[Sidenote: Religion as Belief in a Disposition or Attitude.]

Sect. 19. We may now face the more interesting but difficult question of the special character of religious belief. In spite of the fact that in these days the personality of God is often regarded as a transient feature of religion, that type of belief which throws most light upon the religious experience is the belief in persons. Our belief in persons consists in the practical recognition of a more or less persistent disposition toward ourselves. The outward behavior of our fellow-men is construed in terms of the practical bearing of the attitude which it implies. The extraordinary feature of such belief is the disproportion between its vividness and the direct evidence for it. Of this we are most aware in connection with those personalities which we regard as distinctly friendly or hostile to ourselves. We are always more or less clearly in the presence of our friends and enemies. Their well-wishing or their ill-wishing haunts the scene of our living. There is no more important constituent of what the psychologists call our "general feeling tone." There are times when we are entirely possessed by a state that is either exuberance in the presence of those who love us, or awkwardness and stupidity in the presence of those whom we believe to suspect and dislike us. The latter state may easily become chronic. Many men live permanently in the presence of an accusing audience. The inner life which expresses itself in the words, "Everybody hates me!" is perhaps the most common form of morbid self-consciousness. On the other hand, buoyancy of spirits springs largely from a constant faith in the good-will of one's fellows. In this case one is filled with a sense of security, and is conscious of a sympathetic reinforcement that adds to private joys and compensates for private sorrows. And this sense of attitude is wonderfully discriminating. We can feel the presence of a "great man," a "formidable person," a superior or inferior, one who is interested or indifferent to our talk, and all the subtlest degrees of approval and disapproval.

A similar sensibility may quicken us even in situations where no direct individual attitude to ourselves is implied. We regard places and communities as congenial when we are in sympathy with the prevailing purposes or standards of value. We may feel ill at ease or thoroughly at home in cities where we know no single human soul. Indeed, in a misanthrope like Rousseau (and who has not his Rousseau moods!) the mere absence of social repression arouses a most intoxicating sense of tunefulness and security. Nature plays the part of an indulgent parent who permits all sorts of personal liberties.

"The view of a fine country, a succession of agreeable prospects, a free air, a good appetite, and the health I gain by walking; the freedom of inns, and the distance from everything that can make me recollect the dependence of my situation, conspire to free my soul, and give boldness to my thoughts, throwing me, in a manner, into the immensity of things, where I combine, choose, and appropriate them to my fancy, without restraint or fear. I dispose of all nature as I please."[64:6]

[Sidenote: Religion as Belief in the Disposition of the Residual Environment, or Universe.]

Sect. 20. In such confidence or distrust, inspired originally by the social environment, and similarly suggested by other surroundings of life, we have the key to the religious consciousness. But it is now time to add that in the case of religion these attitudes are concerned with the universal or supernatural rather than with present and normal human relationships. Religious reactions are "total reactions."

"To get at them," says William James, "you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence, intimate or alien, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possesses. This sense of the world's presence, appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the question, 'What is the character of this universe in which we dwell?'"[65:7]

This residual environment, or profounder realm of tradition and nature, may have any degree of unity from chaos to cosmos. For religion its significance lies in the idea of original and far-reaching power rather than in the idea of totality. But that which is at first only "beyond," is practically the same object as that which comes in the development of thought to be conceived as the "world" or the "universe." We may therefore use these latter terms to indicate the object of religion, until the treatment of special instances shall define it more precisely. Religion is, then, man's sense of the disposition of the universe to himself. We shall expect to find, as in the social phenomena with which we have just dealt, that the manifestation of this sense consists in a general reaction appropriate to the disposition so attributed. He will be fundamentally ill at ease, profoundly confident, or will habitually take precautions to be safe. The ultimate nature of the world is here no speculative problem. The savage who could feel some joy at living in the universe would be more religious than the sublimest dialectician. It is in the vividness of the sense of this presence that the acuteness of religion consists. I am religious in so far as the whole tone and temper of my living reflects a belief as to what the universe thinks of such as me.

[Sidenote: Examples of Religious Belief.]

Sect. 21. The examples that follow are selected because their differences in personal flavor serve to throw into relief their common religious character. Theodore Parker, in describing his own boyhood, writes as follows:

"I can hardly think without a shudder of the terrible effect the doctrine of eternal damnation had on me. How many, many hours have I wept with terror as I lay on my bed, till, between praying and weeping, sleep gave me repose. But before I was nine years old this fear went away, and I saw clearer light in the goodness of God. But for years, say from seven till ten, I said my prayers with much devotion, I think, and then continued to repeat, 'Lord, forgive my sins,' till sleep came on me."[67:8]

Compare with this Stevenson's Christmas letter to his mother, in which he says:

"The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it should spring, of itself, from the one fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that God, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if happy, surely you should be kind."[67:9]

Here is destiny frowning and destiny smiling, but in each case so real, so present, as to be immediately responded to with helpless terror and with grateful warm-heartedness.

The author of the "Imitatio Christi" speaks thus of the daily living of the Christian:

"The life of a Christian who has dedicated himself to the service of God should abound with eminent virtues of all kinds, that he may be really the same person which he is by outward appearance and profession. Indeed, he ought not only to be the same, but much more, in his inward disposition of soul; because he professes to serve a God who sees the inward parts, a searcher of the heart and reins, a God and Father of spirits: and therefore, since we are always in His sight, we should be exceedingly careful to avoid all impurity, all that may give offence to Him whose eyes cannot behold iniquity. We should, in a word, so far as mortal and frail nature can, imitate the blessed angels in all manner of holiness, since we, as well as they, are always in His presence. . . . And good men have always this notion of the thing. For they depend upon God for the success of all they do, even of their best and wisest undertakings."[68:10]

Such is to be the practical acknowledgment of God in the routine of life. The more direct response to this presence appears abundantly in St. Augustine's conversation and reminiscence with God.

"How evil have not my deeds been; or if not my deeds my words; or if not my words my will? But Thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and Thy right hand had respect unto the profoundness of my death, and removed from the bottom of my heart that abyss of corruption. And this was the result, that I willed not to do what I willed, and willed to do what thou willedst. . . . How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the delights of trifles! And what at one time I feared to lose, it was now a joy to me to put away. For Thou didst cast them away from me, Thou true and highest sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and instead of them didst enter in Thyself—sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mysteries; more exalted than all honor, but not to the exalted in their own conceits. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting. . . . And I babbled unto Thee my brightness, my riches, and my health, the Lord my God."[69:11]

In these two passages we meet with religious conduct and with the supreme religious experience, the direct worship of God. In each case the heart of the matter is an individual's indubitable conviction of the world's favorable concern for him. The deeper order of things constitutes the real and the profoundly congenial community in which he lives.

[Sidenote: Typical Religious Phenomena: Conversion.]

Sect. 22. Let us now apply this general account of the religious experience to certain typical religious phenomena: conversion; piety; and religious instruments, symbolisms, and modes of conveyance. Although recent study of the phenomenon of conversion has brought to light a considerable amount of interesting material, there is some danger of misconceiving its importance. The psychology of conversion is primarily the psychology of crisis or radical alteration, rather than the psychology of religion. For the majority of religious men and women conversion is an insignificant event, and in very many cases it never occurs at all. Religion is more purely present where it is normal and monotonous. But this phenomenon is nevertheless highly significant in that religion and irreligion are placed in close juxtaposition, and the contribution of religion at its inception thereby emphasized. In general it is found that conversion takes place during the period of adolescence. But this is the time of the most sudden expansion of the environment of life; a time when there is the awakening consciousness of many a new presence. This is sometimes expressed by saying that it is a period of acute self-consciousness. Life is conscious of itself as over against its inheritance; the whole setting of life sweeps into view. Some solution of the life problem, some coming to terms with the universe, is the normal issue of it. Religious conversion signifies, then, that in this fundamental adjustment a man defines and accepts for his life a certain attitude on the part of the universe. The examples cited by the psychologists, as well as the generalizations which they derive, bear out this interpretation.

