04.03 - Part 4, Chapter 3

CHAPTER III SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY THE point of view we have thus reached is obviously the precise opposite of that which is adopted by those who either accept the naturalistic view of things in its simplicity, or who agree with naturalism in taking our knowledge of Nature as the core and substance of their creed, while gladly adding to it such supernatural supplements as are permitted them by the canons of their rationalising philosophy. Of these last there are two varieties. There are those who refuse to add anything to the teaching of science proper, except such theological doctrines as they persuade themselves may be deduced from scientific premises. And there are those who, being less fastidious in the matter of proof, are prepared, tentatively and provisionally, to admit so much of theology as they think their naturalistic premises do not positively contradict.

It must, I think, be admitted that the members of these two classes are at some disadvantage compared with the naturalistic philosophers proper. To be sure, the scheme of belief so confidently propounded by the latter is, as we have seen, both incoherent and inadequate. But its incoherence is hid from them by the inevitableness of its positive teaching; while its inadequacy is covered by the, as yet, unsquandered heritage of sentiments and ideals which has come down to us from other ages inspired by other faiths. On the other hand, as a set-off against this, they may justly claim that their principles, such as they are, have been worked out to their legitimate conclusion. They have reached their journey’s end, and there they may at least rest, if it is not given them to be thankful. Far different is the fate of those who are reluctantly travelling the road to naturalism, driven thither by a false philosophy honestly entertained. To them each new discovery in geology, morphology, anthropology, or the ’ higher criticism,’ arouses as much theological anxiety as it does scientific interest. They are perpetually occupied in the task of ’ reconciling/ as the phrase goes, ’ religion and science.’ This is to them, not an intellectual luxury, but a pressing and overmastering necessity. For their theology exists only on sufferance. It rules over its hereditary territories as a tributary vassal dependent on the forbearance of some encroaching overlord. Province after province which once acknowledged its sovereignty has been torn from its grasp; and it depends no longer upon its own action, but upon the uncontrolled policy of its too powerful neighbour, how long it shall preserve a precarious authority over the remainder.

Now, my reasons for entirely dissenting from this melancholy view of the relations between the various departments of belief have been one of the chief themes of these Notes. But it must not be supposed that I intend either to deny that it is our business to ’ reconcile ’ all beliefs, so far as possible, into a self-consistent whole, or to assert that, because a perfectly coherent philosophy cannot as yet be attained, it is, in the meanwhile, a matter of complete indifference how many contradictions and obscurities we admit into our provisional system. Some contradictions and obscurities there needs must be. That we should not be able completely to harmonise the detached hints and isolated fragments in which alone Reality comes into relation with us; that we should but imperfectly co-ordinate what we so imperfectly comprehend, is what we might expect, and what for the present we have no choice but to submit to. Yet it ’will, I think, be found on examination that the discrepancies which exist between different departments of belief are less in number and importance than those which exist within the various departments themselves; that the difficulties which science, ethics, or theology have to solve in common are more formidable by far than any which divide them from each other; and that, in particular, the supposed ’conflict between science and religion,’ which occupies so large a space in contemporary literature, is the theme of so much vigorous debate, and seems to so many earnest souls the one question worth resolving, is either concerned for the most part with matters in themselves comparatively trifling, or touches interests lying far beyond the limits of pure theology. Of course, it must be remembered that I am now talking of science, not of naturalism. The differences between naturalism and theology are, no doubt, irreconcilable, since naturalism is by definition the negation of all theology. But science must not be dragged into every one of the many quarrels which naturalism has taken upon its shoulders. Science is in no way concerned, for instance, to deny the reality of a world unrevealed to us in sense-perception, nor the existence of a God who, however imperfectly, may be known by those who diligently seek Him. All it says, or ought to say, is that these are matters beyond its jurisdiction; to be tried, therefore, in other courts, and before judges administering different laws. But we may go further. The being of God may be beyond the province of science, and yet it may be from a consideration of the general body of scientific knowledge that philosophy draws some important motives for accepting the doctrine. Any complete survey of the ’ proofs of theism ’ would, I need not say, be here quite out of place; yet, in order to make clear where I think the real difficulty lies in framing any system which shall include both theology and science, I may be permitted to say enough about theism to show where I think the difficulty does not lie. It does not lie in the doctrine that there is a supernatural or, let us say, a metaphysical ground, on which the whole system of natural phenomena depend; nor in the attribution to this ground of the quality of reason, or, it may be, of something higher than reason, in which reason is, so to speak, included. This belief, with all its inherent obscurities, is, no doubt, necessary to theology, but it is at the same time so far, in my judgment, from being repugnant to science that, without it, the scientific view of the natural world would not be less, but more, beset with difficulties than it is at present. This fact has been in part obscured by certain infelicities in the popular statements of what is known as the ’ Argument from Design.’ In a famous answer to that argument it has been pointed out that the inference from the adaptation of means to ends, which rightly convinces us in the case of manufactured articles that they are produced by intelligent contrivance, can scarcely be legitimately applied to the case of the universe as a whole. An induction which may be perfectly valid within the circle of phenomena, may be quite meaningless when it is employed to account for the circle itself. You cannot infer a God from the existence of the world as you infer an architect from the existence of a house, or a mechanic from the existence of a watch.

