Kitabı oku: «Through Nature to God», sayfa 7

III
Weakness of Materialism

Just here comes along the materialist and asks us some questions, tries to serve on us a kind of metaphysical writ of quo warranto. If modern physics leads us inevitably to the conception of a single infinite Power manifested in all the phenomena of the knowable Universe, by what authority do we identify that Power with the indwelling Deity as conceived by St. Athanasius? The Athanasian Deity is to some extent fashioned in Man's image; he is, to say the least, like the psychical part of ourselves. After making all possible allowances for the gulf which separates that which is Infinite and Absolute from that which is Finite and Relative, an essential kinship is asserted between God and the Human Soul. By what authority, our materialist will ask, do we assert any such kinship between the Human Soul and the Power which modern physics reveals as active throughout the universe? Is it not going far beyond our knowledge to assert any such kinship? And would it not be more modest and becoming in us to simply designate this ever active universal Power by some purely scientific term, such as Force?

This argument is to-day a very familiar one, and it wears a plausible aspect; it is couched in a spirit of scientific reserve, which wins for it respectful consideration. The modest and cautious spirit of science has done so much for us, that it is always wise to give due heed to its warnings. Let us beware of going beyond our knowledge, says the materialist. We know nothing but phenomena as manifestations of an indwelling force; nor have we any ground for supposing that there is anything psychical, or even quasi-psychical, in the universe outside of the individual minds of men and other animals. Moreover, continues the materialist, the psychical phenomena of which we are conscious – reason, memory, emotion, volition – are but peculiarly conditioned manifestations of the same indwelling force which under other conditions appears as light or heat or electricity. All such manifestations are fleeting, and beyond this world of fleeting phenomena we have no warrant, either in science or in common sense, for supposing that anything whatever exists. This world that is cognizable through the senses is all that there is, and the story of it that we can decipher by the aid of terrestrial experience is the whole story; the Unseen World is a mere figment inherited from the untutored fancy of primeval man. Such is the general view of things which Materialism urges upon us with the plea of scientific sobriety and caution; and to many minds, as already observed, it wears a plausible aspect.

Nevertheless, when subjected to criticism, this theory of things soon loses its sober and plausible appearance and is seen to be eminently rash and shallow. In the first place, there is no such correlation or equivalence as is alleged between physical forces and the phenomena of consciousness. The correlations between different modes of motion have been proved by actual quantitative measurement, and never could have been proved in any other way. We know, for example, that heat is a mode of motion; the heat that will raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree of Fahrenheit is exactly equivalent to the motion of 772 pounds falling through a distance of one foot. In similar wise we know that light, electricity, and magnetism are modes of motion, transferable one into another; and, although precise measurements have not been accomplished, there is no reason for doubting that the changes in brain tissue, which accompany each thought and feeling, are also modes of motion, transferable into the other physical modes. But thought and feeling themselves, which can neither be weighed nor measured, do not admit of being resolved into modes of motion. They do not enter into the closed circuit of physical transformations, but stand forever outside of it, and concentric with that segment of the circuit which passes through the brain. It may be that thought and feeling could not continue to exist if that physical segment of the circuit were taken away. It may be that they could. To assume that they could not is surely the height of rash presumption. The correlation of forces exhibits Mind as in nowise a product of Matter, but as something in its growth and manifestations outside and parallel. It is incompatible with the theory that the relation of the human soul to the body is like that of music to the harp; but it is quite compatible with the time-honoured theory of the human soul as indwelling in the body and escaping from it at death.

In the second place, when we come to the denial of all kinship between the human soul and the Infinite Power that is revealed in all phenomena, the materialistic theory raises difficulties as great as those which it seeks to avoid. The difficulties which it wishes to avoid are those which inevitably encumber the attempt to conceive of Deity as Personality exerting volition and cherishing intelligent purpose. Such difficulties are undeniably great; nay, they are insuperable. When we speak of Intelligence and Will and Personality, we must use these words with the meanings in which experience has clothed them, or we shall soon find ourselves talking nonsense. The only intelligence we know is strictly serial in its nature, and is limited by the existence of independent objects of cognition. What flight of analogy can bear us across the gulf that divides such finite intelligence from that unlimited Knowledge to which all things past and future are ever present? Volition, as we know it, implies alternative courses of action, antecedent motives, and resulting effort. Like intelligence, its operations are serial. What, then, do we really mean, if we speak of omnipresent Volition achieving at one and the same moment an infinite variety of ends? So, too, with Personality: when we speak of personality that is not circumscribed by limits, are we not using language from which all the meaning has evaporated?

Such difficulties are insurmountable. Words which have gained their meanings from finite experience of finite objects of thought must inevitably falter and fail when we seek to apply them to that which is Infinite. But we do not mend matters by emptying terms taken from the inorganic world rather than from human personality. To designate the universal Power by some scientific term, such as Force, does not help us in the least. All our experience of force is an experience of finite forces antagonized by other forces. We can frame no conception whatever of Infinite Force comprising within itself all the myriad antagonistic attractions and repulsions in which the dynamic universe consists. We go beyond our knowledge when we speak of Infinite Force quite as much as we do when we speak of Infinite Personality. Indeed, no word or phrase which we seek to apply to Deity can be other than an extremely inadequate and unsatisfactory symbol. From the very nature of the case it must always be so, and if we once understand the reason why, it need not vex or puzzle us.

