
 design and the hypothesis of natural selection. 
 But it does not do so. The issue really lies 
 between special design and natural causes. Sur- 
 vival of the fittest is one of these causes which 
 has been suggested, and shown by a large accu- 
 mulation of evidence to be probably a true cause. 
 But even if it were to be disproved as a cause, 
 the real argumentative position of teleology would 
 not thereby be effected, unless we were to con- 
 clude that there can be no other causes of a 
 secondary or physical kind concerned in the pro- 
 duction of the observed adaptations. 
 
 I trust that I have now made it sufficiently 
 clear why I hold that if we believe the reign of 
 natural law, or the operation of physical causes, 
 to extend throughout organic nature in the same 
 universal manner as we believe this in the case of 
 inorganic nature, then we can find no better evi- 
 dence of design in the one province than in the 
 other. The mere fact that we meet with more 
 numerous and apparently more complete instances 
 of design in the one province than in the other is, ex 
 hypothesis merely due to our ignorance of the nat- 
 
68 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 ural causation in the more intricate province. In 
 studying biological phenomena we are all at pres- 
 ent in the intellectual position of our imaginary 
 teleologist when studying the marine bay : we do 
 not know the natural causes which have produced 
 the observed results. But if, after having obtained 
 a partial key in the theory of natural selection, 
 we trust to the large analogy which is afforded 
 by the simpler provinces of Nature, and conclude 
 that physical causes are everywhere concerned in 
 the production of organic structures, then we 
 have concluded that any evidence of design which 
 these structures present is of just the same logi- 
 cal value as that which we may attach to the evi- 
 dence of design in inorganic nature. If it should 
 still be urged that the adaptations met with in 
 organic nature are from .their number and unity 
 much more suggestive of design than anything 
 met with in inorganic nature, I must protest that 
 this is to change the ground of argument and to 
 evade the only point in dispute. No one denies 
 the obvious fact stated : the only question is 
 whether any number and any quantity of adapta- 
 tions in any one department of nature afford other 
 or better evidence of design than is afforded by 
 adaptations in other departments, when all depart- 
 ments alike are supposed to be equally the out- 
 come of physical causation. And this question 
 I answer in the negative, because we have no 
 means of ascertaining the extent to which the 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 69 
 
 process of natural selection, or any other physi- 
 cal cause, is competent to produce adaptations of 
 the kind observed. 
 
 Thus to take another instance of apparent 
 design from inorganic nature, it has been argued 
 that the constitution of the atmosphere is clearly 
 designed for the support of vegetable and animal 
 life. But before this conclusion can be estab- 
 lished upon the facts, it must be shown that life 
 could exist under no other material conditions 
 than those which are furnished to it by the ele- 
 mentary constituents of the atmosphere. This, 
 however, it is clearly impossible to show. For 
 anything that we can know to the contrary, life 
 may actually be existing upon some of the other 
 heavenly bodies under totally different conditions 
 as to atmosphere ; and the fact that on this planet 
 all life has come to be dependent upon the gases 
 which occur in our atmosphere, may be due sim- 
 ply to the fact that it was only the forms of life 
 which were able to adapt themselves (through 
 natural selection or other physical causes) to 
 these particular gases which could possibly be 
 expected to occur — just as in matters of still 
 smaller detail, it was only those forms of life 
 that were suited to their several habitats in the 
 marine bay, which could possibly be expected 
 to be found in these several situations. Now, if a 
 set of adjustments so numerous and so delicate 
 as those on which the relations of every known 
 
70 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 form of life to the constituent gases of the 
 atmosphere are seen to depend, can thus be shown 
 not necessarily to imply the action of any dispos- 
 ing intelligence, how is it possible to conclude 
 that any less general exhibitions of adjustment 
 imply this, so long as every case of adjustment, 
 whether or not ultimately due to design, is 
 regarded as proximately due to physical causes ? 
 In view of these considerations, therefore, I 
 think it is perfectly clear that if the argument 
 from teleology is to be saved at all, it can only 
 be so by shifting it from the narrow basis of spe- 
 cial adaptations, to the broad area of Nature as a 
 whole. And here I confess that to my mind the 
 argument does acquire a weight which, if long and 
 attentively considered, deserves to be regarded 
 as enormous. For, although this and that par- 
 ticular adjustment in Nature may be seen to be 
 proximately due to physical causes, and although 
 we are prepared on the grounds of the largest 
 possible analogy to infer that all other such par- 
 ticular cases are likewise due to physical causes, 
 the more ultimate question arises, How is it that 
 all physical causes conspire, by their united 
 action, to the production of a general order of 
 Nature ? It is against all analogy to suppose 
 that such an end as this can be accomplished by 
 such means as those, in the way of mere chance 
 or 'the fortuitous concourse of atoms.' We are 
 led by the most fundamental dictates of our rea- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 7 1 
 
 son to conclude that there must be some cause 
 for this cooperation of causes. I know that from 
 Lucretius' time this has been denied ; but it has 
 been denied only on grounds of feeling. No 
 possible reason can be given for the denial which 
 does not run counter to the law of causation 
 itself. I am therefore perfectly clear that the 
 only question which, from a purely rational point 
 of view, here stands to be answered is this — Of 
 what nature are we to suppose the causa causarum 
 to be? 
 
 On this point only two hypotheses have ever 
 been advanced, and I think it is impossible to 
 conceive that any third one is open. Of these 
 two hypotheses the earliest, and of course the 
 most obvious, is that of mental purpose. The 
 other hypothesis is one which we owe to the far- 
 reaching thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In 
 Chapter VII of his First Principles he argues that 
 all causation arises immediately out of existence 
 as such, or, as he states it, that 'uniformity of law 
 inevitably follows from the persistence of force.' 
 For 'if in any two cases there is exact likeness 
 not only between those most conspicuous ante- 
 cedents which we distinguish as the causes, but also 
 between those accompanying antecedents which 
 we call the conditions, we cannot affirm that the 
 effects will differ, without affirming either that 
 some force has come into existence or that some 
 force has ceased to exist. If the co-operative 
 
7 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 forces in the one case are equal to those in the 
 other, each to each, in distribution and amount; 
 then it is impossible to conceive the product of 
 their joint action in the one case as unlike that in 
 the other, without conceiving one or more of the 
 forces to have increased or diminished in quantity ; 
 and this is conceiving that force is not persistent.' 
 Now this interpretation of causality as the 
 immediate outcome of existence must be consid- 
 ered first as a theory of causation, and next as a 
 theory in relation to Theism. As a theory of 
 causation it has not met with the approval of 
 mathematicians, physicists or logicians, leading 
 representatives of all these departments of thought 
 having expressly opposed it, while, so far as I am 
 aware, no representative of any one of them has 
 spoken in its favor. 1 But with this point I am not 
 at present concerned, for even if the theory were 
 admitted to furnish a full and complete explana- 
 tion of causality, it would still fail to account for 
 the harmonious relation of causes, or the fact with 
 which we are now alone concerned. This distinc- 
 
 1 A note (of 1893) contains the following: 'Being, considered 
 in the abstract, is logically equivalent to Not-Being or Nothing. 
 For if by successive stages of abstraction, we divest the concep- 
 tion of Being of attribute and relation, we reach the conception of 
 that which cannot be, i. e. a logical contradiction, or the logical 
 correlative of Being which is Nothing. (All this is well expressed 
 in Caird's Evolution of Religion?) The failure to perceive this 
 fact constitutes a ground fallacy in my Candid Examination of 
 Tkeisrn, where I represent Being as being a sufficient explanation 
 of the Order of Nature or the law of Causation.' 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 73 
 
 tion is not perceived by the anonymous author 
 'Physicus,' who in his Candid Examination of 
 Tkeism,\a.ys great stress upon Mr. Spencer's theory 
 of causation as subversive of Theism, or at least 
 as superseding the necessity of theistic hypothesis 
 by furnishing a full explanation of the order of 
 nature on purely physical grounds. But he fails 
 to perceive that even if Mr. Spencer's theory were 
 conceded fully to explain all the facts of causality, 
 it would in no wise tend to explain the cosmos in 
 which these facts occur. It may be that causa- 
 tion depends upon the * persistence of force:' it 
 does not follow that all manifestations of force 
 should on this account have been directed to occur 
 as they do occur. For, if we follow back any 
 sequence of physical causation, we soon find that 
 it spreads out on all sides into a network of phys- 
 ical relations which are literally infinite both in 
 space (conditions) and in time (antecedent causes). 
 Now, even if we suppose that the persistence of 
 force is a sufficient explanation of the occurrence 
 of the particular sequence contemplated so far as 
 the exhibition of force is there concerned, we are , 
 thus as far as ever from explaining the determina- 
 tion of this force into the particular channel through 
 which it flows. It may be quite true that the 
 resultant is determined as to magnitude and direc- 
 tion by the components ; but what about the 
 magnitude and direction of the components ? If 
 it is said that they in turn were determined by the 
 
74 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 outcome of previous systems, how about these 
 systems ? And so on till we spread away into 
 the infinite network already mentioned. Only if 
 we knew the origin of all series of such systems, 
 could we be in a position to say that an adequate 
 intelligence might determine beforehand by calcu- 
 lation the state of any one part of the universe at 
 any given instant of time. But, as the series are 
 infinite both in number and extent, this knowledge 
 is clearly out of the question. Moreover, even if 
 it could be imagined as possible, it could only 
 be so imagined at the expense of supposing an 
 origin of physical causation in time ; and this 
 amounts to supposing a state of things prior to 
 such causation, and out of which it arose. But 
 to suppose this is to suppose some extra-physical 
 source of physical causation ; and whether this 
 supposition is made with reference to a physical 
 event occurring under immediate observation 
 (miracle), or to a physical event in past time, or 
 to the origin of all physical events, it is alike 
 incompatible with any theory that seeks to give a 
 purely physical explanation of the physical uni- 
 verse as a whole. It is, in short, the old story 
 about a stream not being able to rise above its 
 source. Physical causation cannot be made to 
 supply its own explanation, and the mere persist- 
 ence of force, even if it were conceded to account 
 for particular cases of physical sequence, can give 
 no account of the ubiquitous and eternal direction 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 75 
 
 of force in the construction and maintenance of 
 universal order. 
 
 We are thus, as it were, driven upon the theory 
 of Theism as furnishing the only namable expla- 
 nation of this universal order. That is to say, by 
 no logical artifice can we escape from the conclu- 
 sion that, so far as we can see, this universal 
 order must be regarded as due to some one 
 integrating principle ; and that this, so far as we 
 can see, is most probably of the nature of mind. 
 At least it must be allowed that we can conceive 
 of it under no other aspect ; and that if any par- 
 ticular adaptation in organic nature is held to be 
 suggestive of such an agency, the sum total of all 
 adaptations in the universe must be held to be 
 incomparably more so. I shall not, however, 
 dwell on this theme since it has been well treated 
 by several modern writers, and with special cogency 
 by the Rev. Baden Powell. I will merely observe 
 that I do not consider it necessary to the display 
 of this argument in favour of Theism that we 
 should speak of 'natural laws.' It is enough to 
 take our stand upon the [broadest] general fact 
 that Nature is a system, and that the order observ- 
 able in this system is absolutely universal, eternally 
 enduring, and infinitely exact ; while only upon 
 the supposition of its being such is our experience 
 conceived as possible, or our knowledge conceived 
 as attainable. 
 
 Having thus stated as emphatically as I can 
 
76 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 that in my opinion no explanation of natural order 
 can be either conceived or named other than that 
 of intelligence as the supreme directing cause, I 
 shall proceed to two other questions which arise 
 immediately out of this conclusion. The first of 
 these questions is as to the presumable character 
 of this supreme Intelligence so far as any data of 
 inference upon this point are supplied by our 
 observation of Nature ; and the other question is 
 as to the strictly formal cogency of any con- 
 clusions either with reference to the existence or 
 the character of such an intelligence. 1 I shall 
 consider these two points separately. 
 
 No sooner have we reached the conclusion 
 that the only hypothesis whereby the general 
 order of Nature admits of being in any degree 
 accounted for is that it is due to a cause of a 
 mental kind, than we confront the fact that this 
 cause must be widely different from anything that 
 we know of Mind in ourselves. And we soon 
 discover that this difference must be conceived as 
 not merely of degree, however great, but of kind. 
 In other words, although we may conclude that 
 the nearest analogue of the causa causarum given 
 in experience is the human mind, we are bound to 
 acknowledge that in all fundamental points the 
 analogy is so remote that it becomes a question 
 whether we are really very much nearer the truth 
 
 1 [This promise is only partially fulfilled in the penultimate 
 paragraph of the essay. — Ed.] 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 77 
 
 by entertaining it. Thus, for instance, as Mr. 
 Spencer has. pointed out, our only conception of 
 that which we know as Mind in ourselves is the 
 conception of a series of states of consciousness. 
 But, he continues, ' Put a series of states of con- 
 sciousness as cause and the evolving universe as 
 effect, and then endeavour to see the last as flow- 
 ing from the first. I find it possible to imagine 
 in some dim way a series of states of conscious- 
 ness serving as antecedent to any one of the 
 movements 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 series as antecedent to all actions 
 throughout the universe . . . ? If to account for 
 this infinitude of physical changes everywhere 
 going on, " Mind must be conceived as there," 
 "under the guise of simple dynamics," then the 
 reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be 
 divested of all attributes by which it is distin- 
 guished ; and that, when thus divested of its 
 distinguishing attributes the conception dis- 
 appears — the word Mind stands for a blank/ 
 
 Moreover, ' How is the "originating Mind" 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 ?' f 
 
 1 Essays, vol. iii. p t 246 et seq. The whole passage ought to 
 be consulted, being too long to quote here. 
 
7§ THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 Hence, without continuing this line of argu- 
 ment which it "Would not be difficult to trace 
 through every constitutent branch of human 
 psychology, we may take it as unquestionable 
 that, if there is a Divine Mind, it must differ so 
 essentially from the human mind, that it becomes 
 illogical to designate the two by the same name : 
 the attributes of eternity and ubiquity are in 
 themselves enough to place such a Mind in a 
 category sui generis, wholly different from any- 
 thing which the analogy furnished by our own 
 mind enables us even dimly to conceive. And 
 this, of course, is no more than theologians admit. 
 God's thoughts are above our thoughts, and a God 
 who would be comprehensible to our intelligence 
 would be no God at all, they say. Which may be 
 true enough, only we must remember that in what- 
 ever measure we are thus precluded from under- 
 standing the Divine Mind, in that measure are we 
 precluded from founding any conclusions as to its 
 nature upon analogies furnished by the human 
 mind. The theory ceases to be anthropomorphic : 
 it ceases to be even ' anthropopsychic :' it is 
 affiliated with the conception of mind only in 
 virtue of the one fact that it serves to give the 
 best provisional account of the order of Nature, 
 by supposing an infinite extension of some of the 
 faculties of the human mind, with a concurrent 
 obliteration of all the essential conditions under 
 which alone these faculties are known to exist. 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 79 
 
 Obviously of such a Mind as this no predication 
 is logically possible. If such a Mind exists, it is 
 not conceivable as existing, and we are precluded 
 from assigning to it any attributes. 
 
 Thus much on general grounds. Descending 
 now to matters of more detail, let us assume with 
 the natural theologians that such a Mind does 
 exist, that it so far resembles the human mind as 
 to be a conscious, personal intelligence, and that 
 the care of such a mind is over all its works. 
 Even upon the grounds of this supposition we 
 meet with a number of large and general facts 
 which indicate that this mind ought still to be 
 regarded as apparently very unlike its 'image' in 
 the mind of man. I will not here dwell upon 
 the argument of seeming waste and purposeless 
 action in Nature, because I think that this may 
 be fairly met by the ulterior argument already 
 drawn from Nature as a whole — viz. that as a 
 whole, Nature is a cosmos, and therefore that 
 what to us appears wasteful and purposeless in 
 matters of detail may not be so in relation to the 
 scheme of things as a whole. But I am doubt- 
 ful whether this ulterior argument can be adduced 
 to meet the apparent absence in Nature of that 
 which in man we term morality. For in the 
 human mind the sense of right and wrong — 
 with all its accompanying or constituting emo- 
 tions of love, sympathy, justice, etc. — is so 
 important a factor, that however greatly we may 
 
80 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 imagine the intellectual side of the human mind 
 to be extended, we can scarcely imagine that the 
 moral side could ever become so apparently 
 eclipsed as to end in the authorship of such a 
 work as we find in terrestrial nature. It is use- 
 less to hide our eyes to the state of matters which 
 meets us here. Most of the instances of special 
 design which are relied upon by the natural theo- 
 logian to prove the intelligent nature of the First 
 Cause, have as their end or object the infliction 
 of painful death or the escape from remorseless 
 enemies ; and so far the argument in favour of 
 the intelligent nature of the First Cause is an 
 argument against its morality. Again, even if 
 we quit the narrower basis on which teleological 
 argument has rested in the past, and stand that 
 argument upon the broader ground of Nature as 
 a whole, it scarcely becomes less incompatible 
 with any inference to the morality of that Cause, 
 seeing that the facts to which I have alluded are 
 not merely occasional and, as it were, outweighed 
 by contrary facts of a more general kind, but 
 manifestly constitute the leading feature of the 
 scheme of organic nature as a whole : or, if this 
 were held to be questionable, it could only follow 
 that we are not entitled to infer that there is any 
 such scheme at all. 
 
 Nature, as red in tooth and claw with ravin, is 
 thus without question a large and general fact 
 that must be considered by any theory of tele- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 81 
 
 ology which can be propounded. I do not think 
 that this aspect of the matter could be conveyed 
 in stronger terms than it is by 'Physicus,' 1 whom 
 I shall therefore quote : — 
 
 'Supposing the Deity to be, what Professor 
 Flint maintains that he is — viz. omnipotent, and 
 there can be no inference more transparent than 
 that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends 
 designed, exhibits an incalculably greater defici- 
 ency of beneficence in the divine character than 
 that which we know in any, the very worst, of 
 human characters. For let us pause for one 
 moment to think of what suffering in Nature 
 means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago 
 some millions of millions of animals must be 
 supposed to have become sentient. Since that 
 time till the present, there must have been millions 
 and millions of generations of millions and mill- 
 ions of individuals. And throughout all this 
 period of incalculable duration, this inconceivable 
 host of sentient organisms have been in a state 
 of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking 
 to the outcome, we find that more than one-half 
 of the species which have survived the ceaseless 
 struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and 
 insentient forms of life feasting on higher and 
 sentient forms ; we find teeth and talons whetted 
 for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for 
 
 f In an essay on Prof. Flint's Theism y appended to the Can- 
 did Examination. 
 