"General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, considers that the first vital step in saving outcasts consists in making them feel that some decent human being cares enough for them to take an interest in the question whether they are to rise or sink."[71:12]

The new state is here one of courage and hope stimulated by the glow of friendly interest. The convert is no longer "out in the cold." He is told that the world wishes him well, and this is brought home to him through representations of the tenderness of Christ, and through the direct ministerings of those who mediate it. But somehow the convert must be persuaded to realize all this. He must believe it before it can mean anything to him. He is therefore urged to pray—a proceeding that is at first ridiculous to him, since it involves taking for granted what he disbelieves. But therein lies the critical point. It is peculiar to the object in this case that it can exist only for one who already believes in it. The psychologists call this the element of "self-surrender." To be converted a man must somehow suffer his surroundings to put into him a new heart, which may thereupon confirm its object. Such belief is tremendously tenacious because it so largely creates its own evidence. Once believe that "God, in the long run, means kindness by you," and you are likely to stand by it to the end—the more so in this case because the external evidence either way is to the average man so insufficient. Such a belief as this is inspired in the convert, not by reasoning, but by all the powers of suggestion that personality and social contagion can afford.

[Sidenote: Piety.]

Sect. 23. The psychologists describe piety as a sense of unity. One feels after reading their accounts that they are too abstract. For there are many kinds of unity, characteristic of widely varying moods and states. Any state of rapt attention is a state of unity, and this occurs in the most secular and humdrum moments of life. Nor does it help matters to say that in the case of religion this unity must have been preceded by a state of division; for we cannot properly characterize any state of mind in terms of another state unless the latter be retained in the former. And that which is characteristic of the religious sense of unity would seem to be just such an overcoming of difference. There is a recognition of two distinct attitudes, which may be more or less in sympathy with one another, but which are both present even in their fullest harmony. Were I to be taken out of myself so completely as to forget myself, I should inevitably lose that sense of sympathy from which arises the peculiar exultation of religious faith, a heightened experience of the same type with the freedom and spontaneity that I experience in the presence of those with whom I feel most in accord. The further graces and powers of religion readily submit to a similar description. My sense of positive sympathy expresses itself in an attitude of well-wishing; living in an atmosphere of kindness I instinctively endeavor to propagate it. My buoyancy is distinctly of that quality which to a lesser degree is due to any sense of social security; my power is that of one who works in an environment that reenforces him. I experience the objective or even cosmical character of my enterprises. They have a momentum which makes me their instrument rather than their perpetrator. A paradoxical relation between religion and morality has always interested observers of custom and history. Religion is apparently as capable of the most fiendish malevolence as of the most saintly gentleness. Fielding writes that,

"When religion is brought out or into daily life and used as a guide or a weapon in the world it has no effect either for good or evil. Its effect is simply in strengthening the heart, in blinding the eyes, in deafening the ears. It is an intensive force, an intoxicant. It doubles or trebles a man's powers. It is an impulsive force sending him headlong down the path of emotion, whether that path lead to glory or to infamy. It is a tremendous stimulant, that is all."[74:13]

Religion does not originate life purposes or define their meaning, but stimulates them by the same means that works in all corporate and social activity. To work with the universe is the most tremendous incentive that can appeal to the individual will. Hence in highly ethical religions the power for good exceeds that of any other social and spiritual agency. Such religion makes present, actual, and real, that good on the whole which the individual otherwise tends to distinguish from that which is good for him. In daily life the morally valid and the practically urgent are commonly arrayed against one another; but the ethical religion makes the valid urgent.

[Sidenote: Religious Instruments, Symbolism, and Modes of Conveyance.]

Sect. 24. The instruments of religion are legion, and it is in order here only to mention certain prominent cases in which their selection would seem to have direct reference to the provocation and perpetuation of such a sense of attitude as we have been describing. This is true in a general way of all symbolism. There is no essential difference between the religious symbol and such symbols as serve to remind us of human relationships. In both cases the perceptual absence of will is compensated for by the presence of some object associated with that will. The function of this object is due to its power to revive and perpetuate a certain special social atmosphere. But the most important vehicle of religion has always been personality. It is, after all, to priests, prophets, and believers that religious cults have owed their long life. The traits that mark the prophet are both curious and sublime. He is most remarkable for the confidence with which he speaks for the universe. Whether it be due to lack of a sense of humor or to a profound conviction of truth, is indifferent to our purpose. The power of such men is undoubtedly in their suggestion of a force greater than they, whose designs they bring directly and socially to the attention of men. The prophet in his prophesying is indeed not altogether distinguished from God, and it is through the mediation of a directly perceptible human attitude that a divine attitude gets itself fixed in the imagination of the believer. What is true of the prophet is equally true of the preacher whose function it is not to represent God in his own person, but to depict him with his tongue. It is generally recognized that the preacher is neither a moralizer nor a theologian. But it is less perfectly understood that it is his function to suggest the presence of God. His proper language is that of the imagination, and the picture which he portrays is that of a reciprocal social relationship between man and the Supreme Master of the situation of life. He will not define God or prove God, but introduce Him and talk about Him. And at the same time the association of prayer and worship with his sermon, and the atmosphere created by the meeting together of a body of disciples, will act as the confirmation of his suggestions of such a living presence.

The conveyance of any single religious cult from generation to generation affords a signal illustration of the importance in religion of the recognition of attitude. Religions manage somehow to survive any amount of transformation of creed and ritual. It is not what is done, or what is thought, that identifies the faith of the first Christians with that of the last, but a certain reckoning with the disposition of God. The successive generations of Christians are introduced into the spiritual world of their fathers, with its furnishing of hopes and fears remaining substantially the same; and their Christianity consists in their continuing to live in it with only a slight and gradual renovation. To any given individual God is more or less completely represented by his elders in the faith in their exhortations and ministerings; and through them he fixes as the centre of his system an image of God his accuser or redeemer.

[Sidenote: Historical Types of Religion. Primitive Religions.]

Sect. 25. The complete verification of this interpretation of the religious experience would require the application of it to the different historical cults. In general the examination of such instances is entirely beyond the scope of this chapter; but a brief consideration may be given to those which seem to afford reasonable grounds for objection.

First, it may be said that in primitive religions, notably in fetichism, tabooism, and totemism, there is no recognition of a cosmical unity. It is quite evident that there is no conception of a universe. But it is equally evident that the natural and historical environment in its generality has a very specific practical significance for the primitive believer. It is often said with truth that these earliest religions are more profoundly pantheistic than polytheistic. Man recognizes an all-pervading interest that is capable of being directed to himself. The selection of a deity is not due to any special qualification for deification possessed by the individual object itself, but to the tacit presumption that, as Thales said, "all things are full of gods." The disposition of residual reality manifests to the believer no consistency or unity, but it is nevertheless the most constant object of his will. He lives in the midst of a capriciousness which he must appease if he is to establish himself at all.

[Sidenote: Buddhism.]

Sect. 26. Secondly, in the case of Buddhism we are said to meet with a religion that is essentially atheistic.

