1 10 5 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/506365bfd993ae330dbb7a7db58c8a4c.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=bC-A6TY7npUpxOxTRRv7iX0bYFBetbAKehySITuCth4xc1S7TImgIYfYmykjsHpQuuEc0ULp52X-09FuWmNQitBW4SdqMrp6n5vgH7mpI9upassRiqqmXb2eYyWMJOFLoITO8wPYRkxu-xy2mYmqdnpCh6musVjUBeVmo7ooeTIUUIYOUFKHzUGrjfG0H6qRd-rroAXKM60rTOOz-qmW-gSk3AyNAy7DAp9gk22kooyEY8GDNcnRPSJG-9k6usebGGabQCCrj27EZ1g4cZXGH7Tam0FDVGvi8xm8m6s8JZr-noJVyJXutEK3xN7xUsq3L5WjDLbrvp98jzP8fIDw0A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM df43c61f976e091e5638ddbfc8d09491 PDF Text Text Theories of Mental Genesis. 197 8. Under the process of correlation, wherein real forces lose lheir individuality, only abstract or general force abides. Iriris may be called ideal force when contrasted with par­ ticular real forces; it is cognized only by inference, and not By immediate sensuous perception. It is a really-existent Universal or generic entity — an Actuality whose manifesta­ tion is the correlation of forces. The particular forces are ^its reality, but not their own; for their manifestation is their S destruction, but both phases give evidence of the reality of the Universal. In the entire round from one force through all -the others back to the same force again, we have the succes­ sive annulment of all the characteristic distinctions of the several forces, and thus we have left force in general as the pure negative might whose constitution or nature is self-made by its activity in the play of forces. Its universal nature — its ascent out of particularity — refusing to be limited to a special form—appears in the negative side of the process, wherein it perpetually annuls special characteristics. Its positive affirmative side appears in the perpetual production ..of the special out of the negation of (old forms of) the same. 9. Wherein this Universal force, which is a self-determined, .'differs from the thinking activity or Mind is a profitable inquiry. But the sole point we had in view here was simply to show the new doctrine of Realism now arising in place of the dismal nominalism and stifling conceptualism in vogue. THEORIES OF MENTAL GENESIS. By John Weiss. The later scientific method derives the conscience from Selected experiences of the useful and agreeable. In the finest minds the moral sense is only the clarified residue of the experiences of people in learning to live safely and com­ fortably with each other. It sums them up, but can add nothing to them. It becomes, like a family resemblance, a permanent trait acquired by inheritance. A fresh experience may compel a fresh adjustment, and the moral sense can be �198 Theories of Mental Genesis. modified from without by a social exigency, but it has attained to no independent power to force its own adjust­ ment upon experience. It is never conscious of an exigency of its own, which may transcend experience, and dictate to it; such a faculty is as inconceivable as that a fountain should rise higher than its source. Acts of moral heroism are suggestions of an ultimate utility which persuade the individual to sacrifice himself. But what is the origin of such suggestions which contradict the average sense derived from human experience ? The scientific method insists upon its derivation of conscience from empirical observation, yet proceeds to explain transcendent morals which reform the race and abolish any wrong that average experience has incorporated in its social system, by endowing certain indi­ viduals with the capacity to conceive of a more beneficent system, to anticipate the future, to sacrifice peace, the feel­ ing of approbation, the immediate security of society, life itself, for the sake of a finer idea of Right. These individuals are moved thereto, perhaps, by seeing outrages, or by suffer­ ing from them. But what impels a man who suffers from a wrong which is upheld by society, to increase his suffering by protesting against it in behalf of other men ? Every feeling of the useful and the agreeable would counsel him to keep his suffering and that of his fellows at a minimum. Expe­ rience has gradually founded the system which surrounds him: it can no more furnish him with the seeds of his revolt than the nut of a beech can provide the acorn for an oak. When the empirical method is held strictly to its own logic, this absurdity is perceived, of something resulting from objective experience different from all the objects which coni stituted that experience. A state of morals at any epoch is only the state of comfort, happiness, usefulness, and mutual approbation of the majority; it is an average attained by the exigencies of the people who are forced to live together. Logically that average is insurmountable; but practically it is constantly surmounted, and society is compelled to assume a higher average by men of a forlorn hope who propose a conception of religion, of worship, of human rights and happi­ ness, which nowhere exists, and which could not therefore be suggested by empirical sensations. They are frequently men �j Theories of Mental Genesis. 199 | who conceive these things from afar, without the stimulus of | personal suffering, quite removed from that into calm regions I of meditation. They emerge from the solitudes of thought | to proclaim the advent of a fresher and more just society: i but the sense of justice, the instinct of order, devastates the things that men hold dearest, and, if the thinkers are obsti­ nate, demands their life as a sacrifice to existing order. One thing is “ said by them of olden time ” ; but these men, the products of no time at all, step out of a purer conception, and ■are heard, “ But I say unto you.” What an unaccountable I j phrase if morals are nothing but the silt which time brings -down and deposits. There must be somewhere existing an 11 Absolute Righteousness, the inspirer of every more righteous future, as there must exist a Plan of Absolute Intelligence, the continuous cause of every developing epoch of creation. The hero of Right and Absolute Religion is not maddened by suffering into forgetfulness of self, but possessed by a higher Self which his fortunate structure invites into him and to which he responds. Or, shall we suppose that his struc­ ture develops an exceptional Self? At any rate, the empirical method does not account for him, because he is essentially different from all the materials and sensations which it has to work with to produce notions of utility and social appro­ bation. We may concede that such results may be derived from such materials; but the burden of showing the genesis ■of prophets and reformers rests with those who would restrict us to these materials alone. \ In Mr. Huxley’s book, entitled “ More Criticisms on Dar­ win,” I find the following paragraph: “ Assuming the posi­ tion of the absolute moralists, let it be granted that there is w *a perception of right and wrong innate in every man. This means simply, that when certain ideas are presented to his mind the feeling of approbation arises, and when certain �200 Theories of Mental Genesis. duty is to earn the approbation of your conscience, or moral sense; to fail in your duty is to feel its disapprobation.” Of course: but the question is of simple perception of an idea of a right act and of a wrong act; the idea of doing either personally is not involved. So that there can be an absolute perception of an act as right or as wrong, pure and simple, without any mixture of personal satisfaction or pain. The un­ biased moral sense can simply recognize right and wrong, as the mind perceives that two and two make four; both recog­ nitions are an organic necessity. If the recognition of a right thing is reflected on, then approval of it arises: a feeling closely bordering upon the mental satisfaction which accompanies the perception of truths and facts of the exact sciences. But the pleasure and pain of self-approbation and disappro­ bation cannot arise until the Self transfers or fails to transfer its moral perception into private action. So that there is something in man besides the “ something which enables him to be conscious of these particular pleas­ ures and pains.” Now the origin of this moral Something is a distinct question. It may have descended from obscure traits of anticipatory moral action which reign in the animal world. Transferred into human and social circumstances, they may have filtered through a developing sense of the useful and the salutary, till they were deposited in average habits of behavior. But these traits reach at length in the finest brains a capacity of being self-perceived as immutable morality, dis­ tinct from motives of utility, or of pleasure and pain, whether they travelled manward by those routes or not. There is no objection to the theory that they did, until it undertakes to insist that they have not emerged from those routes upon a broad land of a Conscience which transcends all selfish feelings, to sacrifice them to a more arduous Right yet unattained, whose attainment may involve the hero of Conscience in ruin. The latest scientific method derives the Imagination, as it does the Conscience, from accumulated sensations. But its language here struggles painfully to bring its phrases up to the level of the whole function of Imagination. It is quite inadequate to say that a brain well compacted with images X jl <i J | V’j X g |j S J f.| 'M I ! j �Theories of Mental Genesis. 201 derived from natural objects, spontaneously creates the asso­ ciations between them and human moods, passions, and emotions; that a sense of symmetry and beauty, a feeling for landscapes, a power to evolve them out of the crude assem­ blage of natural features, a gift of constructing all the sensa­ tions derived from life and nature into the sublimity of poetry and song, results from the number and variety of these sen­ sations taken into a temperament of sensibility, where they are moulded, fused by personal passion, and express cerebral felicity of structure. These phrases mix up the raw mate­ rial in which the poet, artist and composer work with other phrases which are assumptions that it also generates their working faculty. That is the very point involved. No doubt the poet has received a multiplicity and variety of sensa­ tions. The difference between him and other men is first a capacity to receive them ; second, a capacity to transform them into his own personality; third, a capacity to express them, thus transmuted, with a rhythmical flow that involves the whole of Nature and man in its course, and converts Na­ ture into a metaphor of his private vitality. No number of empirical sensations derived from Nature, no experience of mankind, no recollection of its history, can account for this result. A brain of rare structure incorporates a world, but gives it back to us another world; or, rather, the world’s secret is fathomed and betrayed: we see it not as it always seemed to us, but lifted into a passionate and symmetrical vitality, which transcends every empirical sensation, and is, in fact, its reason for being: and that is something which nere sensation cannot supply. Held to strict logic, the mate‘ialist has no right even to the phrases he employs in speakng of this subject. j H. Taine says that there is a fixed rule “for converting into ne another the ideas of a positivist, a pantheist, a spiritualit, a mystic, a poet, a head given to images, and a head given to formulas. We may mark all the steps which lead simple philosophical conception to its extreme or violent state,” as in the passage which he quotes from Sartor Resartus, begin­ ning, “generation after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body, and, forth issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heav­ en’s mission appears.” “ Take the world as science shows �202 Theories of Mental Genesis. it,” continues Taine, “ it is a regular group, or, if you will, a series which has a law; according to science it is nothing more. As from the law we deduce the series, you may say that the law engenders it, and consider this law as a force. If you are an artist, you will seize in the aggregate the force, the series of effects, and the fine regular manner in which the force produces the series.” In this connection Taine evi­ dently recalls the novels of Balzac, who develops the charac­ ter of various human passions as primitive forces, which appear in objective facts of men and women, who are to be observed, without praise or dispraise, as beings who develop organically their whole moral disposition, and whose joy or grief may be inferred according to the judicious rule laid down by Hegel, that every work of art depends for its moral upon the person who is studying it. Elsewhere Taine shows how Thackeray, for instance, violates this rule. “To my ■mind,” continues Taine, “this sympathetic representation is of all the most exact and complete; knowledge is limited as long as it does not arrive at this, and it is complete when it has arrived there. But beyond, there commence the phan­ toms which the mind creates, and by which it dupes itself. If you have a little imagination, you will make of this force a distinct existence, situated beyond the reach of experience, spiritual, the principle and the substance of concrete things.” By the simple intensification of this quality, the metaphysi­ cian and the mystic are evolved. But notice here how Taine has smuggled in the phrase, “ if you have a little imagina­ tion,” as if that faculty were something excrementitious, whose products are what alimentation abandons and expels. It occurs to us to inquire, at the lowest, if imagination may not be a mode of force: if so, it must be taken into the account of mental development, where it appears to be some­ thing quite as positive as any passion which Balzac describes. It is then a legitimate object whose products cannot be re­ jected merely because they deposit in the mind a sense of Spirit. They push out a horizon filled with images and cor­ respondences which are different from visible things, and which those things, left to themselves, could not procreate, any more than a garden of flowers could impregnate itself. A viewless wind must stir the celibate stalks—a ranging bee �Theories of Mental Genesis. 