Without discussing the merits of this answer at length, so much may, I think, be conceded to it that it suggests a doubt whether the theologians who thus rely upon an inductive proof of the being of God are not in a position somewhat similar to that of the empirical philosophers who rely upon an inductive proof of the uniformity of Nature. The uniformity of Nature, as I have before explained, cannot be proved by experience, for it is what makes proof from experience possible. 1 We must bring it, or something like it, to the facts in order to infer anything from them at all. Assume it, and we shall no doubt find that, broadly speaking and in the rough, what we call the facts conform to it. But this conformity is not inductive proof, and must not be confounded with inductive proof. In the same way, I do not contend that, if we start from Nature without God, we shall be logically driven to believe in Him by a mere consideration of the examples of adaptation which Nature undoubtedly contains. It is enough that when we bring this belief with us to the study of phenomena, we can say of

1 This phrase has a Kantian ring about it; but I need not say that it is not here used in the Kantian sense. The argument is touched on, as the reader may recollect, at the end of Chapter I., Part II. See, however, below, a further discussion as to what the uniformity of Nature means, and as to what may be properly inferred from it. it, what we have just said of the principle of uniformity, namely, that, ’ broadly speaking and in the rough,’ the facts harmonise with it, and that it gives a unity and a coherence to our apprehension of the natural world which it would not otherwise possess.

II But the argument from design, in whatever shape it is accepted, is not the only one in favour of theism with which scientific knowledge furnishes us. Nor is it, to my mind, the most important. The argument from design rests upon the world as known. But something also may be inferred from the mere fact that we know a fact which, like every other, has to be accounted for. And how is it to be accounted for? I need not repeat again what I have already said about Authority and Reason; for it is evident that, whatever be the part played by reason among the proximate causes of belief, among the ultimate causes it plays, according to science, no part at all. On the naturalistic hypothesis, the whole premises of knowledge are clearly due to the blind operation of material causes, and in the last resort to these alone. On that hypothesis we no more possess free reason than we possess free will. As all our volitions are the inevitable product of forces which are quite alien to morality, so all our conclusions are the inevitable product of forces which are quite alien to reason. As the casual introduction of conscience, or a ’ good will,’ into the chain of causes which ends in a ’ virtuous action ’ ought not to suggest any idea of merit, so the casual introduction of a little ratiocination as a stray link in the chain of causes which ends in what we are pleased to describe as a ’ demonstrated conclusion,’ ought not to be taken as implying that the conclusion is in harmony with fact. Morality and reason are august names, which give an air of respectability to certain actions and certain arguments; but it is quite obvious on examination that, if the naturalistic hypothesis be correct, they are but unconscious tools in the hands of their unmoral and non - rational antecedents, and that the real responsibility for all they do lies in the distribution of matter and energy which happened to prevail far back in the incalculable past.

These conclusions are, no doubt, as we saw at the beginning of this Essay, embarrassing enough to Morality. But they are absolutely ruinous to Knowledge. For they require us to accept a system as rational, one of whose doctrines is that the system itself is the product of causes which have no tendency to truth rather than falsehood, or to falsehood rather than truth. Forget, if you please, that reason itself is the result, like nerves or muscles, of physical antecedents. Assume (a tolerably violent assumption) that in dealing with her premises she obeys only her own laws. Of what value is this autonomy if those premises are settled for her by purely irrational forces, which she is powerless to control, or even to comprehend? The professor of naturalism rejoicing in the display of his dialectical resources, is like a voyager, pacing at his own pleasure up and down the ship’s deck, who should suppose that his movements had some important share in determining his position on the illimitable ocean. And the parallel would be complete if we can conceive such a voyager pointing to the alertness of his step and the vigour of his limbs as auguring well for the successful prosecution of his journey, while assuring you in the very same breath that the vessel, within whose narrow bounds he displays all this meaningless activity, is drifting he knows not whence nor whither, without pilot or captain, at the bidding of shifting winds and undiscovered currents.