"Whether Buddhas arise, O priests, or whether Buddhas do not arise, it remains a fact and the fixed and necessary constitution of being, that all its constituents are transitory."[78:14]

The secret of life lies in the application of this truth:

"O builder! I've discovered thee! This fabric thou shalt ne'er rebuild! Thy rafters all are broken now, And pointed roof demolished lies! This mind has demolition reached, And seen the last of all desire!"[78:15]

The case of Buddha himself and of the exponents of his purely esoteric doctrine, belong to the reflective type which will presently be given special consideration. But with the ordinary believer, even where an extraneous but almost inevitable polytheism is least in evidence, the religious experience consists in substantially the same elements that appear in theistic religions. The individual is here living appropriately to the ultimate nature of things, with the ceaseless periods of time in full view. That which is brought home to him is the illusoriness and hollowness of things when taken in the spirit of active endeavor. The only profound and abiding good is nothingness. While nature and society conspire to mock him, Nirvana invites him to its peace. The religious course of his life consists in the use of such means as can win him this end. From the stand-point of the universe he has the sympathy only of that wisdom whose essence is self-destruction. And this truth is mediated by the imagination of divine sympathy, for the Blessed One remains as the perpetual incarnation of his own blessedness.

[Sidenote: Critical Religion.]

Sect. 27. Finally there remains the consideration of the bearing of this interpretation upon the more refined and disciplined religions. The religion of the critically enlightened man is less naive and credulous in its imagery. God tends to vanish into an ideal or a universal, into some object of theoretical definition. Here we are on that borderland where an assignment of individual cases can never be made with any certainty of correctness. We can generalize only by describing the conditions that such cases must fulfil if they are properly to be denominated religious. And there can be no question of the justice of deriving such a description from the reports of historical and institutional religions. An idealistic philosophy will, then, be a religion just in so far as it is rendered practically vivid by the imagination. Such imagination must create and sustain a social relationship. The question of the legitimacy of this imagination is another matter. It raises the issue concerning the judgment of truth implied in religion, and this is the topic of the next chapter. At any rate the religious experience may be realized by virtue of the metaphorical or poetical representation of a situation as one of intercommunication between persons, where reflective definition at the same time denies it. The human worshipper may supply the personality of God from himself, viewing himself as from the divine stand-point. But whatever faculty supplies this indispensable social quality of religion, he who defines God as the ultimate goodness or the ultimate truth, has certainly not yet worshipped Him. He begins to be religious only when such an ideal determines the atmosphere of his daily living; when he regards the immanence of such an ideal in nature and history as the object of his will; and when he responds to its presence in the spirit of his conduct and his contemplation.

FOOTNOTES:

[54:1] Cf. Caird: The Evolution of Religion, Lectures II, III.

[58:2] Cf. Leuba: Introduction to a Psychological Study of Religion, Monist, Vol. XI, p. 195.

[58:3] Cf. Leuba: Ibid.

[59:4] Cf. Sect. 29.

[59:5] P. 322.

[64:6] Rousseau: Confessions, Book IV, p. 125.

[65:7] William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 35. The italics are mine. I am in the present chapter under constant obligation to this wonderfully sympathetic and stimulating book.

[67:8] Chadwick: Theodore Parker, p. 18.

[67:9] Stevenson: Letters, Vol. I, p. 229.

[68:10] Thomas a Kempis: Imitation of Christ, Chap. XIX. Translation by Stanhope, p. 44.

[69:11] St. Augustine: Confessions, Book I, Chap. I. Translation in Schaff: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 129.

[71:12] James: Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 203.

[74:13] Fielding: op. cit., p. 152.

[78:14] Warren: Buddhism in Translations, p. 14.

[78:15] Ibid., p. 83.



CHAPTER IV

THE PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF RELIGION

[Sidenote: Resume of Psychology of Religion.]

Sect. 28. It has been maintained that religion is closely analogous to one's belief in the disposition toward one's self of men or communities. In the case of religion this disposition is attributed to the more or less vaguely conceived residual environment that is recognized as lying outside of the more familiar natural and social relations. After the rise of science this residual environment tends to be conceived as a unity which is ultimate or fundamental, but for the religious consciousness it is more commonly regarded as a general source of influence practically worthy of consideration. Such a belief, like all belief, is vitally manifested, with such emphasis upon action, feeling, or intellection as temperament and mood may determine.

[Sidenote: Religion Means to be True.]

Sect. 29. But if the psychology of belief is the proper starting-point for a description of the religious experience, it is none the less suggestive of the fact that religion, just because it is belief, is not wholly a matter for psychology. For religion means to be true, and thus submits itself to valuation as a case of knowledge. The psychological study of religion is misleading when accepted as a substitute for philosophical criticism. The religious man takes his religion not as a narcotic, but as an enlightenment. Its subjective worth is due at any rate in part to the supposition of its objective worth. As in any case of insight, that which warms the heart must have satisfied the mind. The religious experience purports to be the part of wisdom, and to afford only such happiness as increasing wisdom would confirm. And the charm of truth cannot survive its truthfulness. Hence, though religion may be described, it cannot be justified, from the stand-point of therapeutics. Were such the case it would be the real problem of religious leaders to find a drug capable of giving a constantly pleasant tone to their patient's experience.[83:1] There would be no difference between priests and physicians who make a specialty of nervous diseases, except that the former would aim at a more fundamental and perpetual suggestion of serenity. Now no man wants to be even a blessed fool. He does not want to dwell constantly in a fictitious world, even if it be after his own heart. He may from the cynical point of view actually do so, but if he be religious he thinks it is reality, and is satisfied only in so far as he thinks so. He regards the man who has said in his heart that there is no God as the fool, and not because he may have to suffer for it, but because he is cognitively blind to the real nature of things. Piety, on the other hand, he regards as the standard experience, the most veracious life. Hence, it is not an accident that religion has had its creeds and its controversies, its wars with science and its appeals to philosophy. The history of these affairs shows that religion commonly fails to understand the scope of its own demand for truth; but they have issued from the deep conviction that one's religion is, implicitly, at least, in the field of truth; that there are theoretical judgments whose truth would justify or contradict it.

This general fact being admitted, there remains the task to which the present discussion addresses itself, that of defining the kind of theoretical judgment implied in religion, and the relation to this central cognitive stem of its efflorescences of myth, theology, and ritual. It is impossible to separate the stem and the efflorescence, or to determine the precise spot at which destruction of the tissue would prove fatal to the plant, but it is possible to obtain some idea of the relative vitality of the parts.

[Sidenote: Religion Means to be Practically True. God is a Disposition from which Consequences May Rationally be Expected.]

Sect. 30. The difficulty of reaching a definite statement in this matter is due to the fact that the truth in which any religious experience centres is a practical and not a scientific truth. A practical truth does not commit itself to any single scientific statement, and can often survive the overthrow of that scientific statement in which at any given time it has found expression. In other words, an indefinite number of scientific truths are compatible with a single practical truth. An instance of this is the consistency with my expectation of the alternation of day and night, of either the Ptolemaic or Copernican formulation of the solar system. Now expectation that the sun will rise to-morrow is an excellent analogue of my religious belief. Celestial mechanics is as relevant to the one as metaphysics to the other. Neither is overthrown until a central practical judgment is discredited, and either could remain true through a very considerable alteration of logical definition; but neither is on this account exempt from theoretical responsibility. In so far as religion deliberately enters the field of science, and defines its formularies with the historical or metaphysical method, this difficulty does not, of course, exist. Grant that the years of Methuselah's life, or the precise place and manner of the temptation of Jesus, or the definition of Christ in the terms of the Athanasian Creed, are constitutive of Christianity, and the survival of that religion will be determined by the solution of ordinary problems of historical or metaphysical research. But the Christian will very properly claim that his religion is only externally and accidentally related to such propositions, since they are never or very rarely intended in his experience. As religious he is occupied with Christ as his saviour or with God as his protector and judge. The history of Jesus or the metaphysics of God essentially concern him only in so far as they may or may not invalidate this relationship. He cares only for the power and disposition of the divine, and these are affected by history and metaphysics only in so far as he has definitely put them to such proof.