203 must make its geometric cell an excuse for these promiscuous Carriages. Here is the point where the scientific method, which is complemented by Taine’s artistic method, fails to account for all the facts that a universe provides. As soon as the word Spirit appears, or phrases hinting at the Invisi­ ble put in their claim, or a capacity that transcends inherited effects is supposed, the empirical method disclaims it all, as Conscience is explained to be the cumulative result of expe­ riences of utility. Yet the scientific method itself is indebted to the faculty of imagination. That is a twofold faculty: it performs two functions. First, it anticipates subsequent epochs of scientific inter­ pretation by incessant proclamations of the essential unity of all things. Its instinct is for similarities; it floats at so great a height that objects appear blended, but the horizon from that height is so enlarged that a hemisphere of objects is spread out. It selects on one meridian the counterpart of an object upon another, though it may skulk, and imitate the color of its neighborhood, hoping not to be swooped upon and assimilated. Its prey runs in forests and multiplies in all seas. The ocean is a saucer, and its bottom scarce skin deep. And the distances which lie within the galaxy are sanded with the gold dust of its imagery. The firmament is a solid floor on which this sense of unity can walk. This instinct appears first in poetry, where Nature is rifled of all the features that can correspond to our emotions, or serve as symbols of our thought. ‘•The forest is my loyal friend; Like God it useth me.” And like God we use the forest. Its million leaves dance in the anticipation which our mind has that this “sense sublime of something interfused” will turn out to be the ^identity of law and object, of the creature and the Creator, of the scenery and the seer. And all the images of the Poet, so far from being the bastards of an irresponsible impulse rwhich ravishes an idiotic universe, are the healthy children I of the only realism that dare aspire to his feathered hand. See it tremble in moments of conception ! God remembers His rapture. There is not an object which is not a passion— �204 Theories of Mental Genesis. not a passion which does not overtake itself in objects. What is my thought like ? Whatever it be like, that is my thought, or else it could not be like it. How irrational and fantastic seems this conclusion to which the imagination leaps with the faith of a child in his “ make believe” ! How futile this hysteric passion which mounts to the eyelid and inundates the cheek at the happy rashness of some image that abol­ ishes time and space, and makes the dirty earth a lens' We put our eye to it. Thou Deity, our eyes have met! There is no sense in this transubstantiation of poetry, ex­ cept to the senseless communicants, until the epoch of scien­ tific Synthesis arrives, and the imagination is justified in ransacking the' universe for symbols. Synthesis is imagina­ tion secularized. I mean that every one of the old symbols * the old confidences with Nature, the old obscure sympathies, the artless pretences that objects are personal and vital, and all related through the observer, are now proved to be the mind’s expectation that there is but one kind of intellect, but one object, and but one law or mode of divine manifestation. Synthesis builds a hive for imagination to dwell in ; the structures planned by the original Geometer are filled with myriad meadows of sweets distilled to sweetness. This leads me to say that, secondly, the imagination some­ times anticipates, at any existing epoch of information, a subsequent epoch, when all the facts collected up to that date justify the anticipation. They are interpreted by a law, or by a mode of Force which put them forth. They arrive at length in sufficient number, and in relations obvious enough, to vindicate the previous divining of the imagination. Hardly a great man, from Pythagoras downward, can be mentioned', who did not have fore-feelings of the genuine scientific direc» tion, in Number and mathematical relation, in the qualities of Motion and their application to planetary phenomena, in the sphericity of the earth and stars, in the law of musical intervals, in the applications of the arc and conic sections, in the position of the earth in the solar system. Before the facts were in, the method was surmised; sometimes the law itselF was hinted at, and imperfectly formulated. Now, no uncon­ scious cerebration, or automatic sorting of impressions de­ rived from the number and similarity of facts, can promulgate �Theories of Mental Genesis. 205 or anticipate a law, because that is something essentially dis­ tinct from Object. There may be simultaneousness in the Lppearance of law and object; we may admit that the two are really one, a moment in which identity appears, a focus of correlation. But there is not any feature of this intimacy which can proclaim itself; that is not done for a long time, nor until an independent mental faculty appears of such a divining nature that it is not at any epoch a common human faculty. It is the result of rare structural qualifications, which recur to Creation with the gift that made creation possible, with a power to repeat by a sense of Cause the logic that caused, to create a mental synthesis that sweeps all observa­ tion into the unity of a Law, to show that all the sciences are Protean moods of one eternal moment of correlation, to speak at length in human language the plan which without speak­ ing planned. That ineffable creative word becomes flesh in the divinings of imagination. They precede any collection or arrangements of objects, just as infinite Will must have pre­ ceded its own going into objects. Or, if Will and Object be continually identical, it is not in consequence of Object. We cannot eradicate or explain away that aboriginal habit of the scientific imagination to ask Why ? as the child does; and to answer, Because! as the child does. “ Of such is the king­ dom of Heaven.” Object cannot ask nor answer, because it cannot originate. But the intellect does not wait till all the facts are in, any more than the divine Mind did in order that the facts might be created. Luther said, “ the principle of marriage runs through all creation, and flowers as well as animals are male and female,” before botany was dreamed of, or the principle of vegetable life divined. This was an anticipation as remarkable as that of Swedenborg, who clearly posited the nebular hypothesis before he or any other man had an inch of standing ground to show for it. Now, if at any epoch the finest brains—those, namely, whose synthetic method is rarefied by imagination—are only deposited by empirical contact with the world, so that their state of intelligence is nothing but juxtaposition of facts, and their structure nothing but a result of microscopic packing of sensations, such brains could not discharge the functions of �206 Theories of Mental Genesis. which they are conscious. The problem is to build a brain. Let us build it after the fashion of the materialist. The animal kingdom slowly elaborated the cerebral matter, and roughly mapped out the relation of its parts. Nature, cautiously feeling her way from species to species, from simple to com­ plex forms, from a dot of plasma to the complicated lobes which respond to external circumstances and record them, contributes the whole of the process to the progenitors of man­ kind. What had their brain become by that time ? It was an agglutination of sensations. What must have been the re­ sult of the first sensible impression which was made upon the earliest rudimental nerve-matter? That question is answered by the discovery that the nerve-matter was a part of the ob­ jective world which produced the impression. It did not lose or modify its character by being eliminated from that world ; it was still one of its discrete forms, and identical in sub­ stance. Then the object which impressed it and the impres­ sion were identical. The object was the sensation. There is no infinitesimal rift into which you can thrust your surmise of a difference and pry apart a sameness into duality; that is, into the supposition of an object to impress and an object to be impressed—one to become by means of that impression something different in kind from the object that impresses. Brood upon that primitive relation of plasma to all the rest of elemental matter. You cannot hatch it into a different kind of vitality by merely saying that plasma was a more highly organized matter. You cannot establish a schism in matter by determining grades of organization. Every grade preserves, prolongs, embodies the original identity in which it was contained; just as oxygen by aerating the blood im­ presses it with the character of oxygen, but does not liberate it from the materiality which they both share. A nerve­ sensation is not a leap from Object into Subject. If it is not, as.the materialist alleges, then it makes no dif­ ference how many sensations the accumulating brain receives and registers. Their number cannot change their quality. On the long route of developing mankind there is no station where independent mentality may step on board. The train stops for refreshment, wood, and water. But the food and the fuel still correspond to their own motive power and digestive �Theories of Mental Genesis. 