Consider the following propositions, selected from the naturalistic creed or deduced from it:

(i.) My beliefs, in so far as they are the result of reasoning at all, are founded on premises produced in the last resort by the ’ collision of atoms.’

(ii.) Atoms, having no prejudices in favour of truth, are as likely to turn out wrong premises as right ones; nay, more likely, inasmuch as truth is single and error manifold.

(iii.) My premises, therefore, in the first place, and my conclusions in the second, are certainly untrustworthy, and probably false. Their falsity, moreover, is of a kind which cannot be remedied; since any attempt to correct it must start from premises not suffering under the same defect. But no such premises exist.

(iv.) Therefore, again, my opinion about the original causes which produced my premises, as it is an inference from them, partakes of their weakness; so that I cannot either securely doubt my own certainties or be certain about my own doubts. This is scepticism indeed; scepticism which is forced by its own inner nature to be sceptical even about itself; which neither kills belief nor lets it live. But it may perhaps be suggested in reply to this argument, that whatever force it may have against the old-fashioned naturalism, its edge is blunted when turned against the evolutionary agnosticism of more recent growth; since the latter establishes the existence of a machinery which, irrational though it be, does really tend gradually, and in the long run, to produce true opinions rather than false. That machinery is, I need not say, Selection, and the other forces (if other forces there be) which bring the ’ organism ’ into more and more perfect harmony with its ’ environment.’ Some harmony is necessary so runs the argument in order that any form of life may be possible; and as life develops, the harmony necessarily becomes more and more complete. But since there is no more important form in which this harmony can show itself than truth of belief, which is, indeed, only another name for the perfect correspondence between belief and fact, Nature, herein acting as a kind of cosmic Inquisition, will repress by judicious persecution any lapses from the standard of naturalistic orthodoxy. Sound doctrine will be fostered; error will be discouraged or destroyed; until at last, by methods which are neither rational themselves nor of rational origin, the cause of reason will be fully vindicated. Arguments like these are, however, quite insufficient to justify the conclusion which is drawn from them. In the first place, they take no account of any causes which were in operation before life appeared upon the planet. Until there occurred the unexplained leap from the Inorganic to the Organic, Selection, of course, had no place among the evolutionary processes; while even after that date it was, from the nature of the case, only concerned to foster and perpetuate those chance -borne beliefs which minister to the continuance of the species. But what an utterly inadequate basis for speculation is here! We are to suppose that powers which were evolved in primitive man and his animal progenitors in order that they might kill with success and marry in security, are on that account fitted to explore the secrets of the universe. We are to suppose that the fundamental beliefs on which these powers of reasoning are to be exercised reflect with sufficient precision remote aspects of reality, though they were produced in the main by physiological processes which date from a stage of development when the only curiosities which had to be satisfied were those of fear and those of hunger. To say that instruments of research constructed solely for uses like these cannot be expected to supply us with a metaphysic or a theology, is to say far too little. They cannot be expected to give us any general view even of the phenomenal world, or to do more than guide us in comparative safety from the satisfaction of one useful appetite to the satisfaction of another. On this theory, therefore, we are again driven back to the same sceptical position in which we found ourselves left by the older forms of the ’ positive,’ or naturalistic creed. On this theory, as on the other, reason has to recognise that her rights of independent judgment and review are merely titular dignities, carrying with them no effective powers; and that, whatever her pretensions, she is, for the most part, the mere editor and interpreter of the utterances of unreason.

I do not believe that any escape from these perplexities is possible,, unless we are prepared to bring to the study of the world the presupposition that it was the work of a rational Being, who made it intelligible, and at the same time made us, in however feeble a fashion, able to understand it. This conception does not solve all difficulties; far from it. 1 But,

1 According to a once prevalent theory, ’ innate ideas ’ were true because they were implanted in us by God. According to my way of putting it, there must be a God to justify our confidence in (what used to be called) innate ideas. I have given the argument in a form which avoids all discussion as to the nature of the relation between mind and body. Whatever be the mode of describing this which ultimately commends itself to naturalistic psychologists, at least, it is not on the face of it incoherent. It does not attempt the impossible task of extracting reason from unreason; nor does it require us to accept among scientific conclusions any which effectually shatter the credibility of scientific premises.

