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PRICE ONE PENNY.
HERBERT SPENCER
I
ON SOCIALISM.
A
TO
THE
REPLY
THE
ARTICLE
ENTITLED
COMING
SLAVERY,
(In the “ Contemporary Review” for April, 1884.)
BY
v FRANK FAIRMAN/
l,e*( TheoAef-e
THE
13
and
R- UJKrlct"
MODERN
14, PATERNOSTER
PRESS,
ROW,
LONDON,
E.C.
AND OF
W. REEVES, 185, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E C.
1884.
�“ Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.”
�HERBERT SPENCER ON SOCIALISM.
“ Is Saul also amongst the prophets ? ” seems to have been
at one time the proverbial formula for expressing surprise,
bordering on incredulity, at the appearance of any wellknown
individual in a new and unexpected character, and the like
feelings may probably be evoked by the inquiry—“ Is Herbert
Spencer also amongst the humourists ? ” A careful and
repeated perusal, however, of his latest deliverance on social
questions in the April number of the Contemporary Review, and
a comparison of it with other writings of his which are un
doubtedly serious, almost forces one to the conclusion that
he is on this occasion laughing in his sleeve at the British
public, and enjoying the joke of being held up as Defender of
the universal-scramble and Devil-take-the-hindmost Faith
which not once only, but all his life, he has laboured to
destroy. Probably no one—not even Dr. Marx, himself (his
works being inaccessible in English) has done so much to
promote the spread of socialistic ideas in England as Mr.
Spencer, and to those who have for years felt that in the
principles he has laid down they had a sure and solid founda
tion on which to stand, and a clue to guide them in coming
to a right conclusion on many vexed questions of political
and social importance, it will be an immense relief to find
that their great teacher has not really turned his back upon
himself, but that like Rabelais and others, he is only con
cealing his real purpose under a cloak—not of nastiness—
which neither his own taste, nor the manners of the age would
permit — but of apparent hard-heartedness and economic
superficiality, both of which are alike repugnant to his real
nature. What better evidence can we have that a writer
is masquerading than to find—
being a philanthropist, whose sympathies arq pot
�4
limited by country, colour, or creed, he insults the unfor
tunate and apparently depreciates all attempts to help
them.
2. —That being an exact and profound thinker, he over
states and mis-states his (nominal) opponent’s case in order
to prejudice it, and trots out from the economic stable vener
able old screws like “ wages-fund,” which though they made
good running in their day, are now only fit for a fair-trade
procession.
3. —That being probably the leading philosopher of the
age, he condemns, because it bears an unpopular name, the
very thing which he has himself held up as the grand
desideratum.
4. —That being a master of the English language, he uses
terms so exactly and admirably adapted to describe the
effects of the present system of production that when applied
to its rival they can only be taken ironically, and—
Lastly, when there is an intelligible object for the grim joke,
viz., that of sending those who are so delighted with this last
essay, to study the other writings of their supposed champion,
where, if they are at all amenable to reason, his inexorable
logic can hardly fail to convince them of the necessity of at
least as radical a reconstruction of society as even the
Democratic Federation can desire. Furthermore, the dis
covery that there is this vein of humour in Mr. Spencer’s
composition will assist one to read between the lines of those
portions of Social Statics in which he has denounced
Socialism—in name—and even combatted, though, but im
perfectly, some of its claims, though at the same time
admitting that they spring naturally from the principles he
has formulated.
Let us take these various propositions in order and see
whether or not they are justified.
1.—It is hardly necessary to prove that Mr. Spencer is a
genuine philanthropist, but the following sentences show
what was once the real attitude of his mind towards the
poorer classes, and the hard conditions of their lot:—
“ It is a pity that those who speak disparagingly of the masses have not
wisdom enough, to make due allowance for the unfavourable circumstances
in which the masses are placed. Suppose that after weighing the evidence
it should turn out that the working men do exhibit greater vices than those
more comfortably off; does it therefore follow that they are morally
worse ? . . . Shall as much be expected at their hands as from those born
�5
into a more fortunate position ? . . . Surely the lot of the hard-handed
labourer is pitiable enough without having harsh judgments passed upon
him. To be wholly sacrificed to other men’s happiness; to be made a
mere human tool; to have every faculty subordinated to the sole function of
work—this, one would say, is alone a misfortune, needing all sympathy for
its mitigation. . . It is very easy for you, oh respectable citizen, seated in
your easy chair, with your feet on the fender, to hold forth on the mis
conduct of the people, very easy for you to censure their extravagant
and vicious habits, very easy for you to be a pattern of frugality, of
rectitude, of sobriety. What else should you be ? Here are you surrounded
by comforts, possessing multiplied sources of lawful happiness, with a
reputation to maintain, an ambition to fulfil, and prospects of a competency
for old age. . . If you do not contract dissipated habits where is the
merit ?
How would these virtues of yours stand the wear and tear of
poverty ? Where would your prudence and self-denial be if you were
deprived of all the hopes that now stimulate you; if you had no better
prospect than that of the Dorsetshire farm-servant with his 7s.
a-week, or that of the perpetually straitened stocking weaver, or
that of the mill-hand with his periodical suspensions of work ? Let
us see you tied to an irksome employment from dawn till dusk;
fed on meagre food, and scarcely enough of that; married to a factory
girl ignorant of domestic management; deprived of the enjoyments
which education opens up; with no place of recreation but the pot
house, and then let us see whether you would be as steady as you are.
Suppose your savings had to be made, not, as now, out of surplus ’income,
but out of wages already insufficient for necessaries; and then consider
whether to be provident would be as easy as you at present find it. . .
“ How offensive it is to hear some pert, self-approving personage, who
thanks God that he is not as other men are, passing harsh sentence on his
poor, hardworked, heavily burdened fellow-countrymen; including them
all in one sweeping condemnation, because in their struggles for existence
they do not maintain the same prim respectability as himself. Of all
stupidities there are few greater, and yet few in which we more doggedly
persist, than this of estimating other men’s conduct by the standard of our
own feelings. . . We cannot understand another’s character except by
abandoning our own identity, and realising to ourselves his frame of mind,
his want of knowledge, his hardships, temptations and discouragements.
And if the wealthier classes would do this before framing their opinions
of the working man, their verdict would savour somewhat more of that
charity which covereth a multitude of sins." — Social Statics, part 3,
chapter 20.
What a striking contrast do those sentiments present to
the opening of the article on the Coming Slavery, where the
author speaks of “the miseries of the poor being thought of
as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought
of as in large measure they should be, as the miseries of the
undeserving poor”; goes on to describe the idlers about
tavern doors, the men who appropriate the wages of their
wives, the fellows who share the gains of prostitutes, &c.,
�6
and then says—“ Is it not manifest that there must exist in
our midst an enormous amount of misery which is a normal
result of misconduct, and ought not to be dissociated from
it ? ” Can any one doubt that Mr. Spencer is as perfectly
well aware as any one who reads these lines, that it is the
misery of the deserving poor, not that of the undeserving,
which has excited so much sympathy :—and that if by toiling
twelve or fourteen hours a day men and women could have
secured as good accommodation as well kept pigs, and as
good and sufficient food as cart-horses, we should have heard
no “ bitter cry,” and had no Royal Commission ? The
loungers who rush to open a cab-door are not to be lost sight
of, but it is a mere gratuitous assumption that all or most
of them could find better work to do. An equally patent
fact is the immense rush for any opportunity of earning an
honest living at even the lowest remuneration, as witness the
crowds who besiege the London Docks at 6 o’clock every
morning, 40 per cent, at least being stated by eye-witnesses
to go away disappointed. Mr, Spencer has taken great
pains to collect information regarding the aborigines of all
parts of the globe, and can hardly have passed over his own
countrymen ; if he has ever made a personal tour of our
great metropolitan markets and leading thoroughfares, early
in the morning or late at night, he must be convinced from
witnessing the innumerable shifts and devices resorted to,
the hard work undergone, and the discomfort endured, to
gain a few miserable pence and so escape the workhouse,
that taking the poorer classes as a whole, laziness is the last
vice which can be laid to their charge. Thriftless they un
doubtedly are, but what inducement have they to be other
wise, when the most strenuous efforts would be so hopelessly
futile of obtaining anything like a tangible result. In
temperate, on occasion they are also, but there is much
excuse, if no justification, for their indulging when they have
the means in the only form of pleasurable excitement known
or open to them. Unoerlying these opening sentences, is
the common assumption that an honest, sober, and in
dustrious workman can always find employment. It must
be acknowledged that there is some slight colour for the
assumption,but what doesit come to when analysed ? Simply
that the best men get employed first. But if all were equally
sober, industrious, and skilful, their good qualities would
�7
bear no premium in the labour market, and what little
foundation there is now for this assumption would vanish ; so
that, in fact, it rather is to the bad qualities of their fellows
than to their own virtues—to the existence in short, of the
tavern and street corner loungers—that the elite of the
working classes owe such advantages as they possess. Once
more, can any one suppose that Mr. Spencer, of all men,
needs to have this pointed out ? It is impossible.
2.—“ There is a notion,” says Mr. Spencer, “ always more
or less prevalent, and just now vociferously expressed, that
all social suffering is removable, and that it is the duty of
somebody or other to remove it. Both these beliefs are
false.” A great portion of social suffering arises from the
death of relatives and friends, but no instructed Socialist has
as yet proposed to remove it; on the contrary, unhappily,
some ^instructed ones seem rather in favour of increasing
it. Speaking seriously, however, what Socialists maintain
is—not any such absurdity as the above, but that a great
deal of suffering is removable, and in particular that an im
mense deal of it results directly from defective social arrange
ments ; and that this portion at least, can be, and ought to be,
removed. They are firmly convinced that material im
provement without moral and intellectual elevation is a
chimera, but they are equally convinced that the moral eleva
tion of the lowest class without material improvement is im
possible. They agree with Mr. Spencer in accepting the
scientific accuracy of the maxim, “ If any will not work
neither shall he eat; ” but they also believe that “ if any do
not eat neither can he work; ” and they object to the pre
sent system of distribution because on the one hand it gives
plenty to eat to those who do not work at all,. and on the
other, leaves those who work the hardest the smallest possible
means and opportunity of eating anything.
The next suggestion is that the working classes are being
supplied with dwelling accommodation at less than its com
mercial value, because in Liverpool the municipality has
spent ^200,000 in pulling down and reconstructing, and “ the
implication is that in some way the ratepayers supply the
poor with more accommodation than the rents they pay
would otherwise have brought.” An equally logical implica
tion would be, that in some way some of the non-working
classes have obtained £200,000 of the ratepayer’s money be-
�8x
yond the commercial value of their property. Mr. Spencer
also . says that the advantages derived from free libraries,
public baths, Board schools, etc., are only a rate in aid of
wages, and that these seeming boons are really illusory. It
might be said that these things being necessaries, if they
were not supplied by the public, the working classes would
insist on such wages as would enable them to provide them
for themselves ; and such an argument would be not only
plausible, but sound, assuming the premises to be correct,
which evidently they are not. But the line of reasoning
adopted seems to be that capitalists give as high wages as ever
they can afford, many of them even coming to grief from their
liberality in this respect, and that any inroads by taxation on
either profits or “wages fund” necessitate, much against
their will, an equivalent reduction in wages. Whether either
the premises or the argument in this case be sounder than m
the previous one, those who understand anything of
economics must judge. It may be pointed out, however, that
this view accords very ill with the conclusions of Mr. Giffen,
and similar optimists, who prove very much to their own
satisfaction that the wages of the working classes have con
siderably improved during the very period that the public
have been providing these illusory benefits. Besides, supposing
Mr. Spencer’s criticism on this point well founded, it is obviously
only an argument against half and half measures, and in
favour of real Socialism, (did he mean it as such ?) which
would abolish this cut-throat competition between employers,
by which both their own profits and the remuneration of
labour are reduced to a minimum.
3-—The condemnation of Socialism by name is too obvious
to need more than a general reference. To show that the
thing itself is _ the only legitimate outcome of Mr. Spencer’s
teaching, it is necessary to refer in some detail to Social
Statics, especially as this book is not now readily accessible.
It is understood that Mr. Spencer objects to its being re
printed until he has time to revise and modify some portions,
but judging by the preface to the last edition, such modifica
tions will be confined to the practical applications of the prin
ciples laid down, and will not interfere with the principles
themselves. So firmly, indeed, has the author established
these, that it would be difficult even for him to upset them.
It is to these that attention will be chiefly directed, rather
�9
than to special deductions which the writer draws from them ;
and, be it said with all deference, it is not for a philosopher
who succeeds in establishing a principle to dictate what con
clusions may or may not be drawn from it; that must
depend on the acknowledged rules of logic.
Without unduly lengthening these pages by citations, it may
fairly be said that the one great principle which Mr. Spencer
establishes as the fundamental law of morality for human
beings, is what he terms “the law of equal freedom ; ” that
is, that every individual should enjoy perfect liberty to exer
cise all his faculties, the only limitation being that he shall
not in so doing infringe in any manner on the like freedom
of others. As he puts it, “ man must have liberty to go and
to come ; to see, to feel, to speak, to work, to get food,
raiment, and shelter, and to provide for each and all the
needs of his nature.” (p. 93.) Again, “If this law of equal
freedom is the primary law of right relationship between man
and man, then no desire to get fulfilled a secondary law can
warrant us in breaking it.” It is here contended that the
acceptance of this primary law inevitably leads to Socialism,
and can lead to nothing else. Mr. Spencer has himself done
the greater part of the work required to show that it does so,
by himself drawing from it the deduction that it includes the
right to the use of the earth. “ Each is free to use the earth
for the satisfaction of his wants provided he allows all others
the same liberty. And conversely it is manifest that no one
may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest from
similarly using it. Equity, therefore does not permit pro
perty in land.” (p. 131). Again, “ It is impossible to dis
cover any mode in which land can become private property.”