207 ability. Stomach and food, brain and object, are convertible expressions. All objective circumstances remain unaltered; nerve-matter accumulates because sensations do. The first word of human speech, the first musical cadence, the first J smatter of the natural language of human emotions on the [ face, the first prattling of social intercourse, the first fumbling | for a tool of bone or flint, the first sparkle kindled in the dry pith of the fennel — all these rudiments of society were only the sensations of Sensation, the objectivity of Objects. The brain was but another object set up by the concurrence of objects, a self-registering world in the compass of a skulk Even if the cerebral capacity should cease to expand, while the perceptions continued to accumulate, it never can be filled; for the method of packing them is economical of room. If a drop of water is capable of containing 500,000,000 ani­ malcules endowed with locomotive limbs, there must be room > enough in any brain for any number of objective residues. But so long as the world does not swerve from its own objeci tivity and change its climate, so long does the human brain continue to be its odometer, or automatic tally. “ The Holothuriae living in the South Sea, which feed upon coral sand, spontaneously eject their lungs and intestine (through the anus when they are transferred to clear sea­ water ; then they construct new bowels corresponding to the new conditions.” But Object does not transfer the human brain into the element of Subject, so that it can void its assi­ milative structure, and set up the liver, lungs and lights of Subjectivity. I think this is a correct presentation of the latest materialJ Ism, which derives all mental functions from an automatic | /system of storage of objective impressions. But its advocates fl Yhave not yet looked in the glass of their own theory. I have tried to reduce it to the absurdity which lies latent in it. It . . is this. It has nothing but objects to start from, nothing but Ji them to accumulate, and yet it assumes to arrive at somep thing which is not object; for instance, its own capacity to is make any assumption at all, and to deny that the capacity * i, demonstrates independent mentality. It will deduce and preFrfi" sume; something which a skull commensurate with the sky, i and crammed with objectivity, could never do. It will refuse | �208 Theories of Mental Genesis. to a human being an independent personality: something which nothing but such a personality could do. It started with speechlessness, and had, of course, nothing but aggluti­ nated dumbness to end with: yet it invents words, and com­ mits to them its affirmations and denials; lends them to the poet, who makes whole landscapes share the breath of their life; turns them over to the prophet, who puts them in his thwarts, casts loose from actual states, and pulls into the possible and the desirable; yields them to the synthetic imagination, and hears its own best guesses before it has pro­ claimed them, and its own experimental method suggested before objects could muster strong enough to raise a whim­ per; consigns them to the moral sense, and is refuted by a style of speech which transcends the latest moment of utility and social advantage, pronounces in divine men their own death-warrant, and sighs out selfishness upon a million crosses. Was that bit of plasma, then, nothing but one object more in a world full? or, was it an anvil upon which objective impact flew into a spark? Now a myriad hammers of the many-handed Cosmos crash through our skull, and we see stars —abysses full of them! Is it an optical illusion? They appear to attain orbits—they move in definite and har­ monious relations—they create distance, deepen it with per­ spective: flat objectivity is broken up as a thinkable Uni­ verse comes pondering through. Let me have recourse to an illustration. A planetary motion is the result of two causes : first, a force that acts in the direction of a tangent; second, a force that attracts. What happens when the mind has observed that there are these two forces? Something which discovers their'laws. This may be an inductive process, derived from prolonged and numerous calculations, adjustments, and cor­ rections, based upon as many planetary directions as can be observed. Then suppose we wish to ascertain the motion of a planet which is submitted to the influence of these laws. That is a deduction based upon calculation. There is an astronomical duplication of the planetary facts, a mental re­ hearsing of orbital motions. The facts recur to their Cause through our intellect. Their mere objectivity is not compej tent to achieve this result, which is something causative, and �Theories of Mental Genesis. 209 therefore essentially different from themselves, which are caused. They are occasions for addressing, stimulating and developing in us a quality which is not themselves, not their counterpart, but which is identical with the quality which caused them. They stand between, and could as soon have originated cause behind them as our causality beyond them. What is the mental fact which takes place when this medi­ ate Object recurs to Subject? Something besides cerebral registering of the succession of sensations produced by the phenomena. That only succeeds in confirming succession or simultaneousness. We call the mental fact Deduction. But that is only a word, and not an explanation. It does not put us into possession of the actual occurrence when objects are mentally fitted with the laws of their causes. It does not explain the nature of that mental moment. To say that it is the result of cerebral movement and waste, of changes in the grey matter in the brain, does not explain it. That is only a dynamical accessory. In like manner, what happens when an imaginative per­ son, seeing some features of a landscape, or some combina­ tions of light, sky, sea, color, at morn or sunset, invests the scene with his own personality ? In fact, the combination called a landscape exists nowhere; it is a pure ideal con­ struction of his own. The scene without is only a palette or a pot of paint. A poetic symbol, a simile which encloses a trait of nature in the amber of thought or emotion, is a men­ tal process unaccountable on any theory of empirical accu­ mulation of sensations. But we seldom find a materialist who is willing to accept a statement of his method which shows that it really starts with a term that is incapable of starting. Bald matter is im­ potent to proceed except into fresh forms of matter; and even that process requires that Force should be assumed. And something has to make that assumption. That assuming faculty cannot be merely a form of matter, for no thing can step outside of itself and become what is not Thing. No number of things can do that, though the sensations pro­ duced by them accumulate for centuries. They may be irri­ tants, as a drop of acid on a frog’s bare muscle after his head is cut off; but they cannot conceive that they irritate, any Vol. vi.—14 �210 Theories of Mental Genesis. more than the frog can conceive that he is irritated. They cannot formulate ■ their unconscious function of exciting our senses. What does the materialist say when his empirical method is boned in this way, and sinks on the floor of creation a help­ less huddle of Object, every articulation and vertebra of his own mentality withdrawn from it? He disclaims the result, cannot tolerate being defrauded of his own analytic and clas­ sifying skill, and declares against materialism in that sense. But it has no other sense. The moment he declares against it, he declares in favor of an intellectual perception of an ob­ jective sensation, that is, in favor of something which Object cannot generate. His own idealism rises against its jailer, and breaks out of prison in this declaration. This ought to startle him into making a more distinct defini­ tion of the word Matter than he has yet undertaken. He uses that, and the word Object, in the ordinary sense; but he will not recognize all that it connotes when it is pressed to ultimates. And it is astonishing that he can invent such >\ ords as Vitality, Force, Correlation, to account for phases of ob­ jects, elemental modes, conditions of existence, without feel­ ing compromised. He is obliged to assume something which is anterior to objects and their phenomena, anterior to the sensations produced by them; he speaks of correlation, but says nothing about something previous which does the corre­ lating. If that something be another objective condition, a more tenuous tenuity, it involves the necessity of something still beyond, since mere condition cannot conditionate itself, and no thing can do itself. So that, sooner or later, the words employed by the empirical observer justify an ulti­ mate ground of Being, an absolute Cause; and that, too, jus­ tifies Cause in the observer, for Being goes into Object, and not Object into Being. Perhaps the materialist will take refuge in the Hegelian phrase, “Matter is Being outside of Itself,” in order to endow Matter with a causative capacity, and secure perpetual vital­ ity to its plastic germs. Then he may suppose that objective phenomena, in their gradual achievement of the human brain, lent it their primitive endowment as Being outside of Itself, and made of it another animate object. But what becomes �Theories of Mental Genesis. 211 of Being outside of Itself when this object disappears, is dis­ integrated, ceases to be a focus of Being ? It either must re­ cur to Being in Itself, or must be correlated in some mode of Force. Both suppositions make the human intellect only a phenomenal phase of Absolute Being; it is only caused mat­ ter, it is on the footing of every other object, its root imbibes the identity of Object and Being, its self-consciousness is only an increase of animateness, but not a differentiation of it into Person. It invents the phrase, to be sure—claims to have or be a self—and that the unconscious animal, reaching man’s estate, comes to the line where consciousness begins; man separates to that extent from the world of Object, be­ cause Object has been Being all the time. But if it has been Being all the time, one of two things must be true, either that self-consciousness resided all along the route in organic ob­ jects, or at no point of it at all; the reputed consciousness of Self is only a phenomenon of Object. Perhaps the materialist will thank us for such a reduction of the Hegelian phrase to another form of Matter, because it makes Soul and Person impossible on any terms; and per­ haps the idealist, discontented with any style of the doctrine of Evolution, will be driven to the notion that there is outside of us an ocean of germinal soul-monads which become allied with human structures. There are insuperable objections, lying mainly in the direc­ tion of the facts of inheritance, to this attempt at spiritual­ ism. In the meantime, the Doctrine of Evolution cannot be dispensed with. The burden does not rest upon us to in­ dicate the point in time and the method of appearing of independent mentality. But we can show that Object can propagate only Object; nor that without something assumed which Object cannot propagate. Let us take, however, a word which the materialist is com­ petent to invent and is obliged to use—Vitality. He must assume it in spite of the objectivity of every point of his empirical method. Then, in the interest of Idealism, we suggest, taking a statement used by us in another place, “whether there can be any germinal soul-substance except the mysterious force which we call Vitality wherever we see it in the human state. It went into creation allied with �212 Theories of Mental Genesis. all the germs which have subsequently taken form. It carried everywhere a latent sensibility for the creative law out of which it came. It swept along with a dim drift of the Personality that first conceived and then put it on the way to self-expression.. It mounted thus by the ascending scale of animals, and its improvements in structure were prepara« tions to reach and repeat Personality, to report the original consciousness of the Creator that He was independent of structure. At length it became detached from the walls of the womb of creation, held only for nourishment by the cord of structure till it could have a birth into individualism. Then the interplay of mind and organism began, with an in­ herited advantage in favor of Vitality. Now Vitality, thus developed and crystallized into personality, tends constantly back towards its origin. The centrifugal movement through all the animals is rectified by the centripetal movement in man. The whole series of effects musters in him to recur to an effecting Cause.” Prof. Haeckel of Jena, in his Biological Studies, makes the * following statement: “ Protoplasm, or germinal matter, also nailed cell-substance or primitive slime, is the single material basis to which, without exception and absolutely, all so-called vital phenomena ’ are radically bound. If the latter are re­ garded as the result of a peculiar vital force independent of the protoplasm, then necessarily also must the physical and •chemical properties of every inorganic natural body be re­ garded as the result of a peculiar force not bound up with its .substance.” Very well, why not? Even the vague motions, like the incoherent simmer of a crowd of people on a great sqm re, which take place in the molecules of the densest sub ance, are dumb gropings of some Force, arrested for the present in the substance, and not to be detected transgressing its. lim­ its. But something is there which shares and testifies to a universal tendency towards evolution into other substances and into organic forms. Physical and chemical forces attest the presence of Vitality, as well as the mental functions which use the structural results of those forces. Something * See Toledo Index, April 29, 1871. �Theories of Mental Genesis. fit, [ ift ft! 1'1 b » Tfj í| 213 independent of the material basis must have endowed it with its movements and qualities. It certainly could not have originated itself or its forces. Something anterior to the ma­ lerial basis must include and transmit a tendency of Vitality towards mental and moral functions, which are at once inde­ pendent of the basis and yet closely allied to it. Let us observe now if any contribution may be made to idealism from another quarter. The empirical method has not busied itself much with the phenomena of musical sensi­ bility, though, to be consistent after