It is not only when we try to speculate about Deity that we find ourselves encompassed with difficulties and are made to realize how very short is our mental tether in some directions. This world, in its commonest aspects, presents many baffling problems, of which it is sometimes wholesome that we should be reminded. If you look at a piece of iron, it seems solid; it looks as if its particles must be everywhere in contact with one another. And yet, by hammering, or by great pressure, or by intense cold, the piece of iron may be compressed, so that it will occupy less space than before. Evidently, then, its particles are not in contact, but are separated from one another by unoccupied tracts of enveloping space. In point of fact, these particles are atoms arranged after a complicated fashion in clusters known as molecules. The word atom means something that cannot be cut. Now, are these iron atoms divisible or indivisible? If they are divisible, then what of the parts into which each one can be divided; are they also divisible? and so on forever. But if these iron atoms are indivisible, how can we conceive such a thing? Can we imagine two sides so close together that no plane of cleavage could pass between them? Can we imagine cohesive tenacity too great to be overcome by any assignable disruptive force, and therefore infinite? Suppose, now, we heat this piece of iron to a white heat. Scientific inquiry has revealed the fact that its atom-clusters are floating in an ocean of ether, in which are also floating the atom-clusters of other bodies and of the air about us. The heating is the increase of wave motion in this ether, until presently a secondary series of intensely rapid waves appear as white light. Now this ether would seem to be of infinite rarity, since it does not affect the weight of bodies, and yet its wave-motions imply an elasticity far greater than that of coiled steel. How can we imagine such powerful resilience combined with such extreme tenuity?

These are a few of the difficulties of conception in which the study of physical science abounds, and I cite them because it is wholesome for us to bear in mind that such difficulties are not confined to theological subjects. They serve to show how our powers of conceiving ideas are strictly limited by the nature of our experience. The illustration just cited from the luminiferous ether simply shows how during the past century the study of radiant forces has introduced us to a mode of material existence quite different from anything that had formerly been known or suspected. In this mode of matter we find attributes united which all previous experience had taught us to regard as contradictory and incompatible. Yet the facts cannot be denied; hard as we may find it to frame the conception, this light-bearing substance is at the same time almost infinitely rare and almost infinitely resilient. If such difficulties confront us upon the occasion of a fresh extension of our knowledge of the physical world, what must we expect when we come to speculate upon the nature and modes of existence of God? Bearing this in mind, let us proceed to consider the assumption that the Infinite Power which is manifested in the universe is essentially psychical in its nature; in other words, that between God and the Human Soul there is real kinship, although we may be unable to render any scientific account of it. Let us consider this assumption historically, and in the light of our general knowledge of Evolution.

IV
Religion's First Postulate: the Quasi-Human God

It is with purpose that I use the word assumption. As a matter of history, the existence of a quasi-human God has always been an assumption or postulate. It is something which men have all along taken for granted. It probably never occurred to anybody to try to prove the existence of such a God until it was doubted, and doubts on that subject are very modern. Omitting from the account a few score of ingenious philosophers, it may be said that all mankind, the wisest and the simplest, have taken for granted the existence of a Deity, or deities, of a psychical nature more or less similar to that of Humanity. Such a postulate has formed a part of all human thinking from primitive ages down to the present time. The forms in which it has appeared have been myriad in number, but all have been included in this same fundamental assumption. The earliest forms were those which we call fetishism and animism. In fetishism the wind that blows a tree down is endowed with personality and supposed to exert conscious effort; in animism some ghost of a dead man is animating that gust of wind. In either case a conscious volition similar to our own, but outside of us, is supposed to be at work. There has been some discussion as to whether fetishism or animism is the more primitive, and some writers would regard fetishism as a special case of animism; but it is not necessary to my present purpose that such questions should be settled. The main point is this, that in the earliest phases of theism each operation of Nature was supposed to have some quasi-human personality behind it. Such phases we find among contemporary savages, and there is abundant evidence of their former existence among peoples now civilized. In the course of ages there was a good deal of generalizing done. Poseidon could shake the land and preside over the sea, angry Apollo could shoot arrows tipped with pestilence, mischievous Hermes could play pranks in the summer breezes, while as lord over all, though with somewhat fitful sway, stood Zeus on the summit of Olympus, gathering the rain-clouds and wielding the thunderbolt. Nothing but increasing knowledge of nature was needed to convert such Polytheism into Monotheism, even into the strict Monotheism of our own time, in which the whole universe is the multiform manifestation of a single Deity that is still regarded as in some real and true sense quasi-human. As the notion of Deity has thus been gradually generalized, from a thousand local gods to one omnipresent God, it has been gradually stripped of its grosser anthropomorphic vestments. The tutelar Deity of a savage clan is supposed to share with his devout worshippers in the cannibal banquet; the Gods of Olympus made war and love, and were moved to fits of inextinguishable laughter. From our modern Monotheism such accidents of humanity are eliminated, but the notion of a kinship between God and man remains, and is rightly felt to be essential to theism. Take away from our notion of God the human element, and the theism instantly vanishes; it ceases to be a notion of God. We may retain an abstract symbol to which we apply some such epithet as Force, or Energy, or Power, but there is nothing theistic in this. Some ingenious philosopher may try to persuade us to the contrary, but the Human Soul knows better; it knows at least what it wants; it has asked for Theology, not for Dynamics, and it resents all such attempts to palm off upon it stones for bread.