For my religion is my sense of a practical situation, and only when that has been proved to be folly has my religion become untrue. My God is my practical faith, my plan of salvation. My religion is overthrown if I am convinced that I have misconceived the situation and mistaken what I should do to be saved. The conception of God is very simple practically, and very complex theoretically, a fact that confirms its practical genesis. My conception of God contains an idea of my own interests, an idea of the disposition of the universe toward my interests, and some working plan for the reconciliation of these two terms. These three elements form a practical unity, but each is capable of emphasis, and a religion may be transformed through the modification of any one of them. It appears, then, as has always been somewhat vaguely recognized, that the truth of religion is ethical as well as metaphysical or scientific. My religion will be altered by a change in my conception of what constitutes my real interest, a change in my conception of the fundamental causes of reality, or a change in my conception of the manner in which my will may or may not affect these causes. God is neither an entity nor an ideal, but always a relation of entity to ideal: reality regarded from the stand-point of its favorableness or unfavorableness to human life, and prescribing for the latter the propriety of a certain attitude.

[Sidenote: Historical Examples of Religious Truth and Error. The Religion of Baal.]

Sect. 31. The range of historical examples is limitless, but certain of these are especially calculated to emphasize the application of a criterion to religion. Such is the case with Elijah's encounter with the prophets of Baal, as narrated in the Old Testament.

"And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If Yahweh be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. . . . And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. . . . And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. . . . And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. . . . But there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded."[88:2]

The religion of the followers of Baal here consists in a belief in the practical virtue of a mode of address and form of ritual associated with the traditions and customs of a certain social group. The prophets of this cult agree to regard the experiment proposed by Elijah as a crucial test, and that which is disproved from its failure is a plan of action. These prophets relied upon the presence of a certain motivity, from which a definite response could be evoked by an appeal which they were peculiarly able to make; but though "they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening oblation," there was none that regarded.

[Sidenote: Greek Religion.]

Sect. 32. An equally familiar and more instructive example is the refutation of the Greek national religion by Lucretius. The conception of life which Lucretius finds unwarranted is best depicted in Homer. There we hear of a society composed of gods and men. Though the gods, on the one hand, have their own history, their affairs are never sharply sundered from those of men, who, on the other hand, must constantly reckon with them, gauge their attitude, and seek their favor by paying tribute to their individual humors and preferences. In the Ninth Book of the "Iliad," Phoenix addresses himself to the recalcitrant Achilles as follows:

"It fits not one that moves The hearts of all, to live unmov'd, and succor hates for loves. The Gods themselves are flexible; whose virtues, honors, pow'rs, Are more than thine, yet they will bend their breasts as we bend ours. Perfumes, benign devotions, savors of offerings burn'd, And holy rites, the engines are with which their hearts are turn'd, By men that pray to them."[90:3]

Here is a general recognition of that which makes sacrifice rational. It is because he conceives this presupposition to be mistaken, that Lucretius declares the practices and fears which are founded upon it to be folly. It is the same with all that is practically based upon the expectation of a life beyond the grave. The correction of the popular religion is due in his opinion to that true view of the world taught by Epicurus, whose memory Lucretius thus invokes at the opening of the Third Book of the "De Rerum Natura":

"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks. . . . For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice, to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature too supplies all their wants and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind. But on the other hand the Acherusian quarters[91:4] are nowhere to be seen, though earth is no bar to all things being descried, which are in operation underneath our feet throughout the void."[91:5]

In another passage, after describing the Phrygian worship of Cybele, he comments as follows:

"All which, well and beautifully as it is set forth and told, is yet widely removed from true reason. For the nature of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns; since exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting aught of us, it is neither gained by favors nor moved by anger. . . . The earth however is at all time without feeling, and because it receives into it the first-beginnings of many things, it brings them forth in many ways into the light of the sun."[91:6]

If the teaching of Epicurus be true it is evident that those who offered hecatombs with the idea that they were thereby mitigating anger, or securing special dispensation, were playing the fool. They were appealing to a fictitious motivity, one not grounded in "the nature of things." To one for whom the walls of the world had parted asunder, such a procedure was no longer possible; though he might choose to "call the sea Neptune" and reverence the earth as "mother of the gods."[92:7]

[Sidenote: Judaism and Christianity.]

Sect. 33. The history of religion contains no more impressive and dramatic chapter than that which records the development of the religion of the Jews. Passing over its obscure beginnings in the primitive Semitic cult, we find this religion first clearly defined as tribal self-interest sanctioned by Yahweh.[92:8] God's interest in his chosen people determines the prosperity of him who practices the social virtues.

"The name of Yahweh is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe."

"He that is steadfast in righteousness shall attain unto life."

"To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice."[93:9]

But in time it is evident to the believer that his experience does not bear out this expectation. Neither as a Jew nor as a righteous man does he prosper more than his neighbor. He comes, therefore, to distrust the virtue of his wisdom.

"Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness: and yet I perceived that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also was vanity. For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance forever; seeing that in the days to come all will have been already forgotten. And how doth the wise man die even as the fool! So I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me: for all is vanity and a striving after wind."[93:10]

It is evident that he who expects the favor of fortune in return for his observance of precept is mistaken. The "work that is wrought under the sun" makes no special provision for him during his lifetime. Unless the cry of vanity is to be the last word there must be a reinterpretation of the promise of God. This appears in the new ideal of patient submission, and the chastened faith that expects only the love of God. And those whom God loves He will not forsake. They will come to their own, if not here, then beyond, according to His inscrutable but unswerving plan.

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."[94:11]

In this faith Judaism merges into Christianity.[94:12] In the whole course of this evolution God is regarded as the friend of his people, but his people learn to find a new significance in his friendship. That which is altered is the conduct which that friendship requires and the expectation which it determines. The practical ideal which the relationship sanctions, changes gradually from that of prudence to that of goodness for its own sake. God, once an instrument relevant to human temporal welfare, has come to be an object of disinterested service.

No such transformation as this was absolutely realized during the period covered by the writings of the Old Testament, nor has it even yet been realized in the development of Christianity. But the evolution of both Judaism and Christianity has taken this direction. The criterion of this evolution is manifestly both ethical and metaphysical. A Christian avows that he rates purity of character above worldly prosperity, so that the former cannot properly be prized for the sake of the latter. Furthermore, he shares more or less unconsciously such philosophical and scientific opinions as deny truth to the conception of special interferences and dispensations from a supernatural agency. Therefore he looks for no fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice. But his religion is nevertheless a practical expectation. He believes that God is good, and that God loves him and sustains him. He believes that there obtains between himself, in so far as good, and the universe sub specie eternitatis, a real sympathy and reciprocal reenforcement. He believes that he secures through the profoundly potent forces of the universe that which he regards as of most worth; and that somewhat is added to these forces by virtue of his consecration. The God of the Christians cannot be defined short of some such account as this, inclusive of an ideal, an attitude, and an expectation. In other words the God of the Christians is to be known only in terms of the Christlike outlook upon life, in which the disciple is taught to emulate the master. When moral and intellectual development shall have discredited either its scale of values, or its conviction that cosmical events are in the end determined in accordance with that scale of values, then Christianity must either be transformed, or be untenable for the wise man. If we have conceived the essence of Christianity too broadly or vaguely, it does not much matter for our present purposes. Its essence is, at any rate, some such inwardness of life resolving ideality and reality into one, and drawing upon objective truth only to the extent required for the confirming of that relation.

[Sidenote: The Cognitive Factor in Religion.]