And at p. 143 “ Bye and bye men may learn that to deprive
others of their rights to the use of the earth is to commit a
crime inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away
their lives or personal liberties.”
So far so good; but the author goes a step, and a very im
portant step further, and when dealing with the rights of pro
perty points out that all wealth being derived from the earth,
the only legitimate basis qf property is the exercise of man’s
labour upon land for which he has paid to society, the rightful
owner thereof, a fair rent, and this never having been done,
all personal as well as real property, is tainted and illegitimate
in its origin. This important deduction of his own drawing
�Mr. Spencer seems afterwards to have somewhat lost sight
of. Well may he say, with reference to another matter, but
it is equally applicable to this : “ Due warning was given that
our first principle carried in it the germs of sundry unlooked
for conclusions. We have just found ourselves committed to
a proposition at war with the convictions of almost all. Truth,
however, must of necessity be consistent; we have, there
fore, no alternative but to re-examine our pre-conceived
notions in the expectation of finding them erroneous.”
(p. 195.) This is exactly what Socialists desire mankind to do
with regard to their pre-conceived notions about the produc
tion and distribution of wealth, bearing in mind that “ as
liberty to exercise the faculties is the first condition of in
dividual life, the liberty of each limited only bv the like
liberty of all, must be the first condition of social life, the law
of equal freedom is of higher authority than all other laws.”
(p. 217.) Remembering also that “ before establishing a code
for the right exercise of faculties there must be established
the condition which makes the exercise of faculties possible.
It is the function of this chief institution which we call a
government, to uphold the law of equal freedom.” (p. 278.)
Is not this precisely the contention of Socialists, that the first
duty of the State is to see that each individual has a chance
of exercising his faculties, the digestive ones included ?
It is quite true that Mr. Spencer apparently shrinks from
this “unlooked for conclusion,” and declines to recognise
either a right to maintenance, or the right to labour; but, as
observed at the outset, a suspicion not unnaturally arises that
in so doing he was possibly actuated rather by policy than
conviction, especially when we examine the mode in which
he deals with these two claims. He disposes of the first by
asserting that it cannot be entertained until an exact defini
tion is arrived at of what a maintenance means, whether
a bare subsistence, or a certain amount, and if so how much,
of comforts or luxuries. It may be replied in the first place
that though this task may be difficult, it does not follow that
it is impossible ; and if confined, as is evidently contemplated,
to those who cannot get their own living, those entrusted by
society with the charge ofmaintaing them would easily estab
lish a working scale, as is in fact done. Besides, as Mr.
Spencer repeatedly points out in other cases, it by no means
follows that the law of perfect morality is discredited because
�ri
it is difficult or even impossible of application in an imper
fect state of society. Once more, Socialists do not contend
that every one is entitled to a maintenance without earning
it; quite the reverse. The real gist of the argument there
fore, turns on the next point, the right to labour, which is
dealt with still less satisfactorily. Mr. Spencer says, “ First,
let us make sure of the meaning wrapped up in this expres
sion—right to labour. Evidently, if we would avoid mistakes
we must render it literally—right to the labour; ” (which
does not seem to make it any plainer) “ for the thing deman
ded is not the liberty of labouring ; this no one disputes ; ”
(on the contrary it is the very thing which is disputed, unless
swinging one’s arms and legs aimlessly is to be called labour
ing) “ but it is the opportunity of labouring, the having re
munerative employment provided, which is contended for.”
Now, to take Mr. Spencer literally, one wants to know
whether it is the liberty combined with the opportunity
which he concedes (if he does he concedes the whole point),
or the liberty without the opportunity, which he seems to
mean ; if so, he may as well concede the liberty to fly. It
is something like the liberty which calvinistic theologians
accord to those predestined to damnation; just enough
to save the credit of the deity, but not enough, without
the effectual grace which they never get, to save their own
souls. Again, “the word right, as here used, bears a
signification quite different from its legitimate one, for it does
not here imply something inherent in man, but something
dependent upon external circumstances, not something pos
sessed in virtue of his faculties, but something springing out
of his relationship to others, not something true of him as a
solitary individual, but something which can be true of him
only as one of a community, not something antecedent to
society, but something necessarily subsequent to it, not some
thing expressive of a claim to do, but of a claim to be done
unto.” With the exception of the last member of the sen
tence, which might be disputed, this is an accurate criticism,
but does it not strengthen the claim rather than weaken it ?
The right, in its strict sense, on which the claim is founded, is
the right to use the faculties, and the fact that everything on
which that right can be exercised, every inch of ground, and
every particle of wood, stone, iron, etc., has been previously
appropriated by society seems a very insufficient reason for
�1-3
rejecting the claim. To so reject it, is in fact to contravene
one of the fundamental rules of equity, that no one may take
advantage of his own wrong doing.
Going on further, Mr. Spencer by that clear method of
analysis of which he is a master, points out that when the
proposition is reduced to its lowest terms, it only means that
society is the employer, and therefore in efiect the labourer
says that ABC and D are bound to employ him ; that he,
with B C and D are bound to employ A; and so on with
each individual of the twenty millions’of whom the society
may be composed ; and then, with a fine touch of humour, he
adds: “ Thus do we see how readily imaginary rights are
distinguishable from real ones. They need no disproof, they
disprove themselves. The ordeal of definition breaks the
illusion at once.” It certainly does not break this illusion, if
it be one ; on the contrary, this admirable mode of stating
the case only confirms the justice of the claim, when the real
facts are considered. It is in truth the veritable A B C of
Socialism. All the letters of the social alphabet, large and
small, furnish employment; even the veriest waif and outcast
provides employment for others, be it only the policeman and
gaoler ; and this claim of the right to labour is nothing more
nor less than a protest on the part of the small letters, who
each help to swell the demand, against the supply being mon
opolized by the capitals for their own profit. As Mr. Spencer
himself puts it at p. 345: “We must not overlook the fact
that erroneous as are these poor law and communist theories,
these assertions of a man’s right to maintenance and of his
right to have work provided for him, they are nevertheless
nearly related to a truth. They are unsuccessful efforts to
express the fact that whoso is born on this planet of ours
thereby obtains some interest in it—may not be summarily
dismissed again—may not have his existence ignored by those
in possession. In other words, they are attempts to embody
that thought which finds its legitimate utterance in the law,
all men have equal rights to the use of the earth. . . . After
getting from under the grosser injustice of slavery men could
not help beginning in course of time to feel what a monstrous
thing it was that nine people out of ten should live in the
world on suffrance, not having even standing room save by
allowance of those who claim the earth’s surface. Could it
be right that all these human beings should not only be with-
�'r3
out claim to the necessaries of life, should not only be denied
the use of those elements from which such necessaries are
obtainable—but should further be unable to exchange their
labour for such necessaries except by leave of their more for
tunate fellows ? . . . . To all which questions now forced
upon men’s minds in more or less definite shapes, there come
amongst other answers these theories of a right to a mainten
ance and a right of labour. Whilst, therefore, they must be
rejected as untenable we may still ” [not give any definite
answer which is more tenable, but] “ recognise in them the
imperfect utterances of the moral sense in its efforts to express
equity.”
4.—At p. 474 of the Contemporary Review Mr. Spencer says :
“Why is this change described as the Coming Slavery?
The reply is simple. All Socialism involves slavery,” and
then, in an eloquent passage he asks and answers the question,
“ what is essential to the idea of a slave ? ” The result being
thus expressed. “ The essential question is, how much is he
compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how
much he can labour for his own benefit ? The degree of his
slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he
is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain ;
and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a
society. If, without option he has to labour for the society
and receives from the general stock such portion as the society
awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.” Could there
be a more exact description of the condition of the modern
wage labourer under the capitalist system ? Yet Mr. Spencer
adds, “ Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement
of this kind.” If they did, they would be no worse than
present arrangements, but they do not. Socialistic arrange
ments literally, etymologically, and reasonably, only mean
such arrangements as will admit of the great primary law of
equal freedom being carried out. As the whole work of Mr.
Spencer’s life shows, Sociology as a science is still in its in
fancy ; it is no wonder therefore that though many good men
in former times have indistinctly seen the promised land afar
off, or in visions, no Moses has yet arisen with sufficient
knowledge, wisdom, and divine enthusiasm to lead the people
out of their worse than Egyptian bondage, and guide them
safely through the dreary wilderness of economic truisms and
fallacies which have to be traversed ere that holy land is
�T4
reached. Happily, a very good sketch map of the route has
recently been laid down by Mr. Carruthers, some of whose
observations on this particular point seem to have been
written specially in anticipation of “ The Coming Slavery.”
He says:—
“ Without formally asserting that men under Communal Government
could not be allowed every possible freedom, except that of compelling
others to serve them, they (capitalists) assert that such freedom would not
be granted if any but capitalists governed the world. Acting under these
opinions, or rather prejudices, they devise an ideal commune, in which
every public and private action would be guided by idiotic folly and per
versity, and then triumphantly ask whether even the working classes are
not better off under commercialism than they would be under so absurd a
system. If we are to believe what they tell us, communal government
would be entrusted to a huge bureaucracy, sitting at the capital town, like
a spider in the middle of its web, and sending its commands over the
country as to what every one should eat and drink, what clothes he should
wear, what religion he should profess, at what sports he should play, what
trade he should follow, when and whom he should marry, and finally, the
shape and material of his coffin........................ Imperfect as the workmen’s
freedom actually is, we are quite prepared to admit that mere material
well-being would not compensate them for its loss, and that they would do
better for themselves by upholding commercialism than by adopting such
a scheme of communism as is sketched out for them by the capitalists.
They are not, however, tied to this system, which is indeed such as no
sane man would ever dream of establishing, nor need they fear that under
the commune, anyone would lose any freedom he now enjoys....................
Instead of comparing commercialism with the form of communism that
would be set up by men as foolish and meddling as the capitalists assume
every one but themselves to be, we must compare it with a system in which
no one desires, or would be permitted to interfere unnecessarily with his
fellows, and in which the sphere of State control would be made as re
stricted as was compatible with securing the end for which all government
is established, namely, the well-being of the people.”—"Communal and
Commercial Economy ” p. 321 et seq.
Very much to the same practical effect are Mr. Spencer’s
own words : “ Civilization is evolving a state of things and a
kind of character in which two apparently conflicting require
ments are reconciled. To achieve the creative purpose—
the greatest sum of happiness—there must on the one hand
exist an amount of population maintainable only by the best
possible system of production ; that is, by the most elaborate
subdivision of labour ; that is, by the extremest mutual de
pendence, whilst on the other hand each individual must
have the right to do whatever his desires prompt. Clearly
these two conditions can be harmonized only by that adap
tation humanity is undergoing, that process during which all
�i5
desires inconsistent with the most perfect social organization
are dying out, and other desires corresponding to such or
ganizations are being developed.” (Social Statics, p. 482.)
A better definition of the real aims of Socialism than the
first portion of the above extract could hardly be given, and
the conclusion seems inevitable, either that Mr. Spencer is
having his little joke in denouncing the Coming Slavery; or,
which seems still more difficult of belief, he has fallen into
the vulgar error of condemning Socialism because he does
not agree with what all who call themselves Socialists may
say. He might as well deride all law, religion, medicine, and
charity, because unscrupulous advocates, corrupt judges,
self-seeking hypocrites, ignorant quacks, and misguided
enthusiasts have sheltered themselves under these sacred
names. In any case, genuine Socialists will be none the less
grateful to him for affording this opportunity of supporting
the cause which he and they alike have at heart, from the
rich storehouse which he has provided. If, as may perhaps
be inferred from the last sentence quoted, his objection is
merely to the method, and he only fears that the desired re
forms may be attempted too soon, or by wrong means, he
may be reassured by a consideration of the fact, which he
has over and over again insisted upon, that “ the sense of
rights, by whose sympathetic excitement men are led to behave
justly to each other, is the same sense of rights by which they
are prompted to assert their own claims.” And conversely
those who are most forward to assert their own claims are as
a rule the most ready to respect the rights of others. Mr.
Spencer has a well-founded dread of paternal legislation, and
unlimited faith in the power of voluntary co-operation, but
seems hardly to realize how far the government of the future
will necessarily partake of the character of co-operation, for
cible interference being limited almost entirely to his own
minimum, that necessary to secure equal justice. In conclusion
it may with all respect be submitted that his great
powers would be more usefully employed in assisting the
efforts of those who share his own aspirations, and found
themselves upon his own principles, than in even appearing
to lend the weight of his authority to the already overwhelm
ing mass of stolid Conservatism. Intelligent criticism is
always useful, and to none more so than to those who are en
deavouring to devise a better mode of life ; but Mr; Spencer
�i6
Claims to be a synthetical philosopher, and from him, there
fore, something beyond mere criticism is expected. It is no
use to tell us that “ the welfare of a society and the justice of
its arrangements are at bottom dependent on the character of
its members,” nor can Mr. Spencer claim any exclusive
ownership in this idea. What is wanted before all things at
the present day is some method of improving individual
character, and especially that side of it which modern com
mercialism does everything to foster, that grasping, selfish,
greed of gain, which is at once corrupting the upper and
degrading the lower sections of society.
In an early essay
Mr. Spencer depicted the vices of modern trade in a manner it
would be difficult to rival; it is these very vices, springing from
unchecked, almost inevitable selfishness, that Socialism seeks
to uproot, and nothing in his last paper goes one inch towards
showing that it would be ineffectual for the purpose, still less
does he offer any alternative. Such may yet be forthcoming,
and even if not complete, an instalment will be heartily wel
comed by those earnest men who are less affected by specu
lative and imaginary fears of the coming slavery, than by a
deep and ever growing sense of the enormity of that present
slavery which they see around them.