Our philosopher will here perhaps lift up his hands in dismay and cry, "Hold! what matters it what the Human Soul wants? Are cravings, forsooth, to be made to do duty as reasons?" It is proper to reply that we are trying to deal with this whole subject after the manner of the naturalist, which is to describe things as they exist and account for them as best we may. I say, then, that mankind have framed, and for long ages maintained, a notion of God into which there enters a human element. Now if it should ever be possible to abolish that human element, it would not be possible to cheat mankind into accepting the non-human remnant of the notion as an equivalent of the full notion of which they had been deprived. Take away from our symbolic conception of God the human element, and that aspect of theism which has from the outset chiefly interested mankind is gone.

V
Religions Second Postulate: the undying Human Soul

That supremely interesting aspect of theism belongs to it as part and parcel of the general belief in an Unseen World, in which human beings have an interest. The belief in the personal continuance of the individual human soul after death is a very ancient one. The savage custom of burying utensils and trinkets for the use of the deceased enables us to trace it back into the Glacial Period. We may safely say that for much more than a hundred thousand years mankind have regarded themselves as personally interested in two worlds, the physical world which daily greets our waking senses, and another world, comparatively dim and vaguely outlined, with which the psychical side of humanity is more closely connected. The belief in the Unseen World seems to be coextensive with theism; the animism of the lowest savages includes both. No race or tribe of men has ever been found destitute of the belief in a ghost-world. Now, a ghost-world implies the personal continuance of human beings after death, and it also implies identity of nature between the ghosts of man and the indwelling spirits of sun, wind, and flood. It is chiefly because these ideas are so closely interwoven in savage thought that it is often so difficult to discriminate between fetishism and animism. These savage ideas are of course extremely crude in their symbolism. With the gradual civilization of human thinking, the refinement in the conception of the Deity is paralleled by the refinement in the conception of the Other World. From Valhalla to Dante's Paradise, what an immeasurable distance the human mind has travelled! In our modern Monotheism the assumption of kinship between God and the Human Soul is the assumption that there is in Man a psychical element identical in nature with that which is eternal. Belief in a quasi-human God and belief in the Soul's immortality thus appear in their origin and development, as in their ultimate significance, to be inseparably connected. They are part and parcel of one and the same efflorescence of the human mind. Mankind has always entertained them in common, and so entertains them now; and were it possible (which it is not) for science to disprove the Soul's immortality, a theism deprived of this element would surely never be accepted as an equivalent for the theism entertained before. The Positivist argument that the only worthy immortality is survival in the grateful remembrance of one's fellow creatures would hardly be regarded as anything but a travesty and trick. If the world's long cherished beliefs are to fall, in God's name let them fall, but save us from the intellectual hypocrisy that goes about pretending we are none the poorer!

VI
Religions Third Postulate: the Ethical Significance of the Unseen World

Our account of the rise and progress of the general belief in an Unseen World is, however, not yet complete. No mention has been made of an element which apparently has always been present in the belief. I mean the ethical element. The savage's primeval ghost-world is always mixed up with his childlike notions of what he ought to do and what he ought not to do. The native of Tierra del Fuego, who foreboded a snowstorm because one of Mr. Darwin's party killed some birds for specimens, furnishes an excellent illustration. In a tribe living always on the brink of starvation, any wanton sacrifice of meat must awaken the wrath of the tutelar ancestral ghost-deities who control the weather. Notions of a similar sort are connected with the direful host of omens that dog the savage's footsteps through the world. Whatever conduct the necessities of clan or tribe have prohibited soon comes to wear the aspect of sacrilege.

Thus inextricably intertwined from the moment of their first dim dawning upon the consciousness of nascent Humanity, have been the notion of Deity, the notion of an Unseen World, and the notions of Right and Wrong. In their beginnings theology and ethics were inseparable; in all the vast historic development of religion they have remained inseparable. The grotesque conceptions of primitive men have given place to conceptions framed after wider and deeper experience, but the union of ethics with theology remains undisturbed even in that most refined religious philosophy which ventures no opinion concerning the happiness or misery of a future life, except that the seed sown here will naturally determine the fruit to be gathered hereafter. All the analogies that modern knowledge can bring to bear upon the theory of a future life point to the opinion that the breach of physical continuity is not accompanied by any breach of ethical continuity. Such an opinion relating to matters beyond experience cannot of course be called scientific, but whether it be justifiable or not, my point is that neither in the crude fancies of primitive men nor in the most refined modern philosophy can theology divorce itself from ethics. Take away the ethical significance from our conceptions of the Unseen World and the quasi-human God, and no element of significance remains. All that was vital in theism is gone.