Sect. 34. We conclude, then, our attempt to emphasize the cognitive factor in religion, with the thesis that every religion centres in a practical secret of the universe. To be religious is to believe that a certain correlation of forces, moral and factual, is in reality operative, and that it determines the propriety and effectiveness of a certain type of living. Whatever demonstrates the futility, vanity, or self-deception of this living, discredits the religion. And, per contra, except as they define or refute such practical truth, religion is not essentially concerned with theoretical judgments.

[Sidenote: The Place of Imagination in Religion.]

Sect. 35. But neither religion nor any other human interest consists in essentials. Such a practical conviction as that which has been defined inevitably flowers into a marvelous complexity, and taps for its nourishment every spontaneity of human nature. If it be said that only the practical conviction is essential, this is not the same as to say that all else is superfluous. There may be no single utterance that my religion could not have spared, and yet were I to be altogether dumb my religion would, indeed, be as nothing. For if I believe, I accept a presence in my world, which as I live will figure in my dreams, or in my thoughts, or in my habits. And each of these expressions of myself will have a truth if it do but bear out my practical acceptance of that presence. The language of religion, like that of daily life, is not the language of science except it take it upon itself to be so. There is scarcely a sentence which I utter in my daily intercourse with men which is not guilty of transgressions against the canons of accurate and definite thinking. Yet if I deceive neither myself nor another, I am held to be truthful, even though my language deal with chance and accident, material purposes and spiritual causes, and though I vow that the sun smiles or the moon lets down her hair into the sea. Science is a special interest in the discovery of unequivocal and fixed conceptions, and employs its terms with an unalterable connotation. But no such algebra of thought is indispensable to life or conversation, and its lack is no proof of error. Such is the case also with that eminently living affair, religion. I may if I choose, and I will if my reasoning powers be at all awakened, be a theologian. But theology, like science, is a special intellectual spontaneity. St. Thomas, the master theologian, did not glide unwittingly from prayer into the quaestiones of the "Summa Theologiae," but turned to them as to a fresh adventure. Theology is inevitable, because humanly speaking adventure is inevitable. For man, with his intellectual spontaneity, every object is a problem; and did he not seek sooner or later to define salvation, there would be good reason to believe that he did not practically reckon with any. But this is similarly and independently true of the imagination, the most familiar means with which man clothes and vivifies his convictions, the exuberance with which he plays about them and delights to confess them. The imagination of religion, contributing what Matthew Arnold called its "poetry and eloquence," does not submit itself to such canons as are binding upon theology or science, but exists and flourishes in its own right.

The indispensableness to religion of the imagination is due to that faculty's power of realizing what is not perceptually present. Religion is not interested in the apparent, but in the secret essence or the transcendent universal. And yet this interest is a practical one. Imagination may introduce one into the vivid presence of the secret or the transcendent. It is evident that the religious imagination here coincides with poetry. For it is at least one of the interests of poetry to cultivate and satisfy a sense for the universal; to obtain an immediate experience or appreciation that shall have the vividness without the particularism of ordinary perception. And where a poet elects so to view the world, we allow him as a poet the privilege, and judge him by the standards to which he submits himself. That upon which we pass judgment is the fitness of his expression. This expression is not, except in the case of the theoretical mystic, regarded as constituting the most valid form of the idea, but is appreciated expressly for its fulfilment of the condition of immediacy. The same sort of critical attitude is in order with the fruits of the religious imagination. These may or may not fulfil enough of the requirements of that art to be properly denominated poetry; but like poetry they are the translation of ideas into a specific language. They must not, therefore, be judged as though they claimed to excel in point of validity, but only in point of consistency with the context of that language. And the language of religion is the language of the practical life. Such translation is as essential to an idea that is to enter into the religious experience, as translation into terms of immediacy is essential to an idea that is to enter into the appreciative consciousness of the poet. No object can find a place in my religion until it is conjoined with my purposes and hopes; until it is taken for granted and acted upon, like the love of my friends, or the courses of the stars, or the stretches of the sea.

[Sidenote: The Special Functions of the Religious Imagination.]

Sect. 36. The religious imagination, then, is to be understood and justified as that which brings the objects of religion within the range of living. The central religious object, as has been seen, is an attitude of the residuum or totality of things. To be religious one must have a sense for the presence of an attitude, like his sense for the presence of his human fellows, with all the added appreciation that is proper in the case of an object that is unique in its mystery or in its majesty. It follows that the religious imagination fulfils its function in so far as it provides the object of religion with properties similar to those which lend vividness and reality to the normal social relations.

The presence of one's fellows is in part the perceptual experience of their bodies. To this there corresponds in religion some extraordinary or subtle appearance. The gods may in visions or dreams be met with in their own proper embodiments; or, as is more common, they may be regarded as present for practical purposes: in some inanimate object, as in the case of the fetish; in some animal species, as in the case of the totem; in some place, as in the case of the shrine; or even in some human being, as in the case of the inspired prophet and miracle worker. In more refined and highly developed religions the medium of God's presence is less specific. He is perceived with

"—a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

God is here found in an interpretation of the common and the natural, rather than in any individual and peculiar embodiment. And here the poet's appreciation, if not his art, is peculiarly indispensable.

But, furthermore, his fellows are inmates of "the household of man" in that he knows their history. They belong to the temporal context of actions and events. Similarly, the gods must be historical. The sacred traditions or books of religion are largely occupied with this history. The more individual and anthropomorphic the gods, the more local and episodic will be the account of their affairs. In the higher religions the acts of God are few and momentous, such as creation or special providence; or they are identical with the events of nature and human history when these are construed as divine. To find God in this latter way requires an interpretation of the course of events in terms of some moral consistency, a faith that sees some purpose in their evident destination.

There is still another and a more significant way in which men recognize one another: the way of address and conversation. And men have invariably held a similar intercourse with their gods. To this category belong communion and prayer, with all their varieties of expression. I have no god until I address him. This will be the most direct evidence of what is at least from my point of view a social relation. There can be no general definition of the form which this address will take. There may be as many special languages, as many attitudes, and as much playfulness and subtlety of symbolism as in human intercourse. But, on the other hand, there are certain utterances that are peculiarly appropriate to religion. In so far as he regards his object as endowed with both power and goodness the worshipper will use the language of adoration; and the sense of his dependence will speak in terms of consecration and thanksgiving.

"O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is. So have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary, To see thy power and thy glory. For thy loving-kindness is better than life; My lips shall praise thee."

These are expressions of a hopeful faith; but, on the other hand, God may be addressed in terms of hatred and distrust.

"Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? I think myself; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace.

"The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou From whom it had its being, God and Lord! Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred, Malignant and implacable."[104:13]

In either case there may be an indefinite degree of hyperbole. The language of love and hate, of confidence and despair, is not the language of description. In this train of the religious consciousness there is occasion for whatever eloquence man can feel, and whatever rhetorical luxuriance he can utter.

[Sidenote: The Relation between Imagination and Truth in Religion.]

Sect. 37. Such considerations as these serve to account for the exercise and certain of the fruits of the religious imagination, and to designate the general criterion governing its propriety. But how is one to determine the boundary between the imaginative and the cognitive? It is commonly agreed that what religion says and does is not all intended literally. But when is expression of religion only poetry and eloquence, and when is it matter of conviction? If we revert again to the cognitive aspect of religion, it is evident that there is but one test to apply: whatever either fortifies or misleads the will is literal conviction. This test cannot be applied absolutely, because it can properly be applied only to the intention of an individual experience. However I may express my religion, that which I express, is, we have seen, an expectation. The degree to which I literally mean what I say is then the degree to which it determines my expectations. Whatever adds no item to these expectations, but only recognizes and vitalizes them, is pure imagination. But it follows that it is entirely impossible from direct inspection to define any given expression of religious experience as myth, or to define the degree to which it is myth. It submits to such distinctions only when viewed from the stand-point of the concrete religious experience which it expresses. Any such given expression could easily be all imagination to one, and all conviction to another. Consider the passage which follows:

"And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon, called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he hath a name written, which no one knoweth but he himself. And he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name is called The Word of God."[106:14]

Is this all rhapsody, or is it in part true report? There is evidently no answer to the question so conceived. But if it were to express my own religious feeling it would have some specific proportion of literal and metaphorical significance, according to the degree to which its detail contributes different practical values to me. It might then be my guide-book to the heavens, or only my testimony to the dignity and mystery of the function of Christ.