82 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 torment — everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, 
 sickness, with oozing blood and quivering limbs, 
 with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that 
 dimly close in deaths of cruel torture ! Is it said 
 that there are compensating enjoyments ? I care 
 not to strike the balance ; the enjoyments I plainly 
 perceive °to be as physically necessary as the 
 pains, and this whether or not evolution is due to 
 design. . . . Am I told that I am not competent 
 to judge the purposes of the Almighty ? I 
 answer that if there are purposes^ I am able to 
 judge of them so far as I can see ; and if I am 
 expected to judge of His purposes when they 
 appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency 
 obliged also to judge of them when they appear to 
 be malevolent. And it can be no possible exten- 
 uation of the latter to point to the "final result" 
 as "order and beauty," so long as the means 
 adopted by the " Omnipotent Designer" are known 
 to have been so [terrible]. All that we could 
 legitimately assert in this case would be that, so 
 far as observation can extend, "He cares for 
 animal perfection" to the exclusion of "animal 
 enjoyment," and even to the total disregard 
 of animal suffering. But to assert this would 
 merely be to deny beneficence as an attribute of 
 God/ 1 
 
 The reasoning here appears as unassailable as 
 it is obvious. If, as the writer goes on to say, we 
 
 l A Candid Examination of Theism, pp. 17 1-2. 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 83 
 
 see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring 
 trap, and in consequence abhor the devilish nature 
 of the being who, with full powers of realizing 
 what pain means, can deliberately employ his 
 whole faculties of invention in contriving a thing 
 so hideously cruel ; what are we to think of a 
 Being who, with yet higher faculties of thought 
 and knowledge, and with an unlimited choice of 
 means to secure His ends, has contrived untold 
 thousands of mechanisms no less diabolical ? In 
 short, so far as Nature can teach us, or 'observa- 
 tion can extend/ it does appear that the scheme, 
 if it is a scheme, is the product of a Mind which 
 differs from the more highly evolved type of 
 human mind in that it is immensely more intel- 
 lectual without being nearly so moral. And the 
 same thing is indicated by the rough and indis- 
 criminate manner in which justice is allotted — 
 even if it can be said to be allotted at all. When 
 we contrast the certainty and rigour with which 
 any offence against 'physical law' is punished 
 by Nature (no matter though the sin be but 
 one of ignorance), with the extreme uncertainty 
 and laxity with which she meets any offence 
 against 'moral law,' we are constrained to feel 
 that the system of legislation (if we may so 
 term it) is conspicuously different from that 
 which would have been devised by any intelli- 
 gence which in any sense could be called * anthro- 
 popsychic. 1 
 
84 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 The only answer to these difficulties open to 
 the natural theologian is that which is drawn from 
 the constitution of the human mind. It is argued 
 that the fact of this mind having so large an 
 ingredient of morality in its constitution may be 
 taken as proof that its originating source is like- 
 wise of a moral character. This argument, how- 
 ever, appears to me of a questionable character, 
 seeing that, for anything we can tell to the con- 
 trary, the moral sense may have been given to, 
 or developed in, man simply on account of its 
 utility to the species — just in the same way as 
 teeth in the shark or poison in the snake. If so, 
 the occurrence of the moral sense in man would 
 merely furnish one other instance of the intellec- 
 tual, as distinguished from the moral, nature of 
 God ; and there seems to be in itself no reason 
 why we should take any other view. The mere fact 
 that to us the moral sense seems such a great and 
 holy thing, is doubtless (under any view) owing 
 to its importance to the well-being of our species. 
 In itself, or as it appears to other possible beings 
 intellectual like ourselves, but existing under 
 unlike conditions, the moral sense of man may be 
 regarded as of no more significance than the 
 social instincts of bees. More particularly may 
 this consideration apply to the case of a Mind 
 existing, according to the theological theory of 
 things, wholly beyond the pale of anything anal- 
 ogous to those social relations out of which, accord- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 85 
 
 ing to the scientific theory of evolution, the moral 
 sense has been developed in ourselves. 1 
 
 The truth is that in this matter natural theo- 
 logians begin by assuming that the First Cause, 
 if intelligent, must be moral ; and then they are 
 blinded to the strictly logical weakness of the 
 argument whereby they endeavor to sustain their 
 assumption. For aught that we can tell to the 
 contrary, it may be quite as 'anthropomorphic' a 
 notion to attribute morality to God as it would be 
 to attribute those capacities for sensuous enjoy- 
 ment with which the Greeks endowed their 
 divinities. The Deity may be as high above 
 the one as the other — or rather perhaps we may 
 say as much external to the one as to the other. 
 Without being supra-moral, and still less immoral, 
 He may be un-moral : our ideas of morality may 
 have no meaning as applied to Him. 
 
 But if we go thus far in one direction, I think, 
 per contra^ it must inconsistency be allowed that the 
 argument from the constitution of the human mind 
 acquires more weight when it is shifted from the 
 moral sense to the religious instincts. For, on the 
 
 1 [ I have, as Editor, resisted a temptation to intervene in the 
 above argument. But I think I may intervene on a matter of 
 fact, and point out that * according to the theological theory of 
 things,' i, e. according to the Trinitarian doctrine, God's Nature 
 consists in what is strictly * analogous to social relations,' and He 
 not merely exhibits in His creation, but Himself zV Love. See, on 
 the subject, especially, R. H. Hutton's essay on the Incarnation 
 in his Theological Essays (Macmillan). — Ed.] 
 
&6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 one hand, these instincts are not of such obvious 
 use to the species as are those of morality ; and, 
 on the other hand, while they are unquestionably 
 very general, very persistent, and very powerful, 
 they do not appear to serve any * end ' or ( purpose ' 
 in the scheme of things, unless we accept the theory 
 which is given of them by those in whom they are 
 most strongly developed. Here I think we have 
 an argument of legitimate force, although it does 
 not appear that such was the opinion entertained 
 of it by Mill. I think the argument is of legiti- 
 mate force, because if the religious instincts of the 
 human race point to no reality as their object, they 
 are out of analogy with all other instinctive en dow- 
 ments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we 
 never meet with such a thing as an instinct pointing 
 aimlessly, and therefore the fact of man being, 
 as it is said, 'a religious animal' — i. e, presenting 
 a class of feelings of a peculiar nature directed to 
 particular ends, and most akin to, if not identical 
 with, true instinct — is so far, in my opinion, a 
 legitimate argument in favor of the reality of some 
 object towards which the religious side of this 
 animal's nature is directed. And I do not think 
 that this argument is invalidated by such facts as 
 that widely different intellectual conceptions 
 touching the character of this object are enter- 
 tained by different races of mankind , that the force 
 of the religious instincts differs greatly in different 
 individuals even of the same race; that these 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 87 
 
 instincts admit of being greatly modified by edu- 
 cation ; that they would probably fail to be devel- 
 oped in any individual without at least so much edu- 
 cation as is required to furnish the needful intel- 
 lectual conceptions on which they are founded ; or 
 that we may not improbably trace their origin, as 
 Mr. Spencer traces it, to a primitive mode of inter- 
 preting dreams. For even in view of all these 
 considerations the fact remains that these instincts 
 exist, and therefore, like all other instincts, may be 
 supposed to have a definite meaning, even though, 
 like all other instincts, they may be supposed to 
 have had a natural cause, which both in the indi- 
 vidual and in the race requires, as in the natural 
 development of all other instincts, the natural 
 conditions for its occurrence to be supplied. In 
 a word, if animal instincts generally, like organic 
 structures or inorganic systems, are held to 
 betoken purpose, the religious nature of man 
 would stand out as an anomaly in the general 
 scheme of things if it alone were purposeless. 
 Hence we have here what seems to me a valid 
 inference, so far as it goes, to the effect that, if 
 the general order of Nature is due to Mind, the 
 character of that Mind is such as it is conceived to 
 be by the most highly developed form of religion. 
 A conclusion which is no doubt the opposite of 
 that which we reached by contemplating the phe- 
 nomena of biology ; and a contradiction which can 
 only be overcome by supposing, either that Nature 
 
88 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 conceals God, while man reveals Him, or that 
 Nature reveals God while man misrepresents 
 him. 
 
 There is still one other fact of a very wide and 
 general kind presented by Nature, which, if the 
 order of Nature is taken to be the expression of 
 intelligent purpose, ought in my opinion to be 
 regarded as of great weight in furnishing evidence 
 upon the ethical quality of that purpose. It is a 
 fact which, so far as I know, has not been consid- 
 ered by any other writer ; but from its being one of 
 the most general of all the facts relating to the 
 sentient creation, and from its admitting of no one 
 single exception, I feel that I am not able too 
 strongly to emphasize its argumentative impor- 
 tance. This fact is, as I have stated it on a former 
 occasion, 4 that amid all the millions of mechanisms 
 and instincts in the animal kingdom, there is no 
 one instance of mechanism or instinct occurring 
 in one species for the exclusive benefit of another 
 species, although there are a few cases in which 
 a mechanism or instinct that is of benefit to its 
 possessor has come also to be utilized by other 
 species. Now, on the beneficent design theory it 
 is impossible to explain why, when all the mechan- 
 isms in the same species are invariably correlated 
 for the benefit of that species, there should never 
 be any such correlation between mechanisms in 
 different species, or why the same remark should 
 apply to instincts. For how magnificent a dis- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 89 
 
 play of Divine beneficence would organic nature 
 have afforded, if all, or even some, species had 
 been so inter-related as to minister to each other's 
 necessities. Organic species might then have 
 been likened to a countless multitude of voices 
 all singing in one harmonious psalm of praise. 
 But, as it is, we see no vestige of such co-ordina- 
 tion; every species is for itself, and for itself 
 alone — an outcome of the always and everywhere 
 fiercely raging struggle for life.' 1 
 
 The large and general fact thus stated consti- 
 tutes, in my opinion, the strongest of all argu- 
 ments in favour of Mr. Darwin's theory of natural 
 selection, and therefore we can see the proba- 
 ble reason why it is what it is, so far as the 
 question of its physical causation is concerned. 
 But where the question is, Supposing the physical 
 causation ultimately due to Mind, what are we 
 to infer concerning the character of the Mind 
 which has adopted this method of causation? — 
 then we again reach the answer that, so far as we 
 can judge from a conscientious examination of 
 these facts, this Mind does not show that it is of 
 a nature which in man we should call moral. Of 
 course behind the physical appearances there may 
 be a moral justification, so that from these appear- 
 ances we are not entitled to say more than that 
 from the fact of its having chosen a method of 
 physical causation leading to these results, it has 
 
 1 Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, pp. 76-7. 
 
9° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 presented to us the appearance, as before observed, 
 of caring for animal perfection to the exclusion of 
 animal enjoyment, and even to the total disregard 
 of animal suffering. 
 
 In conclusion, it is of importance to insist 
 upon a truth which in discussions of this kind is 
 too often disregarded — viz. that all our reason- 
 ings being of a character relative to our knowl- 
 edge, our inferences are uncertain in a degree 
 proportionate to the extent of our ignorance; 
 and that as with reference to the topics which we 
 have been considering our ignorance is of im- 
 measurable extent, any conclusions that we may 
 have formed are, as Bishop Butler would say, 
 'infinitely precarious.' Or, as I have previously 
 presented this formal aspect of the matter while 
 discussing the teleological argument with Profes- 
 sor Asa Gray, — ' I suppose it will be admitted 
 that the validity of an inference depends upon 
 the number, the importance, and the definiteness 
 of the things or ratios known, as compared 
 with the number, importance, and definiteness 
 of the things or ratios unknown, but inferred. If 
 so, we should be logically cautious in drawing 
 inferences from the natural to the supernatural : 
 for although we have the entire sphere of experi- 
 ence from which to draw an inference, we are 
 unable to gauge the probability of the inference 
 when drawn — the unknown ratios being con- 
 fessedly of unknown number, importance, and 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 9 1 
 
 degree of definiteness : the whole orbit of human 
 knowledge is insufficient to obtain a parallax 
 whereby to institute the required measurements 
 or to determine the proportion between the terms 
 known and the terms unknown. Otherwise 
 phrased, we may say — as our knowledge of a 
 part is to our knowledge of a whole, so is our 
 inference from that part to the reality of that 
 whole. Who, therefore, can say, even upon the 
 hypothesis of Theism, that our inferences or 
 "idea of design" would have any meaning if 
 applied to the " All-Upholder," whose thoughts 
 are not as our thoughts ?*' And of course, mutatis 
 mutandis, the same remarks apply to all inferences 
 having a negative tendency. 
 
 As an outcome of the whole of this discussion, 
 then, I think it appears that the influence of 
 Science upon Natural Religion has been uniformly 
 of a destructive character. Step by step it has 
 driven back the apparent evidence of direct or 
 special design in Nature, until now this evidence 
 resides exclusively in the one great and general 
 fact that Nature as a whole is a Cosmos. Further 
 than this it is obviously impossible that the 
 destructive influence of Science can extend, 
 because Science can only exist upon the basis of 
 this fact. But when we allow that this great and 
 universal fact — which but for the effects of 
 unremitting familiarity could scarcely fail to be 
 
 1 Nature, April 5, 1883. 
 
92 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 intellectually overwhelming — does betoken mental 
 agency in Nature, we immediately find it impos- 
 sible to determine the probable character of such 
 a mind, even supposing that it exists. We can- 
 not conceive of it as presenting any one of the 
 qualities which essentially characterize what we 
 know as mind in ourselves ; and therefore the 
 word Mind, as applied to the supposed agency, 
 stands for a blank. Further, even if we disregard 
 this difficulty, and assume that in some way or 
 other incomprehensible to us a Mind does exist 
 as far transcending the human mind as the human 
 mind transcends mechanical motion; still we are 
 met by some very large and general facts in 
 Nature which seem strongly to indicate that this 
 Mind, if it exists, is either deficient in, or wholly 
 destitute of, that class of feelings which in man 
 we term moral ; while, on the other hand, the 
 religious aspirations of man himself may be taken 
 to indicate the opposite conclusion. And, lastly, 
 with reference to the whole course of such 
 reasonings, we have seen that any degree of 
 measurable probability, as attaching to the con- 
 clusions, is unattainable. From all which it appears 
 that Natural Religion at the present time can 
 only be regarded as a system full of intellectual 
 contradictions and moral perplexities ; so that if 
 we go to her with these greatest of all questions : 
 ' Is there knowledge with the Most High ? ' ' Shall 
 not the Judge of all the earth do right ?' the only 
 
INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION. 93 
 
 clear answer which we receive is the one that 
 comes back to us from the depths of our own 
 heart — 'When I thought upon this it was too 
 painful for me.' 
 
PART II. 
 
 95 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE 
 EDITOR. 
 
 Little more requires to be said by way of 
 introduction to the Notes which are all that 
 George Romanes was able to write of a work that 
 was to have been entitled A Candid Examina- 
 tion of Religion. What little does require to be 
 said must be by way of bridging the interval of 
 thought which exists between the Essays which 
 have just preceded and the Notes which represent 
 more nearly his final phase of mind. 
 
 The most anti-theistic feature in the Essays 
 is the stress laid in them on the evidence 
 which Nature supplies, or is supposed to supply, 
 antagonistic to the belief in the goodness of 
 God. 
 
 On this mysterious and perplexing subject 
 George Romanes appears to have had more to 
 say but did not live to say it 1 . We may notice 
 however that in 1889, in a paper read before the 
 Aristotelian Society, on 'the Evidence of Design 
 
 ■See below p. 152 and note. I find also the following note of 
 a date subsequent to 1889. 'It is a fact that pessimism is illogical, 
 simply because we are inadequate judges of the world, and 
 pessimism would therefore be opposed to agnosticism. We may 
 know that there is something out of joint between the world and 
 ourselves ; but we cannot know how far this is the fault of the 
 world or of ourselves. 1 
 
 97 
 
98 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 in Nature 1 / he appears to allow more weight 
 than before to the argument that the method of 
 physical development must be judged in the light 
 of its result. This paper was part of a Symposium, 
 Mr. S. Alexander has argued in a previous paper 
 against the hypothesis of ' design ' in Nature on 
 the ground that ' the fair order of Nature is only 
 acquired by a wholesale waste and sacrifice.' 
 This argument was developed by pointing to the 
 obvious 'mal-adjustments,' ' aimless destructions/ 
 &c, which characterize the processes of Nature. 
 But these, Romanes replies, necessarily belong to 
 the process considered as one of 'natural selec- 
 tion.' The question is only : Is such a process 
 per se incompatible with the hypothesis of 
 design ? And he replies in the negative. 
 
 1(1 The fair order of Nature is only acquired 
 by a wholesale waste and sacrifice." Granted. 
 But if the "wholesale waste and sacrifice," as 
 antecedent, leads to a i( fair order of Nature" as 
 its consequent, how can it be said that the 
 "wholesale waste and sacrifice" has been a 
 failure ? Or how can it be said that, in point of 
 fact, there has been a waste, or has been a sacri- 
 fice ? Clearly such things can only be said when 
 our point of view is restricted to the means (i. e. 
 the wholesale destruction of the less fit) ; not 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Williams & Norgate), 
 vol. i. no. 3, pp. 72, 73. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 99 
 
 when we extend our view to what, even within 
 the limits of human observation, is unquestion- 
 ably the end (i. e. the casual result in an ever 
 improving world of types). A candidate who is 
 plucked in a Civil Service examination because 
 he happens to be one of the less fitted to pass, 
 is no doubt an instance of failure so far as his 
 own career is concerned ; but it does not there- 
 fore follow that the system of examination is a 
 failure in its final end of securing the best men 
 for the Civil Service. And the fact that the 
 general outcome of all the individual failures in 
 Nature is that of securing what Mr. Alexander 
 calls "the fair order of Nature," is assuredly 
 evidence that the modus operandi has not been a 
 failure in relation to what, if there be any Design 
 in Nature at all, must be regarded as the higher 
 purpose of such Design. Therefore, cases of 
 individual or otherwise relative failure cannot be 
 quoted as evidence against the hypothesis of there 
 being such Design. The fact that the general 
 system of natural causation has for its eventual 
 result "a fair order of Nature/' cannot of itself 
 be a fact inimical to the hypothesis of Design in 
 Nature, even though it be true that such causation 
 entails the continual elimination of the less 
 efficient types. 
 
 'To the best of my judgment, then, this argu- 
 ment from failure, random trial, blind blundering, 
 or in whatever other terminology the argument 
 
loo THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 may be presented, is only valid as against the 
 theory of what Mr. Alexander alludes to as a 
 "Carpenter-God," i. e. that if there be Design in 
 Nature at all, it must everywhere be special 
 Design ; so that the evidence of it may as well be 
 tested by any given minute fragment of Nature — 
 such as one individual organism or class of organ- 
 isms — as by having regard to the whole Cosmos. 
 The evidence of Design in this sense I fully allow 
 has been totally destroyed by the proof of natural 
 selection. But such destruction has only brought 
 into clearer relief the much larger question that 
 rises behind, viz. as before phrased, Is there any- 
 thing about the method of natural causation, 
 considered as a whole, that is inimical to the 
 theory of Design in Nature, considered as a 
 whole ? ' 
 
 It is true that this argument does not bear 
 directly upon the character of the God whose 
 'design' Nature exhibits: but indirectly it does. 1 
 For instance, such an argument as that found 
 above (on p. 83 : 'we see a rabbit, &c.') seems to 
 be only valid on the postulate here described as 
 that of the * Carpenter-God.' 
 
 1 1 ought also to mention that Romanes on the Sunday before 
 his death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the 
 argument of Professor Knight's Aspects of Theism (Macmillan, 
 1893); in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, 'A larger good 
 is evolved through the winnowing process by which physical 
 nature casts its weaker products aside,' &c. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. ioi 
 
 It is also probable that Romanes felt the diffi- 
 culty arising from the cruelty of nature less, as he 
 was led to dwell more on humanity as the most 
 important part of nature, and perceived the func- 
 tion of suffering in the economy of human life 
 (pp. 152, 164): and also as he became more 
 impressed with the positive evidences for Chris- 
 tianity as at once the religion of sorrow and the 
 revelation of God as Love (pp. 174, ff.). The 
 Christian Faith supplies believers not only with 
 an argument against pessimism from general 
 results, but also with such an insight into the 
 Divine character and method as enables them at 
 least to bear hopefully the awful perplexities 
 which arise from the spectacle of individuals 
 suffering. 
 