including the imagina­ tion in its genesis of mind from external sensations, it ought to construct the sense of Harmony and the inventive genius of the composer in the same way, since imagination plays so large a part therein. Some physical facts which at first threaten to support a pure empiric origin for mental func­ tions, turn out upon cross-questioning to belong to the other side of the case, and to contribute toward some more ideal statement. The German Helmholtz, who has made some profound studies of the laws of Harmony, in his examination of the structure of the human ear, found that the cochlea, or snailformed cavity, contained a fluid, across which three membranes were thrown — an upper, middle, and under. In the middle compartment he discovered innumerable microscopic disks, lying next each other • like the keys of a piano : one end of each of them is attached to the vessels of the auditory nerve, the other end to the outstretched membranes. These disks are the sensitive points which receive the vibrations of musi­ cal instruments, and transmit them to the brain in the form of notes and tones. A single string will give off different vibrations from its upper and its middle section. Does the ear solve the sound of a complex vibration made by these waves of different length, or does it receive the sound as a whole ? Answering this, Helmholtz says that the physical ear funds the wave-forms into a sum of simple waves, which is the result of their concurrence; since any wave-form you please can be constructed out of a combination of simple waves of different lengths. And as in the instruments, so in the ear, the ground tone wakes the corresponding upper tone. When vibrations play upon the disks in the ear, it is as if �214 Theories of Mental Genesis. they played upon banks of keys; and the first physical im­ pressions are produced, sorted, combined, and then transmit­ ted as so much seasoned material to be used in manufacturing music. Then occurs the wonderful moment when Something beyond these microscopic feelers digests the prey they catch into human moods and emotions. What leaps the genius takes, through and across what an unbridged abyss, upon these stepping-stones of disks, to gather the waifs and strays that float upon the manifold sea of Harmony! There is no such startling proof that Nature has at length developed a transcending Person in mankind; perhaps whole races died for it, dissonances and partial chords, or constructed upon vicious intervals, before Harmony could respond to its own laws. At length an essential differentiation seems to have taken place, an abstraction which compels sensations to subserve its subtlest emotions. For at one end of this process is nothing but the disks vibrating in their fluid: at the other end is something rarely and radically different—the gamut of the human heart, the symphony upreared by intellect and feeling, the song exhaling into the mist that sheathes the eye, the lyric whose silvery trumpets summon bravery and nobleness from every drop of blood. Now, atmospheric vibrations and the structure of the ear enclosing the microscopic disks are the objects which provide empirical sensations. The temperament, culture and inher­ ited susceptibility of the musical composer’s brain collect and organize these, sensations into the modes of harmony, and reject all dissonance. But when, and by which of the two parties in this transaction, was the earliest step taken toward such a complicated result ? There was a time when there was nothing but an atmosphere capable of vibrating, and nothing but an ear capable of receiving the accidental throng of natu­ ral noises. There was a time when the first fibre of a plant, the first tense string of some creeping vine, twanged to some chance touch: when the wood of the forest first revealed its resonant capacity, when the dried reeds first sighed and whis­ tled in the wind. This was all the appeal which Nature had to make. Did it originate the sequence of melodies and con­ struct the theory of harmony ? What is a dissonance ? Is it merely a physical repugnance of the disks for interfering and �Theories of Mental Genesis. 215 •contrarious vibrations ? Whence, then, the repugnance of the «disks ? There are tribes of men whose ears have not been furnished with it. There are civilized Indo-Germanic peo­ ple who cannot tell a chord from a discord. It is not credible that the crude objectivity of natural vibrations gradually ■selected out of Nature a harmonious ear. Nature has no harmony which could effect such a selection ; she has never ¿sorted and combined and weeded out her noises. She is uni­ sonous, monotonous, or full of jar and clash; she has no art to reconcile the voices of the sea, the air, the birds of the for­ est: each creature has its note and its key, and the air itself is a Babel of cross-purposes. The empirical sensations pro­ duced by modern music are drawn from things which vibrate by a law that the things do not possess, and never could have •suggested. Harmony has been imposed from within upon their isolated qualities ; and an orchestra, so far from being ■an induction, is an intuition. The Composer listens to its combinations before they are played. His subjectivity has imparted to every instrument its peculiar quality by gradual selection among the woods, reeds and metals of Nature, and by discovery of the isolated shapes which correspond best to .atmospheric conditions. His inductive experiments have been presided over by a sense which no induction could have fur­ nished. What, for instance, is the temperament of a piano but a metaphysical compromise between the imperfections of the material and the law of intervals ? Harmony, in short, is a refutation which the materialist himself might welcome; but it kills his theory as effectually as the poison poured into the auditory tube, which made a ghost of Hamlet’s father. It is much easier to tolerate the doctrine that a slice of meat, well-assimilated, becomes the poet’s happy thought, than to understand how wafts of common air could be transformed into the mighty uplifting of the soul when the orb of music passes over our fiat life, and draws emotion into every barren •creek, and dashes its tonic against the heart. Physics must allow an essential difference between a vibration and a welli cooked mutton chop; and it is in favor of the stimulating and edifying quality of the chop. Music has been called the image of motion. But when the ear is struck, something else than a wave is propagated. It would be more just to say that Music is imagination set in motion. �216 Anti-Materialism. The sea-tide writes its diary accurately enough in the sand­ ripples. But air did not imprint these footsteps so massive and deep that our own are lost as we try to follow ; yet there is no dismay, for in the bosom of each trace lies home’s direc­ tion,—by which we know that a Beethoven had just passed. I claim, then, against a strictly logical empirical method, three classes of facts. First, the authentic facts of the moral sense whenever it appears as the transcender of the ripest average utility. Second, the facts of the Imagination as the anticipator of mental methods by pervading everything with personality, by imputing Life to Object, or by occasional direct suggestion. Third, the facts of the harmonic sense as the reconciler of discrete and apparently sundered objects, as the prophet and artist of Number and mathematical ratio, as the unifier of all the contents of the soul into the acclaim which rises when the law of Unity fills the scene. ■ Upon these facts I chiefly sustain myself against the the­ ory, consistently explained, which derives all possible men­ tal functions from the impacts of Objectivity. * ANTI-MATERIALISM By G. S. Hall. To a concise though popular restatement of the younger * Fichte’s, Fontlage’s, and Leopold Schmidt’s construction of' the ego as person, modified as he believes it to have been by Lazarus and Lotze, the author joins a vigorous and original polemic against “ materialism in natural science and theol­ ogy” which he calls an “ absurd and therefore impossible form of subjective idealism.” This he does in the interest of speculative philosophy, which he would rescue from present discredit and neglect, and to which he would restore an ulti­ mate character as the mediating unity of theology and natu­ ral science. The barren abstractions of the absolute philosophy carried thought into so rare an atmosphere that its utmost effort was * Five Lectures on Philosophical Subjects, by Ludwig Weis. Berlin, 1871. & � 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 &amp; 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. 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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 A name given to the resource Theories of mental genesis Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Weiss, John Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [St Louis] Collation: 197-216 p. ; 24 cm. Notes: From the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (Vol. VI, no. 3, 1872). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [The R.P. Studley Company] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1872] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5353 Subject The topic of the resource Objectivism Philosophy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 (Theories of mental genesis), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Objectivism (Philosophy) Philosophy and Religion Science and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/01445ca0e8c72a4f0b8b4be09e0b17e4.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=kf7gt172WNWcr911tZtO-w11qreCxgItD7Z2ZSms-Pt5%7EP3Xra6nu88oBwwx230QVi2hcKo%7E%7ESvP%7EJUFVz%7EyFc3J%7Ez6RJ8Bk21v7v4eiCtxvZiCnBQncqlaEKPl3tmraoLOeeX07j7sJ1e9Hfm4LBiqry-ywNEIX4vqyXLKsU3lRgbWvA4u2wMnIflmDDsY9vOv7Ctv5JjnE6kyAI9672BTGLo95MAOJ7253psgE6ADQP-5l8lhg55SNnG4PB04r6G9iU-YWtFhPiJWc5jsYuKoAmUsBvKf4mnk2dul-NUaYKaM0N1KhRcnBvxWCTEnMEIYMrVI3768FKCyHC-F6rA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7d31400272d5c17196bd7550965e7f6b PDF Text Text BIBLE MORALITY. 'Secularists have no desire to extol the Bible above its merits, nor to depreciate it below its deserts. We gladly admit that it contains some useful precepts; but these, as a rule, are intermixed with so many teachings of an in­ jurious character that their beauty is often overshadowed and their utility annulled. Its coarse language in many places renders it unfit for general perusal, and destroys its value as a standard for every-day life. The true worth of literature should be its moral tone. Novels are appreciated by the intelligent reader in proportion to their being “ adorned ” with a moral. And dramas fail to gain the approval of the thoughtful public unless virtue is inculcated in a chaste form. So with the Bible : if in its ethical tone it is defective, or if it is questionable in its injunctions or indelicate in its records, it cannot with advantage be accepted as an absolute monitor in human conduct. All correct codes of morals should be clear in their authority and practical in their application. This is the more necessary when severe penalties—as in the case of Christian ethics—are threatened for non-acceptance and dis­ obedience. Now, the ethics of the Bible are both contradic­ tory and impracticable. The same line of conduct is enjoined in one passage, and just as explicitly prohibited in another. One man is blamed because he is not cruel enough, and will not go on slaying the Lord’s enemies; another man’s chief glory consists in being a mighty man of war and a great destroyer of men, women, and children; while other passages proclaim, “Thou shalt not kill,” and enjoin mercy and “loving-kindness.” The most absolute rest is enjoined on the Sabbath, and the fiercest denunciations are hurled at the most vigorous Sabbatarian. Retaliation for wrong is counselled, and forgiveness is enjoined. We are told to “ love one another,” and we are commanded to hate our �2 BIBLE MORALITY. own flesh and blood. Industry is advised and also dis­ couraged; lustful pursuits are condemned and also permitted. Thus Biblical morality is destitute of the first fundamental condition of all just ethics. Among the general principles taught in the Bible and ex­ pounded by orthodoxy in this country is that belief, not conduct, is the foundation of virtue, and that uncharitable­ ness towards opponents is justifiable. One of the first in­ structions which a parent should enforce upon a child is never to impute bad motives in matters of belief or non­ belief. No lesson is more valuable than this, none more calculated to render the child’s life happy and unsuspicious, and to make its influence in the world more useful and beneficial. The Bible permits just the opposite. Accord­ ing to Christian teachings, if a man does an act of kindness, we are not to accept it with gratitude simply as an act of kindness, but we are to judge from the motives of his con­ duct. Did he perform the act from love to God, or did he do it only from respect for his fellow man ? If the former, his services will go up as a sweet smelling offering to Deity; if the latter, he merely performed a “ splendid vice.” The motive, not the act, is the thing to be considered. If men slay, ravish, and destroy for the glory of God, the motive not only condones, but consecrates, the act. Hence, in the early history of Christianity, the practice of lying for the good of the Church was not only allowed, but considered praiseworthy. To require universal belief in one particular faith, and to condemn to eternal perdition those who are unable to comply therewith, is not the most moral doctrine. Truly, a book that teaches that “many are called but few are chosen,” or, in other words, that the majority of our fellow creatures are to be cast into a burning lake, cannot assist to promote the happiness and good of mankind. The tendency of such teaching as this cannot have a beneficial effect, inasmuch as it often produces mutual hatred between man and man. Artificial and unjust distinctions of govern­ ment and of classes have often produced ill-feeling between man and man; but that evil has been increased by the religious distinctions based upon Biblical teaching. The natural law of love is simple and clear. It is a duty to love all men until we have reason to believe that the trust is mis­ placed or abused. It then becomes necessary to slightly �BIBLE MORALITY. 