Ill

Theism, then, whether or not it can in the strict meaning of the word be described as proved by science, is a principle which science, for a double reason, requires for its own completion. The ordered system of phenomena asks for a cause; our knowledge of that system is inexplicable unless we assume for it a rational Author. Under this head, at least, there should be no ’ conflict between science and religion.’

It is true, of course, that if theism smoothes away some of the difficulties which atheism raises, it is not on that account without difficulties of its awn. We cannot, for example, form, I will not say any adequate, but even any tolerable, idea of the mode in which God is related to, and acts on, the world of phenomena. That He created it, that He sustains it, we are driven to believe. How He created it, how He sustains it, is impossible for us to imagine. But let it be observed that the difficulties which thus arise are no peculiar heritage of theology, or of a the reasoning in the text holds good. Cf. the purely sceptical presentation of the argument contained in Philosophic Doubt, chap. xiii. science which accepts among its presuppositions the central truth which theology teaches. Naturalism itself has to face them in a yet more embarrassing form. For they meet us not only in connection with the doctrine of God, but in connection with the doctrine of man. Not Divinity alone intervenes in the world of things. Each living soul, in its measure and degree, does the same. Each living soul which acts on its surroundings raises questions analogous to, and in some ways more perplexing than, those suggested by the action of a God immanent in a universe of phenomena. Of course I am aware that, in thus speaking of the connection between man and his material surroundings, I am assuming the truth of a theory which some men of science (in this, however, travelling a little beyond their province) would most energetically deny. But their denial really only serves to emphasise the extreme difficulty of the problem raised by the relation of the Self to phenomena. So hardly pressed are they by these difficulties that, in order to evade them, they attempt an impossible act of suicide; and because the Self refuses to figure as a phenomenon among phenomena, or complacently to fit in to a purely scientific view of the world, they set about the hopeless task of suppressing it altogether. Enough has already been said on this point to permit me to pass it by. I will, therefore, only observe that those who ask us to reject the conviction entertained by each one of us, that he does actually and effectually intervene in the material world, may have many grounds of objection to theology, but should certainly not include among them the reproach that it asks us to believe the incredible.

But, in truth, without going into the metaphysics of the Self, our previous discussions l contain ample

1 Cf. ante, Part II., Chaps. I. and II. It may be worth while reminding the reader of one set of difficulties to which I have made little reference in the text. Every theory of the relation between Will, or, more strictly, the Willing Self and Matter, must come under one of two heads: (i) Either Will acts on Matter, or (2) it does not. If it does act on Matter, it must be either as Free Will or as Determined Will. If it is as Free Will, it upsets the uniformity of Nature, and our most fundamental scientific conceptions must be recast. If it is as Determined Will, that is to say, if volition be interpolated as a necessary link between one set of material movements and another, then, indeed, it leaves the uniformity of Nature untouched; but it violates mechanical principles. According to the mechanical view of the world, the condition of any material system at one moment is absolutely determined by its condition at the preceding moment. In a world so conceived there is no room for the interpolation even of Determined Will among the causes of material change. It is mere surplusage.

(2. ) If the Will does not act on Matter, then we must suppose either that volition belongs to a psychic series running in a parallel stream to the physiological changes of the brain, though neither influenced by it nor influencing it which is, of course, the ancient theory of pre-established harmony; or else we must suppose that it is a kind of superfluous consequence of certain physiological changes, produced presumably without the exhaustion of any form of energy, and having no effect whatever, either upon the material world or, I suppose, upon other psychic conditions. This reduces us to automata, and automata of a kind very difficult to find proper accommodation for in a world scientifically conceived.

None of these alternatives seem very attractive, but one of them would seem to be inevitable material for showing how impenetrable are the mists which obscure the relation of mind to matter, of things to the perception of things. Neither can be eliminated from our system. Both must perforce form elements in every adequate representation of reality. Yet the philosophic artist has still to arise who shall combine the two into a single picture, without doing serious violence to essential features, either of the one or the other. I am myself, indeed, disposed to doubt whether any concession made by the ’ subjective ’ to the ’ objective/ or by the ’ objective ’ to the ’subjective,’ short of the total destruction of one or the other, will avail to produce a harmonious scheme. And certainly no discord could be so barren, so unsatisfying, so practically impossible, as a harmony attained at such a cost. We must acquiesce, then, in the existence of an unsolved difficulty. But it is a difficulty which meets us, in an even more intractable form, when we strive to realise the nature of our own relations to the little world in which we move, than when we are dealing with a like problem in respect to the Divine Spirit, Who is the Ground of all being and the Source of all change.