The development of religion bears in a very important way upon this last problem. The factor of imagination has undoubtedly come to have a more clearly recognized role in religion. There can be no doubt that what we now call myths were once beliefs, and that what we now call poetry was once history. If we go back sufficiently far we come to a time when the literal and the metaphorical were scarcely distinguishable, and this because science had not emerged from the early animistic extension of social relations. Men meant to address their gods as they addressed their fellows, and expected them to hear and respond, as they looked for such reactions within the narrower circle of ordinary intercourse. The advance of science has brought into vogue a description of nature that inhibits such expectations. The result has been that men, continuing to use the same terms, essentially expressive as they are of a practical relationship, have come to regard them as only a general expression of their attitude. The differences of content that are in excess of factors of expectation remain as poetry and myth. On the other hand, it is equally possible, if not equally common, for that which was once imagined to come to be believed. Such a transformation is, perhaps, normally the case when the inspired utterance passes from its author to the cult. The prophets and sweet singers are likely to possess an exuberance of imagination not appreciated by their followers; and for this reason almost certainly misunderstood. For these reasons it is manifestly absurd to fasten the name of myth or the name of creed upon any religious utterance whatsoever, unless it be so regarded from the stand-point of the personal religion which it originally expressed, or unless one means by so doing to define it as an expression of his own religion. He who defines "the myth of creation," or "the poetical story of Samson," as parts of the pre-Christian Judaic religion, exhibits a total loss of historical sense. The distinction between cognition and fancy does not exist among objects, but only in the intending experience; hence, for me to attach my own distinction to any individual case of belief, viewed apart from the believer, is an utterly confusing projection of my own personality into the field of my study.

[Sidenote: The Philosophy Implied in Religion and in Religions.]

Sect. 38. Only after such considerations as these are we qualified to attack that much-vexed question as to whether religion deals invariably with a personal god. It is often assumed in discussion of this question that "personal god," as well as "god," is a distinct and familiar kind of entity, like a dragon or centaur; its existence alone being problematical. This is doubly false to the religious employment of such an object. If it be true that in religion we mean by God a practical interpretation of the world, whatsoever be its nature, then the personality of God must be a derivative of the attitude, and not of the nature of the world. Given the practical outlook upon life, there is no definable world that cannot be construed under the form of God. My god is my world practically recognized in respect of its fundamental or ultimate attitude to my ideals. In the sense, then, conveyed by this term attitude my god will invariably possess the characters of personality. But the degree to which these characters will coincide with the characters which I assign to human persons, or the terms of any logical conception of personality, cannot be absolutely defined. Anthropomorphisms may be imagination or they may be literal conviction. This will depend, as above maintained, upon the degree to which they determine my expectations. Suppose the world to be theoretically conceived as governed by laws that are indifferent to all human interests. The practical expression of this conception appears in the naturalism of Lucretius, or Diogenes, or Omar Khayyam. Living in the vivid presence of an indifferent world, I may picture my gods as leading their own lives in some remote realm which is inaccessible to my petitions, or as regarding me with sinister and contemptuous cruelty. In the latter case I may shrink and cower, or return them contempt for contempt. I mean this literally only if I look for consequences following directly from the emotional coloring which I have bestowed upon them. It may well be that I mean merely to regard myself sub specie eternitatis, in which case I am personifying in the sense of free imagination. In the religion of enlightenment the divine attitude tends to belong to the poetry and eloquence of religion rather than to its cognitive intent. This is true even of optimistic and idealistic religion. The love and providence of God are less commonly supposed to warrant an expectation of special and arbitrary favors, and have come more and more to mean the play of my own feeling about the general central conviction of the favorableness of the cosmos to my deeper or moral concerns. But the factor of personality cannot possibly be entirely eliminated, for the religious consciousness creates a social relationship between man and the universe. Such an interpretation of life is not a case of the pathetic fallacy, unless it incorrectly reckons with the inner feeling which it attributes to the universe. It is an obvious practical truth that the total or residual environment is significant for life. Grant this and you make rational a recognition of that significance, or a more or less constant sense of coincidence or conflict with cosmical forces. Permit this consciousness to stand, and you make some expression of it inevitable. Such an expression may, furthermore, with perfect propriety and in fulfilment of human nature, set forth and transfigure this central belief until it may enter into the context of immediacy.

Thus any conception of the universe whatsoever may afford a basis for religion. But there is no religion that does not virtually make a more definite claim upon the nature of things, and this entirely independently of its theology, or explicit attempt to define itself. Every religion, even in the very living of it, is naturalistic, or dualistic, or pluralistic, or optimistic, or idealistic, or pessimistic. And there is in the realm of truth that which justifies or refutes these definite practical ways of construing the universe. But no historical religion is ever so vague even as this in its philosophical implications. Indeed, we shall always be brought eventually to the inner meaning of some individual religious experience, where no general criticism can be certainly valid.

There is, then, a place in religion for that which is not directly answerable to philosophical or scientific standards. But there is always, on the other hand, an element of hope which conceives the nature of the world, and means to be grounded in reality. In respect of that element, philosophy is indispensable to religion. The meaning of religion is, in fact, the central problem of philosophy. There is a virtue in religion like that which Emerson ascribes to poetry. "The poet is in the right attitude; he is believing; the philosopher, after some struggle, having only reasons for believing." But whatever may be said to the disparagement of its dialectic, philosophy is the justification of religion, and the criticism of religions. To it must be assigned the task of so refining positive religion as to contribute to the perpetual establishment of true religion. And to philosophy, with religion, belongs the task of holding fast to the idea of the universe. There is no religion except before you begin, or after you have rested from, your philosophical speculation. But in the universe these interests have a common object. As philosophy is the articulation and vindication of religion, so is religion the realization of philosophy. In philosophy thought is brought up to the elevation of life, and in religion philosophy, as the sum of wisdom, enters into life.

FOOTNOTES:

[83:1] As Plato interprets the scepticism of Protagoras to mean that one state of mind cannot be more true than another, but only better or worse. Cf. Theaetetus, 167.

[88:2] Quoted with some omissions from I Kings, 18:21-29. The Hebrew term Yahweh, the name of the national deity, has been substituted for the English translation, "the Lord."

[90:3] Iliad, Book IX, lines 467 sq. Translation by Chapman.

[91:4] The supposed abode of departed spirits.

[91:5] Lucretius: De Rerum Natura, Book III, lines 1 sq. Translated by Munro.

[91:6] Ibid., Book II, lines 644 sq.

[92:7] It would be interesting to compare the equally famous criticism of Greek religion in Plato's Republic, Book II, 377 sq.

[92:8] Cf. W. Robertson Smith's admirable account of the Semitic religions:

"What is requisite to religion is a practical acquaintance with the rules on which the deity acts and on which he expects his worshippers to frame their conduct—what in II Kings, 17:26 is called the 'manner,' or rather the 'customary law' (mishpat), of the god of the land. This is true even of the religion of Israel. When the prophets speak of the knowledge of God, they always mean a practical knowledge of the laws and principles of His government in Israel, and a summary expression for religion as a whole is 'the knowledge and fear of Jehovah,' i. e., the knowledge of what Jehovah prescribes, combined with a reverent obedience." The Religion of the Semites, p. 23.