3 modify our conduct as an act of self-defence; hence the enactment of laws for the repression of crime and the curtail­ ment of injury. If a man’s belief teaches him that he can persecute, we have a right to be upon our guard, for we know from bitter experience that such belief has frequently shaped itself into conduct. But whatever man believes about matters that do not affect his conduct should produce in us neither love nor hatred towards him. His belief may be ever so curious, absurd, unreal, and fantastic, ever so ridiculous and self-contradictory, and in proportion of its partaking of those qualities it may excite and amuse us; but it ought not to make us respect or dislike him one whit more. With the Bible it is quite different: its defect con­ sists in its teaching us to love and respect certain people who believe certain things which have no direct beneficial bearing on their conduct; while we are to avoid those whose lives may be a model of purity and benevolence, but who cannot subscribe to a certain faith. The great principle of Bible morality is supposed to be contained in the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue, we are assured, enunciates moral lessons, against which no sub­ stantial objections can be brought. There are two versions of the Decalogue given in the Old Testament, varying in certain not unimportant particulars. Moses brought down, we are informed, the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, where he had been having a tete-d-tete with the Lord. They were written on stone, and were copied off for future generations in Exodus xx. They are also given in Deuter­ onomy v.; but that was merely from memory, when Moses had become somewhat advanced in age. It is not surpris­ ing, therefore, that he should insert certain interpolations in the second giving of the law which are absent from the first. How this incongruity can be reconciled with the doc­ trine of the Divine inspiration of the Bible may be left for Christians to decide among themselves. The Decalogue is divided into two parts : that which relates to man’s duty to God, and that which relates to the mutual duties of man to man. It is worthy of notice that, although the second half contains six commands, and the former half only four, nevertheless the first half is a great deal longer than the second. Most of the commands of the second half are con­ tained in the most condensed form. The second, third, �4 bible morality. and fourth Commandments are all developments of the first. 7 he first really contains or assumes the three which succeed it. The first? which is, “ Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” of course involves the second against idolatry, the third against blasphemous swearing, and the fourth en­ joining restful remembrance of the creation of the world by God. It is curious, while God in these Commandments had so much to say in giving a complete code of conduct to his creatures, and confining himself as he did within the limits of a certain number of Hebrew characters, written on a stone small enough for a man to carry down the side of a steep mountain, that he should have wasted so much time in telling them how to behave to him, and have left so little space to contain what was far more important—viz., the rules to regulate our conduct to each other. The whole prescribed duty of man to man is contained in seventy­ seven words. The second Commandment brings out that particular character of the Christian God which is so con­ spicuous in other parts of the Bible. We are not to make and bow down to images. Very good advice, we readily admit. But why are we not to do so ? Is there any appeal to the generous and reverential sentiments of the human heart ? Surely a noble and good God would have said something similar to this : “ Thou shalt not bow down thy­ self to them, nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a great, beneficent, and generous God, with a wide, allembracing love. Thou shalt not degrade thy soul nor debase thy being by worshipping the gods of the heathen. I am your only father, who made and cares for you, and your place of reverence and trust is in the all-sustaining hollow of my hand.” Had the Deity said this, and proved his sincerity by appropriate actions subsequently towards his subjects, it would have done more to have won the affec­ tions of his children to him than the whole of his present recorded sayings contained from Genesis to Revelation. But no; we find that a sordid appeal is made partly to the mean fears, and partly to the paternal affections, of the Jews. They are forbidden to worship other gods: “ For I, the ILord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of rthe fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Fancy a great, Almighty (God, creator of the earth, being jealous of the estranged �BIBLE MORALITY. 5 affection of an unfortunate Jew! But this is in keeping with the general character of the Christian Deity, and most of his particular and immediate acquaintances. The part of the Decalogue which has reference to us, as members of society, is so brief, in comparison to that which has been occupied by theology and the requirements of God, that little room is left for the introduction of rewards and punish­ ments which are to follow the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of so important a behest as “ Thou shalt not kill.” But the punishment of idolatry, a most cruel, unjust, and revengeful one, is given at full length. The fifth Commandment, “ Honour thy father and mother,” is certainly, as far as it goes, an excellent one. It comes home to the heart of everyone who has the feelings of love and duty within him. We can take no possible exception to its request. But the reason given for its fulfilment is as selfish as it is untrue. Yielding to no one in the belief that filial affection and re­ verence are not only duties, but carry with them (as all virtues do to some extent) their own reward in the satisfac­ tion of an approving sense of right, it has yet to be shown that the keeping of the first part of this command will secure the accomplishment of the second. Honouring parents does not invariably carry with it the fulfilment of the pro­ mise, “ Thy days shall be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” The best of sons have frequently been called upon to pay the last debt of nature when still in the bloom and vigour of their manhood, while some of the worst of characters live to a comparatively old age, a grief to their parents and a disgrace to themselves. Though, therefore, we would echo the command, “ Children, obey your parents,” we would also say : Do so, not from any selfish hope of personal gain or long life, but for the love you should have for those who have toiled for and protected you through years of infancy and helplessness. Duty, gratitude, and affection should be the inspiration to obedience, not the grovelling incentive given by the Bible. But may not this be taken as a fair sample of Bible teaching ? When­ ever we discover a noble thought, a just precept, or a gener­ ous sentiment, we generally find it surrounded by much that is impracticable, misleading, and fallacious. The sixth, seventh, and eighth Commandments call for no special remark, save that, when they point out the extremes of �6 BIBLE MORALITY. certain vices, and forbid their indulgence, they fail to state how far persons may go in their direction without commit­ ting fatal errors; and this difficulty is all the greater when we reflect that these were the very Commandments which most of God’s favourites had the greatest predilection for break­ ing- The chief object of the ninth Commandment is its limitation. Why should the word “ neighbour ” be intro­ duced in the prohibition of false swearing? It is equally a wrong to swear falsely against a stranger as against a neigh­ bour. The tenth Commandment is the only one of the second part of the Decalogue which errs by excess of Puri­ tanism. There can be no harm, for instance, in coveting a neighbour’s house if sufficient compensation is offered to in­ duce him to give up the lease; and, if we did not occasionally covet our neighbour’s oxen, beefsteaks and surloins would be even more scarce among the working classes than they are at present. Speaking broadly, the one great objection to the Decalogue is the absence of any noble, inspiring principle of conduct. It teaches no real love, no true charity; it is a penal code, not a rule of life. Orthodox believers are continually proclaiming that love is the foundation of Biblical ethics; the fact is, however, that, if human actions were regulated by some teachings of the Bible, there would be but few manifestations of love. To kill the inhabitants of a conquered city, and to save none alive (Deut. xx. io-i6),is a peculiar mode of exhibiting love to our fellow men. The conduct of Christ was not calculated to inspire us with a superabundance of love when he said: “Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven ” (Matt. x. 33); or when he stated : “ But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me” (Luke xix. 27). Here we have an indication of that unforgiving and revengeful spirit which destroys true affection. If there be any truth in the popular notions of sin and forgiveness, it was not moral for Christ to act as he did when speaking in a parable to his disciples. They, not being able to understand him, asked him for an explanation of what he then said. His reply was : “ Unto you is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but, unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing, they may see and not perceive, �BIBLE MORALITY. 