 In the last year or two of his life he read very 
 attentively a great number of books on 'Christian 
 Evidences, 1 from Pascal's Pense'es downwards, and 
 studied carefully the appearance of 'plan' in the 
 Biblical Revelation considered as a whole. The 
 fact of this study appears in fragmentary remarks, 
 indices and references, which George Romanes 
 left behind him in note-books. The results of it 
 will not be unapparent in the following Notes, 
 which, I need not remind my readers, are, in spite 
 of their small bulk, the sole reason for the exist- 
 ence of this volume. 
 
 In reading these I can hardly conceive any one 
 not being possessed with a profound regret that 
 
102 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the author was not allowed to complete his work. 
 And it is only fair to ask every reader of the fol- 
 lowing pages to remember that he is reading, in 
 the main, incomplete notes and not finished work. 
 This will account for a great deal that may seem 
 sketchy and unsatisfactory in the treatment of 
 different points, and also for repetitions and traces 
 of inconsistency. But I can hardly think any one 
 can read these notes to the end without agreeing 
 with me that if I had withheld them from publi- 
 cation, the world would have lost the witness of 
 a mind, both able and profoundly sincere, feeling 
 after God and finding Him. 
 
 C. G. 
 
NOTES FOR A WORK ON 
 A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 By METAPHYSICUS. 
 
 Proposed Mottoes. 
 
 'I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man 
 there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and 
 dimmed, is by this purified and re-illumined ; and is more precious 
 far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen. 
 Now there are two classes of persons, one class who will agree 
 with you and will take your words as a revelation ; another class 
 who have no understanding of them and to whom they will 
 naturally be as idle tales. 
 
 'And you had better decide at once with which of the two 
 you are arguing ; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that 
 your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improve- 
 ment ; at the same time not grudging to either any benefit which 
 they may derive.' — Plato. 
 
 'If we would reprove with success, and show another his 
 mistake, we must see from what side he views the matter, for on 
 that side it is generally true : and, admitting this truth, show him 
 the side on which it is false.' — Pascal. 
 
 103 
 
§ i. INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Many years ago I published in Messrs. Triib- 
 ner's ' Philosophical Series/ a short treatise entitled 
 A Candid Examination of Theism by 'Physicus.' 
 Although the book made some stir at the time, 
 and has since exhibited a vitality never anticipated 
 by its author, the secret of its authorship has been 
 well preserved. 1 This secret it is my intention, 
 if possible, still to preserve ; but as it is desirable 
 (on several accounts which will become apparent 
 in the following pages) to avow identity of author- 
 ship, the present essay appears under the same 
 pseudonym 2 as its predecessor. The reason why 
 the first essay appeared anonymously is truthfully 
 stated in the preface thereof, viz. in order that the 
 reasoning should be judged on its own merits, 
 without the bias which is apt to arise on the part 
 
 *The first edition, which was published in 1878, was rapidly 
 exhausted, but, as my object in publishing was solely that of 
 soliciting criticism for my own benefit, I arranged with the pub- 
 lishers not to issue any further edition. The work has therefore 
 been out of print for many years. 
 
 [This * arrangement ' was however not actually made, or at 
 least was unknown to the present publishing firm of Kegan Paul, 
 Trench, Triibner & Co. Thus a. new edition of the book was 
 published in 1892, to the author's surprise. — Ed.] 
 
 2 [Or rather it was intended that it should appear under the 
 pseudonym of * Metaphysicus.' — Ed.] 
 104 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 105 
 
 of a reader from a knowledge of the authority — 
 or absence of authority — on the part of a writer. 
 This reason, in my opinion, still holds good as 
 regards A Candid Examination of Theism., and 
 applies in equal measure to the present sequel in 
 A Candid Examination of Religion. 
 
 It will be shown that in many respects the 
 negative conclusions reached in the former essay 
 have been greatly modified by the results of 
 maturer thought as now presented in the second. 
 Therefore it seems desirable to state at the outset 
 that, as far as I am capable of judging the modi- 
 fications in question have not been due in any 
 measure to influence from without. They appear 
 to have been due exclusively to the results of my 
 own further thought, as briefly set out in the 
 following pages, with no indebtedness to private 
 friends and but little to published utterances in 
 the form of books, &c. Nevertheless, no very 
 original ideas are here presented. Indeed, I 
 suppose it would nowadays be impossible to pre- 
 sent any idea touching religion, which has not at 
 some time or another been presented previously. 
 Still much may be done in the furthering of one's 
 thought by changing points of view, selecting and 
 arranging ideas already more or less familiar, so 
 that they may be built into new combinations ; and 
 this, I think, I have in no small degree accom- 
 plished as regards the microcosm of my own 
 mind. But I state this much only for the sake of 
 
106 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 adding a confession that, as far as introspection 
 can carry one, it does not appear to me that the 
 modifications which my views have undergone 
 since the publication of my previous Candid 
 Examination are due so much to purely logical 
 processes of the intellect, as to the sub-conscious 
 (and therefore more or less unanalyzable) 
 influences due to the ripening experience of life. 
 The extent to which this is true [i.e. the extent 
 to which experience modifies logic] * is seldom, 
 if ever, realized, although it is practically 
 exemplified every day by the sobering caution 
 which advancing age exercises upon the mind. 
 Not so much by any above-board play of 
 syllogism as by some underhand cheating of con- 
 sciousness, do the accumulating experiences of 
 life and of thought slowly enrich the judgment. 
 And this, one need hardly say, is especially true 
 in such regions of thought as present the most 
 tenuous media for the progress of thought by the 
 comparatively clumsy means of syllogistic loco- 
 motion. For the further we ascend from the solid 
 ground of verification, the less confidence should 
 we place in our wings of speculation, while the 
 more do we find the practical wisdom of such 
 intellectual caution, or distrust of ratiocination, as 
 can be given only by experience. Therefore, 
 most of all is this the case in those departments 
 
 1 [Words in square brackets have been added by me. But I 
 have not introduced the brackets when I have simply inserted 
 single unimportant words obviously necessary for the sense. — Ed.1 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 107 
 
 of thought which are furthest from the region of 
 our sensuous life — viz. metaphysics and religion. 
 And, as a matter of fact, it is just in these depart- 
 ments of thought that we find the rashness of 
 youth most amenable to the discipline in question 
 by the experience of age. 
 
 However, in spite of this confession, I have no 
 doubt that even in the matter of pure and con- 
 scious reason further thought has enabled me to 
 detect serious errors, or rather oversights, in the 
 very foundations of my Candid Examination of 
 Theism. I still think, indeed, that from the 
 premises there laid down the conclusions result in 
 due logical sequence, so that, as a matter of mere 
 ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect any 
 serious flaws, especially as this has not been done 
 by anybody else during the many years of its 
 existence. But I now clearly perceive two well- 
 nigh fatal oversights which I then committed. 
 The first was undue confidence in merely syllogistic 
 conclusions, even when derived from sound 
 premises, in regions of such high abstraction. 
 The second was, in not being sufficiently careful 
 in examining the foundations of my criticism, i. e. 
 the validity of its premises. I will here briefly 
 consider these two points separately. 
 
 As regards the first point, never was any one 
 more arrogant in his claims for pure reason than 
 I was — more arrogant in spirit though not in 
 letter, this being due to contact with science ; 
 
108 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 without ever considering how opposed to reason 
 itself is the unexpressed assumption of my earlier 
 argument as to God Himself, as if His existence 
 were a merely physical problem to be solved by 
 man's reason alone, without reference to his other 
 and higher faculties. 1 
 
 The second point is of still more importance, 
 because so seldom, if ever, recognized. 
 
 At the time of writing the Candid Examination 
 I perceived clearly how the whole question of 
 Theism from the side of reason turned on the 
 question as to the nature of natural causation. 
 My theory of natural causation obeyed the Law 
 of Parsimony, resolving all into Being as such ; 
 but, on the other hand, it erred in not consider- 
 ing whether 'higher causes' are not 'necessary* 
 to account for spiritual facts — i.e. whether the 
 ultimate Being must not be at least as high as the 
 intellectual and spiritual nature of man, i. e. higher 
 than anything merely physical or mechanical. 
 The supposition that it must does not violate the 
 Law of Parsimony. 
 
 Pure agnostics ought to investigate the religious 
 consciousness of Christians as a phenomenon 
 which may possibly be what Christians themselves 
 believe it to be, i. e. of Divine origin. And this 
 
 1 [See p. 30, quotation from Preface of 'Physicus.' The 
 state of mind expressed in the above Note is a return to the earlier 
 frame of mind of the Burney Essay, e.g. p. 20. That essay was 
 full of the thought that Christian evidences are very manifold and 
 largely * extra-scientific' — Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 109 
 
 may be done without entering into any question 
 as to the objective validity of Christian dogmas. 
 The metaphysics of Christianity may be false in 
 fact, and yet the spirit of Christianity^may be true^ 
 in substance — i. e. it may be the highest 4 good 
 gift from above' as yet given to man. 
 
 My present object, then, like that of Socrates, 
 is not to impart any philosophical system, or even 
 positive knowledge, but a frame of mind, what 
 I may term, pure agnosticism, as distinguished 
 from what is commonly so called. 
 
§ 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND PUR- 
 POSE OF THIS TREATISE. 
 
 [To understand George Romanes' mind close 
 attention must be paid to the following section. 
 Also to the fact, not explicitly noticed by him, 
 that he uses the word 'reason' (see p. 118) in a 
 sense closely resembling that in which Mr. Kidd 
 has recently used it in his Social Evolution. He 
 uses it, that is, in a restricted sense as equivalent 
 to the process of scientific ratiocination. His main 
 position is therefore this: Scientific ratiocination 
 cannot find adequate grounds for belief in God. 
 But the pure agnostic must recognize that God 
 may have revealed Himself by other means than 
 that of scientific ratiocination. As religion is for 
 the whole man, so all human # faculties may be 
 required to seek after God and find Him — emo- 
 tions and experiences of an extra-' rational ' kind. 
 The * pure agnostic ' must be prepared to wel- 
 come evidence of all sorts. — Ed. J 
 
 It is desirable to be clear at the outset as to 
 the meaning which I shall throughout attach to 
 certain terms and phrases. 
 
 THEISM. 
 
 It will frequently be said, 'on the theory of 
 Theism/ * supposing Theism true, 1 &c. By such 
 
 no 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION, in 
 
 phrase my meaning will always be equivalent to — 
 'supposing' for the sake of argument, that the 
 nearest approach which the human mind can make 
 to a true notion of the ens realissimum, is that of 
 an inconceivably magnified image of itself at its 
 best.* 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Similarly, when it is said, 'supposing Christi- 
 anity true,' what will be meant is — 'supposing for 
 the sake of argument, that the Christian system 
 as a whole, from its earliest dawn in Judaism, to 
 the phase of its development at the present time, 
 is the highest revelation of Himself which a per- 
 sonal Deity has vouchsafed to mankind.' This I 
 intend to signify an attitude of pure agnosticism 
 as regards any particular dogma of Christianity — 
 even that of the Incarnation. 
 
 Should it be said that by holding in suspense 
 any distinctive dogma of Christianity, I am not 
 considering Christianity at all, I reply, Not so; 
 I am not writing a theological, but a philosophical 
 treatise, and shall consider Christianity merely as 
 one of many religions, though, of course, the 
 latest, &c. Thus considered, Christianity takes 
 its place as the highest manifestation of evolution 
 in this department of the human mind; but I am 
 not concerned even with so important an ecclesi- 
 astical dogma as that of the Incarnation of God in 
 Christ. As far as this treatise has to go, that 
 dogma may or may not be true. The important 
 
112 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 question for us is, Has God spoken through the 
 medium of our religious instincts? And although 
 this will necessarily involve the question whether 
 or how far in the case of Christianity there is 
 objective evidence of His having spoken by the 
 mouth of holy men [of the Old Testament] which 
 have been since the world began, such will be the 
 case only because it is a question of objective 
 evidence whether or how far the religious 
 instincts of these men, or this race of men, have 
 been so much superior to those of other men, or 
 races of men, as to have enabled them to predict 
 future events of a religious character. And 
 whether or not in these latter days God has spoken 
 ' by His own Son is not a question for us, further 
 than to investigate the higher class of religious 
 phenomena which unquestionably have been pres- 
 ent in the advent and person of Jesus. The 
 question whether Jesus was the Son of God, is, 
 logically speaking, a question of ontology, which, 
 qud pure agnostics, we are logically forbidden to 
 touch. 
 
 But elsewhere I ought to show that, from my 
 point of view as to the fundamental question 
 being whether God has spoken at all through the 
 religious instincts of mankind, it may very well 
 be that Christ was not God, and yet that He gave 
 the highest revelation of God. If the 'first Man' 
 was allegorical, why not the 'second? 1 It is, 
 indeed, an historical fact that the 'second Man* 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 1 13 
 
 existed, but so likewise may the 'first.' And, as 
 regards the 'personal claims' of Christ, all that 
 He said is not incompatible with His having been 
 Gabriel, and His Holy Ghost, Michael. 1 Or He 
 may have been a man deceived as to His own 
 personality, and yet the vehicle of highest inspi- 
 ration. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 By the term 'religion,' I shall mean any theory 
 of personal agency in the universe, belief in which 
 is strong enough in any degree to influence con- 
 duct. No term has been used more loosely of 
 late years, or in a greater variety of meanings. 
 Of course anybody may use it in any sense he 
 pleases, provided he defines exactly in what sense 
 he does so. The above seems to be most in 
 accordance with traditional usage. 
 
 AGNOSTICISM 'PURE' AND 'IMPURE.' 
 
 The modern and highly convenient term 
 •Agnosticism,' is used in two very different senses. 
 By its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined 
 to signify an attitude of reasoned ignorance 
 touching everything that lies beyond the sphere 
 of sense-perception — a professed inability to 
 found valid belief on any other basis. It is in 
 this its original sense — and also, in my opinion, 
 its only philosophically justifiable sense — that I 
 shall understand the term. But the other, and 
 
 1 [i. e. Supernatural but not strictly Divine Persons. Surely, 
 however, the proposition is not maintainable. — Ed.] 
 
H4 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 perhaps more popular sense in which the word is 
 now employed, is as the correlative of Mr. H. 
 Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable. 
 
 This latter term is philosophically erroneous, 
 implying important negative knowledge that if 
 there be a God we know this much about Him — 
 that He cannot reveal Himself to man. 1 Pure 
 agnosticism is as defined by Huxley. 
 
 Of all the many scientific men whom I have 
 known, the most pure in his agnosticism — not 
 only in profession but in spirit and conduct — 
 was Darwin. (What he says in his autobiography 
 about Christianity* shows no profundity of thought 
 in the direction of philosophy or religion. His 
 mind was too purely inductive for this. But, on 
 this very account, it is the more remarkable that 
 his rejection of Christianity was due, not to any 
 a priori bio.s against the creed on grounds of reason 
 as absurd, but solely on the ground of an apparent 
 moral objection a posteriori?) Faraday and 
 many other first-rate originators in science were 
 like Darwin. 
 
 As an illustration of impure agnosticism take 
 Hume's ^/wn argument against miracles, lead- 
 ing on to the analogous case of the attitude of 
 scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Not- 
 
 2 [This is another instance of recurrence to an earlier thought ; 
 see Burney Essay, p. 25. — Ed.] 
 
 9 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. 308. 
 
 3 [See further, p. 194.— Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 115 
 
 withstanding that they have the close analogy of 
 mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, 
 scientific men as a class are here quite as dog- 
 matic as the straightest sect of theologians. 
 I may give examples which can cause no offence, 
 inasmuch as the men in question have themselves 
 
 made the facts public, viz. refusing to go to 
 
 [a famous spiritualist] ; refusing to try in 
 
 thought-reading. 1 These men all professed to be 
 agnostics at the very time when thus so egregrious- 
 ly violating their philosophy by their conduct. 
 
 Of course I do not mean to say that, even to 
 a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in 
 part by antecedent presumption — e. g. in ordi- 
 nary life, the prima facie case, motive, &c, counts 
 for evidence in a court of law — and where there 
 is a strong antecedent improbability a proportion- 
 ately greater weight of evidence a posteriori is 
 needed to counterbalance it : so that, e. g. better 
 evidence would be needed to convict the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket- 
 picking. And so it is with speculative philosophy. 
 But in both cases our only guide is known 
 analogy ; therefore, the further we are removed 
 from possible experience — i. e. the more remote 
 from experience the sphere contemplated — the 
 less value attaches to antecedent presumptions. 2 
 
 1 [On the whole I have thought it best to omit the names. — 
 Ed.] 
 
 2 [The MS. note here continues: 'Here introduce all that I 
 
n6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 Maximum remoteness from possible experience is 
 reached in the sphere of the final mystery of 
 things with which religion has to do ; so that here 
 all presumption has faded away into a vanishing 
 point, and pure agnosticism is our only rational atti- 
 tude. In other words, here we should all alike 
 be pure agnostics as far as reason is concerned ; 
 and, if any of us are to attain to any information, it 
 can only be by means of some super-added 
 faculty of our minds. The questions as to whether 
 there are any such super-added faculties ; if so, 
 whether they ever appear to have been acted upon 
 from without ; if they have, in what manner they 
 have ; what is their report, how far they are 
 trustworthy in that report, and so on — these are 
 the questions with which this treatise is to be 
 mainly concerned. 
 
 say on the subject in my Burney Prize.' I have not, however, 
 introduced any quotation into the text because (i) I think 
 Romanes makes his meaning plain in the text as it stands; (2) I 
 cannot find in the essay in question any exactly appropriate pas- 
 sage of reasonable length to quote. The greater part of the essay 
 is, however, directed to meet the scientific objection to the doctrine 
 that prayer is answered in the physical region, by showing that 
 this objection consists in an argument from the known to the 
 unknown, i. e. from the known sphere of invariable physical laws 
 to the unknown sphere of God's relation to all such laws ; and is, 
 therefore, weak in proportion as the unknown sphere is remote 
 trom possible experience of a scientific kind, and admits of an 
 indefinite number of possibilities, more or less conceivable to our 
 imagination, which would or might prevent the scientific argu- 
 ment from having legitimate application to the question in 
 hand. — Ed]. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 1 1 7 
 
 My own attitude may be here stated. I do not 
 claim any [religious] certainty of an intuitive kind 
 myself ; but am nevertheless able to investigate the 
 abstract logic of the matter. And, although this 
 may seem but barren dialectic, it may, I hope, be 
 of practical service if it secures a fair hearing' to 
 the reports given by the vast majority of mankind 
 who unquestionably believe them to emanate from 
 some such super-added faculties — numerous and 
 diverse though their religions be. Besides, in my 
 youth I published an essay (the Candid Examina- 
 tion) which excited a good deal of interest at the 
 time, and has been long out of print. In that 
 treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong 
 touching what I constituted the basal argument 
 for my negative conclusion. Therefore I now 
 feel it obligatory on me to publish the following 
 results of my maturer thought, from the same 
 stand-point of pure reason. Even though I have 
 obtained no further light from the side of intui- 
 tion, I have from that of intellect. So that, if 
 there be in truth any such intuition, I occupy with 
 regard to the organ of it the same position as 
 that of the blind lecturer on optics. But on this 
 very account I cannot be accused of partiality 
 towards it. 
 