Literature
on
Land, Labour
and
Capital, &c.,
Published by W. Reeves, 185, Fleet Street, London.
THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST. Monthly, id.; is. 6d. a year
6
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ART AND SOCIALISM, by William Morris. Large paper, is.
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�
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Herbert Spencer on socialism. A reply to the article entitled "The coming slavery"
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Notes: Annotated in pencil "i.e., Theodore R. Wright" under author's name on title page. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The Spencer article appeared in Contemporary Review 45 (April 1884).
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RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
*
BY PBOF. J. D. BELL.
HAT do we know? This is the ultimate question in
speculation, and on its decision depends the future of
thought. To those unused to thinking it may seem
very simple and easily answered. But the more we reflect
upon it; the more we study its scientific, historical and social aspects;
the more are we convinced that it is the abstrusest and most farreaching inquiry ever put by man to himself or to his fellows; and
hence there have been (since it was first broached) almost as many
responses as thinkers. As only confusion and misunderstanding can
result from ignoring the real issue, let us formulate it in its full force.
It is as follows: Have we any real knowledge, either direct or inferen
tial, of the Supernatural, call it First Cause, Absolute, or Infinite ? In
$ word, have we any such knowledge as would warrant us in asserting
or denying the existence of such a being ? or in asserting or denying.
the existence of any or all attributes, which the reverential feelings of
humanity in times past have applied to the object of their adorations ?
Let it be noted that the argument does not now turn on whether or
not we have innate ideas—something in the mind antecedent to all ex
perience of the external world. Indeed, it is perfectly competent to
take the negative on the alleged knowledge of the Supernatural, while
at the same time fully accepting intuition.f Provided our innate ideas
be solely phenomenal, we can take whichever side we please in the
great controversy of Locke and Leibnitz. The question of the origin
of our knowledge is very important still'and was much more so in the
past, but this importance is secondary. The extent of that knowledge
is the prime question to which all others, must bow.
Upon reflection it must be evident that the question as above stated
W
* A Review of Herbert Spencer.
+ The current empiricism seems utterly unphilosophical. For the organization
of the brain must be antecedent to all experience whatsoever; even extending the
Lockeian conception to the race or to all life (as Mr. Spencer does), only pushes the
difficulty further back ; but does not solve it. The “ mirror,” “ slate,” and “ sheet
of white paper,” theories of the mind are mere verbal fallacies. Life, be it in a zo
ophyte or in man, must precede all experience; and as thought is but the highest
expression of life, this is the same as saying that our mental apparatus possesses
innate (organic) ideas.
�122
RELIGION AND
SCIENCE.
is capable of solution, and that that solution will rigidly exclude all
others. It is not meant that at a single sitting the question can be
settled. Men do not so give up cherished opinions. They are only
abandoned when seen to be contradictory to decisive experiences. As
long as they do not perceive the contradiction, men can sincerely hold
the most contradictory views. But when the discrepancy is perceived,
they never rest until it is removed. It must be noted, too, that in all
cases of psychological surgery the operation is not performed until a
new organ is prepared to take the place of the old; which- new organ
not only supplies the vacancy, but goes further, filling what was left
empty by its predecessor, and locating functions before almost useless
from positional instability. It was thus with Newton’s law of Gravita
tion ; with the great generalization of Dr. J. R. Mayer, Joule, Grove,
et al., known as the Conservation of Force; with the Darwinian law of
Natural Selection ; and it will be so with the relations of the natural
and the supernatural. And as in the former the explanation of other
wise inexplicable occurrences is easily obtained by means of the law, so
in the latter the difficulties inherent in every compromise will disappear
in the real solution.
I.
It is admitted on all sides that a controversy exists. Thinkers are
not so well agreed as to its nature or solution. The object of the
present essay is threefold. To briefly examine this controversy; the
compromises to which it has given rise; and the solutions proposed.
Many of the thoughts here put forth were suggested by the writer’s
opposition to Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Reconciliation of Religion and
Science, which he believes to be erroneous and misleading; the exposi
tion will consequently take somewhat of the form of an inquiry into
the truth of some fundamental assertions made by that philosopher.
As I shall, unfortunately, have more occasion for dissenting from Mr.
Spencer’s mode of reasoning than the reverse, it is the more directly
incumbent upon me to bear witness to the largeness of his views, and
to his acuteness in analysis and,extraordinary powers of co-ordination.
Though considering the task undertaken by him ifiipossible, and his
synthesis of the knowable far from being true as a whole and in many
parts totally false, I acknowledge that the world owes him a debt of
gratitude for provoking healthful speculation by the lucid expression
of his own suggestive thoughts.
When did the controversy begin ? " Of all antagonisms of belief,”
says Mr. Spencer, “the oldest, the widest, the most profound and the
*
most important is that between Religion and Science. It commenced
when the recognition of the simplest Uniformities in surrounding
* First Principles of a System
Part I. The Unknowable, p, 11.
of
Philosophy. 2ded. New York, 1868.
�RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
,
/
123
things set a limit to the previously universal fetishism. It shows itself
everywhere throughout the domain of human knowledge: affectingmen’s interpretations alike of the simplest mechanical accidents and
of the most complicated events in the histories of nations.” Is this
very comprehensive assertion true ? On its face it appears to be his
torical, but the sources of it are not indicated. It is to be regretted
that very many contemporary writers, and Mr. Spencer among them,
refuse their readers the privilege of checking their statements by
references to the authorities for their facts.
*
The practice of citation
'though onerous on the writer, should never be allowed to fall into
desuetude, as it saves him from hasty generalizations or at least guards
against their banefulness, while at the same time forming an admirable
logical exercise for the reader. In this case a search for such authori
ties would have preserved our author from a totally groundless state
ment. Faith other than that in evidence being out of place in his
torical discussions, let us apply some well-known facts to this very con
fident assertion.
1. The Bible being in every one’s hands will furnish a first test.
The Old Testament Scriptures show us a state of society in which the
recognition of uniformities had not only set limits to a previously uni
versal fetishism, but, according to Mr. Spencer himself, a state in
which this recognition had been carried so far as to differ in little but
name from what M. Comte designated as the perfection of the meta■ physical and positive (or scientific) systems respectively.! In this very
favorable case for Mr. Spencer, it is safe to say, after careful study, that
no such antagonism is found. Antagonisms did exist, but they were
political—questions of ethics and government, and not in any sense
discussions about the origin and extent of our knowledge.! For in
stance, men might and did deny that a certain man was sent by God,
but was it ever doubted that some men were sent by God ? Again, it
might be denied that certain rules of conduct were revealed by God,
but did any one ever doubt that God revealed some rules ? Finally,
men might deny the authenticity of certain traditions, said to have
been revealed, but did they ever doubt the existence of revelation ?
After this cursory vjew and argument which every reader can extend
and verify for himself, it is hardly presumptuous to deny that this assumed antagonism affects <( men’s interpretations alike of the simplest
. I mechanical accidents and of the most complicated events in the hisL tories of nations.” Both these and all such occurrences were believed
* “Many authors entertain,not only a foolish, but a really dishonest objection to
acknowledge from whence they derive much valuable information.”—Charles
Dickens—“ The Pickwick Papers.”
®
. f The Classification of the Sciences. 2d ed. New York, 1870, pp. 35, 36.
t Revue des Deux Mondes. 1867, t. LXIX,pp. 818-850 and LXX. pp. 147-179.
“ Les Prophetes d’Israel,” and Id. t. LXXXIII, pp. 76-112. “ La Religion primitive
d’lsrael,” Essays by Albert Reville, in review of Dr. Kuenen’s researches.
�124
RELIGION AND
SCIENCE.
to be due to the anger of the deity,—the conception of Law versus
Miracle having never entered the Hebrew mind as far as can be gath
ered from their sacred books.
2. Passing over the Koran, which, with the Hebrew Scriptures, may
be said to contain the general speculation of the Semite man, and to
which an identical train of reasoning will apply, let us turn to the
Aryan man. The early thought of this race is preserved in three wellknown compilations: the Veda for the Hindus; the Zend-Avesta for
the Persians; and the Homeric Poems for the Greeks. A candid ex
amination of these works conclusively shows that this assumed antag
onism did not exist at the time they were composed. There is antag
onism in all, but it is person against person, and not ‘uniformities
against persons. In the Veda the Devas (or ‘bright ’ gods,) fight and
conquer their enemies—the ‘ dark ’ powers of nature; but he would be
a bold man who should assert that the former were laws and the lattei
persons. The bright gods are themselves superseded in the ZendAvesta ; but is it in favor of uniformities ? Not at all. The radiating
gods (Light, Fire, etc., conceived as persons) take their places; but
the mode of interpretation has not varied. Lastly: the Honieric
Poems are almost as well known as the Bible; has this antagonism
been found in them ? It will be perhaps a sufficient and conclusive
answer to this interrogatory to cite the opinion of Mr. Grote, the great
est living authority on “ the free life of Hellas.” Discussing this ques
tion in. the sixteenth chapter (Part I) of his “ History of Greece,”* he
reaches the conclusion that in the Homeric age “ no such contention
had yet begun,” though the elements of it seem to have existed, the
Moerse (or Fates) at rare intervals overruling the decisions of Zeus.
Unfortunately for Mr. Spencer’s argument, however, these Moerae were
not uniformities, but persons, like Zeus himself. As the world of
speculation may be said to be divided between the Aryan man and the
Semite, and as no such antagonism has appeared in the early specula
tions of either, Mr. Spencer’s account of the commencement of the
controversy must be rejected.!
The foregoing was written before the appearance of Mr. Herbert
* 3d Edition, London, 1851, Vol. I, p. 483. See also Chap. LXVIII (Part II)—
Sokrates.
f The following interesting diagram, showing the religions of the world whose
rites are found systematized in books, is transferred from the second of the “ Lec
tures on the Science of Religion,” by Professor Max Muller, which appeared in
“ Frazer’s Magazine ” for May, 1870, pp. 581-593. The whole six lectures of the
course, delivered last winter before the Royal Institution of London, will appear in
successive issues of “ Fraser,” commencing with April. The attention of thinkers
is invited to them, not indeed as being likely to contain anything very new, but as
showing the drift of even orthodox thought. Surely the world is not standing still
when an Oxford professor can coolly inform his brilliant Christian audience that to
the scientific man all revelation must stand on the same footing, and that the mere
assertion of its votaries that a religion is revealed affords no-presumption in its
favor, (p. 590.) These lectures can be very advantageously compared with six fine
essays by Simile Burnouf on “La Science des Religions ; sa Methode et ses Lim-
�RELIGION AND
SCIENCE.
125
Spencer’s paper “ On the Origin of Animal Worship, etc.,” * which Sug
gested the propriety of so far extending the limits of the present article
as to admit a few remarks on the interesting subject there discussed.
The ostensible aim of that essay is to give the genesis of the important
historical facts which Mr. J. F. McLennan had recently published in the
“ Fortnightly Review.”! This acute sociological observer collected from
all sources a mass -of data bearing on the early worship of our race; and
upon them, aided by the law of exogamy, viz.: that among savages, in
order to guard against incest, marriage only takes place between indi
viduals belonging to different "clans or stock families —all persons
*
having the same tribal name (“the lion,” “the turtle,” “the beaver,”
etc.) being considered of the same family,J founded an hypothesis or
ites.”—Revue des deux Mondes, December 1st and 15th, 1864; April 15th, August
15th and October 1st, 1868 ; and July 15th, 1869.
The diagram is as follows:
SEMITIC FAMILY .
ARYAN FAMILY.
Veda
Brahmanism
Old Testament
Mosaism
. Zend-Avesta
Zoroastrianism
TripiZaka
Buddhism
TURANIAN
New Testament
Christianity
|
Koran
ARYAN ________
|
Mohammedanism
The Professor adds that China became the mother of two religions at almost the
same time, each founded on a sacred code—the religion of Confucius and that of
Lao-tse; the former resting on the Five King and Four Shu, and the latter on the
Tao-tei King. The eight codes here given form the Sacred library of the world.
The diagram shows that each of the great families in which speculation is indig
enous has given birth to three separate forms of religion. Brahmanism and Bud
dhism are directly affiliated, as are Mosaism and Christianity, while Zoroastrianism
and Mohammedanism are only indirectly connected to the parent code. There is
another curious fact pointed out by Muller, that both Buddhism and Christianity
failed to take permanent root in their own families, and were compelled to abandon
the fruitless task of ‘ reformation ’ with which they both set out. It should be also
noted that the former went to a family lower than itself, cerebrally, while the lat
ter came to one higher. There is another interesting fact to be gathered from the
appended rough census of religions: it is that Christianity and Buddhism unite
’ noarly two thirds of the human race. As quoted from Berghaus’ Physical Atlas
by Max Muller, (“ Chips; from a German Workshop,” Vol. I, p. 158,) the figures ac
companying each form of religion indicate the percentage of the human race
swayed by its dogmas:—Buddhism, 31.2 per cent; Christianity, 30.7 ; Mohammed
anism, 15.7; Brahmanism, 13.4; Jews, 0.3 and Heathens 8.7.
* “ Fortnightly Review,” May, 1870, pp. 535-550.
f “ The worship of Animals and Plants,” Id., Oct. 1st and Nov. 1st, 1869, and
Feb. 1st, 1870. These essays will well repay perusal.
| “ Primitive Marriage,” by J. F. McLellan, 1865; also, “Kinship in Ancient
Greece,” by the same, “ Fortnightly Review,” April 15,1866, pp. 569-588; as well as
“ The Early History of Mankind,” by E. B. Tylor, London, 1865.
On “ Exogamy,” Mr. Darwin has the following remarks, which show how deeply
�126
RELIGION AND
SCIENCE.
working theory. Briefly stated, it is as follows : All the ancient nations
passed through “ Totemism ” before attaining the higher religious rites.