7 and hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins be forgiven them ” (Mark iv.). This is not only partial and unjust, but a planned determination to teach so mysteriously that people should not learn the truth, in case they should thereby be saved. Such a mode of advocacy would be deemed in­ jurious, indeed, in these days, and is only equalled by the following “ inspired ” information to certain persons : “ And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteous­ ness ” (2 Thess. ii. n, 12). We are advised to be holy, even as God is holy; but what is holiness according to Bible morality? If a “Divine” sanction to a thing constitutes it holy, then deceit, murder, lying, and the deepest kind of cruelty are allied with Scriptural holiness. In 2 Kings x. God is represented as rewarding the following crimes, and thereby giving the Bible sanction to the worst kind of im­ morality. Jehu, having become King of Israel, commences his reign with a series of murders. Having resolved upon the destruction of the house of Ahab, Jehu commences his task in a manner possible only to those who fight with the “ zeal of the Lord.” Killing all who were likely to obstruct him in the carrying out of his base object, he arrived at Samaria, his purpose being to slay all the worshippers of Baal. In order, therefore, that he might entrap them all into one slaughter house, he announced that he was a great worshipper of Baal, and that he had come to offer a mighty sacrifice to this idol. By this craft he succeeded in drawing all the worshippers of Baal together. When the unfortunate victims were assembled, tendering their sacrifices, Jehu ordered his captains to go in and slay them, allowing none to escape. Accordingly, they were all sacrificed to the treachery of this “ servant of the Lord.” And this conduct is approved by God; for in verse 30 is recorded : “ And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” Bible morality is further illustrated in the case of Samuel (1 Samuel xvi. 1-4). This prophet is commanded by God to go on a certain mission under false �8 BIBLE MORALITY. pretences, and with a direct falsehood upon his lips. Now, is it moral to deceive and murder ? If not, why did God command and encourage such vices ? And why should men be invited to imitate the example of one who practised such immoralities ? Biblical ethics are alleged to be based upon the “holiness of God.” In order to ascertain what that “holiness ” really is, it is only necessary to read Genesisxxx. and xxxi., where immorality, ingratitude, deceit, and theft are found to be ascribed to Jacob, who was encouraged and beloved by God; Exodus ix. 13-16, where people are' seen to have been raised up by God for the very pur­ pose of being “cut off from the earth;” Exodus xxxii., for an account of the anger, injustice, and cruelty of Moses, culminating in the slaughter of thousands of human beings at the command of God ; Joshua vi., viii., and x., for a record of his reckless murder of thousands of human beings, among whom were men, women, and children, at the special command of God; 2 Samuel xii. n-31, for adultery and cruelty in connection with David; and then peruse Psalms xxxviii. and cix. for a confession of a life of deceit, lying, and licentiousness. Yet we are told that David “ was a man after God’s own heart,” and that he “kept God’s com­ mandments, and did that only which was right in his eyes ” (1 Kings xiv. 8). Such maybe Biblical morality; but it is certainly opposed to Secular ideas of ethical philosophy. The teachings of the Bible in reference to slavery are barbarously unjust. According to its permit, men and women can be bought and sold like cattle, the weak being compelled to serve the strong. In Exodus xxi. 2-6 we have a most cruel law for regulating this “ Bible institution,” the cruelty and injustice of which law are two-fold. First, if the slave when he is bought be single, and if, during his seven years of slavery, he marries and becomes a father, then, at the expiration of his time, his wife and children are his master’s, and the slave goes out free. Is this moral ? What becomes of the poor man’s paternal affections ? Isthe love for his wife nothing ? Is he to be separated from that he holds dear, and to see the object of his affectionsgiven to the man who for seven years had robbed him of his independence and his manhood? If, however, the poor victim’s love for his wife and children be stronger than his desire for liberty, what is his fate? He is to be brought �BIBLE MORALITY. 9 to the door, have his ear bored with an awl, and doomed to serve his master forever. Thus Bible morality makes per­ petual slavery and physical pain the punishments of the exercise of the purest and best feelings of human nature. Where is the moral lesson in the statement: “ And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after; for oxen or for sheep, or for wine or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth ; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household ” ? If this is not giving a license to the worst of passions, words have no meaning. But Bible morality strikes at the manhood and happiness of man. It stifles our tenderest affections, and urges the exercise of the cruellest passions by teaching that a man may kill the wife of his bosom if she dare to entice him secretly from his God (Deut. xiii. 6-9). Where is the man who will so far belie his nature as to accept such morality as this ? Unfortunately, Bible teachings have frequently caused a complete severance and breaking up of the ties of affection in families. The Bible commands its believers to leave father, mother, sister, and brother to follow Christ. According to its teachings, it is justifiable to break up a certain and a human bond that we may get a problematical chance of a problematical blessedness in a problematical future. There are few, doubt­ less, who have not learned in their own sad experience how the family tie has been often disunited by Christian teach­ ings. Brothers and sisters have been separated for years from the home of their childhood because they dared to emancipate themselves from the shackles of the prevailing faith. Accepting the term “ moral ” as expressing whatever is calculated to promote general progress and happiness, what morality is contained in the following passages from the Bible : “ Take no thought for your life “ Resist not evil “ Blessed be ye poor“ Labour not for the bread which perisheth “ Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward “ Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called“ Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake “ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God............ Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the �IO BIBLE MORALITY. ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to them­ selves damnation”? Were these injunctions obeyed, health, independence of character, and political progress would be ignored. For the reforms we have hitherto secured we are indebted to men and women who practically disregarded the Bible, and based their conduct upon the principle of utility. To teach, as the Bible does, that wives are to be subject to their husbands in everything (Eph. v.); to “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth ” (Colos. iii.); to “ love not the world, neither the things that are in the world ’* (i John ii.); to “ lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” (Matt, vi.), is not to inculcate the principle of equality, or to inspire man with a desire to take an interest in “the things of time.” Whatever service the Bible may render in gratifying the tastes of the superstitious, it cannot, to men of thought and energy, be of any great moral worth. To persecute for non-belief of any teaching, but more particularly of speculative questions, is not in accordance with ethical justice. Is it true that the Bible encourages persecution for the non-belief in, or the rejection of, its teachings ? If yes, so far at least is its moral worth lessened. For belief in the truth of a doctrine, or the wisdom of a precept, is, to the honest inquirer, the result of the recogni­ tion on his part of sufficient evidence in their favour. When­ ever that evidence is absent, disbelief will be found, except among the indifferent or the hypocritical. Now, in the Bible there are many things that the sincere thinker is com­ pelled, through lack of evidence, to reject. What does the New Testament inculcate towards such persons? When Christ sent his disciples upon a preaching expedition he said (Matt, x.) : “Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city shake off the dust of your feet.” This, we are informed by Oriental writers, was a mode in the East of showing hatred towards those against whom the dust was shaken. The punishment threatened those who refused the administra­ tions of the disciples is most severe, for “ it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” In St. John xv. we read : “If a man abideth not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” This accords with the gloomy �BIBLE MORALITY. II announcement (2 Thess. i.): “ The Lord Jesus shall be re­ vealed from heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” Again (Mark xvi.) : “ He that believeth not shall be damned.” St. Paul exclaims (Gal. i.): “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” He also says (1 Tim. vi. 3-5): “ If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ....... he is proud, knowing nothing......... From such withdraw thyself.” “ Of whom is Hymenseus and Alexander ; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. i. 20). In these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. And that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommu­ nications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of Christianity abun­ dantly prove. Orthodox Christians contend that the Bible is a necessary factor in the educational system of all nations. While admitting the necessity of instruction in the affairs of daily life, they allege that a question of far greater importance is the preparation for existence “beyond the grave.” They profess to be impressed with the notion that there is a city of refuge in store for them when they arrive at the end of life’s journey; and, having to encounter many storms and difficulties ere they reach this supposed haven of rest, they feel assured that the Bible is a sufficient guide to carry them safely over the sea of time, and land them securely in the harbour of eternity. They therefore rely on this book as if it were unerring in its directions and infallible in its commands. Now, there is ample reason to doubt the capability of this Christian guide. Its inability, however, as an instructor and guide does not arise from any lack of variety of contents. The Bible contains a history of the cosmogony of the earth, and the story of man’s fall from what is termed his first estate of perfection and happiness. Then we have the �12 BIBLE MORALITY. history of God’s chosen people, from their uprise to their national extinction, with a record of the Jewish laws, speci­ fying those acts most calculated to propitiate the favour and secure the rew’ard of heaven, and those which are con­ demned, with their appropriate and stipulated punishments. We have also glimpses of the histories of other nations, the causes of their fall, and the account of their national sins, which drew down upon them that wrath of heaven which extinguished or sorely punished them. Following this, there is the story of Job—the lessons to be derived from the sudden collapse of his worldly greatness, and his soliloquies upon the mysteries of nature and of providence. Next come the Psalms—a copious manual of praise, prayer, cursing, and penitence, followed by the woes, lamentations, and mis­ fortunes of a host of prophets—some practical, some mystical, and some evangelical—together with the four different versions of the life, actions, and death of Christ; a short account of the early doings of the Church, recorded in several epistles written by sundry apostles, culminating in the strange and extraordinary nightmare of St. John the Divine. Now, any man who fails to discover in so large a field materials by which to regulate his life must do so, not from the scarcity, but the valuelessness, of the article supplied. In estimating the real value of the Bible as a moral guide it must be taken as a whole, by which is meant those books of the Old and New Testaments which are bound together and commonly called the Word of God. And here a ques­ tion arises that, if the knowledge of the whole Bible be necessary to our future happiness, which according to St. John it is, why is it that so many of the books that originally constituted the Bible are lost ? If the testimony of the book itself can be accepted, we have only a portion of what at one time composed the Bible. In Numbers a quotation is given from a book called “ The Book of the Wars of the Lord;” in Judges and Samuel we read of “The Book of Jasher;” in Kings mention is made of “The Book of the Acts of Solomon and in Chronicles of “ The Account of the Chronicles of King David.” We further read of “The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah ” and “ The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.” Allusion is also made to “ The Book of Nathan the Prophet ” and to �BIBLE MORALITY. 