 It is generally assumed that when a man has 
 clearly perceived agnosticism to be the only legit- 
 imate attitude of reason to rest in with regard to 
 religion (as I will subsequently show that it is), 
 
n8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 he has thereby finished with the matter ; he can 
 go no further. The main object of this treatise 
 is to show that such is by no means the case. 
 He has then only begun his enquiry into the 
 grounds and justification of religious belief. For 
 reason is not the only attribute of man, nor is it 
 the only faculty which he habitually employs for 
 the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual 
 faculties are of no less importance in their respec- 
 tive spheres even of everyday life ; faith, trust, 
 taste, &c, are as needful in ascertaining truth as 
 to character, beauty, &c., as is reason. Indeed 
 we may take it that reason is concerned in ascer- 
 taining truth only where causation is concerned ; 
 the appropriate organs for its ascertainment where 
 anything else is concerned belong to the moral 
 and spiritual region. 
 
 As Herbert Spencer says, 'men of science 
 may be divided into two classes, of which the one, 
 well exemplified by Faraday, keeping their reli- 
 gion and their science absolutely separate, are 
 unperplexed by any incongruities between them, 
 and the other of which, occupying themselves 
 exclusively with the facts of science, never ask 
 what implications they have. Be it trilobite or 
 be it double star, their thought about it is much 
 like the thought of Peter Bell about the prim- 
 rose/ 1 Now, both these classes are logical, since 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1894. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 119 
 
 both, as to their religion, adopt an attitude of 
 pure agnosticism, not only in theory, but also in 
 practice. What, however, have we to say of the 
 third class, which Spencer does not mention, 
 although it is, I think, the largest, viz. of those 
 scientific men who expressly abstain from draw- 
 ing a line of division between science and reli- 
 gion [and then judge of religion purely on the 
 principles and by the method of science]? 1 
 
 There are two opposite casts of mind — the 
 mechanical (scientific, &c.) and the spiritual 
 (artistic, religious, &c). These may alternate 
 even in the same individual. An 'agnostic' has 
 no hesitation — even though he himself keenly 
 experience the latter — that the former only is 
 worthy of trust. But a pure agnostic must know 
 better, as he will perceive that there is nothing to 
 choose between the two in point of trustworthi- 
 ness. Indeed, if choice has to be made, the 
 mystic might claim higher authority for his direct 
 intuitions. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said, in the 
 opening section of his Synthetic Philosophy, that 
 wherever human thought appears to be radically 
 divided, [there must be truth on both sides and 
 that the] 'reconciliation' of opposing views is to 
 
 x [Some such phrase is necessary to complete the sentence. — 
 Ed.] 
 
120 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 be found by emphasizing that ultimate element 
 of truth which on each side underlies manifold 
 differences. More than is generally supposed 
 depends on points of view, especially where first 
 principles of a subject are in dispute. Opposite 
 sides of the same shield may present wholly dif- 
 ferent aspects. 1 Spencer alludes to this with spe- 
 cial reference to the conflict between science and 
 religion ; and it is in this same connexion that I 
 also allude to it. For it seems to me, after many 
 years of thought upon the subject, that the 
 ' reconciliation ' admits of being carried much fur- 
 ther than it has been by him. For he effects this 
 reconciliation only to the extent of showing that 
 religion arises from the recognition of funda- 
 mental mystery — which it may be proved that 
 science also recognizes in all her fundamental 
 ideas. This, however, is after all little more than 
 a platitude. That our ultimate scientific ideas 
 (i. e. ultimate grounds of experience) are inex- 
 plicable, is a proposition which is self-evident 
 since the dawn of human thought. My aim is to 
 carry the 'reconciliation' into much more detail 
 and yet without quitting the grounds of pure rea- 
 son. I intend to take science and religion in 
 their present highly developed states as such and 
 show that on a systematic examination of the lat- 
 ter by the methods of the former, the 'conflict 1 
 between the two may be not merely 'reconciled* 
 
 1 First Principles, Parti, ch. I. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 121 
 
 as regards the highest generalities of each, but 
 entirely abolished in all matters of detail which 
 can be regarded as of any great importance. 
 
 In any methodical enquiry the first object 
 should be to ascertain the fundamental principles 
 with which the enquiry is concerned. In actual 
 research, however, it is by no means always the 
 case that the enquirer knows, or is able at first to 
 ascertain what those principles are. In fact, it is 
 often only at the end of a research, that they are 
 discovered to be the fundamental principles. 
 Such has been my own experience with regard to 
 the subject of the present enquiry. Although all 
 my thinking life has been concerned, off and on, 
 in contemplating the problem of our religious 
 instincts, the sundry attempts which have been 
 made by mankind for securing their gratification, 
 and the important question as to their objective 
 justification, it is only in advanced years that I 
 have clearly perceived wherein the first principles 
 of such a research must consist. And I doubt 
 whether any one has hitherto clearly defined this 
 point. The principles in question are the nature 
 of causation and the nature of faith. 
 
 My objects then in this treatise are, mainly, 
 three: 1st, to purify agnosticism; 2nd, to con- 
 sider more fully than heretofore, and from the 
 stand-point of pure agnosticism, the nature of 
 
122 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 natural causation, or, more correctly, the relation 
 of what we know on the subject of such causa- 
 tion to the question of Theism ; and, 3rd, again 
 starting from the same stand-point, to consider 
 the religious consciousnesses of men as phenom- 
 ena of experience (i. e. as regarded by us from 
 without), and especially in their highest phase of 
 development as exhibited in Christianity. 
 
§ 3. CAUSALITY. 
 
 Only because we are so familiar with the 
 great phenomenon of causality do we take it for 
 granted, and think that we reach an ultimate 
 explanation of anything when we have succeeded 
 in finding the * cause 1 thereof: when, in point of 
 fact, we have only succeeded in merging it in the 
 mystery of mysteries. I often wish we could 
 have come into the world, like the young of some 
 other mammals, with all the powers of intellect 
 that we shall ever subsquently attain already 
 developed, but without any individual experience, 
 and so without any of the blunting effects of 
 custom. Could we have done so, surely nothing 
 in the world would more acutely excite our intel- 
 ligent astonishment than the one universal fact 
 of causation. That everything which happens 
 should have a cause, that this should invariably 
 be proportioned to its effect, so that, no matter 
 how complex the interaction of causes, the same 
 interaction should always produce the same result ; 
 that this rigidly exact system of energizing should 
 be found to present all the appearances of uni- 
 versality and of eternity, so that, e. g. the motion 
 of the solar system in space is being determined 
 by some causes beyond human ken, and that we 
 are indebted to billions of cellular unions, each 
 
 123 
 
124 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 involving billions of separate causes, for our 
 hereditary passage from an invertebrate ancestry, 
 — that such things should be, would surely strike 
 us as the most wonderful fact in this wonderful 
 universe. 
 
 Now, although familiarity with this fact has 
 made us forget its wonder to the extent of virtu- 
 ally assuming that we know all about it, philo- 
 sophical enquiry shows that, besides empirically 
 knowing it to be a fact, we only know one other 
 thing about it, viz. — that our knowledge of it is 
 derived from our own activity when we ourselves 
 are causes. No result of psychological analysis 
 seems to me more certain than this. 1 If it were 
 not for our own volitions, we should be ignorant 
 of what we can now not doubt, on pain of suicidal 
 scepticism, to be the most general fact of nature. 
 Such, at least, seems to me by far the most rea- 
 sonable theory of our idea of causality, and is 
 the one now most generally entertained by phil- 
 osophers of every school. 
 
 Now, to the plain man it will always seem 
 that if our very notion of causality is derived 
 from our own volition — as our very notion of 
 energy is derived from our sense of effort in 
 overcoming resistance by our volition — presum- 
 
 1 [Here it was intended to insert further explanation 'show- 
 ing that mere observation of causality in external nature would 
 not have yielded idea of anything further than time and space 
 relations.' — Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 125 
 
 ably the truest notion we can form of that in 
 which causation objectively consists is the notion 
 derived from that known mode of existence 
 which alone gives us the notion of causality at all. 
 Hence the plain man will always infer that all 
 energy is of the nature of will-energy, and all 
 objective causation of the nature of subjective. 
 Nor is this inference confined to the plain man ; 
 the deepest philosophical thinkers have arrived 
 at substantially the same opinion, e. g. Hegel, 
 Schopenhauer. So that the direct and most 
 natural interpretation of causality in external 
 nature which is drawn by primitive thought in 
 savages and young children, seems destined to 
 become also the ultimate deliverance of human 
 thought in the highest levels of its culture/ 
 
 But, be this as it may, we are not concerned 
 with any such questions of abstract philosophical 
 speculation. As pure agnostics they lie beyond 
 our sphere. Therefore, I allude to them only for 
 the sake of showing that there is nothing either 
 in the science or philosophy of mankind inimical 
 to the theory of natural causation being the ener- 
 gizing of a will objective to us. And we can 
 plainly see that if such be the case, and if that 
 will be self-consistent, its operations, as revealed 
 
 '[This theory was suggested in the Burney Essay, p. 136, 
 and ridiculed in the Candid Examination; see above, p. 10. 
 Romanes intended at this point to consider at greater length his 
 old views 'on causation as due to being qua being.' — Ed.] 
 
126 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 in natural causation, must appear to us when con- 
 sidered en bloc (or not piece-meal as by savages), 
 non-volitional, or mechanical. 
 
 Of all philosophical theories of causality the 
 most repugnant to reason must be those of Hume, 
 Kant and Mill, which while differing from one 
 another agree in this- — that they attribute the 
 principle of causality to a creation of our own 
 minds, or in other words deny that there is any- 
 thing objective in the relation of cause and effect 
 — i. e. in the very thing which all physical science 
 is engaged in discovering in particular cases of it. 
 
 The conflict of Science and Religion has 
 always arisen from one common ground of agree- 
 ment, or fundamental postulate of both parties 
 — without which, indeed, it would plainly have 
 been impossible that any conflict could have 
 arisen, inasmuch as there would then have been 
 no field for battle. Every thesis must rest on 
 some hypothesis ; therefore, in cases where two 
 or more rival theses rest on a common hypoth- 
 esis, the disputes must needs collapse so soon as 
 the common hypothesis is proved erroneous. 
 And proportionably, in whatever degree the pre- 
 viously common hypothesis is shown to be dubi- 
 ous, in that degree are the disputations shown 
 to be possibly unreal. Now, it is one of the 
 main objects of this treatise to show that the 
 common hypothesis on which all the disputes 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 127 
 
 between Science and Religion have arisen is 
 highly dubious. And not only so, but that quite 
 apart from modern science all the difficulties on the 
 side of intellect (or reason) which religious belief 
 has ever encountered in the past, or can ever 
 encounter in the future, whether in the individual 
 or the race, arise, and arise exclusively, from the 
 self-same ground of this highly dubious hypothesis. 
 The hypothesis, or fundamental postulate, in 
 question is, If there be a personal God, He is not 
 immediately concerned with natural causation. It is 
 assumed that qua 'first cause,' He can in no way 
 be concerned with 'second causes,' further than 
 by having started them in the first instance as a 
 great machinery of * natural causation,' working 
 under 'general laws.' True, the theory of Deism, 
 which entertains more or less expressly this 
 hypothesis of * Deus ex machina,' has during the 
 present century been more and more superseded 
 by that of Theism, which entertains also in some 
 indefinable measure the doctrine of ' immanence ; ' 
 as well as by that of Pantheism, which expressly 
 holds this doctrine to the exclusion in toto of its 
 rival. But Theism has never yet entertained it 
 sufficiently or up to the degree required by the 
 pure logic of the case, while Pantheism has but 
 rarely considered the rival doctrine of personal- 
 ity — or the possible union of immanence with 
 personality." 
 
 1 See, however, Aubrey Moore in Lux Mundi, pp. 94-96, and 
 
128 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 Now it is the object of this book to go much 
 further than any one has hitherto gone in proving 
 the possibility of this union. For I purpose to 
 show that, provided only we lay aside all preju- 
 dice, sentiment, &c, and follow to its logical 
 termination the guidance of pure reason, there 
 are no other conclusions to be reached than 
 these. Namely, {A) That if there be a personal 
 God, no reason can be assigned why He should 
 not be immanent in nature, or why all causation 
 should not be the immediate expression of His 
 will. (B) That every available reason points to 
 the inference that He probably is so. (C) That 
 if He is so, and if His will is self-consistent, all 
 natural causation must needs appear to us 
 * mechanical/ Therefore (Z>) that it is no argu- 
 ment against the divine origin of a thing, event, 
 &c, to prove it due to natural causation. 
 
 After having dealt briefly with (A) t (B) and 
 (C), I would show that (Z>) is the most practi- 
 cally important of these four conclusions. For 
 the fundamental hypothesis which I began by 
 mentioning is just the opposite of this. Whether 
 tacitly or expressed, it has always been assumed 
 by both sides in the controversy between Science 
 and Religion, that as soon as this, that and the 
 other phenomenon has been explained by means 
 
 Le Conte, Evolution in its Relation to Religious Thought^ pp. 
 335, ff. [N.B. The references not enclosed in brackets are the 
 author's, not mine.— Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 129 
 
 of natural causation, it has thereupon ceased to 
 be ascribable [directly] to God. The distinction 
 between the natural and the supernatural has 
 always been regarded by both sides as indisput- 
 ably sound, and this fundamental agreement as 
 to ground of battle has furnished the only possi- 
 ble condition to fighting. It has also furnished 
 the condition of all the past, and may possibly 
 furnish the condition of all the future, discomfit- 
 ures of religion. True religion is indeed learn- 
 ing her lesson that something is wrong in her 
 method of fighting, and many of her soldiers are 
 now waking up to the fact that it is here that her 
 error lies — as in past times they woke up to see 
 the error of denying the movement of the earth, 
 the antiquity of the earth, the origin of species 
 by evolution, &c. But no one, even of her cap- 
 tains and generals, has so far followed up their 
 advantage to its ultimate consequences. And 
 this is what I want to do. The logical advantage 
 is clearly on their side ; and it is their own fault 
 if they do not gain the ultimate victory, — not 
 only as against science, but as against intellectual 
 dogmatism in every form. This can be routed 
 all along the line. For science is only the organ- 
 ized study of natural causation, and the experi- 
 ence of every human being, in so far as it leads 
 to dogmatism on purely intellectual grounds, does 
 so on account of entertaining the fundamental 
 postulate in question. The influence of custom 
 
13° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 and want of imagination is here very great. But 
 the answer always should be to move the ulterior 
 question — what is the natureof natural causation? 
 
 Now I propose to push to its full logical con- 
 clusion the consequence of this answer. For no 
 one, even the most orthodox, has as yet learnt 
 this lesson of religion to anything like fullness. 
 God is still grudged His own universe, so to 
 speak, as far and as often as He can possibly be. 
 As examples we may take the natural growth of 
 Christianity out of previous religions ; the natural 
 spread of it ; the natural conversion of St. Paul, 
 or of anybody else. It is still assumed on both 
 sides that there must be something inexplicable 
 or miraculous about a phenomenon in order to its 
 being divine. 
 
 What else have science and religion ever had 
 to fight about save on the basis of this common 
 hypothesis, and hence as to whether the causa- 
 tion of such and such a phenomenon has been 
 'natural* or 'super-natural.' For even the dis- 
 putes as to science contradicting scripture, ulti- 
 mately turn on the assumption of inspiration 
 (supposing it genuine) being ' super-natural* as to 
 its causation. Once grant that it is ' natural ' and 
 all possible ground of dispute is removed. 
 
 I can well understand why infidelity should 
 make the basal assumption in question, because 
 its whole case must rest thereon. But surely it 
 is time for theists to abandon this assumption. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 131 
 
 The assumed distinction between causation as 
 natural and super-natural no doubt began in 
 superstition in prehistoric time, and throughout 
 the historical period has continued from a vague 
 feeling that the action of God must be mysteri- 
 ous, and hence that the province of religion must 
 be within the super-sensuous. Now, it is true 
 enough that the finite cannot comprehend the 
 infinite, and hence the feeling in question is log- 
 ically sound. But under the influence of this 
 feeling, men have always committed the fallacy 
 of concluding that if a phenomenon has been 
 explained in terms of natural causation, it has 
 thereby been explained in toto — forgetting that it 
 has only been explained up to the point where 
 such causation is concerned, and that the real 
 question of ultimate causation has merely been 
 thus postponed. And assuredly beyond this 
 point there is an infinitude of mystery sufficient 
 to satisfy the most exacting mystic. For even 
 Herbert Spencer allows that in ultimate analysis 
 all natural causation is inexplicable. 
 
 Logically regarded, the advance of science, 
 far from having weakened religion, has immeasur- 
 ably strengthened it. For it has proved the 
 uniformity of natural causation. The so-called 
 natural sphere has increased at the expense of the 
 'super-natural.' Unquestionably. But although 
 to lower grades of culture this always seems a 
 fact inimical to religion, we may now perceive it 
 
132 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 is quite the reverse, since it merely goes to abolish 
 the primitive or uncultured distinction in question. 
 
 It is indeed most extraordinary how long this 
 distinction has held sway, or how it is the ablest 
 men of all generations have quietly assumed that 
 when once we know the natural causation of any 
 phenomenon, we therefore know all about it — or, 
 as it were, have removed it from the sphere of 
 mystery altogether, when, in point of fact, we 
 have only, merged it in a much greater mystery 
 than ever. 
 
 But the answer to our astonishment how this 
 distinction has managed to survive so long lies in 
 the extraordinary effect of custom, which here 
 seems to slay reason altogether ; and the more a 
 man busies himself with natural causes (e. g. in 
 scientific research) the greater does this slavery 
 to custom become, till at last he seems positively 
 unable to perceive the real state of the case — 
 regarding any rational thinking thereon as chi- 
 merical, so that the term 4 meta-physical/ even in 
 its etymological sense as super-sensuous or beyond 
 physical causation, becomes a term of rational 
 reproach. Obviously such a man has written 
 himself down, if not an ass, at all events a crea- 
 ture wholly incapable of rationally treating any 
 of the highest problems presented either by 
 nature or by man. 
 
 On any logical theory of Theism there can be 
 no such distinction between 'natural' and 'super- 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 133 
 
 natural' as is usually drawn, since on that theory 
 all causation is but the action of the Divine Will. 
 And if we draw any distinction between such 
 action as 'immediate 1 or 'mediate,' we can only 
 mean this as valid in relation to mankind — i. e. 
 in relation to our experience. For, obviously, it 
 would be wholly incompatible with pure agnosti- 
 cism to suppose that we are capable of drawing 
 any such distinction in relation to the Divine 
 activity itself. Even apart from the theory of 
 Theism, pure agnosticism must take it that the 
 real distinction is not between natural and super- 
 natural, but between the explicable and the 
 inexplicable — meaning by those terms that which 
 is and that which is not accountable by such 
 causes as fall within the range of human observa- 
 tion. Or, in other words, the distinction is really 
 between the observable and the unobservable 
 causal processes of the universe. 
 
 Although science is essentially engaged in 
 explaining, her work is necessarily confined to the 
 sphere of natural causation ; beyond that sphere 
 (i. e. the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In 
 other words, even if she were able to explain the 
 natural causation of everything, she would be 
 unable to assign the ultimate raison detre of 
 anything. 
 