[93:9] Proverbs, 18:10; 11:19; 21:3.

[93:10] Ecclesiastes, 2:13 sq.

[94:11] Psalms, 51:17; Isaiah, 57:15.

[94:12] In this discussion of Judaism I am much indebted to Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma, especially Chapters I and II.

[104:13] James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night. Quoted by James, in The Will to Believe, etc., p. 45.

[106:14] Revelation, 19:11-13.



CHAPTER V

NATURAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

[Sidenote: The True Relations of Philosophy and Science. Misconceptions and Antagonisms.]

Sect. 39. In the case of natural science we meet not only with a special human interest, but with a theoretical discipline. We are confronted, therefore, with a new question: that of the relation within the body of human knowledge of two of its constituent members. Owing to the militant temper of the representatives of both science and philosophy, this has long since ceased to be an academic question, and has frequently been met in the spirit of rivalry and partisanship. But the true order of knowledge is only temporarily distorted by the brilliant success of a special type of investigation; and the conquests of science are now so old a story that critical thought shows a disposition to judge of the issue with sobriety and logical highmindedness.

In the seventeenth century a newly emancipated and too sanguine reason proposed to know the whole of nature at once in terms of mathematics and mechanics. Thus the system of the Englishman Hobbes was science swelled to world-proportions, simple, compact, conclusive, and all-comprehensive. Philosophy proposed to do the work of science, but in its own grand manner. The last twenty years of Hobbes's life, spent in repeated discomfiture at the hands of Seth Ward, Wallis, Boyle, and other scientific experts of the new Royal Society, certified conclusively to the failure of this enterprise, and the experimental specialist thereupon took exclusive possession of the field of natural law. But the idealist, on the other hand, reconstructed nature to meet the demands of philosophical knowledge and religious faith. There issued, together with little mutual understanding and less sympathy, on the one hand positivism, or exclusive experimentalism, and on the other hand a rabid and unsympathetic transcendentalism. Hume, who consigned to the flames all thought save "abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number," and "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence"; Comte, who assigned metaphysics to an immature stage in the development of human intelligence; and Tyndall, who reduced the religious consciousness to an emotional experience of mystery, are typical of the one attitude. The other is well exhibited in Schelling's reference to "the blind and thoughtless mode of investigating nature which has become generally established since the corruption of philosophy by Bacon, and of physics by Boyle." Dogmatic experimentalism and dogmatic idealism signify more or less consistently the abstract isolation of the scientific and philosophical motives.

There is already a touch of quaintness in both of these attitudes. We of the present are in the habit of acknowledging the autonomy of science, and the unimpeachable validity of the results of experimental research in so far as they are sanctioned by the consensus of experts. But at the same time we recognize the definiteness of the task of science, and the validity of such reservations as may be made from a higher critical point of view. Science is to be transcended in so far as it is understood as a whole. Philosophy is critically empirical; empirical, because it regards all bona fide descriptions of experience as knowledge; critical, because attentive to the conditions of both general and special knowledge. And in terms of a critical empiricism so defined, it is one of the problems of philosophy to define and appraise the generating problem of science, and so to determine the value assignable to natural laws in the whole system of knowledge.

[Sidenote: The Spheres of Philosophy and Science.]

Sect. 40. If this be the true function of philosophy with reference to science, several current notions of the relations of the spheres of these disciplines may be disproved. In the first place, philosophy will not be all the sciences regarded as one science. Science tends to unify without any higher criticism. The various sciences already regard the one nature as their common object, and the one system of interdependent laws as their common achievement. The philosopher who tries to be all science at once fails ignominiously because he tries to replace the work of a specialist with the work of a dilettante; and if philosophy be identical with that body of truth accumulated and organized by the cooperative activity of scientific men, then philosophy is a name and there is no occasion for the existence of the philosopher as such. Secondly, philosophy will not be the assembling of the sciences; for such would be a merely clerical work, and the philosopher would much better be regarded as non-existent than as a book-keeper. Nor, thirdly, is philosophy an auxiliary discipline that may be called upon in emergencies for the solution of some baffling problem of science. A problem defined by science must be solved in the scientific manner. Science will accept no aid from the gods when engaged in her own campaign, but will fight it out according to her own principles of warfare. And as long as science moves in her own plane, she can acknowledge no permanent barriers. There is then no need of any superscientific research that shall replace, or piece together, or extend the work of science. But the savant is not on this account in possession of the entire field of knowledge. It is true that he is not infrequently moved to such a conviction when he takes us about to view his estates. Together we ascend up into heaven, or make our beds in sheol, or take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea—and look in vain for anything that is not work done, or work projected, by natural science. Persuade him, however, to define his estates, and he has circumscribed them. In his definition he must employ conceptions more fundamental than the working conceptions that he employs within his field of study. Indeed, in viewing his task as definite and specific he has undertaken the solution of the problem of philosophy. The logical self-consciousness has been awakened, and there is no honorable way of putting it to sleep again. This is precisely what takes place in any account of the generating problem of science. To define science is to define at least one realm that is other than science, the realm of active intellectual endeavor with its own proper categories. One cannot reflect upon science and assign it an end, and a method proper to that end, without bringing into the field of knowledge a broader field of experience than the field proper to science, broader at any rate by the presence in it of the scientific activity itself.

Here, then, is the field proper to philosophy. The scientist qua scientist is intent upon his own determinate enterprise. The philosopher comes into being as one who is interested in observing what it is that the scientist is so intently doing. In taking this interest he has accepted as a field for investigation that which he would designate as the totality of interests or the inclusive experience. He can carry out his intention of defining the scientific attitude only by standing outside it, and determining it by means of nothing less than an exhaustive searching out of all attitudes. Philosophy is, to be sure, itself a definite activity and an attitude, but an attitude required by definition to be conscious of itself, and, if you please, conscious of its own consciousness, until its attitude shall have embraced in its object the very principle of attitudes. Philosophy defines itself and all other human tasks and interests. None have furnished a clearer justification of philosophy than those men of scientific predilections who have claimed the title of agnostics. A good instance is furnished by a contemporary physicist, who has chosen to call his reflections "antimetaphysical."

"Physical science does not pretend to be a complete view of the world; it simply claims that it is working toward such a complete view in the future. The highest philosophy of the scientific investigator is precisely this toleration of an incomplete conception of the world and the preference for it, rather than an apparently perfect, but inadequate conception."[120:1]

It is apparent that if one were to challenge such a statement, the issue raised would at once be philosophical and not scientific. The problem here stated and answered, requires for its solution the widest inclusiveness of view, and a peculiar interest in critical reflection and logical coordination.

[Sidenote: The Procedure of a Philosophy of Science.]

Sect. 41. One may be prepared for a knowledge of the economic and social significance of the railway even if one does not know a throttle from a piston-rod, provided one has broad and well-balanced knowledge of the interplay of human social interests. One's proficiency here requires one to stand off from society, and to obtain a perspective that shall be as little distorted as possible. The reflection of the philosopher of science requires a similar quality of perspective. All knowledges, together with the knowing of them, must be his object yonder, standing apart in its wholeness and symmetry. Philosophy is the least dogmatic, the most empirical, of all disciplines, since it is the only investigation that can permit itself to be forgetful of nothing.