' Totem is a name borrowed from the Indians of our continent, and sig
nifies a protecting spirit, or, as the Canadians call it, “ Medicine.” The
Totem may be either animal or vegetable. The permanent name of the
stock-tribe was derived from it, and it early became a kind of vague
sin, if an animal to kill it, if a vegetable to gather’it, and in either case
to eat of it. This prohibition, known as “ tabu,” is absolute among
the Fijians, it being criminal to partake of the Totem-god. In Egypt,
the deity side of the Totem was still more developed, live animals
having real religious rites in their honor. The same also occurred in
India, as is very conclusively shown in Mr. Fergusson’s magnificent
“ Tree and Serpent Worship.” In a word, traces of this embryo cultus
are found everywhere among even the most civilized nations of
antiquity—polytheism itself being apparently but a pantheon of Totems
derived from each of the separate stocks represented in the nation, and
modified by the increasing refinement of manners and advancement in
speculation. Mr. McLennan further believes that to Totemism, and
not to any pretended likeness, we can trace the names of the signs of
the Zodiac and of the constellations, Bear, Dog, Swan, etc.; these
designations being then given to new discoveries in the heavens, as
marks of the esteem in which the terrestrial animals so named were
held, just as, for some years, the planet discovered by the illustrious Sir
that illustrious biologist has penetrated into ancient thought. They fbnh a happy
contrast to the nonsense so current in relation to “ hygienic practices,” “ confusion
of descent,” etc., etc.:
“ It would be interesting to know, if it could be ascertained, as throwing light
on this question with respect to man, what occurs with the higher anthropomor
phous apes—whether the young males and females soon wander away from their
parents, or whether the old males become jealous of their sons and expel them, or
whether any inherited instinctive feeling, from being beneficial has been generated,
leading the young males and females of the same families to prefer pairing with
distinct families, and to dislike pairing with each other. A considerable body of
evidence has already been advanced showing that the offspring from parents which
are not related are more vigorous and fertile than those from parents which are
closely related; hence any slight feeling, arising from the sexual excitement of
novelty or other cause, which led to the former rather than to the latter unions,
would be augmented through natural selection, and thus might become instinctive;
for those individuals which had an innate preference of this kind would increase in
number. It seems more probable, that degraded savages should thus unconsciously
have acquired their dislike and even abhorrence of incestuous marriages, rather
than that they should have discovered by reasoning and observation the evil
results. * * * In the case of man, the question whether evil follows from close
interbreeding will probably never be answered by direct evidence, as he propagates
his kind so slowly and cannot be subjected to experiment; but the almost universal
practice of all races at all times of avoiding closely-related marriages is an argu
ment of considerable weight; and whatever conclusion we arrive at in regard to
the higher animals maybe safely extended toman.”—The Variation of Animals
and Plants under Domestication. 2 vols. New York, without date. Chap. XVII,
Vol. II, pp. 153, 154.
In connection with this question, it would be interesting to know on which part
of the system—the muscular or the nervous—close interbreeding reacts most unfa
vorably. From many well-known facts it would seem to be the latter—but it
should be experimentally settled.
�♦
RELICION AND
SCIENCE.
127
W. Herschel was named from him, and as many proposed' to call the
planet Neptune “ Le Verner,” in honor of one of its mathematical
discoverers. ■ •
In the development of his thesis, Mr. McLennan had taken for
granted that what is variously known as fetishism or animism repre
sented the view of the early men on the producing causes of phe
nomena ; in other words, that to savages, the conception of life and
volition was unlimited. A tree, a stone, the. wind, the earth, sun,
moon, etc., might have the one and exercise the other. He also
remarked, that Totemism, “ the worship of animals and plants,” pre
ceded in historical order anthropomorphism or the worship of man.
The former theory of early thought Mr. Spencer regards as totally
false; and to the latter statement he can only accord a qualified accept
ance. Dealing with it first, he says, that while if we restrict the word
worship to its present meaning, Mr.'McLennan’s theory is true, still, if
we go to the foot of the matter—to the very origin of this Totemism
itself—it requires great modification. “ The rudimentary form of all
religion,” says he (p. 536), “ is the propitiation of dead ancestors, who'
are supposed to be still existing, and to be capable of working good
or evil to their descendants.” This belief in everlasting life he thinks
generated out of the savage conception of present human existence as
double, which belief in its turn he traces to the following leading expe
riences: (1) The man’s shadow, which accompanies him continually;
r - (2) the reflection of his face and figure in water, which seems another
self, or rather an emanation from self; (3) echoes, which appear to be
voices eluding his search; (4) dreams—“the root of this belief in
another self lies in the experience of dreams;” (5) suspended anima
tion, apoplexy, catalepsy, etc. And from all these the savage view of
death is generalized, viz.: that the man has but abandoned his resi
dence and may return to it again; and, consequently, that having
given favors while present, he still remains capable of doing so in his
absence. The question at once arises, if this theory be true, how came
men to worship animals and plants, as, from the conclusive evidence
adduced, Mr. Spencer acknowledges they did ? Very simply, says our
author. Men named (or as he prefers to designate the process, “ nick
named ”) each other from the phenomena of nature, in accordance with
some real likeness between them; such as “the bear,” for a rough or
unmannerly person; “ the sly old fox,” for a cunning person; “ car
rots,” for a red-haired person; “ the mountain,” for a fat person, etc.
This is the sole origin of proper names which become surnames by
hereditary descent. Thus, in case the ancestor has done some notable
action, his children will be proud of it and retain it. Now, when once
two things have the same name, owing to the “ concreteness ” of primi
tive language, the distinction in nature is lost, and what belongs to the
one is unconsciously applied to the other. Hence comes the belief
that the animal is the ancestor of the tribe; hence worship is offered
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to it; and hence, finally, there appears in history the semblance of
fetishness or animism. In a word, Mr. Spencer regards the embryo
religious cultus, Totemism; and the primeval scientific hypothesis,
fetishism or animism, simply as “ habitual misrepresentations,” caused
by words.
This extraordinary hypothesis attempts to account for three things
—(1) for men’s names; (2) for their “worship of animals and plants”;
and (3) for their fetishism. The following reasons show their incom
pleteness, even if they do not refute Mr. Spencer’s conclusions.
I. The slender evidence afforded by his Scotch excursion and by
the customs of some manufacturing districts, hardly warrants the
sweeping deduction that this “ bow-wow ” mode of naming men is the
sole and original one. All travelers inform us that the natives gladly
call their children after them. Among ourselves the same thing takes
plaoe. How many Washingtons, Lincolns, Jeffersons, Jacksons are
there ? We know that occupations gave names to men; as did their
places of residence. They were and are “ nick-named ” from the color
of their skin (“ nigger ”—Gr; Aithiops); from their gait in walking
(“limper”); from defects in pronunciation (“stutterer”); from im
portant events, either sad or joyful (“ Ichabod,” the glory is departed
from Israel, etc.); from acts, either voluntary or involuntary (“Jacob,”
supplanter; “ Karfa,” replacer); * from good or bad qualities; and it
is said that, in some parts of Ireland, servants often address each other
by their master’s surname. Mr. Spencer asserts that we must carry
back our present mode of “ nick-naming ” to the infancy of the race.
Very good! But the mode is not single (unfortunately for his hypo
thesis) but infinitely complex. To form a true conception of the sub
ject, therefore, we must take all the facts—not one. If we do so, a
glance will show how impossible it is to accept Mr. Spencer’s theory.
All the modes of naming here pointed out, and there are many more,
should have given rise, if the “ word ” be omnipotent, to the worship
of everything which ever gave a name to man. Has it done so ?
II. In the next place, even granting Mr. Spencer’s “ nick-name ”
theory (which we are far from doing), it leaves the real question with
out solution. What did men first name—those things which im
pressed them as most important or as least important ? Men are nick* “Travels in, etc., of Africa;” by Mungo Park. New Ed. London, 1823.
Ch. XX, p. 408, ff. Especial attention is called to this brief but suggestive sketch
of the Mandingoes, their mode of “ naming,” etc. He adds: “ Among the negroes
every individual, besides his own proper name, has likewise a Tcontong or surname,
to denote the family or clan to which he belongs ; . . . . and he is much flattered
when addressed by it.” This looks like the “ Kobong ” of the New Zealanders and
the “ Totem ” of our North American Indians. There is a good account of the In
dian mode of choosing an occupation, in the paper from the N. A. Review, referred
to on p. 132, note. See also “ Nouveau voyage dans le Pays des Negres, etc.,”
par M. Anne Raffenel. Paris, 1856. T. I, p. 403, on naming children; and p. 237,
ff., for an account of the Bambara god—Bowri. The whole volume is worthy of
attention.
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t RELIGION
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named from natural objects, but what were these objects named from ?
On this supremely important point our philosopher has thrown no light.
Now, no matter what theory may be held on the origin of language,
the thought of the name-giver, be it ever so crude, must have exercised
a preponderating influence in the formation of the symbol. Language
. in its beginnings is analytical; the name separates the thing receiving
it from certain other things. Dr. Latham thinks, correctly enough, ■
*
that it is the attribute creating the feeling which suggests the name •
and that the other attributes connected with the cause are practically
non-existent. But his opinion, that the intellect has little to do with
the operation, seems erroneous—as emotion is at least as strong in
animals as in ourselves, yet without producing articulate speech. If
we apply this view to the case in hand, we see that the fact (admitted
by Mr. Spencer) of external objects being first named, proves that,
whether really so or not, they were to men in that state more, import
ant than their fathers, who were only named after them. But as men in
all ages have really made deities of the objects most important to them,
and as philological research shows that naming followed a similar
course, it follows that Mr. Spencer’s hypothesis cannot be true. For,
if so, men would have named and worshipped the least important
things. While, secondly, if language be essentially analytical, the very
fact that no Word represented the inanimate as distinguished from the
animate, shows plainly that the distinction had not been perceived. It
is, indeed, somewhat surprising that Mr. Spencer should throughout
his paper have spoken as if words were like the “themistes” of the
old Greeks,—things breathed into man from without, and hence entirely
separate from his mental apparatus. It is conceded that there can be
thought without language, but can there be language without thought ?
It should never be forgotten that the world (objective to man) always
supplies the subject-matter of thought, while the mind itself con
nects these objects together. “ Things in motion,” said Shakespeare,
“sooner catch the bye than what not stirs.” Consequently, we find
the early men slaves to the dynamical aspects of nature,—all the oc
currences requiring explanation were explained by some force. Now,
it cannot be questioned that the force best known to men was the
organic feeling of life—vital force; nor can it be doubted that they
always explain the less known by the more known. Hence, the
fetishistic view of nature as alive, and the theological or volitional
hypothesis, of the universe, as created, supported, moved, etc., by the , I
will of a god. It is only much later that, by the progress of sci
ence, a more correct view of nature is obtained. Then comes into
view the great law, applied in physics by Bacon, and distinctly for
* “ Elements of Comparative Philologyby R. GE Latham, F. R. S., etc.
London, 1862 ; p. 737. See also the ninth of Max Muller’s “ Lectures on the Sci
ence of Language;” I. Series. New York, 1862; and the eleventh of Prof. Whit
ney’s “ Lectures on Language, etc.” New York, 1867.
*
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RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
mulated by M. Comte, as applicable to all phenomena,—that our
theories, the connections furnished by the mind itself, should be
subordinated to our objective materials. In a word, that observation
must be supreme; all theories not founded on observed facts and
against which any future observed facts can be opposed, must, ac
cording to it, be abandoned.
The assumed “ concreteness ” of words has, therefore, nothing to
do originally with the confusion, which modern thinkers have named
variously the fetishistic or animistic hypothesis. All words are by no
means ‘concrete’ (in Mr, Spencer’s sense) at the earliest period.
But even if they were, it could only show that, as the analytical
faculties and language are correlated, the correctness of the word
arose from confusion in the thought.
*
Its cumbrousness has not been urged against Mr. Spencer’s theory.
We do not know whether nature intended things to be simple or
not, and, therefore, complexity affords no presumption against a pro
posed scheme for connecting them. But there is one point which
cannot be passed over in silence. If men, when they first named
the phenomena of nature, , drew a perfectly definite distinction be
tween animate and inanimate, between human and merely animal,
and if they afterwards confused the two together, by “ the worship
of animals and plants,” imagining them to be their ancestors, then
it follows that, as men advanced in civilization, they retrograded in
powers of analysis. In other words, civilization (or progress) depends,
in part at least, on well directed emotions; to seek out this proper di
rection is a process of analytical reasoning; still, as man ascended the
scale on the one side, he was going down on the other. When it is re
membered that the lower races fail most-conspicuously in analysis,—
even among the Chinese, it is.said, there is not a single native mathema
tician,—such a deduction from a sweeping theory is likely "to give us
pause and make us rather bear the ills we have than fly to other that
we know not of.” Mr. Spencer thinks that his theory affords a better
explanation of the facts of mythology than the current hypothesis. If
the latter be taken with Mr. McLennan’s " totem” supplement, this does
not seem to be true. Nor do the instances given by him furnish con* Those wishing to follow up the subject of fetishism are referred to Mr. E. B.
Tylor, “ The Early History of Mankind ” (London, 1865), and “ The Religion of
Savages,” Fortnightly Review, Aug. 15, 1866, pp. 71-86; to Mr. G. Grote, “ The
History of Greece,” Part I, especially Ch. XVI, in which he endorses M. Comte’s
view (vol. I, p. 498); to R. F. Burton, “ The Lake Regions of Central Africa ”
(London, *1860), Ch. XIX, vol. II, pp. 324-378 ; and more especially to M. Auguste
Comte, Cours de Philosophie positive, lecjon 52, t. V, 1st ed., 1841, pp. 30-115, and
2d and 3d editions, edited by Littre, 1864, and 1869, pp 24-83. Now that the Sci
ence of Religions is taking its place in Sociology, the remarkable discussion of the
subject by M. Comte is worthy of attention. See work cited, lecons'52, 53, 54, con
tained in the fifth volume. The laws of mind, or the Philosophia primct, will be
found stated in Chapters III and IV of the fourth volume of the Politique positive.