 It is not my intention to write an essay on the 
 nature of causality, or even to attempt a survey 
 
134 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of the sundry theories which have been pro- 
 pounded on this subject by philosophers. Indeed, 
 to attempt this would be little less than to write 
 a history of philosophy itself. Nevertheless it is 
 necessary for my purpose to make a few remarks 
 touching the main branches of thought upon the 
 matter. 1 
 
 The remarkable nature of the facts. These are 
 remarkable, since they are common to all human 
 experience. Everything that happens has a cause. 
 The same happening has always the same cause 
 — or the same consequent the same antecedent. 
 It is only familiarity with this great fact that 
 prevents universal wonder at it, for, notwithstand- 
 ing all the theories upon it, no one has ever really 
 shown why it is so. That the same causes always 
 produce the same effects is a proposition which 
 expresses a fundamental fact of our knowledge, 
 but the knowledge of this fact is purely empirical ; 
 we can show no reason why it should be a fact. 
 Doubtless, if it were not a fact, there could be no 
 •so-called * Order of Nature/ and consequently no 
 science, no philosophy, or perhaps (if the irreg- 
 ularity were sufficiently frequent) no possibility 
 of human experience. But although this is easy 
 enough to show, it in no wise tends to show why 
 the same causes should always produce the same 
 effects. 
 
 x [Nothing more however was written than what follows 
 immediately. — Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 135 
 
 So manifest is it that our knowledge of the 
 fact in question is only empirical, that some of 
 our ablest thinkers, such as Hume and Mill, have 
 failed to perceive even so much as the intel- 
 lectual necessity of looking beyond our empirical 
 knowledge of the fact to gain any explanation of 
 the fact itself. Therefore they give to the world 
 the wholly vacuous, or merely tautological theory 
 of causation — viz. that of constancy of sequence 
 within human observation. 1 
 
 If it be said of my argument touching caus- 
 ality, that it is naturalizing or materializing the 
 super-natural or spiritual (as most orthodox 
 persons will feel) , my reply is that deeper 
 thought will show it to be at least as susceptible 
 of the opposite view — viz. that it is subsuming 
 the natural into the super-natural, or spiritualizing 
 the material : and a pure agnostic, least of all, 
 should have anything to say as against either of 
 these alternative points of view. Or we may 
 state the matter thus : in as far as pure reason 
 can have anything to say in the matter, she 
 ought to incline towards the view of my doctrine 
 spiritualizing the material, because it is pretty 
 certain that we could know nothing about natural 
 
 , [The author intended further to show the vacuity of this 
 theory and point out how Mill himself appears to perceive it by 
 his introduction after the term 'invariably* of the term 'uncon- 
 ditionally;' he refers also to Martineau, Study of Religion, i. pp. 
 152, 3.— Ed.] 
 
*3 6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 causation — even so much as its existence — but 
 for our own volitions. 
 
 FREE WILL. 1 
 
 Having read all that is said to be worth read- 
 ing on the Free Will controversy, it appears to 
 me that the main issues and their logical conclu- 
 sions admit of being summed up in a very few 
 words, thus : — 
 
 1. A writer, before he undertakes to deal with 
 this subject at all, should be conscious of fully 
 perceiving the fundamental distinction between 
 responsibility as merely legal and as also moral ; 
 otherwise he cannot but miss the very essence of 
 the question in debate. No one questions the 
 patent fact of responsibility as legal ; the only 
 question is touching responsibility as moral. Yet 
 the principal bulk of literature on Free Will and 
 Necessity arises from disputants on both sides 
 failing to perceive this basal distinction. Even 
 such able writers as Spencer, Huxley and Clifford 
 are in this position. 
 
 2. The root question is as to whether the will 
 is caused or un-caused. For however much this 
 root-question may be obscured by its own abun- 
 dant foliage, the latter can have no existence but 
 that which it derives from the former. 
 
 T [This Note on Free Will is exceedingly incomplete and con- 
 sequently obscure. But it seemed to me on the whole to be 
 sufficiently intelligible to admit of publication.— Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 137 
 
 3. Consequently, if libertarians grant causality 
 as appertaining to the will, however much they 
 may beat about the bush, they are surrendering 
 their position all along the line, unless they fall 
 back upon the more ultimate question as to the 
 nature of natural causation. Now it can be 
 proved that this more ultimate question is [scien- 
 tifically] unanswerable. Therefore both sides 
 may denominate natural causations — an unknown 
 quantity. 
 
 4. Hence the whole controversy ought to be 
 seen by both sides to resolve itself into this — is 
 or is not the will determined by x ? And, if this 
 seems but a barren question to debate, I do not 
 undertake to deny the fact. At the same time 
 there is clearly this real issue remaining — viz. Is 
 the will self-determining, or is it determined — i. e. 
 from without? 
 
 5. If determined from without, is there any 
 room for freedom, in the sense required for sav- 
 ing the doctrine of moral responsibility ? And I 
 think the answer to this must be an unconditional 
 negative. 
 
 6. But, observe, it is not one and the same 
 thing to ask, Is the will entirely determined from 
 without ? and Is the will entirely determined by 
 natural causation {x) ? For the unknown quan- 
 tity x may very well include #', if by x* we under- 
 stand all the unknown ingredients of per- 
 sonality. 
 
I3 8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION, 
 
 7. Hence, determinists gain no advantage over 
 their adversaries by any possible proof (at pres- 
 ent impossible) that all acts of will are due to 
 natural causation, unless they can show the nature 
 of the latter, and that it is of such nature as sup- 
 ports their conclusion. For aught we at present 
 know, the will may very well be free in the sense 
 required, even though all its acts are due to x. 
 
 8. In particular, for aught we know to the 
 contrary, all may be due to x f , i. e. all causation 
 may be of the nature of will (as, indeed, many 
 systems of philosophy maintain), with the result 
 that every human will is of the nature of a First 
 Cause. In support of which possibility it may be 
 remarked that most philosophies are led to the 
 theory of a causa causarum as regards x. 
 
 9. To the obvious objection that with a plu- 
 rality of first causes — each the fons et origo of a 
 new and never-ending stream of causality — the 
 cosmos must sooner or later become a chaos by 
 cumulative intersection of the streams, the answer 
 is to be found in the theory of monism. 1 
 
 10. Nevertheless, the ultimate difficulty 
 remains which is depicted in my essay on the 
 ' World as an Eject.' 2 But this, again, is merged 
 
 1 [See above, p. 32. — Ed.] 
 
 2 Contemporary Review, July, 1886. [But the 'ultimate diffi- 
 culty' referred to above would seem to be the relation of manifold 
 dependent human wills to the One Ultimate and All-embracing 
 Will.— Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 139 
 
 in the mystery of Personality, which is only 
 known as an inexplicable, and seemingly ulti- 
 mate fact. 
 
 11. So that the general conclusion of the 
 whole matter must be — pure agnosticism. 
 
§ 4. FAITH. 
 
 Faith in its religious sense is distinguished not 
 only from opinion (or belief founded on reason 
 alone), in that it contains a spiritual element; it 
 is further distinguished from belief founded on 
 the affections, by needing an active co-operation 
 of the will. Thus all parts of the human mind 
 have to be involved in faith — intellect, emotions, 
 will. We * believe' in the theory of evolution on 
 grounds of reason alone; we 'believe' in the 
 affection of our parents, children, &c, almost (or 
 it may be exclusively) on what I have called 
 spiritual grounds — i. e. on grounds of spiritual 
 experience ; for this we need no exercise either 
 of reason or of will. But no one can * believe' 
 in God, or a fortiori in Christ, without also a 
 severe effort of will. This I hold to be a matter 
 of fact, whether or not there be a God or a Christ. 
 
 Observe will is to be distinguished from desire. 
 It matters not what psychologists may have to 
 say upon this subject. Whether desire differs from 
 will in kind or only in degree — whether will is 
 desire in action, so to speak, and desire but incipi- 
 ent will — are questions with which we need not 
 trouble ourselves. For it is certain that there 
 are agnostics who would greatly prefer being the- 
 
 140 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 14 1 
 
 ists, and theists who would give all they possess 
 to be Christians, if they could thus secure pro- 
 motion by purchase — i. e. by one single act of 
 will. But yet the desire is not strong enough to 
 sustain the will in perpetual action, so as to make 
 the continual sacrifices which Christianity entails. 
 Perhaps the hardest of these sacrifices to an 
 intelligent man is that to his own intellect. At 
 least I am certain that this is so in my own case. 
 I have been so long accustomed to constitute my 
 reason my sole judge of truth, that even while 
 reason itself tells me it is not unreasonable to 
 expect that the heart and the will should be 
 required to join with reason in seeking God (for 
 religion is for the whole man), I am too jealous 
 of my reason to exercise my will in the direction 
 of my most heart-felt desires. For assuredly the 
 strongest desire of my nature is to find that that 
 nature is not deceived in its highest aspirations. 
 Yet I cannot bring myself so much as to make 
 a venture in the direction of faith. For instance, 
 regarded from one point of view it seems reason- 
 able enough that Christianity should have enjoined 
 the doing of the doctrine as a necessary condition 
 to ascertaining (i. e. 'believing') its truth. But 
 from another, and my more habitual point of view, 
 it seems almost an affront to reason to make 
 any such 'fool's experiment' — just as to some 
 scientific men it seems absurd and childish to ex- 
 pect them to investigate the ' superstitious ' follies 
 
142 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of modern spiritualism. Even the simplest act 
 of will in regard to religion — .that of prayer — 
 has not been performed by me for at least a 
 quarter of a century, simply because it has seemed 
 so impossible to pray, as it were, hypothetically, 
 that much as I have always desired to be able to 
 pray, I cannot will the attempt. To justify 
 myself for what my better judgment has often 
 seen to be essentially irrational, I have ever made 
 sundry excuses. The chief of them has run thus. 
 Even supposing Christianity true, and even sup- 
 posing that after having so far sacrificed my reason 
 to my desire as to have satisfied the supposed 
 conditions to obtaining 'grace' or direct illumi- 
 nation from God, — even then would not my reason 
 turn round and revenge herself upon me ? For 
 surely even then my habitual scepticism would 
 make me say to myself — 'this is all very sublime 
 and very comforting ; but what evidence have 
 you to give me that the whole business is any- 
 thing more than self-delusion ? The wish was 
 probably father to the thought, and you might 
 much better have performed your "act of will" by 
 going in for a course of Indian hemp.' Of course 
 a Christian would answer to this that the internal 
 light would not admit of such doubt, any more 
 than seeing the sun does — that God knows us well 
 enough to prevent that, &c, and also that it is 
 unreasonable not to try an experiment lest the 
 result should prove too good to be credible and 
 
A CAinDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. M3 
 
 so on. And I do not dispute that the Christian 
 would be justified in so answering, but I only 
 adduce the matter as an illustration of the dif- 
 ficulty which is experienced in conforming to all 
 the conditions of attaining to Christian faith — 
 even supposing it to be sound. Others have 
 doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I 
 think, that of an undue regard to reason, as 
 against heart and will — undue, I mean, if so it be 
 that Christianity is true, and the conditions to 
 faith in it have been of divine ordination. 
 
 This influence of will on belief, even in matters 
 secular, is the more pronounced the further re- 
 moved these matters may be from demonstration 
 (as already remarked) ; but this is most of all the 
 case where our personal interests are affected — 
 whether these be material or intellectual, such as 
 credit for consistency, &c. See, for example, how 
 closely, in the respects we are considering, polit- 
 ical beliefs resemble religious. Unless the points 
 of difference are such that truth is virtually 
 demonstrable on one side, so that adhesion to the 
 opposite is due to conscious sacrifice of integrity 
 to expediency, we always find that party-spec- 
 tacles so colour the view as to leave reason at the 
 mercy of will, custom, interest, and all the other 
 circumstances which similarly operate on religious 
 beliefs. It seems to make but little difference 
 in either case what level of general education, 
 mental power, special training, &c, is brought to 
 
144 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 bear upon the question under judgment. From 
 the Premier to the peasant we find the same dif- 
 ference of opinion in politics as we do in religion. 
 And in each case the explanation is the same. 
 Beliefs are so little dependent on reason alone 
 that in such regions of thought — i. e. where per- 
 sonal interests are affected and the evidences of 
 truth are not in their nature demonstrable — it 
 really seems as if reason ceases to be a judge 
 of evidence or guide to truth, and becomes a 
 mere advocate of opinion already formed on 
 quite other grounds. Now these other grounds 
 are, as we have seen, mainly the accidents of 
 habits or custom, wish being father to the 
 thought, &c. 
 
 Now this may be all deplorable enough in 
 politics, and in all other beliefs secular ; but who 
 shall say it is not exactly as it ought to be in 
 the matter of beliefs religious? For, unless we 
 beg the question of a future life in the negative, 
 we must entertain at least the possibility of our 
 being in a state of probation in respect of an 
 honest use not only of our reason, but probably 
 still more of those other ingredients of human 
 nature which go to determine our beliefs touching 
 this most important of all matters. 
 
 It is remarkable how even in politics it is the 
 moral and spiritual elements of character which 
 lead to success in the long run, even more than 
 intellectual ability — supposing, of course, that 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 145 
 
 the latter is not below the somewhat high level of 
 our Parliamentary assemblies. 
 
 As regards the part that is played by will in the 
 determining of belief, one can show how uncon- 
 sciously large this is even in matters of secular 
 interest. Reason is very far indeed from being 
 the sole guide of judgment that it is usually 
 taken to be — so far, indeed, that, save in matters 
 approaching down-right demonstration where (of 
 course there is no room for any other ingredient) 
 it is usually hampered by custom, prejudice, dis- 
 like, &c, to a degree that would astonish the most 
 sober philosopher could he lay bare to himself all 
 the mental processes whereby the complex act of 
 assent or dissent is eventually determined. 1 
 
 'Cf. Pascal, Pensies. 'For we must not mistake ourselves, 
 we have as much that is automatic in us as intellectual, and 
 hence it comes that the instrument by which persuasion is brought 
 about is not demonstration alone. How few things are demon- 
 strated ! Proofs can only convince the mind ; custom makes our 
 strongest proofs, and those which we hold most firmly,. it sways 
 the automaton, which draws the unconscious intellect after it. . . 
 It is then custom that makes so many men Christians, custom that 
 makes them Turks, heathen, artisans, soldiers, &c. Lastly we 
 must resort to custom when once the mind has seen where truth is, 
 in order to slake our thirst and steep ourselves in that belief which 
 escapes us at every hour, for to have proofs always at hand were 
 too onerous. We must acquire a more easy belief, that of custom, 
 which without violence, without art, without argument, causes our 
 assent and inclines all our powers to this belief, so that our soul 
 naturally falls into it. . . . 
 
 * It is not enough to believe only by force of conviction if the 
 automaton is inclined to believe the contrary. Both parts of us 
 then must be obliged to believe, the intellect by arguments which 
 
146 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 As showing how little reason alone has to do 
 with the determining of religious belief, let us 
 take the case of mathematicians. This I think 
 is the fairest case we can take, seeing that of all 
 intellectual pursuits that of mathematical research 
 is the most exact, as well as the most exclusive 
 in its demand upon the powers of reason, and 
 hence that, as a class, the men who have achieve, * 
 highest eminence in that pursuit may be fairly 
 taken as the fittest representatives of our species 
 in respect to the faculty of pure reason. Yet 
 whenever they have turned their exceptional 
 powers in this respect upon the problems of reli- 
 gion, how suggestively well balanced are their 
 opposite conclusions — so much so indeed that 
 we can only conclude that reason counts for very 
 little in the complex of mental processes which 
 here determine judgment. 
 
 Thus, if we look to the greatest mathematicians 
 in the world's history, we find Kepler and Newton 
 as Christians ; La Place, on the other hand, an 
 infidel. Or, coming to our own times, and con- 
 fining our attention to the principal seat of mathe- 
 matical study: — when I was at Cambridge, there 
 was a galaxy of genius in that department emanat- 
 ing from that place such as had never before been 
 
 it is enough to have admitted once in our lives, the automaton by 
 custom, and by not allowing it to incline in the contrary direction. 
 Inclina cor meum Deus* See also Newman's Grammar of 
 Assent, chap. vi. and Church's Human Life and its Conditions, 
 pp. 67-9. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. M7 
 
 equalled. And the curious thing in our present 
 connexion is that all the most illustrious names 
 were ranged on the side of orthodoxy. Sir W. 
 Thomson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, 
 Adams, Clerk-Maxwell, and Cayley — not to men- 
 tion a number of lesser lights, such as Routh, 
 Todhunter, Ferrers, &c. — were all avowed Chris- 
 tians. Clifford had only just moved at a bound 
 from the extreme of asceticism to that of infidelity 
 — an individual instance which I deem of particu- 
 lar interest in the present connexion, as showing 
 the dominating influence of a forcedly emotional 
 character even on so powerful an intellectual one, 
 for the rationality of the whole structure of Chris- 
 tian belief cannot have so reversed its poles within 
 a few months. 
 
 Now it would doubtless be easy to find else- 
 where than in Cambridge mathematicians of the 
 first order who in our own generation are, or have 
 been, professedly anti-Christian in their beliefs, — 
 although certainly not so great an array of such 
 extraordinary powers. But, be this as it may, the 
 case of Cambridge in my own time seems to me 
 of itself enough to prove that Christian belief is 
 neither made nor marred by the highest powers of 
 reasoning, apart from other and still more potent 
 factors. 
 
 FAITH AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Whether or not Christianity is true, there is 
 a great distinction between these two things. For 
 
I4& THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 while the main ingredient of Christian faith is the 
 moral element, this has no part in superstition! 
 In point of fact, the only point of resemblance is 
 that both present the mental state called belief. 
 It is on this account they are so often confounded 
 by anti-Christians, and even by non-Christians ; 
 the much more important point of difference is not 
 noted, viz. that belief in the one case is purely 
 intellectual, while in the other it is chiefly moral. 
 Qua purely intellectual, belief may indicate noth- 
 ing but sheer credulity in absence of evidence ; 
 but where a moral basis is added, the case is 
 clearly different ; for even if it appears to be sheer 
 credulity to an outsider, that may be because he 
 does not take into account the additional evidence 
 supplied by the moral facts. 
 
 Faith and superstition are often confounded, 
 or even identified. And, unquestionably, they 
 are identical up to a certain point — viz. they both 
 present the mental state of belief. All people can 
 see this ; but not all people can see further, or 
 define the differentiae. These are as follows : 
 First, supposing Christianity true, there is the 
 spiritual verification. Second, supposing Chris- 
 tianity false, there is still the moral ingredient, 
 which ex hypothesi is absent in superstition. In 
 other words, both faith and superstition rest on 
 an intellectual basis (which may be pure credulity ) ; 
 but faith rests also on a moral, even if not like- 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION* T49 
 
 wise on a spiritual. Even in human relations there 
 is a wide difference between * belief ' in a scientific 
 theory and ' faith ' in a personal character. And 
 the difference is in the latter comprising a moral 
 element. 
 
 'Faith-healing,' therefore, has no real point of 
 resemblance with ' thy faith hath saved thee ' of 
 the New Testament, unless we sink the personal 
 differences between a modern faith-healer and 
 Jesus Christ as objects of faith. 
 
 Belief is not exclusively founded on objective 
 evidence appealing to reason (opinion), but 
 mainly on subjective evidence appealing to some 
 altogether different faculty (faith) . Now, whether 
 Christians are right or wrong in what they believe, 
 I hold it as certain as anything can be that the 
 distinction which I have just drawn, and which 
 they all implicitly draw for themselves, is log- 
 ically valid. For no one is entitled to deny the 
 possibility of what may be termed an organ of 
 spiritual discernment. In fact to do so would be 
 to vacate the position of pure agnosticism in toto 
 — and this even if there were no objective, or 
 strictly scientific, evidences in favour of such an 
 organ, such as we have in the lives of the saints, 
 and in a lower degree, in the universality of the 
 religious sentiment. Now, if there be such an 
 organ, it follows from preceding paragraphs, that 
 not only will the main evidences for Christianity 
 be subjective, but that they ought to be so : they 
 
15° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 ought to be so, I mean, on the Christian suppo- 
 sition of the object of Christianity being moral 
 probation, and 'faith' both the test and the 
 reward. 
 