13 “The Book of Gad the Seer.” Notwithstanding the loss of these books, Christians exclaim, How wonderfully their book has been preserved ! Even the portions that are re­ tained are so full of mistakes, errors, and corruptions that its intelligent supporters are compelled to give the greater part of it up as incapable of defence, while those who still contend for its “ divinity ” hesitate to come forward and support it in public debate. Another question suggests itself: Are we to consider the Old. Testament as the Word of God ? If so, upon the Christian hypothesis, its teachings are equally as deserving of our respect as are those of the New Testament. If, on the other hand, the Old Testament is not intended for our acceptance, why is it preached and enforced as God’s Word ? True, it is sometimes stated that the Hebrew writings are useful for instruction, although they are not of the same authority with Christians as the New Testament. But here it is overlooked that the New Testament is founded upon the Old, and often appeals to it to corroborate its statements. Furthermore, the New Testament distinctly says that the Old was written by good and holy men for our instruction, etc. Besides, does not Christ emphatically state that he did not come to destroy its authority ? “ Think not,” says he, “ that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Here is a command not to break even one of the least of the com­ mandments. Again, Christ says: “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; whatsoever they bid you ob­ serve, that observe and do.” Among a collection of Chris­ tian stories occurs the following anecdote :—A person once asked a poor, illiterate old woman what she deemed to be the difference between the Old and New Testaments, to which she replied : “ The Old Testament is the New Testa­ ment concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testa­ ment revealed.” This has been triumphantly quoted by Christian writers to show the harmony existing between the �14 BIBLE MORALITY. two books. But it is absurd and contradicts facts. The assumption is, that the Old Testament is the partial statement of a body of truths, from which the New Testament differs not in kind, but only in degree. It is supposed that nothing in the New Testament contradicts what is stated in the Old, but only reveals and amplifies with a clearer light what had already been stated partially and under allegorical semblance in the Old. Now, so far is this from being correct that it would be difficult to find any two alleged bodies of sacred truths which differ from and contradict each other more than the divine revelation made through Moses and the prophets, and the revelation made through Christ and his Apostles. For instance, Moses taught that retaliation was a duty, while Christ strictly prohibits it. With Moses persecutors were put to the edge of the sword; with Christ, however, they were to be blessed. Under the old system, good works and a virtuous life were the conditions of Divine favour and reward, and bad works and a vicious life were to incur Divine disfavour and punishment. Under the new system, faith is the all-in-all, the essential condition of salvation. A proof of the inadequacy of the Bible as a guide and instructor is furnished by what are termed the “ liberal Christians.” Here we have men of the best intentions and of high intellectual acquirements refusing to accept the Bible as an absolute guide, or as an infallible instructor. With such persons the Bible has no value as “ infallible revela­ tion.” If, however, the Bible is not an infallible record, it is simply a human production, and has no more claim upon us, except what its merits inspire, than any other book. Is it not rather inconsistent to contend, as these liberal Chris­ tians do, that certain portions of the Bible are “ divine,” while the other parts are simply human ? If every Chris­ tian sect put forward similar contentions, there would be but few parts of the “ Holy Scriptures ” that would not be divine and human at the same time, according to the respec­ tive opinions of different classes of believers. But how are we to decide what is “ divine ” and what is human ? To what standard shall we appeal ? What criterion have we by which to test its genuineness ? Shall we accept the authority of the Protestant or the Catholic Church ? Shall we judge from the standpoint of the Trinitarians or the Unitarians? For the Bible to be trustworthy as a guide it should be �BIBLE MORALITY. 15 reliable in its statements and harmonious in its doctrines. That it is not so will be evident from the following reference to its pages. The Bible teaches that God is omniscient and omnipresent; yet in Gen. xi. 5 we read that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of menbuilded; and in Gen. xviii. 20, 21: “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me ; and, if not, I will know.” It teaches that God is immutable ; yet, on several occasions, we find him changing his mind, repenting, and sometimes turning back from his repentance; as in the great instance (Gen. vi. 6) : “ And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at the heart ” (also 1 Sam. xv. 10, 11). God told Balaam to go with the men (Num. xxii., 20), and was angry with him because he went (Num. xxii. 21, 22). It teaches that God is invisible, yet we read (Gen. xxxii. 30) : “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved and (Ex. xxiv. 9, 10): “Then up went Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israeland, again (Ex. xxxiii. 11,23): “ And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend....... And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen and, finally (Gen. xviii.), we have the remarkable though perplexed account of the Lord paying a visit to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and eating with him of cakes, butter, milk, and veal. It teaches that God is all good ■, yet we read (Isa. xlv. 7): “I form the light and create darkness : I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things and (Lam. iii. 38): “ Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good ?” and (Ezekiel xx. 25): “ Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” It teaches that God is no respecter of persons ; yet we read (Gen. iv. 4, 5): “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering ; but unto Cain and his offering he had no respect;” and (Ex. ii. 25) : “ And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them;” and (Rom. ix. 11-13) : “For the children being not yet �16 BIBLE MORALITY, born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” And, in fact, nearly the whole Bible story is that of a chosen people, preferred above all other nations, surely for no superior goodness on their part! It teaches (Ex. xx. 5) that God is a jealous God, “ visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;” yet we read (Ezekiel xviii. 20): “ The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” It teaches that Christ is God (John i. 1, 14; Heb. i. 8); yet we read (John viii. 40) : “ But now ye seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard of God;” also (1 Tim. ii. 5): “ One mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” It teaches (John x. 30) that Christ and his father are one ; yet we read (John xiv. 28): “For my father is greater than I.” It teaches (John xvi. 30; Col. ii. 3) that Jesus knew all things ; yet we read (Mark xi. 13): “And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon; and, when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet■” and, far more significant (Mark xiii. 32) : “ But of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” It teaches of Jesus (John viii. 14): “ Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go ;” yet we read (John v. 31): “ If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” It teaches further (1 Tim. ii. 6) that he gave himself a ransom for all; yet we read (Matt. xv. 24): “ I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;” and (Mark vii. 26, 27): “The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs.” It teaches that miracles are proofs of a divine mission (Matt. ix. 6; John v. 36 ; Heb. ii. 4); yet (Deut. xiii. 1-3; Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9) warns against false prophets and anti-Christs, who shall show great signsand wonders. It teaches in many passages of the New �BIBLE MORALITY. 17 Testament that the end of the world is at hand, as in Matt, xxiv., 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52; 1 Thess. iv. 15; 1 Peter iv. 7; yet we read (2 Thess. ii. 2, 3): “ That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means.” Further, on this subject, we read (Matt. x. 23), in which Jesus is addressing the Apostles he sent forth : “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be comeyet we read (Matt. xxiv. 14) : “ And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come and, similarly (Mark xiii. 10): “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” It teaches (Luke i. 33 ; Heb. i. 8) that the kingdom of Christ shall endure forever; yet we read, in one of the most remarkable passages of the New Testament (1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28) : “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet........ And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all-in-all.” It teaches that the Holy Ghost is God (Acts v. 3, 4); yet we read (John xv. 26): “ But when the Com­ forter is come, whom shall I send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father and, again (John xiv. 16): “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter and, again (Acts x. 38); “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.” Finally, it teaches that “ all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable” (2 Tim. iii. 16); yet we read (1 Cor. vii. 6, 12): “ But I speak this by per­ mission, and not of commandment....... But to the rest speak I, not the Lord and similarly (2 Cor. xi. 17) : “ That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were fool­ ishly, in this confidence of boasting.” The foregoing are but a few of “ apparent discrepancies,” or, as we call them, direct self-contradictions; and, be it remembered, they concern the essentials of Christianity— the three persons of the God, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and the end of the world. The Bibliolater may �18 BIBLE MORALITY. be encouraged in the endeavour to reconcile them by the assurance that an indefinite further number, just as perplex­ ing, await solution. Those Christians who are too enlightened to accept the Bible, as it has chanced to come down to us, as in every word the very Word of God, and too free-minded to submit to the authority of a tradition which has varied with all climes and ages, or a Church whose history is a record of blunders, compromises, falsifications, self-contra­ dictions, probably unequalled in the annals of any merely secular institution whatever, manage to remain, in their own estimation, Christians, by believing that God’s saving revela­ tion to mankind is made in the Bible, and that everyone may read it for himself if he studies the volume in a re­ verent and prayerful spirit. They admit many errors of copyists, reject many passages, and even books, as decidedly spurious, and regard many others as doubtful; yet maintain that, all deductions made, there is left a clear and sufficient Divine message, whose essential character is untouched by .any of the errors or defects, and unchanged by any of the various readings. Now, this theory is certainly the most illogical which a Christian can hold ; for that of the thorough Bibliolater is consistent in its blind submission of reason to faith ; and the Roman and Church views are equally consistent in their blind submission to faith and tradition and ecclesiastical authority; while this new theory seeks and pretends to •conciliate things which are essentially irreconcilable—reason and faith, freethought and revelation, liberty and servitude, the natural and the supernatural. But, as it is the theory of some of the best and ablest of our religious fellow-citizens, and of those who are most heartily with us in much sound Secular work, it practically claims a fuller consideration here than it intrinsically merits. In the first place, it is evidently open to the fatal objec­ tion that it makes man the measure and standard of his God, setting up certain Scriptures as supernatural and Divine, then subjecting them to the arbitrament of human nature, the reason and conscience of the creature. Each of those who hold it says in effect: “ Here are books pur­ porting to contain the Word of God, and I believe they do contain it, but mixed with many vain words of men; �BIBLE MORALITY. 