Attention is also directed to the essays printed as an Appendix to that volume.
�HJiLlGIO.Y AND
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131
vincing proofs of its truth—especially when coupled with the reasons
above given against its reception.
As to the unqualified assertion that, •“ the rudimentary form of all
religion is the propitiation of dead ancestors, etc.,” it is extremely rash
at the present day to decide such, a point ex cathedra. It must be ad
mitted that‘ propitiation ’ is one form, but it was totally impossible for
such a religion to become organizing. Until it superadds the ‘ thanks
giving’ form it remains always a rudiment, and hence merely merits
the name of one of the elements, out of which, when supplemented by
others, religious rites are developed. Propitiation is always joyless:
only when the man is sick and the family in distress is it thought
*
necessary. Being much more mercantile than religious, this propitia
tion belief, except in such moments, exerts little influence on its firm
est adherents. The mere make-shift for religion found among the
poorest and most degraded of humanity, it has the fatal want of contin
uity and reverence. Anything like a proper conception of religion
springs up only when men begin to be better fed. In such cases the
food presented to them appears a worthy object of reverence. And,
there can be little doubt that “grace before, meals” is a relic of Totem
ism still lingering among us, and one of the earliest real religious cus
toms of humanity. The numerous feasts of the ancient religions, and
the times they were held, “ harvest,” “sheep shearing,” etc., point to the
thanksgiving aspect of ancient faiths. While the traces of it, every
where apparent, demonstrate its greater importance in the immense
majority of cases. It can surely not be omitted in tracing the genesis
of religion.
As to the other part of the statement, the question at once arises, *
who in savage modes of thought were a man’s ancestors ? To the answer—solely his human progenitors—it may be objected, that though
this is the correct view and the popular one at present, nothing shows
it to have been held by the early thinkers. In their opinion, on the
contrary, all dynamical phenomena might produce men, and thus be
come ancestors of individuals or the race. Habitual misrepresentation
cannot account for such a belief. It is sui generis. In this connection
attention should be directed to two historical facts decidedly opposed
to Mr. Spencer’s hypothesis—(1) The religion of ancient Israel seems to
have been a nature worship in which the attributes of strength, stabil
ity, etc. (El, strong, Jahveh Zabaoth,pleader of the hosts of heaven),
were reverenced. The large element of fear in the primitive concep
tion, and which was never discarded, as its usual concomitant, led to
the most onerous propitiatory ceremonial.f But as far as can be gath
ered from the researches of the learned, no man-worship appears in it
from beginning to end. Indeed it is a well known historical fact that
* See a fine account of one of these ceremonies in “The Zulu-land,” by Rev.
Lewis Grout, Phila.: 1864, chap. xi. pp. 132-162.
+ See Reville’s Essay on “ The Primitive Religion of Israel,” mentioned above.
g
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RELIGION
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the conception of a god-man, so familiar to the Greeks, was so utterly
distasteful to the Jews as to lead more than anything else to the
destruction of Christ. The second fact is still more germane to the
subject—“ In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a
word to express the idea of God. Manitou and Okie meant anything
endowed with supernatural powers, from a snake-skin or a greasy Indian
conjurer up to Manabozho and Jonskeha (kind of creator of the World).
The priests were forced to use a circumlocution, ‘ The Great Chief of
Men/ or ‘ The Great Manitou who lives in the Sky.’ Yet it should
seem that the idea of a supreme controlling spirit might naturally arise
from the peculiar character of Indian belief. The idea that each race
of animals has its archetype or chief, would easily suggest the existence
of a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race—a conception
imperfectly shadowed forth in Manabozho. The Jesuit missionaries
seized this advantage. ‘If each sort of animal has its king/ they
urged, e so, too, have men; and as man is above all the animals, so is
the spirit that rules over man the master of all the other spirits.’ The
Indian mind readily accepted the idea, and tribes in no sense Christian
quickly rose to the belief in a one controlling spirit. The Great Spirit
became a distinct existence, a prevailing power in the universe, and a
dispenser of justice.” *
Mr. Spencer’s humanistic hypothesis seems utterly irreconcilable
with either of these facts. In this latter, each sort of animal had its
king, and still man had none. The author of the paper from which
the above extract has been made, shows very clearly the heterogeneous
elements out of which even so rudimentary a religion as these Indians
* had, Was formed. It seems not to be “ habitual misrepresentation ”
that leads men to worship the elements,—thunder, lightning,—but what
leads them in other circumstances to offer the best cow to the enraged
shade of their father, viz: the conception of power over their destinies
to be remorselessly used to their disadvantage. In a word, complexity
in genesis and. development is what above everything we must bear in
mind in tracing the history of religions.
Finally, on the subject of naming Mr. Spencer has adduced no proof
whatsoever that stock-names derived from Totems are the residua of
the nick-naming process which he so graphically describes. Indeed it
appears as if the stock-name stood on an entirely different footing,from what, by an anachronism, we may call the baptismal name. Park
and many other travelers show the way in which savages obtain the
latter, but they found the surname invariable,—each family being once
for all provided with such a designation. The whole subject deserves
careful study, but in the meantime a suggestion may not be out of
place. Recurring to Mr. Darwin’s acute hint on the subject of exogamy,
might not names have been originally given to men in order to guard
against the possibility of incest, and incidentally to. bind them together
* “Indian Superstitions," North Am. Review, July 1866 (N. S.), Vol. CIII, p. 10.
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in war, blood, feud, etc.? Would not these names be derived from
what was to them the most important of surrounding existences ? and
would not these in the very rudest times be their food—the animals
and plants on which they lived ? To the savage emaciated by hunger,
food-must have seemed the greatest of life-givers. He, who a few
hours before, was lying pale, listless, taciturn, with muscles relaxed,
and nerves unstrung, now on the reception of food and with a slight
interval.for rest, appears as a new man—his carriage erect, with ruddy
color, voluble tongue, and nerve and muscle a’ctive. The kind of food
which they ate, first permanently divided men, and united them. Can
we wonder that when their circumstances improved, they should regard
with reverence, what preserved them alive and separated them from
all others. To the savage, life is the greatest of boons; why should
he then deprive of life the being which was his early life-giver?
Hence the Fijian “ tabu.” As to the belief that men were descended
from their Totems, it may have arisen out of the idea pointed out
above, viz: that food was the greatest of life-givers. It can hardly be
a reminiscence of the occurrence of any such fact—that is even if we
accept the Darwinian theory.
As to religion, the more it is studied the more apparent it is that
the deities of every people are divided into two great classes—extra
human and human. The former are from the first separated into two
*
kinds—-the one, the powers of nature, remote, terrible, recurring only
at intervals, contains the rudiments of what we know as the supernat
ural ; the other, present, familiar, but still marvelous, softens down the
fearful side of the former, and if allowed to proceed ends by sapping
its vitality. The religion of Israel seems to have been of the former *
kind; while the joyful religions of the Aryan nations, (specially but
wrongly designated as polytheistic, as if all religions were not both
monotheistic and polytheistic,) seem to have been of the latter. The
limits of the present essay merely permit the indication of this point,
together with the remark that with the decay of the extra-human dei
ties has grown the dignity of the human. Nature was the enemy of
man in the early times, and was consequently propitiated. Through
man’s inquiries it has become his friend, and is now vaguely rever
enced. Hence the pantheism so apparent at the present day. The
same thing has in a somewhat different mode taken place with man
himself,—he is now reverenced as a member of the great human fam
“ Polynesian Reminisceflces,” by W. T Prichard, F. R. G. S., etc. London, I860,
chap. V, pp. Ill, ff. “ Fiji and the Fijians,” by Thomas Williams. New York, 1859,
chap. VII. By the.way, there is much in this chapter utterly irreconcilable with
Spencer’s hypothesis. “ New Zealand, etc;: ” by Dr. Ferdinand von Hochstetter,
(Eng. trans, by E. Sauter.) Stuttgart, 1867, chap. X, p. 209, and the opinions of
Schieren there referred to. See also “ The Lake Regions of Central Africa;’ by R.
F. Burton. London, 1860, Vol. II, chap XIX, pp. 324-378. He especially repudiates
the ‘euhemerism’ supported by Mr. Spencer. A work too little known should
also be consulted, “ The Rambles and Recollections of an Indian official,” by Lt. Col.
Wm. H. Sleeman. 2 vols. London, 1844.
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RELIGION AND
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ily, and not, as in former times, because he holds sa high position.
Love has taken the place of fear. Indeed, so far has this view pene
trated even orthodox thought, and that too outside of Germany, that
it is being boldly claimed that religion is a psychological product, no
more revealed than language. Before resuming the argument proper,
it may be well to add that a great deal asserted by Mr. Spencer is admit
ted as both true and important; but from the considerations above ad
duced, it must appear that he has failed to support his hypothesis. In
such discussions as the present a thinker cannot too carefully guard him
self against the sarcasm of Xenophanes—that if horses had deities they
would have made them in their own likeness. This was partially true
as to the Greeks, but as to the lower races the reverse would be nearer
the truth. The best observers agree in asserting that there is no feel
ing of personal pride among the latter, and hence their great gods were
more likely to be taken objectively to the human race. Peoples proud
of their individualism seem alone to have what may really be called
human gods; but as such a feeling comes late in the race, Mr. McLen
nan’s assertion that the anthropomorphic gods succeeded to the animal
gods seems fully borne out. - The truth of the whole matter may be
thus expressed: the formative element of all religions is human, but
the matter varies with the people, its scale of civilization, physical sur
roundings, etc.
Who are Parties to this Controversy ?—Mr. Spencer, accepting the
popular opinion, answers, Religion and Science. In order to test the
truth of this response, let us place clearly before us what he and others
mean by these two terms. About Science there can be no difficulty. We
find spread out before us a universe, containing certain existences, mat
ter, life, society, exhibiting certain properties or forces, without which
we never find them. In order to predict their future manifestations,
which, theoretically and practically, contain matters of high interest to
us, we trace out their general facts or laws. Two things are to be
noted—subject-matter and method. The former, matter of various
kinds with its forces; the latter, a mode of investigating and classify
ing them, and a ctest of truth’for the conclusions reached. Now,
what is Religion ? This very important factor in Mr. Spencer’s alleged
antagonism is very vaguely dealt with. After following him carefully
throughout his exposition, the only inference to be drawn is that, hav
ing constantly heard from the pulpit and seen in the newspapers Reli
gion and Science pitted against each other, he accepted the statement
as true, and forthwith set about the task of reconciling them. He as
serts (F. P., p. 30) that “to the aboriginal man and to every civilized
child the problem of the Universe suggests itself;” and (p. 43) that,
“leaving out the accompanying moral code, which is in all cases a supple
mentary growth, a religious creed is definable as an A priori theory of
the universe.” Is the inquiry into the whence and whither of the uni
verse religious ? if so, what is scientific, as opposed to it ? Is a relig
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135
ious creed the.religion itself? if so, in what does it differ from science,
except that the creed of the one is subjective and the creed of the
other objective ? But if Mr. Spencer could escape from the difficulties
here raised (which he cannot), how can he reconcile these statements
with that on p. 17, that “Religion under all its forms is distinguished
from everything else in this, that its subject-matter is that which
passes the sphere of experience ? ” How further can he reconcile this
assertion with that on p. 44, that “"Religions diametrically opposed in
their overt dogmas are yet perfectly at one in the tacit conviction that
the existence of the world, with all it contains and all which surrounds
it, is a mystery ever pressing for solution?” If this mystery is ever'
*
pressing for solution, the Universe must be the subject-matter of relig
ious speculation, and consequently it is not “ that which passes the
sphere of experience.”
The Real Merits of the Case.—No matter how modified, no such
antagonism as Mr. Spencer conceives has existed; his definition of Re
ligion will not hold; and therefore no Reconciliation is called for.
What science has always opposed is religious creeds—not because they
asserted a mystery, but because they gave certain explanations of it.
Indeed, with the most unpardonable inconsistency, Mr. Spencer asserts
both and endeavors to reconcile them. But they are irreconcilable. It
is not about the subject-matter presented for interpretation, but about
the method of interpreting that subject-matter, that the controversy
originated and is now carried on by all those in earnest in the matter.
Further, as a statement of fact, we deny that the subject-matter of re
ligion has anywhere ever passed the bounds of -experience. Though it
may not be consonant to usage to so designate them, all religious creeds
whatsoever have been scientific—that is to say, attempts to explain the
*
Universe.
The idea of mystery, in Mr. Spencer’s sense, is not found
in ancient times; and the conception of an unattainable unknown, had
never presented itself to the primeval mind. How it could with a voli
tional (or, in Comtean phrase, ‘ theological ’) hypothesis, is a mystery
which no one until Mr. Spencer had attempted to solve. In the earli-‘
est times everything on which speculation was exercised was animated;
man’s theories did not rise above his feeling of power or muscular sen
sations. Then the fetish-man, the rain-maker, the medicine-man, the
sorcerer—each could do with nature as he wished: he could close the
windows of heaven that it should not rain, and open them again by in
cantation; he could literally kill and make alive. Later, gods had
large domains, they gave revelations, had prophets and oracles to clear
up the difficulties which should present themselves.f These it would
seem were very adequate precautions against the Unknowable.
This being premised, the controversy can be limited to the method
* Emile Burnouf’s essays referred to above—especially V, Rewe des deux Mondes,
Oct. 1,1868.
f On the subject of ‘ Prophecy ’ see Reville’s papers, referred to above.