 From this many practical considerations ensue. 
 E.g. the duty of parents to educate their children 
 in what they believe as distinguished from what 
 they know. This would be unjustifiable if faith 
 were the same as opinion. But it is fully justifi- 
 able if a man not only knows that he believes 
 (opinion) but believes that he knows (faith). 
 Whether or not the Christian differs from the 
 'natural man* in having a spiritual organ of 
 cognition, provided he honestly believes such is 
 the case, it would be immoral in him not to 
 proceed in accordance with what he thus believes 
 to be his knowledge. This obligation is recognized 
 in education in every other case. He is morally 
 right even if mentally deluded. 
 
 Huxley, in Lay Sermons, says that faith has 
 been proved a * cardinal sin ' by science. Now, 
 this is true enough of credulity, superstition, &c, 
 and science has done no end of good in develop- 
 ing our ideas of method, evidence, &c. But this 
 is all on the side of intellect. * Faith ' is not 
 touched by such facts or considerations. And 
 what a terrible hell science would have made of 
 the world, if she had abolished the * spirit of faith ' 
 even in human relations. The fact is, Huxley 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 15 1 
 
 falls into the common error of identifying * faith' 
 with opinion. 
 
 Supposing Christianity true, it is very reason- 
 able that faith in the sense already explained 
 should be constituted the test of divine acceptance. 
 If there be such a thing as Christ's winnowing 
 fan, the quality of sterling weight for the dis- 
 covery of which it is adapted cannot be conceived 
 as anything other than this moral quality. No 
 one could suppose a revelation appealing to the 
 mere intellect of man, since acceptance would thus 
 become a mere matter of prudence in subscribing 
 to a demonstration made by higher intellects. 
 
 It is also a matter of fact that if Christianity 
 is truthful in representing this world as a school 
 of moral probation, we cannot conceive a system 
 better adapted to this end than is the world, or 
 a better schoolmaster than Christianity. This is 
 proved not only by general reasoning, but also 
 by the work of Christianity in the world, its 
 adaptation to individual needs, &c. Consider also 
 the extraordinary diversity of human characters 
 in respect both of morality and spirituality though 
 all are living in the same world. Out of the same 
 external material or environment such astonish- 
 ingly diverse products arise according to the use 
 made of it. Even human suffering in its worst 
 forms can be welcome if justified by faith in such 
 
I5 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 an object." 'Ills have no weight, and tears no 
 bitterness/ but are rather to be 'gloried in 1 .' 
 
 It is a further fact that only by means of this 
 theory of probation is it possible to give any mean- 
 ing to the world, i. e. any raison d'etre of human 
 existence. 
 
 Supposing Christianity true, every man must 
 stand or fall by the results of his own conduct, as 
 developed through his own moral character. 
 (This could not be so if the test were intellectual 
 ability.) Yet this does not hinder that the exer- 
 cise of will in the direction of religion should need 
 help in order to attain belief. Nor does it hinder 
 that some men should need more help and others 
 less. Indeed, it may well be that some men are 
 intentionally precluded from receiving any help, 
 so as not to increase their responsibility, or receive 
 but little, so as to constitute intellectual difficulties 
 a moral trial. But clearly, if such things are so, 
 we are inadequate judges. 
 
 It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual part 
 of man to be 'higher' than the animal, whatever 
 our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all 
 feel the moral part of man to be ' higher ' than the 
 intellectual, whatever our theory of either may be. 
 It is also a fact that we all similarly feel the 
 
 x [The author has added, "For suffering in brutes see further 
 on," ,but nothing further on the subject appears to have been 
 written.-ED.] 
 
Human 
 
 A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 153 
 
 spiritual to be 'higher' than the moral, whatever 
 our theory of religion may be. It is what we 
 understand by man's moral, and still more his 
 spiritual, qualities that go to constitute ' character. 
 And it is astonishing how in all walks of life it 
 is character that tells in the long run. 
 
 It is a fact that these distinctions are all well 
 marked and universally recognized — viz. 
 'Animality. 
 Intellectuality. 
 Morality. 
 Spirituality. 
 
 Morality and spirituality are to be distinguished 
 as two very different things. A man may be 
 highly moral in his conduct without being in any 
 degree spiritual in his nature, and, though to 
 a lesser extent, vice versa. And, objectively, we 
 see the same distinction between morals and reli- 
 gion. By spirituality I mean the religious tem- 
 perament, whether or not associated with any par- 
 ticular creed or dogma. 
 
 There is no doubt that intellectual pleasures 
 are more satisfying and enduring than sensual — - 
 or even sensuous. And, to those who have experi- 
 enced them, so it is with spiritual over intellectual, 
 artistic, &c. This is an objective fact, abundantly 
 testified to by every one who has had experience : 
 and it seems to indicate that the spiritual nature 
 of man is the highest part of man — the [culmi- 
 nating] point of his being. 
 
154 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 It is probably true, as Renan says in his post- 
 humous work, that there will always be material- 
 ists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will always 
 be observable on the one hand that there is no 
 thought without brain, while, on the other hand, 
 instincts of man will always aspire to higher 
 beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if reli- 
 gion is true, and we are in a state of probation. 
 And is it not probable that the materialistic posi- 
 tion (discredited even by philosophy) is due sim- 
 ply to custom and want of imagination? Else 
 why the inextinguishable instincts? 
 
 It is much more easy to disbelieve than to 
 believe. This is obvious on the side of reason, 
 but it is also true on that of spirit, for to disbe- 
 lieve is in accordance with environment or custom, 
 while to believe necessitates a spiritual use of the 
 imagination. For both these reasons, very few 
 unbelievers have any justification, either intellec- 
 tual or spiritual, for their own unbelief. 
 
 Unbelief is usually due to indolence, often to 
 prejudice, and never a thing to be proud of. 
 
 'Why should it be thought a thing incredible 
 with you that God should raise the dead?' Clearly 
 no answer can be given by the pure agnostic. 
 But he will naturally say in reply, 'the question 
 rather is, why should it be thought credible with 
 you that there is a God, or, if there is, that he 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 155 
 
 should raise the dead?' And I think the wise 
 Christian will answer, ' I believe in the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead, partly on grounds of reason, 
 partly on those of intuition, but chiefly on both 
 combined ; so to speak, it is my whole character 
 which accepts the whole system of which the 
 doctrine of personal immortality forms an essen- 
 tial part.' And to this it may be fairly added 
 that the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of 
 our bodily form cannot have been arrived at for 
 the purpose of meeting modern materialistic 
 objections to the doctrine of personal immortality; 
 hence it is certainly a strange doctrine to have been 
 propounded at that time, together with its com- 
 panion, and scarcely less distinctive, doctrine of 
 the vileness of the body. Why was it not said 
 that the 'soul' alone should survive as a disem- 
 bodied 'spirit? ' Or if form were supposed neces- 
 sary for man as distinguished from God, that he 
 was to be an angel? But, be this as it may, the 
 doctrine of the resurrection seems to have fully 
 met beforehand the materialistic objection to a 
 future life, and so to have raised the ulterior ques- 
 tion with which this paragraph opens. 
 
 We have seen in the Introduction that all first 
 principles even of scientific facts are known by 
 intuition and not by reason. No one can deny 
 this. Now, if there be a God, the fact is certainly 
 of the nature of a first principle ; for it must be 
 
I5 6 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the first of all first principles. No one can dispute 
 this. No one can therefore dispute the necessary 
 conclusion, that, if there be a God, He is knowable 
 (if knowable at all)by intuition and not by reason. 
 
 Indeed a little thought is enough to show that 
 from its very nature as such, reason must be 
 incapable of adjudicating on the subject, for it is 
 a process of inferring from the known to the un- 
 known. 
 
 Or thus. It would be against reason itself to 
 suppose that God, even if He exists, can be 
 known by reason ; He must be known, if knowa- 
 ble at all, by intuition. 1 
 
 Observe, although God might give an objec- 
 tive revelation of Himself, e. g. as Christians 
 believe He has, even this would not give knowl- 
 edge of Him save to those who believe the revela- 
 tions genuine ; and I doubt whether it is logically 
 possible for any form of objective revelation of 
 itself to compel belief in it. Assuredly one rising 
 from the dead to testify thereto would not, nor 
 would letters of fire across the sky do so. But, 
 even if it were logically possible, we need not 
 consider the abstract possibility, seeing that, as a 
 matter of fact, no such demonstrative revelation 
 has been given. 
 
 1 [In this connexion I may again notice that two days before 
 his death George Romanes expressed his cordial approval of Pro- 
 fessor Knight's Aspects of Theism — a work in which great stress is 
 laid on the argument from intuition in different forms. — Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 157 
 
 Hence, the only legitimate attitude of pure 
 reason is pure agnosticism. No one can deny 
 this. But, it will be said, there is this vast, differ- 
 ence between our intuitive knowledge of all other 
 first principles and that alleged of the ' first of all 
 first principles/ viz, that the latter is confessedly 
 not known to all men. Now, assuredly, there is 
 here a vast difference. But so there ought to be, 
 if we are here in a state of probation, as before 
 explained. And that we are in such a state is not 
 only the hypothesis of religion, but the sole 
 rational explanation as well as moral justification of 
 our existence as rational beings and moral agents. 1 
 
 It is not necessarily true, as J. S. Mill and all 
 other agnostics think, that even if internal intui- 
 tion be of divine origin, the illumination thus 
 furnished can only be of evidential value to the 
 individual subject thereof. On the contrary, it 
 may be studied objectively, even if not experi- 
 enced subjectively ; and ought to be so studied 
 by a pure agnostic desirous of light from any 
 quarter. Even if he does not know it as a 
 noumenon he can investigate it as a phenomenon. 
 And, supposing it to be of divine origin, as its 
 subjects believe and he has no reason to doubt, 
 he may gain much evidence against its being a 
 mere psychological illusion from identical reports 
 of it in all ages. Thus, if any large section of the 
 
 'On this subject see Pascal, Pensies (Kegan Paul's trans.) 
 p. 103. 
 
I5 8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 race were to see flames issuing from magnets, 
 there would be no doubt as to their objective 
 reality. 
 
 The testimony given by Socrates to the occur- 
 rence in himself of an internal Voice, having all 
 the definiteness of an auditory hallucination, has 
 given rise to much speculation by subsequent 
 philosophers. 
 
 Many explanations are suggested, but if we 
 remember the critical nature of Socrates' own 
 mind, the literal nature of his mode of teaching, 
 and the high authority which attaches to Plato's 
 opinion on the subject, the probability seems to 
 incline towards the 'Demon' having been, in 
 Socrates' own consciousness, an actual auditory 
 sensation. Be this however as it may, I suppose 
 there is no question that we may adopt this view 
 of the matter at least to the extent of classifying 
 Socrates with Luther, Pascal, &c, not to mention 
 all the line of Hebrew and other prophets, who 
 agree in speaking of a Divine Voice. 
 
 If so, the further question arises whether we 
 are to classify all these with lunatics in whom the 
 phenomena of auditory hallucination are habitual. 
 
 Without doubt this hypothesis is most in 
 accordance with the temper of our age, partly 
 because it obeys the law of parsimony, and partly 
 because it [negatives] a priori the possibility of 
 revelation. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. IS9 
 
 But if we look at the matter from the point of 
 view of pure agnosticism, we are not entitled to 
 adopt so rough and ready an interpretation. 
 
 Suppose then that not only Socrates and all 
 great religious reformers and founders of religious 
 systems both before and after him were similarly 
 stricken with mental disease, but that similar 
 phenomena had occurred in the case of all scien- 
 tific discoverers such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, 
 &c. — supposing all these men to have declared 
 that their main ideas had been communicated by 
 subjective sensations as of spoken language, so 
 that all the progress of the world's scientific 
 thought had resembled that of the world's reli- 
 gious thought, and had been attributed by the 
 promoters thereof to direct inspirations of this 
 kind — would it be possible to deny that the testi- 
 mony thus afforded to the fact of subjective reve- 
 lation would have been overwhelming ? Or could 
 it any longer have been maintained that suppos- 
 ing a revelation to be communicated subjectively 
 the fact thereof could only be of any evidential 
 value to the recipient himself ? To this it will no 
 doubt be answered, 'No, but in the case supposed 
 the evidence arises not from the fact of their 
 subjective intuition but from that of its objective 
 verification in the results of science.' Quite so ; 
 but this is exactly the test appealed to by the 
 Hebrew prophets — the test of true and lying 
 prophets being in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment 
 
160 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of their prophecies and ' By their fruits ye shall 
 know them/ 
 
 Therefore it is as absurd to say that the reli- 
 gious consciousness of minds other than our own 
 can be barred antecedently as evidence, as it is 
 to say that testimony to the miraculous is simi- 
 larly barred. The pure agnostic must always 
 carefully avoid the 'high priori road/ But, on 
 the other hand, he must be all the more assiduous 
 in estimating fairly the character, both as to 
 quantity and quality, of evidence a posteriori. 
 Now this evidence in the present case is twofold, 
 positive and negative. It will be convenient to 
 consider the negative first. 
 
 The negative evidence is furnished by the 
 nature of man without God. It is thoroughly 
 miserable, as is well shown by Pascal, who has 
 devoted the whole of the first part of his treatise 
 to this subject. I need not go over the ground 
 which he has already so well traversed. 
 
 Some men are not conscious of the cause of 
 this misery: this, however, does not prevent the 
 fact of their being miserable. For the most 
 part they conceal the fact as well as possible 
 from themselves, by occupying their minds with 
 society, sport, frivolity of all kinds, or, if intel- 
 lectually disposed, with science, art, literature, 
 business, &c. This however is but to fill the 
 starving belly with husks. I know from experi- 
 ence the intellectual distractions of scientific 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 161 
 
 research, philosophical speculation, and artistic 
 pleasures ; but am also well aware that even when 
 all are taken together and well sweetened to 
 taste, in respect of consequent reputation, means, 
 social position, &c, the whole concoction is but 
 as high confectionery to a starving man. He 
 may cheat himself for a time — especially if he 
 be a strong man — into the belief that he is nour- 
 ishing himself by denying his natural appetite ; 
 but soon finds he was made for some altogether 
 different kind of food, even though of much less 
 tastefulness as far as the palate is concerned. 
 
 Some men indeed never acknowledge this 
 articulately or distinctly even to themselves, yet 
 always show it plainly enough to others. Take, 
 e. g. 'that last infirmity of noble minds.' I sup- 
 pose the most exalted and least ' carnal* of 
 worldly joys consists in the adequate recognition 
 by the world of high achievement by ourselves. 
 Yet it is notorious that — 
 
 ' It is by God decreed 
 Fame shall not satisfy the highest need.' 
 
 It has been my lot to know not a few of the 
 famous men of our generation, and I have always 
 observed that this is profoundly true. Like all 
 other 'moral' satisfactions, this soon palls by 
 custom, and as soon as one end of distinction is 
 reached, another is pined for. There is no final- 
 ity to rest in, while disease and death are always 
 standing in the background. Custom may even 
 
1 62 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 blind men to their misery, so far as not to make 
 them realize what is wanting ; yet the want is 
 there. 
 
 I take it then as unquestionably true that 
 this whole negative side of the subject proves a 
 vacuum in the soul of man which nothing can 
 fill save faith in God. 
 
 Now take the positive side. Consider the 
 happiness of religious — and chiefly of the high- 
 est religious, i. e. Christian— belief. It is a mat- 
 ter of fact that besides being most intense, it is 
 most enduring, growing, and never staled by cus- 
 tom, In short, according to the universal testi- 
 mony of those who have it, it differs from all 
 other happiness not only in degree but in kind. 
 Those who have it can usually testify to what 
 they used to be without it. It has no relation to 
 intellectual status. It is a thing by itself and 
 supreme. 
 
 So much for the individual. But positive evi- 
 dence does not end here. Look at the effects of 
 Christian belief as exercised on human society — 
 ist, by individual Christians on the family, &c; 
 and, 2nd, by the Christian Church on the world. 
 
 All this may lead on to an argument from the 
 adaptation of Christianity to human higher needs. 
 All men must feel these needs more or less in pro- 
 portion as their higher natures, moral and spiritual, 
 are developed. Now Christianity is the only 
 religion which is adapted to meet them, and, 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION, 163 
 
 according to those who are alone able to testify, 
 does so most abundantly. All these men, of every 
 sect, nationality, &c, agree in their account of 
 their subjective experience ; so as to this there 
 can be no question. The only question is as to 
 whether they are all deceived. 
 
 PEU DE CHOSE. 
 
 * La vie est vaine : 
 
 Un peu d'amour, 
 Un peu de haine . . . 
 
 Et puis — bon jour ! 
 
 La vie est breve : 
 
 Un peu d'espoir, 
 Un peu de reve . . . 
 
 Et puis — bon soir ! ' 
 
 The above is a terse and true criticism of this 
 life without hope of a future one. Is it satis- 
 factory? But Christian faith, as a matter of fact, 
 changes it entirely. 
 
 ' The night has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the day but one ; 
 Yet the light of a whole world dies 
 
 With the setting sun. 
 
 The mind has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the heart but one ; 
 Yet the light of a whole life dies 
 
 When love is done.' 
 
 Love is known to be all this. How great, then, 
 is Christianity, as being the religion of love, and 
 causing men to believe both in the cause of love's 
 supremacy and the infinity of God's love to man. 
 
§ 5. FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christianity comes up for serious investigation 
 in the present treatise, because this Examination 
 of Religion [i. e. of the validity of the religious 
 consciousness] has to do with the evidences of 
 Theism presented by man, and not only by nature 
 minus man. Now of the religious consciousness 
 Christianity is unquestionably the highest product. 
 
 When I wrote the preceding treatise [the 
 Candid Examination^, I did not sufficiently appre- 
 ciate the immense importance of human nature, as 
 distinguished from physical nature, in any enquiry 
 touching Theism. But since then I have seri- 
 ously studied anthropology (including the science 
 of comparative religions), psychology and meta- 
 physics, with the result of clearly seeing that 
 human nature is the most important part of nature 
 as a whole whereby to investigate the theory of 
 Theism. This I ought to have anticipated on 
 merely a priori grounds, and no doubt should 
 have perceived, had I not been too much immersed 
 in merely physical research. 
 
 Moreover, in those days I took it for granted 
 that Christianity was played out, and never con- 
 sidered it at all as having any rational bearing on 
 the question of Theism. And, though this was 
 
 164 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 165 
 
 doubtless inexcusable, I still think that the 
 rational standing of Christianity has materially 
 improved since then. For then it seemed that 
 Christianity was destined to succumb as a rational 
 system before the double assault of Darwin from 
 without and the negative school of criticism from 
 within. Not only the book of organic nature, but 
 likewise its own sacred documents, seemed to be 
 declaring against it. But now all this has been 
 very materially changed. We have all more or 
 less grown to see that Darwinism is like Coperni- 
 canism, &c., in this respect; 1 while the outcome 
 of the great textual battle 2 is impartially consid- 
 ered a signal victory for Christianity. Prior to 
 the new [Biblical] science, there was really no 
 rational basis in thoughtful minds, either for the 
 date of any one of the New Testament books, or, 
 consequently, for the historical truth of any one 
 of the events narrated in them. Gospels, Acts 
 and Epistles were all alike shrouded in this uncer- 
 tainty. Hence the validity of the eighteenth- 
 century scepticism. But now all this kind of 
 scepticism has been rendered obsolete, and for- 
 ever impossible ; while the certainty of enough of 
 St. Paul's writings for the practical purpose of 
 displaying the belief of the apostles has been 
 
 1 [i. e. A theory which comes at first as a shock to the 
 current teaching of Christianity, but is finally seen to be in no 
 antagonism to its necessary principles. — Ed.] 
 