IV But though there should thus be no conflict between theology and science, either as to the existence of God or as to the possibility of His acting on phenomena, it by no means follows that the idea of God which is suggested by science is compatible with the idea of God which is developed by theology. Identical, of course, they need not be. Theology would be unnecessary if all we are capable of learning about God could be inferred from a study of Nature. Compatible, however, they seemingly must be, if science and religion are to be at one. And yet I know not whether those who are most persuaded that the claims of these two powers are irreconcilable rest their case willingly upon the most striking incongruity between them which can be produced I mean the existence of misery and the triumphs of wrong. Yet no one is, or, indeed, could be, blind to the difficulty which thence arises. From the world as presented to us by science we might conjecture a God of power and a God of reason; but we never could infer a God who was wholly loving and wholly just. So that what religion proclaims aloud to be His most essential attributes are precisely those respecting which the oracles of science are doubtful or are dumb.

One reason, I suppose, why this insistent thought does not, so far as my observation goes, supply a favourite weapon of controversial attack, is that ethics is obviously as much interested in the moral attributes of God as theology can ever be (a point to which I shall presently return). But another reason, no doubt, may be found in the fact that the difficulty is one which has been profoundly realised by religious minds ages before organised science can be said to have existed; while, on the other hand, the growth of scientific knowledge has neither increased nor diminished the burden of it by a featherweight. The question, therefore, seems, though not, I think, quite correctly, to be one which is wholly, as it were, within the frontiers of theology, and which theologians may, therefore, be left to deal with as best they may, undisturbed by any arguments supplied by science. If this be not in theory strictly true, it is in practice but little wide of the mark. The facts which raise the problem in its acutest form belong, indeed, to that portion of the experience of life which is the common property of science and theology; but theology is much more deeply concerned in them than science can ever be, and has long faced the unsolved problem which they present. The weight which it has thus borne for all these centuries is not likely now to crush it; and, paradoxical though it seems, it is yet surely true, that what is a theological stumbling-block may also be a religious aid; and that it is in part the thought of ’ all creation groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting for redemption,’ which creates in man the deepest need for faith in the love of God.

I conceive, then, that those who talk of the ’ conflict between science and religion ’ do not, as a rule, refer to the difficulty presented by the existence of Evil. Where, then, in their opinion, is the point of irreconcilable difference to be found? It will, I suppose, at once be replied, in Miracles. But though the answer has in it a measure of truth, though, without doubt, it is possible to approach the real kernel of the problem from the side of miracles, I confess this seems to me to be in fact but seldom accomplished; while the very term is more suggestive of controversy, wearisome, unprofitable, and unending, than any other in the language, Free Will alone being excepted. Into this Serbonian bog I scarcely dare ask the reader to follow me, though the adventure must, I am afraid, be undertaken if the purpose of this chapter is to be accomplished. In the first place, then, it seems to me unfortunate that the principle of the Uniformity of Nature should so often be dragged into a controversy with which its connection is so dubious and obscure. For what do we mean by saying that Nature is uniform? We may mean, perhaps we ought to mean, that (leaving Free Will out of account) the condition of the world at one moment is so connected with its condition at the next, that if we could imagine it brought twice into exactly the same position, its subsequent history would in each case be exactly the same. Now no one, I suppose, imagines that uniformity in this sense has any quarrel with miracles. If a miracle is a wonder wrought by God to meet the needs arising out of the special circumstances of a particular moment, then, supposing the circumstances were to recur, as they would if the world were twice to pass through the same phase, the miracle, we cannot doubt, would recur also. It is not possible to suppose that the uniformity of Nature thus broadly interpreted would be marred by Him on Whom Nature depends, and Who is immanent in all its changes. But it will be replied that the uniformity with which miracles are thus said to be consistent carries with it no important consequences whatever. Its truth or untruth is a matter of equal indifference to the practical man, the man of science, and the philosopher. It asserts in reality (it may be said) no more than this, that if history once began repeating itself, it would go on doing so, like a recurring decimal. But as history in fact never does exactly repeat itself, as the universe never is twice over precisely in the same condition, we should no more be able to judge the future from the past, or to detect the operation of particular laws of Nature in a world where only this kind of theoretic uniformity prevailed, than we should under the misrule of chaos and blind chance.