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RELIGION AND
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of explaining the facts presented by the universe. Now if we can in
terpret those facts in two opposed .modes there is hope of reconciling
the parties. How chimerical this is all thinkers know. The parties to
this controversy are not Religion and Science ; they are different phil
osophies or religious creeds. The whole war is carried on inside of
religion itself, the strife being for the chief place in its gift—that of
corner-stone of the great edifice, and, consequently, of being supreme
guide of mankind in all its relations, practical and theoretical, moral
and esthetic. The adversaries are three in number—theology, meta
physics, and science. The first, represented among us by Christianity
in all its varied forms, has in its hands nearly all the»machinery for
controlling men’s minds. It has immense sums of money; stately
churches; gorgeous ritual; eloquent, and in many cases honest preach
ers. But what is its record at the present day. It has been slowly
-giving way. It asserts that the world was created by-the deity’s voli
tion, and is still ruled by his ordinance—but how few of its intelligent
votaries dare state these things as they were ^stated in the past. The
six days of creation laid down in the Mosaic cosmogony are explained
away in such mode as to shock the moral sensibility of the conscien
tious, and provoke the questionings of the inquiring. Theologians
have for centuries defended their own doctrines very feebly; that task
has mostly fallen into the hands of metaphysicians, whose impress, in
the shape of ontological entities instead of the fine personal concep
tions of the older creed, is plainly ^visible. A metaphysical god has
taken the place of Jehovah; and we can even see, by the advance of
Unitarianism, etc., that these- conceptions, long masters of the indi
vidual in his closet, are endeavoring to become masters of society
through the pulpit. Both of these, though essentially disparate, regard
with fear the rise and steady advance of the scientific doctrine elabo
rated by the observational method. It asserts that we have been una
ble to reach any creation; and that far from any such event being
recent, as the ignorance of the past asserted, that of even our earth is
immensely remote. It further ‘shows that as far as we have gone laws,
not volitions, govern the universe; while (as indeed the scientific con
ception implies,) these laws do not depend upon any volitions. The
fecundity of this method and the sterility of that opposed to it; the
development of scientific doctrine and its continuous addition of new
domain, contrasted with the unprogressiveness of its opponents; and
its immense practical importance as opposed to their utter impotence
in the affairs of life, all point in the direction of its ultimate victory
Would it not be contradictory to all experience if such was not the
sure precursor of that end ? Here is one mode of explaining the uni
verse which asserts that man has had communion with God, and yet
has, in a modified form. Still we challenge it to show anything prac
tical ever thus reached. It was not surely by prayer that the Atlantic
telegraph was laid or the Pacific'railway built. Here is another that
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137
holds that man carries with him at all times a machine (mind) which
can inform him of absolute knowledge, ‘ the nature of things,’ etc.
But we did not go there to receive our oracles in relation to the proper
mode of laying that cable, or the proper route for that railway. Nor
do astronomers go there to learn the distances of the stars; nor chemioo-astronomers to learn their elements. Ancient traditions, dignified
as Revelation, but full of contradictions and notorious ignorance;
*
modern introspection, full of pretense and high-named “discoveries,”
but barren of result, have, forsooth, more titles to be called religions
than has science, with its homogeneous method, mutually verifying re
sults and immense practical importance. On the contrary it will be
found that in the present state of the human mind in Western Europe;
and America, science can do more to legitimately satisfy all its yearn
ings than the assertions of theologians or the reveries of introspectionists, no matter how sanctified by age or covered with words. If this is
not the object of religion, what is ?
It is currently supposed that this contention arose first and solely
in Greece, when physical speculation began. Kapila and Buddha, in
India, were at least as early as the sixth century before Christ, and possibly
earlier. These thinkers felt this contradiction^ and 'Buddha gave a so
lution of it, which is one of the most wonderful in speculative inquiry.
Kapila was the Hume of India, and it is doubtful if the subtile Scot
has improved much on the introspective Hindu. But no matter where
it arose, it is confined to the Aryan race; the observing race; the men
who prized knowledge, for that is the meaning of Veda, the title of
their Sruti (or revelation). This clash of methods continued in Europe
for some centuries, until Christianity finally put the old controversy to
rest. It slept for ages, but was resumed again on its ceremonial side
by the reformers of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,
and on its speculative side by the physicists (more especially) after the
rise of the Italian school of scientists in the sixteenth century.
“ Clash of methods ” appears in the foregoing. To some readers it
may have occurred that not the methods, but the extent of our knowl
edge or assumed knowledge clash. This is true; but it is the method,
* The sterility of theological thought and the ignorance of Revelation is perhaps
shown by nothing more clearly than its account of a pretended fall of man. There
is almost complete certainty that it is just such a fiction as Rousseau’s ‘state of na
ture.’ Here are the remarks of Mr. E. B. Tylor: “The advocates of the theory
that savages are degenerate descendants _of civilized men have still full scope in
pointing out the imperfections of their adversaries’ evidence and argument. But
the new facts, as they come in month by month, tell steadily in one direction. The
more widely and deeply the study of ethnography is carried on, the stronger does
the evidence become that the condition of mankind in the remote antiquity of the
race, is not unfairly represented by modern savage tribes.”—“ Nature,” Nov. 25,
1869, p. 105-.
See also “ Pre-historic Times,” by. Sir J. Lubbock, Bart., F. R. S., etc. 2d Ed.,
London, 1869, passim.
Every intelligent reader is acquainted with the acute remarks of Thucydides on
the early state of man in the opening of his History.
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and the method alone which sets limits to our knowledge. With the
theological method—explanation by volitions—there can be no un
known ; it is only by means of the positive method—explanation by
law—that such an unknown arises as a definite conception. Kapila’s
dialectic limited the knowledge of men, subjectively considered, to the
most wonderful extent, and hence, on his acceptance of its results,
Buddha, in furtherance of its religious projects, was able to lopp off at
a single stroke nearly the whole ceremonial observances of India. The
(so-called) physical philosophers of Greece limited men’s knowledge,
objectively considered, and hence were able to overturn many of the
ancient idola of the human mind, and lay the foundation for future
*
progress.
II.
Having recognized that the controversy arose in India and in
Greece at least six centuries before Christ, and that the ultimate ques
tion is as to the extent of our knowledge, which is itself a question of
methods, let us now proceed to briefly review some of the compromises
to which it has given rise.
* . Kapila, with Kantian inconsistency, did not deny u revelation.”
He, an utter agnoiologist,f as much so as Buddha himself, accepted the
Veda. According to Max Muller, his arguments are very similar to
those used by Dean Mansel in his celebrated Bampton Lectures. Pass
ing into Greece, we find Anaxagoras supposing a controlling mind
(Nous) and matter. He forgets all about the mind, as was pointed
out by Plato and Aristotle, after formulating it at the beginning.
--------------------------------------------------- ?----- - ------------------------------ .
* Max Muller finely remarks (“ Chips from a German Workshop.” 2 vols.
New York, 1869. Vol. I, p. 65) that Hindu thought was a psychological experi
ment. The philosophers of India seem to have been impressed by the want of con
sonance between what they found in consciousness on mental examination, and
what should be in it according to the traditional theology. They reached as near
to a true psychology as unaided introspection ever can hope to do. Except within
very narrow limits introspection, no matter how honestly and carefully performed,
must be fallacious. Man, the individual, is there made the measure of the universe
of mind. But no proof has been adduced to show that any two men have con
sciousnesses alike, any more than they have feet, or hands, or eyes alike. In the
next place, consciousness improves with civilization and increased education; there
is, therefore, no reason to think that what a man in our day finds in his consciousness, was in that of his barbarous ancestor. The addition of opium and intoxica
ting liquors to nutrition shows how consciousness can be changed. How do we
know that it is not so, but less marked, with other articles of diet ? A breakfast
might, therefore, vitiate a whole psychological analysis. To obviate these diffi
culties, Psychology must be studied historically. The language, manners and
customs, religious ceremonies, laws, etc., must show us the ancient thought of the
race. The other view of the question seems to have struck the Greek—the extemal and not the internal, the historical and not the introspective. Hence the
fecundity of the beginning made by him. With the Hindu,. there was only a
subjective test of truth; the Greek founded an objective one—he declared in history
the omnipotence of evidence, and in physics the omnipotence of observation.
j- Gr. Agnoia, ignorance ; and logos, discourse. Applied to one who is ignorant
of the existence or non-existence of the gods.
4
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Sokrates * divided the universe into two parts; the physical half be
longing to the gods, into which men were interdicted from inquiring;
and the human half, which was open to their search. The Platonic
compromise was based on that great thinker’s mental analysis and his
torical inquiries; and is. presented to us in his abortive attempt at
social reform. When centuries afterwards Christianity put life into
this scheme—gave it an object around which to crystallize, a solution
and not a compromise was presented to the world. The Church was
very largely indebted to Greek thought for its speculative embodiment;
to Greek subtilty for the disgregation of thought which afforded its
doctrine such free scope; to the Greek genius of Alexander who placed
Greece beyond itself; and more than all, to Greece it was indebted for
its founder. The god-man is, as above remarked, Grecian, not Mosaic.f
But despite all this, the speculation of that great people, as far as or
ganization was considered, was a failure. They were, however, the
great seminal minds of the world. Much of the Church’s metaphysics
was borrowed from the dialectics of Plato and his followers; and
some of its rules bear the impress of “The Republic” and “The
Laws; ” and Aristotle’s philosophy, to a certain extent objective and
observational, served for ages as its physical dreed. Still we must re
member, neither the socialism of Plato coupled with his idealism, nor the
physicism of Aristotle coupled with his shadowy, metaphysical god,
were alone able to reconstruct the world. Christianity supplied the
emotional life, without which all the rest was vain.
Descending to modern times, we find the same desire as in the
ancient world to save some part of supernaturalism. Descartes form
ally abjured any social bearing which his “ Method ” might seem to
imply; and this abjuration evidently sprung from his desire to retain
his position in the Church. The powerful appeals of Bacon, together
with the discoveries of Galileo and the physicists, had compelled a re
adjustment of philosophy, and the “ Discourse on Method ” was the
result. The continued advance of observational science, the remark
able speculations of Thomas Hobbes and Locke’s celebrated “ Essay
upon Human Understanding,” called for another adjustment. The
task was undertaken by Leibnitz, one of the greatest, though unfor
tunately, too little unitary minds, the race has ever produced. His
compromise is scattered up and down through his works rather than
codified in any one. It is at present of only historical importance.
Again, the advance of science, both physical and historical, and the
powerful, though in many places self-contradictory, negative criticism
of Hume, called for a new metaphysical revelation.
Immanuel Kant presented it to the world. - In many respects the
* “ Xenophon’s Memorabilia,” “ Plato’s Apology,” and “ Grote’s Greece.” Part
II, ch. LXVIII.
f “ The Place of Greece in the Providential Order of the World,” by the Right
Hon. W. E. Gladstone. (An Address, etc.). London, 1865.
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“Kritik der reinen Vernunft” leaves little to be desired. He has
stated and defended the phenomenality of all' knowledge with an ex
actness and vigor which cannot be too highly praised. He has guarded
against Hume’s glaring error of denying the Unconditioned—a mis
take which must detract very much from his famed acuteness. But,
while gladly acknowledging this, we find: (1) that Kant, not satisfied
with showing that Hume’s position was suicidal, and not seeing that
the only true position was one of neutrality, goes beyond the limits of
our faculties in the opposite direction from that of the ’Scotch philos
opher. (2) That the great German thinker has not only “pure” reason,
but “practical ” reason ; and, consequently, what he rejects out of the
former, he takes into the latter. And (3) that its “ high priori ” ten
dencies afforded no barrier against the developments given to them by
Schelling, Hegel, and others. Kantism has taught the world something,
but has failed as a system. It had the seeds of decay too deeply sown
in it, to be long-lived. Even now, Dr. McCosh,.in his “Intuitions of
the Mind,” criticises and refutes some of Kant’s antinomies.
Until Sir W. Hamilton, the Scottish philosophy of the Superna
tural never had a defender worthy of it. He, too, presented the world
with a scheme for reconciling the chronic controversies of ages. Like
Kant’s^ it reposed upon a verbal distinction. The great metaphysician
thought he had discovered a difference between “ belief” and “ knowl
edge,” and on this his whole compromise rests. It is, however, now
well known that this distinction is purely hypothetical—thinkers of
the most opposite schools, as Mr. Mill, M. Paul Janet, of the Institute
of France, and Dr. McCosh, agreeing in repudiating it; both in its
metaphysical bearings as used against Cousin, and in its theological
consequences as developed by Sir W. Hamilton’s admiring disciple
(now) Dean Mansel. Knowledge is and must be considered ultimate;
and if we have no knowledge, we can have neither physical belief nor
theological faith.
Two celebrated contemporary naturalists, Dr. Hooker and Prof.
Huxley, hold an opinion the exact reverse of that, of Sokrates.’ Ac
cording to .them, the physical universe is open to the inquiries of sci
ence, while man belongs to the gods. The former says: * “ If in her
track, Science bears in mind that it is a common object of religion
and science to seek to understand the infancy of human existence,
that the laws of mind are not yet relegated to the domain of the
teachers of physical science; and that the laws of matter are not
within the religious teacher’s province, these may then work together
in harmony and with good will.” While to the same purpose, but
more definitely, the latter remarks: f “ Some, among whom I count my* “ President’s Address before the British Association, 1868.” Report, p. lxxiv.
The word “ yet ” is suggestive.
f “ The Scientific Aspects of Positivism.” “ Fortnightly Review,” June 1,1869.
pp. 663, ff.
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self, think the battle (between Theology and Science) will forever re
main a drawn one, and that for all practical purposes this result is as
good as anthropomorphism (or Theology) winning the day.” And still
the eminent professor just before speaks about .philosophers arming
themselves for battle on this last and greatest of questions. What is
the use if it cannot be decided ? It is apparent that this position, like
that of Sokrates, is one of unstable equilibrium—the question must
have a solution.