 2 [i. e. The battle in regard to the Christian texts or documents. 
 —Ed.] 
 
1 66 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 established, as well as the certainty of the publi- 
 cation of the Synoptics within the first century. 
 An enormous gain has thus accrued to the 
 objective evidences of Christianity. It is most 
 important that the expert investigator should be 
 exact, and, as in any other science, the lay public 
 must take on authority as trustworthy only what 
 both sides are agreed upon. But, as in any other 
 science, experts are apt to lose sight of the impor- 
 tance of the main results agreed upon, in their 
 fighting over lesser points still in dispute. Now 
 it is enough for us that the Epistles to the Romans, 
 Galatians, and Corinthians, have been agreed 
 upon as genuine, and that the same is true of the 
 Synoptics so far as concerns the main doctrine of 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 The extraordinary candour of Christ's biog- 
 raphers must not be forgotten. 1 Notice also 
 such sentences as 'but some doubted,' and (in 
 the account of Pentecost) 'these men are full of 
 new wine/ 2 Such observations are wonderfully 
 true to human nature ; but no less wonderfully 
 opposed to any ' accretion ' theory. 
 
 Observe, when we become honestly pure agnos- 
 tics the whole scene changes by the change in our 
 point of view. We may then read the records 
 impartially, or on their own merits, without any 
 
 1 See Gore's Bampton Lectures, pp. 74 ff. 
 3 Matt, xxviii. 17 ; Acts ii. 13. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 167 
 
 antecedent conviction that they must be false. 
 It is then an open question whether they are not 
 true as history. 
 
 There is so much to be said in objective 
 evidence for Christianity that were the central 
 doctrines thus testified to anything* short of 
 miraculous, no one would doubt. But we are not 
 competent judges a priori of what a revelation 
 should be. If our agnosticism be pure, we have 
 no right to prejudge the case on prima facie 
 grounds. 
 
 One of the strongest pieces of objective 
 evidence in favour of Christianity is not sufficiently 
 enforced by apologists. Indeed, I am not aware 
 that I have ever seen it mentioned. It is the 
 absence from the biography of Christ of any 
 doctrines which the subsequent growth of human 
 knowledge — whether in natural science, ethics, 
 political economy, or elsewhere — has had to dis- 
 count. This negative argument is really almost 
 as strong as is the positive one from what Christ 
 did teach. For when we consider what a large 
 number of sayings are recorded of — or at least 
 attributed to — Him, it becomes most remarkable 
 that in literal truth there is no reason why any of 
 His words should ever pass away in the sense of 
 becoming obsolete. * Not even now could it be 
 easy, 1 says John Stuart Mill, ' even for an 
 unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule 
 
168 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than 
 to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve 
 our life.' 1 Contrast Jesus Christ in this respect 
 with other thinkers of like antiquity. Even Plato, 
 who, though some 400 years B. C. in point of 
 time, was greatly in advance of Him in respect of 
 philosophic thought — not only because Athens 
 then presented the extraordinary phenomenon 
 which it did of genius in all directions never since 
 equalled, but also because he, following Socrates, 
 was, so to speak, the greatest representative of 
 human reason in the direction of spirituality — 
 even Plato, I say, is nowhere in this respect as 
 compared with Christ. Read the dialogues, and 
 see how enormous is the contrast with the Gospels 
 in respect of errors of all kinds — reaching even 
 to absurdity in respect of reason, and to sayings 
 shocking to the moral sense. Yet this is con- 
 fessedly the highest level of human reason on the 
 lines of spirituality, when unaided by alleged 
 revelation. 
 
 Two things may be said in reply. First, that 
 the Jews (Rabbis) of Christ's period had enunci- 
 ated most of Christ's ethical sayings. But, even so 
 far as this is true, the sayings were confessedly 
 extracted or deduced from the Old Testament, and 
 so ex hypothesi due to original inspiration. Again, 
 if is not very far true, because, as Ecce Homo says, 
 the ethical sayings of Christ, even when antici- 
 
 * Three Essays on Theism, p. 255, 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 1 69 
 
 pated by Rabbis and the Old Testament, were 
 selected by Him. 
 
 It is a general, if not a universal, rule that those 
 who reject Christianity with contempt are those 
 who care not for religion of any kind. ' Depart 
 from us' has always been the sentiment of such. 
 On the other hand, those in whom the religious 
 sentiment is intact, but who have rejected Chris- 
 tianity on intellectual grounds, still almost deify 
 Christ. These facts are remarkable. 
 
 If we estimate the greatness of a man by the 
 influence which he has exerted on mankind, there 
 can be no question, even from the secular point 
 of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who 
 has ever lived. 
 
 It is on all sides worth considering (blatant 
 ignorance or base vulgarity alone excepted) that 
 the revolution effected by Christianity in human 
 life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other 
 movement in history ; though most nearly ap- 
 proached by that of the Jewish religion, of which, 
 however, it is a development, so that it may be 
 regarded as of a piece with it. If thus regarded, 
 this whole system of religion is so immeasurably 
 in advance of all others, that it may fairly be said, 
 if it had not been for the Jews, the human race 
 would not have had any religion worth our serious 
 attention as such. The whole of that side of human 
 nature would never have been developed in civil- 
 
17° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 ized life. And although there are numberless 
 individuals who are not conscious of its develop- 
 ment in themselves, yet even these have been 
 influenced to an enormous extent by the atmos- 
 phere of religion around them. 
 
 But not only is Christianity thus so immeas- 
 urably in advance of all other religions. It is no 
 less so of every other system of thought that has 
 ever been promulgated in regard to all that is 
 moral and spiritual. Whether it be true or false, 
 it is certain that neither philosophy, science nor 
 poetry has ever produced results in thought, con- 
 duct, or beauty in any degree to be compared 
 with it. This I think will be on all hands allowed 
 as regards conduct. As regards thought and 
 beauty it may be disputed. But, consider, what 
 has all the science or all the philosophy of the 
 world done for the thought of mankind to be 
 compared with the one doctrine, 'God is love?' 
 Whether or not true, conceive what belief in it 
 has been to thousands of millions of our race — 
 i. e. its influence on human thought, and thence 
 on human conduct. Thus to admit its incom- 
 parable influence in conduct is indirectly to admit 
 it as regards thought. Again, as regards beauty, 
 the man who fails to see its incomparable excel- 
 lence in this respect merely shows his own defi- 
 ciency in the appreciation of all that is noblest in 
 man. True or not true, the entire Story of the Cross, 
 from its commencement in prophetic aspiration 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 17 I 
 
 to its culmination in the 'Gospel, is by far the most 
 magnificent [presentation] in literature. And 
 surely the fact of its having all been lived does 
 not detract from its poetic value. Nor does the 
 fact of its being capable of appropriation by the 
 individual Christian of to-day as still a vital reli- 
 gion detract from its sublimity. Only to a man 
 wholly destitute of spiritual perception can it be 
 that Christianity should fail to appear the greatest 
 exhibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all 
 else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which 
 has ever been known upon our earth. 
 
 Yet this side of its adaptation is turned only 
 towards men of highest culture. The most re- 
 markable thing about Christianity is its adapta- 
 tion to all sorts and conditions of men. Are you 
 highly intellectual? There is in its problems, 
 historical and philosophical, such worlds of mate- 
 rial as you may spend your life upon with the 
 same interminable interest as is open to the stu- 
 dents of natural science. Or are you but a peas- 
 ant in your parish church, with knowledge of little 
 else than your Bible? Still are you . . . x 
 
 REGENERATION. 
 
 How remarkable is the doctrine of Regenera- 
 tion per se, as it is stated in the New Testament, 2 
 and how completely it fits in with the non-demon- 
 
 * [Note unfinished. — Ed.] 
 
 2 [George Romanes began to make a collection of N. T. texts 
 bearing on the subject. — Ed.] 
 
I7 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 strative character of Revelation to reason alone, 
 with the hypothesis of moral probation, &c. Now 
 this doctrine is one of the distinctive notes of 
 Christianity. That is, Christ foretold repeatedly 
 and distinctly — as did also His apostles after 
 Him — that while those who received the Holy 
 Ghost, who came to the Father through faith in 
 the Son, who were born again of the Spirit, (and 
 many other synonymous phrases,) would be abso- 
 lutely certain of Christian truth as it were by 
 direct vision or intuition, the carnally minded on 
 the other hand would not be affected by any 
 amount of direct evidence, even though one rose 
 from the dead — as indeed Christ shortly after- 
 wards did, with fulfilment of this prediction. 
 Thus scepticism may be taken by Christians as 
 corroborating Christianity. 
 
 By all means let us retain our independence of 
 judgment ; but this is pre-eminently a matter in 
 which pure agnostics must abstain from arrogance 
 and consider the facts impartially as unquestion- 
 able phenomena of experience. 
 
 Shortly after the death of Christ, this phenom- 
 enon which had been foretold by Him occurred, 
 and appears to have done so for the first time. 
 It has certainly continued to manifest itself ever 
 since, and has been attributed by professed his- 
 torians to that particular moment in time called 
 Pentecost, producing much popular excitement 
 and a large number of Christian believers. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 173 
 
 But, whether or not we accept this account, it 
 is unquestionable that the apostles were filled 
 with faith in the person and office of their Master, 
 which is enough to justify His doctrine of regene- 
 ration. 
 
 CONVERSIONS. 
 
 St. Augustine after thirty years of age, and 
 other Fathers, bear testimony to a sudden, endur- 
 ing and extraordinary change in themselves, called 
 conversion? 
 
 Now this experience has been repeated and 
 testified to by countless millions of civilized men 
 and women in all nations and all degrees of cul- 
 ture. It signifies not whether the conversion be 
 sudden or gradual, though, as a psychological 
 phenomenon, it is more remarkable when sudden 
 and there is no symptom of mental aberration 
 otherwise. But even as a gradual growth in 
 mature age, its evidential value is not less. (Cf. 
 Bunyan, &c.) 
 
 In all cases it is not a mere change of belief or 
 opinion ; this is by no means the point ; the point is 
 that it is a modification of character, more or less 
 profound. 
 
 Seeing what a complex thing is character, this 
 change therefore cannot be simple. That it may 
 all be due to so-called natural causes is no evi- 
 dence against its so-called supernatural course, 
 
 'See Pascal, Pensies, p. 245. 
 
174 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 unless we beg the whole question of the Divine 
 in nature. To pure agnostics the evidence from 
 conversions and regeneration lies in the bulk of 
 these psychological phenomena, shortly after the 
 death of Christ, with their continuance ever since, 
 their general similarity all over the world, &c, &c. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND PAIN. 
 
 Christanity, from its foundation in Judaism, 
 has throughout been a religion of sacrifice and 
 sorrow. It has been a religion of blood and tears, 
 and yet of profoundest happiness to its votaries. 
 The apparent paradox is due to its depth, and to 
 the union of these seemingly diverse roots in Love. 
 It has been throughout and growingly a religion 
 — or rather let us say ^religion — of Love, with 
 these apparently opposite qualities. Probably it 
 is only those whose characters have been deep- 
 ened by experiences gained in this religion itself 
 who are so much as capable of intelligently resolv- 
 ing this paradox. 
 
 Fakirs hang on hooks, Pagans cut themselves 
 and even their children, sacrifice captives, &c, for 
 the sake of propitiating diabolical deities. The 
 Jewish and Christian idea of sacrifice is doubtless 
 a survival of this idea of God by way of natural 
 causation, yet this is no evidence against the com- 
 pleted idea of the Godhead being [such as the 
 Christian belief represents it], for supposing the 
 completed idea to be true, the earlier ideals would 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 175 
 
 have been due to the earlier inspirations, in accor- 
 dance with the developmental method of Revela- 
 tion hereafter to be discussed. 1 
 
 But Christianity, with its roots in Judaism, is, 
 as I have said, par excellence the religion of sor- 
 row, because it reaches to truer and deeper levels 
 of our spiritual nature, and therefore has capa- 
 bilities both of sorrow and joy which are presum- 
 ably non-existent except in civilized man, I 
 mean the sorrows and joys of a fully evolved 
 spiritual life — such as were attained wonderfully 
 early, historically speaking, in the case of the 
 Jews, and are now universally diffused through- 
 out Christendom. In short, the sorrows and the 
 joys in question are those which arise from the 
 fully developed consciousness of sin against a 
 God of Love, as distinguished from propitiation 
 of malignant spirits. These joys and sorrows 
 are wholly spiritual, not merely physical, and 
 culminate in the cry, ' Thou desirest no sacrifice. 
 . , , The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit.' 3 
 
 I agree with Pascal 3 that there is virtually 
 nothing to be gained by being a theist as dis- 
 tinguished from a Christian. Unitarianism is 
 only an affair of the reason — a merely abstract 
 theory of the mind, having nothing to do with 
 
 '[The notes on this subject were often too fragmentary for 
 publication. — Ed,] 
 a Ps. li. 
 sPensies, pp. 91-93. 
 
176 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the heart, or the real heeds of mankind. It is 
 only when it takes the New Testament, tears out 
 a few of its leaves relating to the divinity of 
 Christ, and appropriates all the rest, that its sys- 
 tem becomes in any degree possible as a basis 
 for personal religion. 
 
 If there is a Deity it seems to be in some 
 indefinite degree more probable that He should 
 impart a Revelation than that He should 
 not. 
 
 Women, as a class, are in all countries much 
 more disposed to Christianity than men. I 
 think the scientific explanation of this is to be 
 found in the causes assigned in my essay on 
 Mental differences between Men and Women* But, 
 if Christianity be supposed true, there would, of 
 course, be a more ultimate explanation of a reli- 
 gious kind — as in all other cases where causation 
 is concerned. And, in that case I have no doubt 
 that the largest part of the explanation would 
 consist in the passions of women being less 
 ardent than those of men, and also much more 
 kept under restraint by social conditions of life. 
 This applies not only to purity, but likewise 
 to most of the other psychological differentiae 
 between the sexes, such as ambition, selfishness, 
 pride of power, and so forth. In short, the 
 whole ideal of Christian ethics is of a feminine 
 
 r See Nineteenth Century, May, 1887. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 177 
 
 as distinguished from a masculine type. 1 Now 
 nothing is so inimical to Christian belief as 
 un-Christian conduct. This is especially the 
 case as regards impurity ; for whether the fact be 
 explained on religious or non-religious grounds, it 
 has more to do with unbelief than has the specu- 
 lative reason." Consequently, woman is, for all 
 these reasons the 'fitter' type for receiving and 
 retaining Christian belief. 
 
 Modern agnosticism is performing this great 
 service to Christian faith ; it is silencing all 
 rational scepticism of the a priori kind. And this 
 it is bound to do more and more the purer it 
 becomes. In every generation it must henceforth 
 become more and more recognized by logical 
 thinking, that all antecedent objections to Chris- 
 tianity founded on reason alone are ipso facto 
 nugatory. Now, all the strongest objections to 
 Christianity have ever been those of the ante- 
 cedent kind ; hence the effect of modern thinking 
 is that of more and more diminishing the purely 
 speculative difficulties, such as that of the Incar- 
 nation, &c. In other words, the force of Butler's 
 
 '[The essay mentioned above should be read in explanation 
 of this expression. George Romanes' meaning would be more 
 accurately expressed, I think, had he said: 'The ideal of Chris- 
 tian character holds in prominence the elements which we regard 
 as characteristically feminine, c. g. development of affections, 
 readiness of trust, love of service, readiness to suffer, &c.' — 
 Ed.] 
 
178 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 argument about our being incompetent judges 1 is 
 being more and more increased. 
 
 And the logical development of this lies in 
 the view already stated about natural causation. 
 For, just as pure agnosticism must allow that 
 reason is incompetent to adjudicate a priori for or 
 against Christian miracles, including the Incarna- 
 tion, so it must further allow that, if they ever 
 took place, reason can have nothing to say against 
 their being all of one piece with causation in gen- 
 eral. Hence, so far as reason is concerned, pure 
 agnosticism must allow that it is only the event 
 which can ultimately prove whether Christianity 
 is true or false. 'If it be of God we cannot over- 
 throw it, lest haply we be found even to fight 
 against God.' But the individual cannot wait for 
 this empirical determination. What then is he to 
 do ? The unbiassed answer of pure agnosticism 
 ought reasonably to be, in the words of John 
 Hunter, ' Do not think ; try.' That is, in this 
 case, try the only experiment available — the 
 experiment of faith. Do the doctrine, and if 
 Christianity be true, the verification will come, 
 not indeed mediately through any course of spec- 
 ulative reason, but immediately by spiritual 
 intuition. Only if a man has faith enough to 
 make this venture honestly, will he be in a just 
 position for deciding the issue. Thus viewed it 
 would seem that the experiment of faith is not a 
 x See Analogy part i. ch, 7 ; part ii. ch. 3, 4, &c. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 179 
 
 'fool's experiment;' but, on the contrary, so that 
 there is enough prima facie evidence to arrest 
 serious attention, such an experimental trial 
 would seem to be the rational duty of a pure 
 agnostic. 
 
 It is a fact that Christian belief is much more 
 due to doing than to thinking, as prognosticated 
 by the New Testament. 'If any man will do His 
 will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 
 of God* (St. John vii. 17). And surely, even on 
 grounds of reason itself, it should be allowed that, 
 supposing Christianity to be 'of God/ it ought to 
 appeal to the spiritual rather than to the rational 
 side of our nature. 
 
 Even within the region of pure reason (or the 
 'prima facie case') modern science, as directed on 
 the New Testament criticism, has surely done 
 more for Christianity than against it. For, after 
 half a century of battle over the text by the best 
 scholars, the dates of the Gospels have been fixed 
 within the first century, and at least four of St. 
 Paul's epistles have had their authenticity proved 
 beyond doubt. Now this is enough to destroy 
 all eighteenth-century criticism as to the doubt- 
 fulness of the historical existence of Christ and 
 His apostles, 'inventions of priests,' &c, which 
 was the most formidable kind of criticism of all. 
 There is no longer any question as to historical 
 facts, save the miraculous, which, however, are 
 
180 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 ruled out by negative criticism on merely a prion 
 grounds. This remaining — and, ex hypothesi y 
 necessary — doubt is of very different importance 
 from the other. 
 
 Again, the Pauline epistles of proved authen- 
 ticity are enough for all that is wanted to show 
 the belief of Christ's contemporaries. 
 
 These are facts of the first order of importance 
 to have proved. Old Testament criticism is as 
 yet too immature to consider. 
 
 PLAN IN REVELATION. 
 
 The views which I entertained on this subject 
 when an undergraduate [i. e. the ordinary ortho- 
 dox views] were abandoned in presence of the 
 theory of Evolution — i. e. the theory of nat- 
 ural causation as probably furnishing a scientific 
 explanation [of the religious phenomena of Juda- 
 ism] or, which is the same thing, an explanation 
 in terms of ascertainable causes up to some certain 
 point ; which however in this particular case can- 
 not be determined within wide limits, so that the 
 history of Israel will always embody an element 
 of ' mystery ' much more than any other history. 
 