But the most comprehensive view may be the most distorted and false. The true order of knowledge is the difficult task of logical analysis, requiring as its chief essential some determination of the scope of the working conceptions of the different independent branches of knowledge. In the case of natural science this would mean an examination of the method and results characteristic of this field, for the sake of defining the kind of truth which attaches to the laws which are being gradually formulated. But one must immediately reach either the one or the other of two very general conclusions. If the laws of natural science cover all possible knowledge of reality, then there is left to philosophy only the logical function of justifying this statement. Logic and natural science will then constitute the sum of knowledge. If, on the other hand, it be found that the aim of natural science is such as to exclude certain aspects of reality, then philosophy will not be restricted to logical criticism, but will have a cognitive field of its own. The great majority of philosophers have assumed the latter of these alternatives to be true, while most aggressive scientists have intended the former in their somewhat blind attacks upon "metaphysics." Although the selection of either of these alternatives involves us in the defence of a specific answer to a philosophical question, the issue is inevitable in any introduction to philosophy because of its bearing upon the extent of the field of that study. Furthermore there can be no better exposition of the meaning of philosophy of science than an illustration of its exercise. The following, then, is to be regarded as on the one hand a tentative refutation of positivism, or the claim of natural science to be coextensive with knowable reality; and on the other hand a programme for the procedure of philosophy with reference to natural science.

[Sidenote: The Origin of the Scientific Interest.]

Sect. 42. Science issues through imperceptible stages from organic habits and instincts which signify the possession by living creatures of a power to meet the environment on its own terms. Every organism possesses such a working knowledge of nature, and among men the first science consists in those habitual adjustments common to men and infra-human organisms. Man is already practising science before he recognizes it. As skill it distinguishes itself early in his history from lore, or untested tradition. Skill is familiarity with general kinds of events, together with ability to identify an individual with reference to a kind, and so be prepared for the outcome. Thus man is inwardly prepared for the alternation of day and night, and the periods of the seasons. He practically anticipates the procession of natural events in the countless emergencies of his daily life. But science in the stricter sense begins when skill becomes free and social.

[Sidenote: Skill as Free.]

Sect. 43. Skill may be said to be free when the essential terms of the action have been abstracted from the circumstances attending them in individual experiences, and are retained as ideal plans applicable to any practical occasion. The monkey who swings with a trapeze from his perch on the side of the cage, counts upon swinging back again without any further effort on his own part. His act and its successful issue signify his practical familiarity with the natural motions of bodies. We can conceive such a performance to be accompanied by an almost entire failure to grasp its essentials. It would then be necessary for nearly the whole situation to be repeated in order to induce in the monkey the same action and expectation. He would require a similar form, color, and distance. But he might, on the other hand, regard as practically identical all suspended and freely swinging bodies capable of affording him support, and quite independently of their shape, size, time, or place. In this latter case his skill would be applicable to the widest possible number of cases that could present themselves. Having a discerning eye for essentials, he would lose no chance of a swing through looking for more than the bare necessities. When the physicist describes the pendulum in terms of a formula such as t = 2pi[squareroot(l/g)] he exhibits a similar discernment. He has found that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pendulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration due to gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike represent a knowledge that is free in the sense that it is contained in terms that require no single fixed context in immediacy. The knowledge is valid wherever these essential terms are present; and calculations may be based upon these essential terms, while attendant circumstances vary ad infinitum. Such knowledge is said to be general or universal.

There is another element of freedom, however, which so far has not been attributed to the monkey's knowledge, but which is evidently present in that of the physicist. The former has a practical ability to deal with a pendulum when he sees it. The latter, on the other hand, knows about a pendulum whether one be present or not. His knowledge is so retained as always to be available, even though it be not always applicable. His knowledge is not merely skill in treating a situation, but the possession of resources which he may employ at whatever time, and in whatever manner, may suit his interests. Knowing what he does about the pendulum, he may act from the idea of such a contrivance, and with the aid of it construct some more complex mechanism. His formulas are his instruments, which he may use on any occasion. Suppose that a situation with factors a, b, and c requires factor d in order to become M, as desired. Such a situation might easily be hopeless for an organism reacting directly to the stimulus abc, and yet be easily met by a free knowledge of d. One who knows that l, m, and n will produce d, may by these means provide the missing factor, complete the sum of required conditions, abcd, and so obtain the end M. Such indirection might be used to obtain any required factor of the end, or of any near or remote means to the end. There is, in fact, no limit to the complexity of action made possible upon this basis; for since it is available in idea, the whole range of such knowledge may be brought to bear upon any individual problem.

[Sidenote: Skill as Social.]

Sect. 44. But knowledge of this free type becomes at the same time social or institutional. It consists no longer in a skilful adaptation of the individual organism, but in a system of terms common to all intelligence, and preserved in those books and other monuments which serve as the articulate memory of the race. A knowledge that is social must be composed of unequivocal conceptions and fixed symbols. The mathematical laws of the exact sciences represent the most successful attainment of this end so far as form is concerned. Furthermore, the amount of knowledge may now be increased from generation to generation through the service of those who make a vocation of its pursuit. Natural science is thus a cumulative racial proficiency, which any individual may bring to bear upon any emergency of his life.

[Sidenote: Science for Accommodation and Construction.]

Sect. 45. Such proficiency as science affords is in every case the anticipation of experience. This has a twofold value for mankind, that of accommodation, and that of construction. Primitively, where mere survival is the function of the organism as a whole, the value of accommodation is relatively fundamental. The knowledge of what may be expected enables the organism to save itself by means of its own counter-arrangement of natural processes. Construction is here for the sake of accommodation. But with the growth of civilization construction becomes a positive interest, and man tends to save himself for definite ends. Accommodation comes to take place for the sake of construction. Science then supplies the individual with the ways and means wherewith to execute life purposes which themselves tend to assume an absolute value that cannot be justified merely on the ground of science.

[Sidenote: Method and Fundamental Conceptions of Natural Science. The Descriptive Method.]

Sect. 46. If natural science be animated by any special cognitive interest, this motive should appear in the development of its method and fundamental conceptions. If that interest has been truly defined, it should now enable us to understand the progressive and permanent in scientific investigation as directly related to it. For the aim of any discipline exercises a gradual selection from among possible methods, and gives to its laws their determinate and final form.

The descriptive method is at the present day fully established. A leading moral of the history of science is the superior usefulness of an exact account of the workings of nature to an explanation in terms of some qualitative potency. Explanation has been postponed by enlightened science until after a more careful observation of actual processes shall have been made; and at length it has been admitted that there is no need of any explanation but perfect description. Now the practical use of science defined above, requires no knowledge beyond the actual order of events. For such a purpose sufficient reason signifies only sufficient conditions. All other considerations are irrelevant, and it is proper to ignore them. Such has actually been the fate of the so-called metaphysical solution of special problems of nature. The case of Kepler is the classic instance. This great scientist supplemented his laws of planetary motion with the following speculation concerning the agencies at work:

"We must suppose one of two things: either that the moving spirits, in proportion as they are more removed from the sun, are more feeble; or that there is one moving spirit in the centre of all the orbits, namely, in the sun, which urges each body the more vehemently in proportion as it is nearer; but in more distant spaces languishes in consequence of the remoteness and attenuation of its virtue."[129:2]

The following passage from Hegel affords an interesting analogy:

"The moon is the waterless crystal which seeks to complete itself by means of our sea, to quench the thirst of its arid rigidity, and therefore produces ebb and flow."[129:3]

No scientist has ever sought to refute either of these theories. They have merely been neglected.

They were advanced in obedience to a demand for the ultimate explanation of the phenomena in question, and were obtained by applying such general conceptions as were most satisfying to the reasons of their respective authors. But they contributed nothing whatsoever to a practical familiarity with the natural course of events, in this case the times and places of the planets and the tides. Hence they have not been used in the building of science. In our own day investigators have become conscious of their motive, and do not wait for historical selection to exclude powers and reasons from their province. They deliberately seek to formulate exact descriptions. To this end they employ symbols that shall serve to identify the terms of nature, and formulas that shall define their systematic relationship. These systems must be exact, or deductions cannot be made from them. Hence they tend ultimately to assume a mathematical form of expression.