There is force in these observations, which are, however, much more embarrassing to the philosophy of science than to that of theology. Without doubt all experimental inference, as well as the ordinary conduct of life, depends on supplementing this general view of the uniformity of Nature with certain working hypotheses which are not, though they always ought to be, most carefully distinguished from it. One of these is, that Nature is not merely uniform as a whole, but is made up of a bundle of smaller uniformities; or, in other words, that there is a determinate relation, not only between the successive phases of the whole universe, but between successive phases of certain fragments of it; which successive phases we commonly describe as ’ causes ’ and ’ effects.’ Another of these working hypotheses is, that though the universe as a whole never repeats itself, these isolated fragments of it do. And a third is, that we have means at our disposal whereby these fragments can be accurately divided off from the rest of Nature, and confidently recognised when they recur. Now I doubt whether any one of these three presuppositions which, be it noted, lie at the very root of the collection of empirical maxims which we dignify with the name of inductive logic can, from the point of view of philosophy, be regarded as more than an approximation. It is hard to believe that the concrete Whole of things can be thus cut up into independent portions. It is still harder to believe that any such portion is ever repeated absolutely unaltered; since its character must surely in part depend upon its relation to all the other portions, which (by hypothesis) are not repeated with it. And it is quite impossible to believe that inductive logic has succeeded by any of its methods in providing a sure criterion for determining, when any such portion is apparently repeated, whether all the elements, and not more than all, are again present which on previous occasions did really constitute it a case of ’ cause ’ and ’ effect.’ 1

If this seems paradoxical, it is chiefly because we habitually use phraseology which, strictly interpreted, seems to imply that a ’ law of Nature,’ as it is called, is a sort of self-subsisting entity, to whose charge is confided some department in the world of phenomena, over which it rules with undisputed sway. Of course this is not so. In the world of phenomena, Reality is exhausted by what is and what happens. Beyond this there is nothing. These ’laws’ are merely abstractions devised by us for our own guidance through the complexities of fact. They possess neither independent powers nor actual existence. And if we would use language with perfect accuracy, we ought, it would seem, either to say that the same cause would always be followed by precisely the same effect, if it recurred which it never does; or that, in certain regions of Nature, though only in certain regions, we can detect subordinate uniformities of repetition which, though not exact, enable us without sensible insecurity or error to anticipate the future or reconstruct the past. This hurried glance which I have asked the reader to take into some obscure corners of inductive theory is by no means intended to suggest that 1 See some of these points more fully worked out in Philosophic Doubt, Part I., Chap. II. it is as easy to believe in a miracle as not; or even that on other grounds, presently to be referred to, miracles ought not to be regarded as incredible. But it does show, in my judgment, that no profit can yet be extracted from controversies as to the precise relation in which they stand to the Order of the world. Those engaged in these controversies have not uncommonly committed a double error. They have, in the first place, chosen to assume that we have a perfectly clear and generally accepted theory as to what is meant by the Uniformity of Nature, as to what is meant by particular Laws of Nature, as to the relation in which the particular Laws stand to the general Uniformity, and as to the kind of proof by which each is to be established. And, having committed this philosophic error, they proceed to add to it the historical error of crediting primitive theology with a knowledge of this theory, and with a desire to improve upon it. They seem to suppose that apostles and prophets were in the habit of looking at the natural world in its ordinary course, with the eyes of an eighteenth-century deist, as if it were a bundle of uniformities which, once set going, went on for ever automatically repeating themselves; and that their message to mankind consisted in announcing the existence of another, or supernatural world, which occasionally upset one or two of these natural uniformities by means of a miracle. No such theory can be extracted from their writings, and no such theory should be read into them; and this not merely because such an attribution is unhistorical, nor yet because there is any ground for doubting the interaction of the ’ spiritual ’ and the ’ natural ’; but because this account of the ’ natural ’ itself is one which, if interpreted strictly, seems open to grave philosophical objection, and is certainly deficient in philosophic proof. The real difficulties connected with theological miracles lie elsewhere. Two qualities seem to be of their essence: they must be wonders, and they must be wonders due to the special action of Divine power; and each of these qualities raises a special problem of its own. That raised by the first is the question of evidence. What amount of evidence, if any, is sufficient to render a miracle credible? And on this, which is apart from the main track of my argument, I may perhaps content myself with pointing out, that if by evidence is meant, as it usually is, historical testimony, this is not a fixed quantity, the same for every reasonable man, no matter what may be his other opinions. It varies, and must necessarily vary, with the general views, the ’psychological climate,’ which he brings to its consideration. It is possible to get twelve plain men to agree on the evidence which requires them to announce from the jury box a verdict of guilty or not guilty, because they start with a common stock of presuppositions, in the light of which the evidence submitted to them may, without preliminary discussion, be interpreted. But when, as in the case of theological miracles, there is no such common stock, any agreement on a verdict can scarcely be looked for. One of the jury may hold the naturalistic view of the world. To him, of course, the occurrence of a miracle involves the abandonment of the whole philosophy in terms of which he is accustomed to interpret the universe. Argument, custom, prejudice, authority every conviction-making machine, rational and non-rational, by which his scheme of belief has been fashioned conspire to make this vast intellectual revolution difficult. And we need not be surprised that even the most excellent evidence for a few isolated incidents is quite insufficient to effect his conversion; nor that he occasionally shows a disposition to go very extraordinary lengths in contriving historical or critical theories for the purpose of explaining such evidence away.