 It was not until twenty-five years later that I 
 saw clearly the full implications of my present 
 views on natural causation. As applied to this 
 particular case these views show that to a theist, 
 at all events (i.e. to any one who on independent 
 grounds has accepted the theory of Theism), it 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 181 
 
 ought not to make much difference to the evi- 
 dential value of the Divine Plan of Revelation as 
 exhibited in the Old and New Testaments, even 
 if it be granted that the whole has been due to 
 so-called natural causes only. I say, ' not much 
 difference/ for that it ought to make some dif- 
 ference I do not deny. Take a precisely anal- 
 ogous case. The theory of evolution by natural 
 causes is often said to make no logical difference 
 in the evidence of plan or design manifested in 
 organic nature — it being only a question of modus 
 operandi whether all pieces of organic machinery 
 were produced suddenly or by degrees ; the 
 evidence of design is equally there in either 
 case. Now I have shown elsewhere that this is 
 wrong. * 
 
 It may not make much difference to a man who 
 is already a theist, for then it is but a question 
 of modus, but it makes a great difference to the 
 evidence of Theism. 
 
 So it is in evidence of plan in proof of a reve- 
 lation. If there had been no alleged revelation 
 up to the present time, and if Christ were now to 
 appear suddenly in His first advent in all the 
 power and glory which Christians expect for His 
 second, the proof of His revelation would be 
 demonstrative. So that, as a mere matter of 
 evidence, a sudden revelation might be much 
 more convincing than a gradual one. But it would 
 
 1 See Conclusion of Darwin and After Darwin, part I. 
 
182 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 be quite out of analogy with causation in nature. 1 
 Besides, even a gradual revelation might be given 
 easily, which would be of demonstrative value — 
 as by making prophecies of historical events, 
 scientific discoveries, &c, so clear as to be un- 
 mistakable. But, as before shown a demon- 
 strative revelation has not been made, and there 
 may well be good reasons why it should not. 
 Now, if there are such reasons (e. g. our state of 
 probation), we can well see that the gradual un- 
 folding of a plan of revelation, from earliest dawn 
 of history to the end of the world (' I speak as a 
 fool') is much preferable to a sudden manifesta- 
 tion sufficiently late in the world's history to be 
 historically attested for all subsequent time. For 
 
 1st. Gradual evolution is in analogy with God's 
 other work. 
 
 2nd. It does not leave Him without witness 
 at any time during the historical period. 
 
 3rd. It gives ample scope for persevering 
 research at all times — i. e. a moral test, and not 
 merely an intellectual assent to some one {ex 
 hypothesi) unequivocally attested event in history. 
 
 The appearance of plan in revelation is in 
 fact, certainly remarkable enough to arrest seri- 
 ous attention. 
 
 If revelation has been of a progressive char- 
 acter, then it follows that it must have been so, 
 
 1 1 should somewhere show how much better a treatise Butler 
 might have written had he known about evolution as the general 
 law of nature. 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 183 
 
 not only historically, but likewise intellectually, 
 morally, and spiritually. For thus only could it 
 be always adapted to the advancing conditions of 
 the human race. This reflection destroys all those 
 numerous objections against Scripture on account 
 of the absurdity or immorality of its statements 
 or precepts, unless it can be shown that the modi- 
 fications suggested by criticism as requisite to 
 bring the statements or precepts into harmony 
 with modern advancement would have been as 
 well adapted to the requirements of the world at 
 the date in question, as were the actual state- 
 ments or precepts before us. 
 
 Supposing Christianity true, it is certain that 
 the revelation which it conveys has been prede- 
 termined at least since the dawn of the historical 
 period. This is certain because the objective 
 evidences of Christianity as a revelation have 
 their origin in that dawn. And these objective 
 evidences are throughout [evidence] of a scheme, 
 in which the end can be seen from the beginning. 
 And the very methods whereby this scheme is 
 itself revealed are such (still supposing that it is 
 a scheme) as present remarkable evidences of 
 design. These methods are, broadly speaking, 
 miracles, prophecy and the results of the teach- 
 ing, &c, upon mankind. Now one may show 
 that no better methods could conceivably have 
 been designed for the purpose of latter-day evi- 
 
1 84 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 dence, combined with moral and religious teach- 
 ing throughout. The mere fact of it being so 
 largely incorporated with secular history renders 
 the Christian religion unique : so to speak, the 
 world, throughout its entire historical period, has 
 been constituted the canvas on which this divine 
 revelation has been painted — and painted so grad- 
 ually that not until the process had been going 
 on for a couple of thousand years was it possible 
 to perceive the subject thereof. 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOGMAS. 
 Whether or not Christ was Himself divine 
 would make no difference so far as the considera- 
 tion of Christianity as the highest phase of evolu- 
 tion is concerned, or from the purely secular [scien- 
 tific] point of view. From the religious point of 
 view,, or that touching the relation of God "to man, 
 it would of course make a great difference ; but 
 the difference belongs to the same region of 
 thought as that which applies to all the previous 
 moments of evolution. Thus the passage from 
 the non-moral to the moral appears, from the 
 secular or scientific point of view, to be due, as 
 far as we can see, to mechanical causes in natural 
 selection or what not. But, just as in the case of 
 the passage from the non-mental to the mental, 
 &c, this passage may have been ultimately due to 
 divine volition, and must have been so due on the 
 theory of Theism. Therefore, I say, it makes no 
 difference from a secular or scientific point of 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 185 
 
 view whether or not Christ was Himself divine ; 
 since, in either case, the movement which He 
 inaugurated was the proximate or phenomenal 
 cause of the observable results e 
 
 Thus, even the question of the divinity of Christ 
 ultimately resolves itself into the question of all 
 questions — viz. is or is not mechanical causation 
 'the outward and visible form of an inward and 
 spiritual grace ?' Is it phenomenal or ontological ; 
 ultimate or derivative ? 
 
 Similarly as regards the redemption. Whether 
 or not Christ was really divine, in as far as a belief 
 in His divinity has been a necessary cause of the 
 moral and religious evolution which has resulted 
 from His life on earth, it has equally and so far 
 'saved His people from their sins'; that is, of 
 course, it has saved them from their own sense of 
 sin as an abiding curse. Whether or not He has 
 effected any corresponding change of an objective 
 character in the ontological sphere, again depends 
 on the * question of questions' just stated. 
 
 REASONABLENESS OF THE DOCTRINES OF THE 
 INCARNATION AND THE TRINITY. 
 
 Pure agnostics and those who search for God 
 in Christianity should have nothing to do with 
 metaphysical theology. That is a department of 
 enquiry which, ex hypothesi, is transcendental, and 
 is only to be considered after Christianity has been 
 accepted. The doctrines of the Incarnation and 
 
1 86 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 the Trinity seemed to me most absurd in my 
 agnostic days. But now, as a pure agnostic, I see 
 in them no rational, difficulty at all. As to the 
 Trinity, the plurality of persons is necessarily 
 implied in the companion doctrine of the Incar- 
 nation. So that at best there is here but one dif- 
 ficulty, since, duality being postulated in the doc- 
 trine of the Incarnation, there is no further diffi- 
 culty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of 
 plurality. Now at one time it seemed to me 
 impossible that any proposition, verbally intelli- 
 gible as such, could be more violently absurd than 
 that of the doctrine [of the Incarnation]. Now 
 I see that this standpoint is wholly irrational, 
 due only to the blindness of reason itself promoted 
 by [purely] scientific habits of thought. * But it 
 is opposed to common sense.' No doubt, utterly 
 so ; but so it ought to be if true. Common sense 
 is merely a [rough] register of common experi- 
 ence ; but the Incarnation, if it ever took place, 
 whatever else it may have been, at all events 
 cannot have been a common event. 'But it is 
 derogatory to God to become man.' How do you 
 know ? Besides, Christ was not an ordinary man. 
 Both negative criticism and the historical effects 
 of His life prove this ; while, if we for a moment 
 adopt the Christian point of view for the sake of 
 argument, the whole raison d'etre of mankind is 
 bound up in Him. Lastly, there are considerations 
 per contra, rendering an incarnation antecedently 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 187 
 
 probable. 1 On antecedent grounds there must 
 be mysteries unintelligible to reason as to the 
 nature of God, &c, supposing a revelation to be 
 made at all. Therefore their occurrence in Chris- 
 tianity is no proper objection to Christianity. 
 Why, again, stumble a priori over the doctrine of 
 the Trinity — especially as man himself is a tri- 
 une being, of body, mind (i. e. reason), and spirit 
 (i. e. moral, aesthetic, religious faculties)? The 
 unquestionable union of these no less unquestion- 
 ably distinct orders of being in man is known 
 immediately as a fact of experience, but is as 
 unintelligible by any process of logic or reason 
 as is the alleged triunity of God. 
 
 ADAM, THE FALL, THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 
 
 These, all taken together as Christian dogmas, 
 are undoubtedly hard hit by the scientific proof 
 of evolution (but are the only dogmas which can 
 fairly be said to be so), and, as constituting the 
 logical basis of the whole plan, they certainly do 
 appear at first sight necessarily to involve in their 
 destruction that of the entire superstructure. But 
 the question is whether, after all, they have been 
 destroyed for a pure agnostic. In other words, 
 whether my principles are not as applicable in 
 turning the flank of infidelity here as everywhere 
 else. 
 
 First, as regards Adam and Eve, observe to 
 
 "See Gore's Bampton Lectures, lect. ii. 
 
1 88 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 begin with, that long before Darwin the story of 
 man in Paradise was recognized by thoughtful 
 theologians as allegorical. Indeed, read with un- 
 prejudiced eyes, the first chapters of Genesis 
 ought always to have been seen to be a poem as 
 distinguished from a history: nor could it ever 
 have been mistaken for a history, but for precon- 
 ceived ideas on the matter of inspiration. But to 
 pure agnostics there should be no such precon- 
 ceived ideas ; so that nowadays no presumption 
 should be raised against it as inspired, merely 
 because it has been proved not to be a history — 
 and this even though we cannot see of what it is 
 allegorical. For, supposing it inspired, it has 
 certainly done good service in the past and can 
 do so likewise in the present, by giving an alle- 
 gorical, though not a literal, starting-point for the 
 Divine Plan of Redemption. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF NATURAL AND REVEALED 
 RELIGION COMPARED. 
 
 It is often said that evolution of organic forms 
 gives as good evidence of design as would their 
 special creation, inasmuch as all the facts of 
 adaptation, in which the evidence consists, are 
 there in either case. But here it is overlooked 
 that the very question at issue is thus begged. 
 The question is, Are these facts of adaptation per 
 se sufficient evidence of design as their cause? 
 But if it be allowed, as it must be, that under 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 189 
 
 hypothesis of evolution by natural causes the 
 facts of adaptation belong to the same category 
 as all the other facts of nature, no more special 
 argument for design can be founded on these 
 facts than on any others in nature. So that the 
 facts of adaptation, like all other facts, are only 
 available as arguments for design when it is 
 assumed that all natural causation is of a mental 
 character: which assumption merely begs the 
 question of design anywhere. Or, in other 
 words, on the supposition of their having been 
 due to natural causes, the facts of adaptation are 
 only then available as per se good evidence of 
 design, when it has already been assumed that, 
 qua due to natural causes, they are due to design. 
 Natural religion resembles Revealed religion 
 in this. Supposing both divine, both have been 
 arranged so that, as far as reason can lead us, 
 there is only enough evidence of design to arouse 
 serious attention to the question of it. In other 
 words, as regards both, the attitude of pure 
 reason ought to be that of pure agnosticism. 
 (Observe that the inadequacy of teleology, or 
 design in nature, to prove Theism has been ex- 
 pressly recognized by all the more intellectual 
 Christians of all ages, although such recognition 
 has become more general since Darwin. On this 
 point I may refer to Pascal especially, 1 and many 
 other authors.) This is another striking analogy 
 
 x Pensies, pp. 205 ff. 
 
19° THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 between Nature and Revelation, supposing both 
 to have emanated from the same author — i. e. 
 quite as much so as identity of developmental 
 method in both. 
 
 Supposing the hypothesis of design in both to be 
 true, it follows that in both this hypothesis can be 
 alike verified only by the organ of immediate 
 intuition — i. e. that other mode of human appre- 
 hension which is supplementary to the rational. 
 Here again we note the analogy. And if a man 
 has this supplementary mode of apprehending the 
 highest truth (by hypothesis such), it will be his 
 duty to exercise his spiritual eyesight in search- 
 ing for God in nature as in revelation, when (still 
 on our present hypothesis that * God is, and is the 
 rewarder of them who seek Him diligently') he 
 will find that his subjective evidence of God in 
 Nature and in Revelation will mutually corrobor- 
 ate one another — so yielding additional evidence 
 to his reason. 
 
 The teleology of Revelation supplements that 
 of Nature, and so, to the spiritually minded man, 
 they logically and mutually corroborate one 
 another. 
 
 Paley's writings form an excellent illustration 
 of the identity of the teleological argument from 
 Nature and from Revelation ; though a very 
 imperfect illustration of the latter taken by itself, 
 inasmuch as he treats only of the New Testament, 
 and even of that very partially — ignoring all that 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 191 
 
 went before Christ, and much of what happened 
 after the apostles. Yet Paley himself does not 
 seem to have observed the similarity of the argu- 
 ment, as developed in his Natural Theology and 
 Evidences of Christianity respectively. But no one 
 has developed the argument better in both cases. 
 His great defect was in not perceiving that this 
 teleological argument,^/- se t is not in either case 
 enough to convince, but only to arouse serious 
 attention. Paley everywhere represents that such 
 an appeal to reason alone ought to be sufficient. 
 He fails to see that if it were, there could be no 
 room for faith. In other words, he fails to 
 recognize the spiritual organ in man, and its com- 
 plementary object, grace in God. So far he fails 
 to be a Christian. And, whether Theism and 
 Christianity be true or false, it is certain that the 
 teleological argument alone ought to result, not in 
 conviction, but in agnosticism. 
 
 The antecedent improbability against a mira- 
 cle being wrought by a man without a moral 
 object is apt to be confused with that of its being 
 done by God with an adequate moral object. The 
 former is immeasurably great ; the latter is only 
 equal to that of the theory of Theism — i. e. nil. 
 
 CHRISTIAN DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 It will be said, ' However you may seek to 
 explain away a priori objections to miracles on a 
 
 * [Romane's line of argument in this note seems to me impossi- 
 
19 2 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 priori grounds, there remains the fact that Christ 
 accepted the current superstition in regard to 
 diabolic possession. Now the devils damn the 
 doctrine. For you must choose the horn of your 
 dilemma, either the current theory was true or 
 it was not. If you say true, you must allow that 
 the same theory is true for all similar stages of 
 culture, [but not for the later stages,] and there- 
 fore that the most successful exorcist is Science, 
 albeit Science works not by faith in the theory, 
 but by rejection of it. Observe, the diseases are 
 so well described by the record that there is no 
 possibility of mistaking them. Hence you must 
 suppose that they were due to devils in a.d. 30, 
 and to nervous disorders in'A.D. 1894. On the other 
 hand, if you choose the other horn, you must 
 accept either the hypothesis of the ignorance or 
 that of the mendacity of Christ.' 
 
 The answer is, that either hypothesis may be 
 accepted by Christianity. For the sake of argu- 
 ment we may exclude the question whether the 
 acceptance of the devil theory by Christ was really 
 historical, or merely attributed to Him by His 
 biographers after His death. If Christ knew that 
 
 ble to maintain. The emphasis which Jesus Christ lays on dia- 
 bolic agency is so great that, if it is not a reality, He must be 
 regarded either as seriously misled about realities which concern 
 the spiritual life, or else as seriously misleading others. And in 
 neither case could He be even the perfect Prophet. I think I am 
 justified in explaining my disagreement with Romanes* argument 
 at this point particularly.— Ed.] 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 193 
 
 the facts were not due to devils, He may also have 
 known it was best to fall in with current theory, 
 rather than to puzzle the people with a lecture on 
 pathology. If He did not know, why should He, 
 if he had previously 'emptied Himself of omnis- 
 cience? In either case, if He had denied the cur- 
 rent theory, he would have been giving evidence 
 of scientific knowledge or of scientific intuition 
 beyond the culture of His time, and this, as in 
 countless other cases, was not in accordance with 
 His method, which, whether we suppose it divine 
 or human, has nowhere proved His divine mission 
 by foreknowledge of natural science. 
 
 The particular question of Christ and demon- 
 ology is but part of a much larger one. 
 
 DARWIN'S DIFFICULTY. 1 
 
 The answer to Darwin's objection about so 
 small a proportion of mankind having ever heard 
 of Christ, is manifold : — 
 
 1. Supposing Christianity true, it is the highest 
 and final revelation ; i. e. the scheme of revelation 
 has been developmental. Therefore it follows 
 from the very method that the larger proportion 
 
 1 [There is nothing in Darwin's writings which seems to me 
 to justify Romanes in attributing this difficulty to him specially. 
 But he knew Darwin so intimately and reverenced him so pro- 
 foundly, that he is not likely to have been in error on this sub- 
 ject— Ed,] 
 
194 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 of mankind should never hear of Christ, i. e. all 
 who live before his advent. 
 
 2. But these were not left 'without witness.' 
 They all had their religion and their moral sense, 
 each at its appropriate stage of development. 
 Therefore 'the times of ignorance God winked 
 at' (Acts xvii. 30). 
 
 3. Moreover these men were not devoid of 
 benefit from Christ, because it is represented that 
 He died for all men — i. e. but for Him [i. e. 
 apart from the knowledge of what was to come] 
 God would not have 'winked at the times of 
 ignorance.' The efficacy of atonement is repre- 
 sented as transcendental, and not dependent on 
 the accident of hearing about the Atoner. 
 
 4. It is remarkable that of all men Darwin 
 should have been worsted by this fallacious argu- 
 ment. For it has received its death-blow from 
 the theory of evolution : i. e. if it be true that 
 evolution has been the method of natural causa- 
 tion, and if it be true that the method of natural 
 causation is due to a Divinity, then it follows that 
 the lateness of Christ's appearance on earth must 
 have been designed. For it is certain that He 
 could not have appeared at any earlier date with- 
 out having violated the method of evolution. 
 Therefore, on the theory of Theism, He ought to 
 have appeared when he did — i. e. at the earliest 
 possible moment in history. 
 
 So as to the suitability of the moment of 
 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 195 
 
 Christ's appearance in other respects. Even sec- 
 ular historians are agreed as to the suitability of 
 the combinations, and deduce the success of His 
 system of morals and religion from this fact. So 
 with students of comparative religions. 
 
CONCLUDING NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 The intellectual attitude towards Christianity 
 expressed in these notes may be described as — 
 ( i ) * pure agnosticism ' in the region of the scien- 
 tific 'reason/ coupled with (2) a vivid recognition 
 of the spiritual necessity of faith and of the 
 legitimacy and value of its intuitions; (3) a 
 perception of the positive strength of the histori- 
 cal and spiritual evidences of Christianity. 
 
 George Romanes came to recognize, as in 
 these written notes so also in conversation, that 
 it was 'reasonable to be a Christian believer' 
 before the activity or habit of faith had been 
 recovered. His life was cut short very soon after 
 this point was reached ; but it will surprise no one 
 to learn that the writer of these 'Thoughts' 
 returned before his death to that full, deliberate 
 communion with the Church of Jesus Christ which 
 he had for so many years been conscientiously 
 compelled to forego. In his case the 'pure in 
 heart' was after a long period of darkness allowed, 
 in a measure before his death, to 'see God.' 
 
 Fecisti nos ad te, Dotnine ; et inquietum est cor 
 nostrum donee requieseat in te. 
 
 C. G. 
 
 196 
 
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