It now. remains to briefly examine Mr. Spencer’s compromise, or as
he calls it reconciliation. We have cursorily examined its historical
basis, let us now turn our attention to its metaphysical. Mr. Spencer
divides the Universe into two parts—the one Knowable by our facul
ties ; the other Unknowable. The former is the domain of Science;
the latter, that of Religion. (1) Mr. Spencer’s nomenclature is open to
the very gravest objection—an objection which goes to the very root of
his distinction. He has not very clearly defined his terms, but a little
reflection will show that if the Knowable means anything more than
the known, either by induction or inference, it overpasses the limits of
our faculties; necessitating the proposer of such a step to define how far
he intends to advance,, and his safeguards against error in that terra
incognita. Again, the Unknowable is not a negative conception, but a
positive one (F. P., p. 91). If it does not mean all that is beyond
knowledge, that is to say, unknown, it must be a known and not an
Unknowable. Otherwise how can its existence be asserted ? Mr. Spen
cer holds that we have an indefinite consciousness of this Unknowable
(p. 88). If this be so, we surely know we have this consciousness; and
knowing this, it makes no difference whether we can formulate it or
not, we must be said to know it. Can we formulate the force of grav
itation ? Not at all; we can only formulate the law of its manifesta
tions. That we lenow gravitation must be conceded. Just in the same
way, if this Unknowable is present as an ‘indefinite’ consciousness,
who can tell but at some future time, some one will formulate the laws
of its manifestations, and then it will be known in just the same way
as we know the forces of matter ? * .
* How little we have added to purely metaphysical inquiry will he shown on the
complete publication of the philosophical works of the Hindus. As pure (or intro
spective) thinkers, they stand unrivaled as far as can be judged from extracts and
the comments of the learned. When we once have a comparative science of meta
physics, the futility of it will more than ever appear—though where there was no
physical science, it was all which could be done to prevent the mind from stagna■ting. The indefinite consciousness which Mr. Spencer finds in himself, and called
by him the Unknowable, is apparently the same as that found by the ancient
Hindus, and called by them much more correctly, Brahman (or power). Both the
■ Hindi! philosophers and Mr. Spencer' end by projecting this conception into the
Universe. But if that consciousness does exist, how can we tell that it is the power
which presents the Universe to us? This is wholly illegitimate reasoning. If the
metaphysical conception of a god contained in man be true on the one hand, it is
no less true on the other, that man’s religious instinct always prompts him to sup
plement it by another beyond himself. May not this consciousness called the Un
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(2) In the next place, none of Mr. Spencer’s arguments demonstrate
his conclusion. His argument to show that everywhere we reach by
the limits of our faculties a boundary, is and must be accepted. But
the man who points out an insuperable barrier has no justification for
stepping over it, and giving “ a local habitation and a name ” to such
supposed existence. If we reach a certain point beyond which it is
absolutely- impossible to go at the present day, and beyond which no
one in_ the past has gone, what confidence can be put in any assertion
presuming to tell us aught -of anything outside of this limit ? It is
unknown, and that is all we can say. Mr. Spencer will, however, not
rest satisfied with this plain statement of the case. Everywhere his
argument presupposes, and Ije asserts in many places, that we only know
the Relative as an antithesis to the Absolute (F. P., p. 88); that this
Unknowable is the cause of the Knowable—that in fact the forces of
nature are effects (F. P., pp. 158-161); and that, in a word, it is the
source of things. Now if all this can be legitimately predicated of
it, the Unknowable is not destitute of attributes or relations. If the
Relative is known only by its antithesis to the Absolute, the Absolute
must be itself known, or this antithesis coiild not be perceived. Again.,
before it can legitimately be asserted that the Unknowable is the cause
of the Knowable, it must be known. Besides cause and effect being a
relation, and relations being Knowable, this highest of relations must
be so. Hence we know the Absolute in two ways: negatively, as dis
tinguished from the Relative, and positively, as its cause; in the same
way we know the Unknowable—negatively, as contrasted with the
Knowable, and positively, as its cause.
This is all contrary to Mr. Spencer’s hypothesis. Again, if Mr.
Spencer does not know the Unknowable, what right has he to define it
as a power ? He censures those who conceive the cause of the Uni
verse as a man I But if it be absolutely unknowable, we cannot tell
whether it is a man or not; and when once.this hypothetical power is
.admitted, it is impossible to prevent men from clothing it in what they
know and respect—goodness and knowledge. Mr. Spencer has been
eminently successful in showing that our knowledge is limited by an
unknown, but he has not shown that it is an Unknowable power. He
has utterly failed in showing the existence of such a power. His whole
argument presupposes that such ghosts of matter as w things in them
selves ” exist. Now if they do, by their very definition they are what •
Prof. Ferrier designated as those things which we can neither know
nor be ignorant of. As such they are of no momefrt to us; no matter .
how transcendent may be their importance to more favored beings than
knowable by Spencer, and Brahman by the Hindus, be the substratum of mind
itself, and nothing more—the ultimate fact of our psychological system, beyond
which we cannot go, and on which all our intellectual processes are built up ? In
a word, may it not be our gravitation, which needs a Newton to formulate its law ?
That it is God is unproved; and when examined, improbable. (See for ‘ Brahman ’
“ Chips,” Vol. I, p. 68.)
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ourselves. But if an adversary should require Mr.. Spencer to show
their existence, before he gives them a name and assigns them as the •
object of the adoration of Humanity, in what manner could Jie do so ?
and yet the request seems legitimate.
(3) This brings us to the last point to which we will now advert.
Mr., Spencer holds that we must have something in the nature of a reli
gion, and he assigns this Infinite Unknowable as the object of religious
*
adoration.
Many will no doubt be a little curious to know what the
nature of such worship can be. A careful reading of “ First Princi
ples,” may perhaps satisfy their curiosity.- As it does not seem to have
received that attention which an indication of the duty of the religious
man of the future deserves, it is presented in full. “ Very likely,” says
he (p. 113), “ there will ever remain a need, to give shape to that indefi
nite sense of an Ultimate Existence which forms the basis of our intel
ligence. * * * Perhaps the constant formation of such symbols
and constant rejection of them as inadequate, may be hereafter, as it
has hitherto been, a means of discipline. Perpetually to construct ideas
requiring the utmost stretch of our faculties, and perpetually to find
that such ideas must be abandoned as futile imaginations, may realize
to us more fully than any other course the greatness of that which we
vainly strive to grasp. Such efforts and failures may serve to maintain
in our minds a due sense of the incommensurable difference between
the Conditioned and the Unconditioned. By continually seeking to
know, and being continually thrown back with a. deepened conviction
of the impossibility of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness
that it is alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that
through which all things exist, as the Unknowable.”
The first thing that strikes one on reading this extraordinary pas
sage is, that the celebrated “ relativity of all knowledge ” is useless as a
guide in practice or speculation. If we have to be continually beating
against the bars, what need in telling us that they will not give way?
Such information would seem to warn us against wasting our strength
on them. Here; on the contrary, we find, after all, that it is very likely
the old contest will last forever. In what, more than in name, does this
position differ from that of the Supernaturalists ? But, moreover, think
of the enormous loss of mental power that this “ formation of symbols ”
will entail; and for no practical object. In a world cursed with misery
and ignorance, who can read such a proposition with any patience ?
He who considers- that the Supernatural can be known, and that the
Absolute ought to be worshipped, is justified in meditating upon the
conception. But that a philosopher who holds that our faculties con- .
fine us to the relative, that all beyond is absolutely unknowable, and as
a consequence that we can form no conception whatsoever of it; who
* “ The Classification of the Sciences,” 2d Ed., p. 41 ; and “First Principles,’
passim.
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besides holds that we know nothing of immortality or a place where
the Unknowable could punish us for not so meditating; that, in a
word, a thinker who deals with philosophy from the scientific stand
point should recommend us to waste our time and energies in this
fashion, is a monstrous inconsistency, which nothing but its existence
could render probable.
*
HL
Having devoted morn space than could well be spared to Mr. Spen
cer’s a Reconciliation,” let us now say a few words on a real solution of
the difficulty. The contrQversy is of old standing, and already two
solutions have been given; both being in operation for ages. The first
was the Buddhistic. Owing to the grinding of the rules of Caste, which
haunted a man even beyond the grave, Buddha denied eternal life.
He was perhaps' the first to preach the immortality of works, and no
finer system of ethics has yet been founded than his. The gods required
so much time and their servants so much money, that Buddha was led
to investigate their existence, and he came to the conclusion that no
one had proved this existence. Buddha, as Max Muller says, turned a
philosophical system into a Religion, but he seems not to have been
able to see his way to a substitute for the gods he declared unknown—
for in this as in so many other things wiser than Hume, Buddha did
not deny the existence of the gods. The common people, however,
solved the question. They worshipped Buddha himself, and installed
tq keep him company an innumerable company of Bodhisattvas (or
saints). That this was. a real solution is shown by the fact that Bud
dhism has existed for 2,400 years, and Max Muller (“ Chips,” Vol. I,
p. 250), no favorable judge, asserts that if the show of hands were now
taken, it would have a plurality over any existing religion. A great deal
is said about Nirv&na, or annihilation, the summum bonwm of the Bud
dhists. But if we consider the state of India in his time, no imaginable
need was at all equal to the rest there promised.
The Christian solution was the second, and is so well known as to
need few comments. It has many points in common with Buddhism.
Like it, it preached good works and the abolition of sacrifices. Its
founders did not go as far as Buddha, because there was not the same
* In the text no remarks have been made upon the extraordinary fallacies which
Mr. Spencer has borrowed from Hamilton and Mansel purporting to give an
account of Ultimate Religious and Scientific Ideas. The reader who wishes to see
them handled with deserved severity and unrivaled philosophical acumen, may con
sult Mr, Mills’ “ Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,” especially Chaps.
IV, VI, XII and XXIV. It is a matter of doubt whether Mr. Spencer really holds the
relativity of knowledge more firmly than did Sir W. Hamilton. Dr, McCosh also
dissents from these errors, as might be expected. See his fine work/' The Intuitions
of the Mind,” 2d Ed., N. Y., 1867. At p. 169 of which he asserts that knowledge is
even the root of theological faith.
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necessity. It is really a “ stable ” compromise. It tried to accept both
the Semite tendency and the Greek. For ages it seemed a complete
fusion. But the Greek inquiring spirit was only sleeping; when it
awoke, the irreconcilability of these two tendencies appeared. The
struggle between them called for a new solution—a solution which
should remedy the defects shown in those of the past.
For ages there had been growing up slowly the belief in invariable
laws in the Cosmos. The last decades have witnessed the wide dissem
ination of it. In the physical domain, np thinker now denies their ex
istence, and on all sides of us we see philosophers, even against their
wishes, recognizing that to both life and society do they also apply..
As all the presumptions are in favor of its ultimate success, let us see
what results from it. I. All“ontology ” becomes impossible. It is the
very essence of the “ being ” with which this study deals to be absolute.
The domain of law is, however, of the phenomenally relative. Hence
with the advance of science these questions of absolute being are, in
one domain after another, abandoned; the completeness of a science
being shown by its studied ignorance of such questions. It seems but
a legitimate inference that the complete extension of scientific method
over the whole of human. thought, must end by showing the inanity
of such study, and the much better channels of speculation. It will
be seen that this “ reign of law ” does not deny the existence of Abso
lute being or beings, it merely declares any law of their manifestations
unknown; and from the failure of the greatest minds of the past,
though continuously engaged in the search, it draws the inference, ap
pearing more or less strong to different minds, that this knowledge is
unattainable. At the same time that our assumed knowledge of ab
solute existence has been fading away, our real knowledge of “infinity”
has been continuously expanding. The ancients who imagined that a
high mountain reached heaven, “ the starry-visaged home of the gods,”
or those who on the plains of Shinar attempted to build a tower with
the same view, had in reality no conception of the Infinite. While to
the modern astronomer it is ever present both in time and space. And
the researches on the “ Antiquity of Man,” not to speak of the utterly
inconceivable age of lower forms of life, are introducing the conception
into biological and sociological discussions. This infinity is objective
and impersonal, while the ontological is subjective and personal; the
first is real, the second illusory.
It has been remarked by M. lEmile Burnouf that there is a subtile
pantheism underlying Buddhistic (so-called) atheism, or rather agnoiologism. In the same way modern naturalism or Positivism is built on a
modified and tacit form of the pantheistic spirit—too absolute and in
finite for any symbols of either expression or thought to contain.
Sir W. Hamilton called this region, the Unconditioned. The name
is a good one: much better than the unknown or the Unknowable. For
in reality it is neither; being known as to its existence, but utterly in19
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scrutable in the laws of its manifestation. “ It is,” in the fine language
of M. Littre, “ an ocean washing our beach, for which we have neither
*
ship nor sail, but the clear vision of which is as salutary as formid
able.”
This is the speculative side of the solution. We owe the form -in
which it is here stated, to M. Auguste Comte. All other defenders of
the phenomenality of knowledge attempt to show it by an analysis of
man’s knowing faculty. Even granting that all which is claimed could
be shown in this way, it is proper to supplement objectively and exper
imentally the a priori laws of mind, by the a posteriori advance in spec
ulation from the lower forms of speculation to the higher. While this
will appear still more necessary when we remember that the transcen
dental laws of mind have failed to stand the test of time—those fully
admitted in one age being rejected in the next, and even between con
temporaries ostensibly holding the same views on such subjects, there
are startling discrepancies; f and in the second place being personal,
they can never carry conviction to the mind of a disbeliever. The
contrary is true of the objective method and the resulting doctrine.