Another may believe in ’ verbal inspiration.’ To him, the discussion of evidence in the ordinary sense is quite superfluous. Every miracle, whatever its character, whatever the circumstances in which it occurred, whatever its relation, whether essential or accidental, to the general scheme of religion, is to be accepted with equal confidence, provided it be narrated in the works of inspired authors. It is written: it is therefore true. And in the light of this presupposition alone must the results of any merely critical or historical discussion be finally judged. A third of our supposed jurymen may reject both naturalism and verbal inspiration. He may appraise the evidence alleged in favour of ’ Wonders due to the special action of Divine power ’ by the light of an altogether different theory of the world and of God’s action therein. He may consider religion to be as necessary an element in any adequate scheme of belief as science itself. Every event, therefore, whether wonderful or not, a belief in whose occurrence is involved in that religion, every event by whose disproof the religion would be seriously impoverished or altogether destroyed, has behind it the whole combined strength of the system to which it belongs. It is not, indeed, believed independently of external evidence, any more than the most ordinary occurrences in history are believed independently of external evidence. But it does not require, as some people appear to suppose, the impossible accumulation of proof on proof, of testimony on testimony, before the presumption against it can be neutralised. For, in truth, no such presumption may exist at all. Strange as the miracle must seem, and inharmonious when considered as an alien element in an otherwise naturalistic setting, it may assume a character of inevitableness, it may almost proclaim aloud that thus it has occurred, and not otherwise, to those who consider it in its relation, not to the natural world alone, but to the spiritual, and to the needs of man as a citizen of both.

VI

Many other varieties of ’ psychological climate ’ might be described; but what I have said is, perhaps, enough to show how absurd it is to expect any unanimity as to the value of historical evidence until some better agreement has been arrived at respecting the presuppositions in the light of which alone such evidence can be estimated. I pass, therefore, to the difficulty raised by the second, and much more fundamental, attribute of theological miracles to which I have adverted, namely, that they are due to the ’ special action of God.’ But this, be it observed, is, from a religious point of view, no peculiarity of miracles. Few schemes of thought which have any religious flavour about them at all, wholly exclude the idea of what I will venture to call the ’ preferential exercise of Divine power,’ whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the manner in which it is manifested. There are those who reject miracles but who, at least in those fateful moments when they imaginatively realise their own helplessness, will admit what in a certain literature is called a ’ special Providence.’ There are those who reject the notion of ’ special Providence,’ but who admit a sort of Divine superintendence over the general course of history. There are those, again, who reject in its ordinary shape the idea of Divine superintendence, but who conceive that they can escape from philosophic reproach by beating out the idea yet a little thinner, and admitting that there does exist somewhere a ’ Power which makes for righteousness.’ For my own part, I think all these various opinions are equally open to the only form of attack which it is worth while to bring against any one of them. And if we allow, as (supposing religion in any shape to be true) we must allow, that the ’ preferential action ’ of Divine power is possible, nothing is gained by qualifying the admission with all those fanciful limitations and distinctions with which different schools of thought have seen fit to encumber it. The admission itself, however, is one which, in whatever shape it may be made, no doubt suggests questions of great difficulty. How can the Divine Being Who is the Ground and Source of everything that is, Who sustains all, directs all, produces all, be connected more closely with one part of that which He has created than with another? If every event be wholly due to Him, how can we say that any single event, such as a miracle, or any tendency of events, such as ’ making for righteousness,’ is specially His? What room for difference or distinction is there within the circuit of His universal power? Since the relation between His creation and Him is throughout and in every particular one of absolute dependence, what meaning can we attach to the metaphor which represents Him as taking part with one fragment of it, or as hostile to another?

Now it has, in the first place, to be observed that ethics is as much concerned with this difficulty as theology itself. For if we cannot believe in ’ preferential action,’ neither can we believe in the moral qualities of which ’preferential action’ is the sign; and with the moral qualities of God is bound up the fate of anything which deserves to be called morality at all. I am not now arguing that ethics cannot exist unsupported by theism. On this theme I have already said something, and shall have to say more. My present contention is, that though history may show plenty of examples in heathendom of ethical theory being far in advance of the recognised religion, it is yet impossible to suppose that morality would not ultimately be destroyed by the clearly realised belief in a God Who was either indifferent to good or inclined to evil. For a universe in which all the power was on the side of the Creator, and all the morality on the side of creation, would be one compared with which the universe of naturalism would shine out a paradise indeed. Even the poet has not dared to represent Jupiter torturing Prometheus without the dim figure of Avenging Fate waiting silently in the background. But if the idea of an immoral Creator governing a world peopled with moral, or even with sentient, creatures, is a speculative nightmare, the case is not materially mended by substituting for an immoral Creator an indifferent one. Once assume a God, and we shall be obliged, sooner or later, to introduce harmony into our system by making obedience to His will coincident with the established rules of conduct. We cannot frame our advice to mankind on the hypothesis that to defy Omnipotence is the beginning of wisdom. But if this process of adjustment is to be done consistently with the maintenance of any eternal and absolute distinction between right and wrong, then must His will be a ’ good will,’ and we must suppose Him to look with favour upon some parts of this mixed world of good and evil, and with disfavour upon others. If, on the other hand, this distinction seems to us metaphysically impossible; if we cannot do otherwise than regard Him as related in precisely the same way to every portion of His creation, looking with indifferent eyes upon misery and happiness, truth and error, vice and virtue, then our theology must surely drive us, under whatever disguise, to empty ethics of all ethical significance, and to reduce virtue to a colourless acquiescence in the Appointed Order.

Systems there are which do not shrink from these speculative conclusions. But their authors will, I think, be found rather among those who approach the problem of the world from the side of a particular metaphysic, than those who approach it from the side of science. He who sees in God no more than the Infinite Substance of which the world of phenomena constitutes the accidents, or who requires Him for no other purpose than as Infinite Subject, to supply the ’ unity ’ without which the world of phenomena would be an ’ unmeaning flux of unconnected particulars,’ may naturally suppose Him to be equally related to everything, good or bad, that has been, is, or can be. But I do not think that the man of science is similarly situated; for the doctrine of evolution has in this respect made a change in his position which, curiously enough, brings it closer to that occupied in this matter by theology and ethics than it was in the days when ’ special creation ’ was the fashionable view.

I am not contending, be it observed, that evolution strengthens the evidence for theism. My point rather is, that if the existence of God be assumed, evolution does, to a certain extent, harmonise with that belief in His ’ preferential action ’ which religion and morality alike require us to attribute to Him. For whereas the material and organic world was once supposed to have been created ’all of a piece,’ and to show contrivance on the part of its Author merely by the machine-like adjustment of its parts, so now science has adopted an idea which has always been an essential part of the Christian view of the Divine economy, has given to that idea an undreamed-of extension, has applied it to the whole universe of phenomena, organic and inorganic, and has returned it again to theology enriched, strengthened, and developed. Can we, then, think of evolution in a God-created world without attributing to its Author the notion of purpose slowly worked out; the striving towards something which is not, but which gradually becomes, and in the fulness of time will be? Surely not. But, if not, can it be denied that evolution the evolution, I mean, which takes place in time, the natural evolution of science, as distinguished from the dialectical evolution of metaphysics does involve something in the nature of that ’ preferential action ’ which it is so difficult to understand, yet so impossible to abandon?