II. There is a second result of this belief in invariable natural
laws. When it was established in India that the attributes of the gods
were unknown and their existence unproved, the abolition of propitia
tory rites was the immediate consequence. The same result followed
the advent of Christianity, but from different causes. The whole oner
ous ceremonial of “ sacrifice ” was swept away. It had completed its
part in the education of humanity. Founded in selfishness, it taught
men altruism. Originally men gave up their dearest objects to buy
* “ Auguste Comte et la Philosophie positive.” 2d Ed. Paris, 1864, p. 519.
“ Cours de Philosophic positive.” Par Auguste Comte. 6 vols, 8vo. 3d Ed.
Paris, 1869.
/
“Preface d’un disciple,” par E. Littre, 1.1., pp. xxxviii-xlvi. It was only after
the text of this essay was in type that I met this fine piece of criticism. Its essence
is as follows:
(1) This notion of the Unknowable (using Mr. Spencer’s word) belongs to M.
Comte. “ He was the first who, by extending the positive method to Philosophy,
has given philosophical consciousness this notion, withdrawing it at the same time
from the provisional adequacy of Metaphysic, and the provisional inadequacy of
Science.” * * * (2) Mr. Spencer has used Unknowable in two senses, and has
failed to show their identity or even connection. The Unknowable of the faith (or
God in the theological sense) served to organize societies so long as progress be
longed to theological doctrines. The Unknowable of science, on the contrary, can
take no part in the government of the social world; for it is truly unknown, and
upon the unknown nothing can be built. * * * (3) Admitting Mr. Spencer’s
principle as true, faith and science should agree ; and if they do not, some defect is
shown in the principle. At all times faith defines the Unknowable—teaches the
origin and end of things; but science declares it indeterminable. Either the
former must lose its character or the latter; or if neither, then eternal conflict.
“ If faith insists upon this determination, it breaks with the scientific definition of
the Unkuowable ; if it does not, it breaks with faith that requires at least this de
termination. The impossibility of the attempted reconciliation could not be more
plainly shown.” M. Littre calls all that is beyond'knowledge, Immensity.
f Witness Sir W. Hamilton, Mansel, Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. Herbert Spencer—
all of whom hold the relativity of knowledge, and yet individually explain it so
differently.
�RELIGION
*
I
AND ' SCIENCE.
147
the favor of the god or appease his wrath; afterwards they gave them
up without expectation of a quid pro quo ; and later still they sacri
ficed their interests for the benefit of others. To us, sacrifice has no
other meaning; and all are aware how much we owe to this change
from an extra-human and selfish standard of morality to a human and
unselfish one. But with the conception of invariable laws in the Con
ditioned, there arises the at first startling conception that prayer, the
solace of so many afflicted ones in the past and one of the most touch
ing religious rites, must be abandoned. Weakness seems to be one of
the ultimate religious ideas. Prayer is suggested by it, and for the ig
norant alone produces results. As the reduction of phenomena to
*
law proceeds, one domain after another is given up. Asking- has been
transformed into seeking. Every probability is in favor of the final
universality of this mode of overcoming nature. We no longer expect
a law to be broken by a miracle, but we inquire into the order of the
phenomenon’s manifestation. Every research made in this way, contrary
to the old selfish prayer, not only is of benefit to the immediate seeker
at that particular moment, but also to him and to others in all future
time in like circumstances. It becomes, as Comte has finely said, one
of the logical powers of the human mind. We here again see that in
fecundity and simplicity, though not in obviousness, the new far sur
passes the old. The latter could be vitiated by a word pronounced
wrong; was only of moment at the time, and only succeeded by chance;
while with the latter, personal peculiarities have little to do; is useful
at all times, and even its failures are matters for future redress.
'
III. The belief in invariable natural laws leads to the further con
sequence, that as no religion exists without a Deity and Ceremonies,
however simple (God and the Rite), and no men without religion,
- that as from the earliest times there seem to have been two forms of
deities—extra-human and human, the latter coming into prominence
as the former faded away—so we may expect it to still continue. With
the decay of the propitiation of nature, real reverence for it has arisen;
and with the decay of the old degrading ceremonies before one man,
• there arises reverence for all. There seems to be another point worthy
of mention—that with every step in the scale of civilization, the relig
ious emotions have been more cast into the esthetic accompaniments,
as their dogmas have broadened into great moral rules. The religion
of the future will apparently have a mainly esthetic tendency; its doc
trines will be the generalization of science, and its deity the latent
pantheism of the Unconditioned in connection with the best type of
human excellence.
.* George Combe held and Prof. Tyndall apparently holds, that though prayer is
useless objectively, it may be a great subjective help. Only in one way, when men
believe that, what they ask will be given. “ He that cometh to God must believe
that he is,” is as true now as when St. Paul Wrote it.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Religion and science
Creator
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Bell, J.D.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: New York
Collation: [121]-147 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. "A review of Herbert Spencer'. Includes bibliographical references.
Publisher
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[American News Company]
Date
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[1870]
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G5418
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Religion and science), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Herbert Spencer
Religion and science
-
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETV
EugUsh Land Restoration League, No.
IS.
per ioo.
mr/
m a\%
Tu.
~Tc>Sk^
THE EIGHT TO THE USE OH THE EABTE.
NDER the above heading Herbert Spencer, the great< apost e
of individualism, devotes an eloquent chapter of his Social
Statics” to proving the incontrovertible equity ot Land.
Nationalisation. For assuming that—
“ Each of them has freedom to do all that he wills, pro
vided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other, then each
of them is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants,
provided he allows all others the same liberty. And, conversely,
ft is manifest that no one may use the earth in such a way as toprevent the rest from similarly using it; seeing that to do this is.
fo assume greater freedom than the rest, and consequently to break
f
thGThis sentence very neatly puts out of court their Graces the
Dukes of Sutherland and Buccleugh, and those other seventy
persons who own between them just one half of the Scottish soil.
“ Equity, therefore,” he proceeds, “ does not permit property in
land. For if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly becomethe possession of an individual, and may be held by him for' his
sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right,,
then other portions of the earth’s surface may be so held, and
eventually the whole of the earth’s surface may be so held; and our
planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe
n ow the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habit
able globe to be so enclosed, it follows that if the land-owners have
a valid right to its surface, all who are not land-owners have noright at all to its surface. Hence such can exist on the earth by
sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by permission of
the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their
feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting-place,,
these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth
From this he has no difficulty in proving that an exclusive
possession of the soil necessitates an infringement of the law of
equal freedom. For men who cannot live and move and have their
being without the consent of others cannot be equally free with
those others. He then deals with the claims of the present
possessors of land.
�(
2
)
. / Can neYer be Pre.t?nded>” he says, “ that the existing titles
to such property are legitimate. Should anyone think so, let him
look in the chronicles. Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force
the claims of superior cunning—these are the sources to which
those titles may be traced. The original deeds were written with
the sword rather than with the pen ; not lawyers, but soldiers,
were the conveyancers ; blows were the current coin given in pay
ment ; and for seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could
valid claims be thus constituted? Hardly. And if not, what
becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so
obtained
Does sale or bequest generate a right where it did not
previously exist ? Would the original claimants be nonsuited at
the bar of reason because the thing stolen from them had changed
ands . Certainly not. And if one act of transfer can give no
title, can many ? No; though nothing be multiplied for ever
it will not produce one. Even the law recognises this principle.”
,, fb
-n Proceeds to combat the arguments of those who assert
that time is a great legaliser, and that immemorial possession must
be taken to constitute a legitimate claim. On grounds of pure
equity, he has no difficulty m proving the absurdity of this propo
sition, but he admits that great difficulties must attend the
resumption by mankind at large of their rights to the soil. He
does not advocate the leaving of the present holders, who can
neither toil nor spin, to starve.
‘‘Men having got themselves into this dilemma,” he says, “ by
disobedience to the law, must get out of it as best they can, and
with as little injury to the landed class as may be. Meanwhile, we
shall do well to recollect that there are others besides the landed
class to be considered. In our tender regard for the vested in
terests of the few, let us not forget that the rights of the many are ,
in abeyance, and must remain so as long as the earth is mono
polised by individuals. Let us remember, too, that the injustice
thus inflicted on the mass of mankind is an injustice of the gravest
nature. The fact that it is not so regarded proves nothing. In
early phases of civilisation even homicide is thought lightly of.
It was once also universally supposed that slavery was a°natural
and quite legitimate institution. A higher social development
has, however, generated in us a better faith, and we now, to a
considerable, extent, recognise the claims of humanity. But our
civilisation is only partial. It may by-and-bye be perceived
that Equity utters dictates to which we have not yet listened •
and men may then learn that to deprive others of their rights
to the use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior only in
lTberti s ”SS
Cr*me
taking away their lives or personal
•
with the question of the reclamation of waste land by
individuals, he shows that they have an equitable claim to com
pensation lor their improvements, but to nothing more; and he
points out what are some of the results to which the theory
�(
3
)
tliat men have a right to make the soil private property inevitably
leads.
7
“ If they have such a right,” he argues, “ then it would be
proper for the sole proprietor of any kingdom—a Jersey or Guern
sey, for example—to impose just what regulations he might choose
on its inhabitants, to tell them that they should not live on his
property unless they professed a certain religion, spoke a particu
lar language, paid him a specified reverence, adopted an authorised
dress, and conformed to all other conditions he might see fit to
make. There is no escape from these inferences. They are
necessary corollaries to the theory that the earth can become
individual property. And they can only be repudiated by denying
that theory. The change required need cause no very serious
revolution in existing arrangements. It would simply be a change
of landlords. Instead of being in the possession of individuals,
the country would be held by the great corporate body—society.
Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir John or his Grace,
the farmer would pay it to an agent of the community. Stewards
would he public officials instead of private ones, and tenancy the
only land tenure. A state of things so ordered would be in
perfect harmony with the moral law. Under it all men would
be equally landlords—all men would be alike free to become
tenants.”
We have here given extracts from Herbert Spencer’s arguments.
We will also give his summary of them.
“ Briefly reviewing the argument, we see that the right of each
■man to the use of the earth, limited only by the like rights of his
fellow-men, is immediately deducible from the law of equal freedom.
We see that the maintenance of this right necessarily forbids pri
vate property in land. On examination all existing titles to such
property turn out to be invalid; those founded on reclamation
inclusive. It appears that not even an equal apportionment of the
earth amongst its present inhabitants could generate a legitimate
proprietorship. We find that if pushed to its ultimate consequences,
a claim to exclusive possession of the soil involves a land-owning
despotism. We further find that such a claim is constantly denied
by the enactments of our Legislature. And we find, lastly, that
the theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is consistent
with the highest civilisation ; and that, however difficult it may be
■to embody that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands it to be
■done.”
It rests with the legislators to execute the orders of the people.
We call upon the people to insist upon the accomplishment of that
which Equity commands.
J. L. Joynes, B.A.
PAGE. PRATT, & TURNER, Printers, 5, 6 & 7 Ludgate Circus Buildings, London, E.C.
�English Uanb IRestoration league.
OBJECT : The Abolition of Landlordism.
METHOD: The Abolition of all taxes upon labour and the products of labour and the
earnings of labour ; and the increase of taxation upon land values until the whole
annual value of land is taken In taxation for public purposes.
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS.
Manifesto of the E.L.R.L.
.................................
(2 pp.) 6d. per 100
“Free Trade in Land: Would it benefit the People ?” By
J. Morrison Davidson
..
..
..
..
(2 pp.)
•I
“ London’s Unearned Increment.” By Sidney Webb, LL.B.,
(2 PP-)
•I
“ Land Common Property.” By J. Sketchley
..
(4 pp.) is. per ioo>
“The Right to the Use of the Earth.” By Herbert Spencer
(4 PP-)
“ The Great Great Grandson of Captain Kidd.” By Henry
George
......................................................
(4 pp.)
“ Landlordism the Cause of Trade Depression.” By Arthur
O Connor, MP.
..
..
..
..
..
(4 pp.)
91
" A Candidate’s Catechism.".................................
(4 pp.)
••
(New leaflets are in preparation.)
“ Our Inheritance in the Earth.” By “ Terrigenous ”
“God and the Land.” By Rev. T. T. Sherlock
•‘Progress and Poverty.” By Rev. G. Sarson (reprinted from
the Modern Review)
“Mine Rents and Mineral Royalties.” By C. M. Percy
“ Poverty, Taxation and the Remedy.” By Thomas Briggs
(214 pp.; published at One Shilling)
..
..
..
id.
id.
id.
2d.
6d..
BY HENRY GEORGE.
“Taxing Land Values.”
..
“ The Land Question.”
..
“ The Peer and the Prophet.”
of Argyle)
..
..
“ Progress and Poverty." ..
“Social Problems.”
..
“ Protection and Free Trade.”
..
..
(12 pp.) jd.; 3s. 6d. per ioo»
..
..
..
(paper covers) 3d..
(Henry George and the Duke
..
..
..
..
..
..
6d..
..
(In paper covers) is. (Cloth) is. 6d.
..
,,
is.
„
is. 6d.
..
„
is.
„
is. 6d.
tggp One of the best ways to help the Cause is to purchase a small parcel of the above
Leaflets, etc., and to undertake their careful distribution. “ Spread the.
Light ! ”
FREDK. VERINDER,
Secretary, E.L.R.L,
Offices : 8 Duke Street,
Adelphi, London, W. C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The right to the use of the earth
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Joynes, J.L. (James Leigh) [d.1893]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 3 p. ; 21 cm.
Series title: English Land Restoration League [leaflets]
Series number: No. 7
Notes: Debates Herbert Spencer's arguments in his work 'Social Statistics'. Publisher's list on back page. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Printed by Page, Pratt & Turner, London, E.C. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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English Land Restoration League
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[189-?]
Identifier
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N418
Subject
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Land reform
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The right to the use of the earth), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Herbert Spencer
Land Reform-Great Britain