19 therefore, what suits me I shall consider Divine, and what does not suit me I shall reject.” Numerous clever attempts ■have been made to smooth away this sharp self-contradic­ tion ; but, so far as we are aware, and as was to be expected, not one that can be deemed even plausible by any candid outsider. There is but one mode of getting rid of it—a mode swift and effectual, obvious, and facile in theory; but, as long experience proves, very hard to put into practice— .and this is to surrender the initial claim of Divine inspira­ tion of the books, when, of course, it would be quite natural and consistent to sit in judgment on them, as on any other human writing, welcoming what in them we find good and true, rejecting what we find bad and false. It is indeed alleged that the special grace of the Holy Spirit always illumines and guides every one who studies these books in the proper frame of mind; but, as we find, in fact, that no two serious students read quite alike—each .reading in accordance with his peculiar temperament, intel­ lect, training, and circumstances, precisely as he would read were there no Holy Spirit in question—the said special grace, having no perceptible effect, may be safely left out of the calculation. Innumerable sectaries, all alike devout and sincere, all alike drawing their inspiration from the Bible, have differed widely on the very fundamental doc­ trines of Christianity; and we never heard of the Holy Spirit doing anything towards bringing these brethren into unity. A Christian eclectic submits the Bible to the test of his own reason and conscience, which have been educated and purified, not by the book itself, nor by any supernatural grace, but by the results of a long and gradual progress in secular enlightenment and civilisation ; which progress has been at nearly every step opposed on the authority of the book, and in the name of the religion founded on it. Doc­ trines that now revolt the common conscience did not in former centuries revolt the consciences of men who were taught by the book and purified by the Holy Spirit. It is not by special grace, nor revelation of the Holy Scriptures, but by critical scholarship, that men have come now to decide as to the genuineness and authenticity, the date and authority, of the various portions. Until free learning was revived at the classical or heathenish Renaissance, the Holy Spirit was content to leave all the most pious Biblical �20 BIBLE MORALITY. students in very deep darkness as to nearly all the points ott which our eclectic Christians are now so clearly enlightened. The family ideal set forth in the Bible is certainly not one of a high ethical nature. The domestic relationship of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon could not be emulated to-day without practising gross injustice,and submitting to utter moral degradation. The IndoEuropean race has developed in morals as in knowledge, and two thousand years ago, when Germanicus led the Roman legions, he beheld with wonder the respect with which the ignorant, rude, and warlike Germans treated their wives and daughters. It is an insult to civilised women for any one to commend the family ideal of those who made woman a slave. Even Christ is represented as treating women as if they were necessarily inferior to men ; while his conduct to his mother, his commendation and personal practice of celibacy, and his encouraging others to renounce their own obligations to their families, are not calculated to shed a halo of peace and happiness within the home circle. Moreover, St. Paul’s doctrine of the absolute submission of wives to their husbands can hardly be offered us to admire as an ideal. The Secularist family ideal is far superior to that of the Bible, inasmuch as it is on a level with the ethics of our societarian development. It teaches that marriage should be the result of mutual affection, and that such a union creates the responsibility of undivided allegiance, mutual fidelity, and mutual consideration. It affirms that in the domestic circle there should be no one-sided, absolute authority; that husband and wife should be partners in deed, not only in theory, animated alike by the desire to promote each other’s happiness. The basis of Bible morality, being God’s will, is very delusive, for the simple reason that, if such a will has been recorded, it is not known to us; and the conjectured repre­ sentations of it given to us by theologians of all ages are impracticable and conflicting. In the Bible there is not to be found only one will ascribed to its Deity, but many; and those are as contradictory as they are various. For instance, murder, adultery, theft, deceit, and other crimes can be proved from the Bible to be opposed to the expressed desire of God, as given in the Scriptures; while upon the �BIBLE MORALITY. 21 same authority these crimes can be shown to accord with God’s will. The result is, it is impossible to regulate human conduct upon the sanctions of either the “ inspired ” records. It is this peculiar nature of Bible teachings which was, prob­ ably, the cause of the early Christians lying for the glory of the Church (see Mosheim’s “ Ecclesiastical History ”), and of Christians at a more modern period robbing and murder­ ing those whom they termed heretics. In doing what they did in this persecuting business, the Bible believers, no doubt, thought that they were acting in accordance with •“God’s will,” as set forth in the “ Divine revelation.” The founders and promoters of those body-and-mind-destroying institutions, the Inquisition and the Star Chamber, were in all probability sincere, and many of them in the affairs of every-day life, apart from theology, good men. In religious matters, however, they were cruel and inhuman in the extreme. Why was this ? Because, no doubt, in punishing even to death those who opposed the true faith, they thought they were following the Bible as a guide (see Deuteronomy xiii. 6-9). The acceptance of the Bible as a standard of morality involves also the recognition of teachings and doctrines that are conflicting and impracticable. In one place we are told that faith alone will save us (Romans iii. 27, 28); while in another portion of this same “ authority ” we are assured that works are necessary to secure salvation (James ii. 24). In St. John we read, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me ” [Christ] (xiv. 6); and in the same gospel it is recorded, “ No man can come to me [Christ] except the Father draw him ” (vi. 44). This makes salvation depend, not upon man, but upon God. In John it is written, “ For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one while Timothy states distinctly that “ there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The New Testament teaches that Christ brought glad tidings for all men ; yet we are assured that he came but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel—that many are called, but few are chosen. In one chapter we learn that all sin can be forgiven, while in another part of the same book it is said that the sin against the Holy Ghost is never to be for­ given. In Timothy we read : “ For this is good and accept­ �22 BIBLE MORALITY. able in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all mento be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’7' But this cannot be if it is true that “ for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie.” If the delusions are sent by God, and if in conse­ quence mankind believe a lie, and get punished hereafter for such belief, it is only fair to suppose that God’s will was that they should not come to a knowledge of the truth; which contradicts what is stated in Timothy. John assuresus that “ whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” This is very consoling when we read the following : “ If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters—yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” To be a disciple of Christ you must hate your brother ; you are thus a mur­ derer, and “no murderer hath eternal life.” If you wish, therefore, to have eternal life, you must not become a dis­ ciple of Christ. Martyrdom by death may not always be the best way to advance a principle, inasmuch as more good can generally be done by living for a cause than by dying for it. But Christians say the martyrdom of the early Christians proves the truth of their doctrines, and in support of their contention they quote the words of Jesus : “ And I [Jesus] say unto you, My friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” These words, it is thought, prove that Jesus taught and held life cheaply, in order to advance more readily his doctrines. It appears, however, from John that Christ did what many of his followers now do—taught one thing and practised another; for on one occasion John says, “ Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” What are we to do in this case—follow Christ’s teaching, or his example ? To follow both is impossible. Some persons condemn all war upon the ground that it is anti-Scriptural, and in their justi­ fication they quote Matthew, where he says : “ Then said Jesus unto them, Put up again thy sword into its place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” The soldier, on the other hand, tells the peace man that we ought to possess swords ; for in Luke it is said : “ He that hath no sword let him sell his garments and buy one.” �BIBLE MORALITY. 23 Both would be equally justified, and both would be equally condemned, by the New Testament—a very perplexing position to be in. But the man fond of fighting would keep his sword, believing that the more Christianity became spread the more use there would be for the sword, as Christ declared: “ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” If Christ had succeeded in his object -—and he has partially—the advocate of the sword would have had good grounds for justification. St. Paul considers charity the highest of virtues, without which all other acquirements are as nothing. But then he immediately destroys the efficacy of such teaching by the following command : “ As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” We are told that “ wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.” But we are also assured that in much wisdom there is much grief, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. It is folly to guide man to wisdom, telling him that it is better than riches, while he is taught that “ the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.” Where is the incentive for a youth to acquire knowledge when St. Paul says, “It is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the pru­ dent ” ? From these samples of the incoherent nature of Bible statements and teachings, it will be seen how impossible it is to rely implicitly on such a book as a guide in human conduct. True, Christians may urge that there is no con­ tradiction in the cases cited; that the Bible is God’s Word, and must therefore be all true. It is in vain that the student points out that this revelation abounds with impos­ sibilities and absurdities, for he is reminded that with God all things are possible, therefore let “ God be true, and every man a liar.” It is further urged that the mistakes occur through our lack of comprehension ; that the Scrip­ tures would be plain enough if we could only “ see our way clear ” to accept them as gospel; and that the depravity of our nature prevents us viewing revealed truth in a spiritual �24 BIBLE MORALITY. light. These are the sentiments of many who profess to accept the Bible as a guide. Truly, we must become as little children if we endorse the doctrine of Scriptural infalli­ bility. The conduct of those who, in the face of such incon­ sistency, contend for Bible infallibility is something more than foolish; it is criminal. To shelter all that the Bible contains under the halo of “ divinity ” is to pay homage to the worst of human weaknesses. If a man is to pursue an intellectual career; if he is to foster a manly independence; if he is to live a life of integrity, he must not be bound either by ancient folly or modern orthodoxy; but, unfettered, he should learn the lessons afforded by a knowledge of the facts of nature, and from the discoveries of science acquire those rules which through life will be a surer counsellor than the Bible, and a safer guide than theology. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 A name given to the resource Bible morality Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the NSS pamphlet collection. Title in KVK given as 'Bible Morality: Its Teachings Shown to be Contradictory and Defective as an Ethical Guide'. Publication given in KVK as London : Watts and Co., [19--]. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [19--] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1582 N658 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Ethics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><p>This work (Bible morality), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible-Criticism NSS Philosophy and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/94c8f8e935162b7f6832827aa700ea8c.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=cLVlMHNnduvC9dFzmTdW3x2xYOaN70%7Eb44dnIzzx%7E0r77noJ6Sk7C0a-q1pWWuAdhjc2ooYMRnaU%7E7HRAUFDfcRbv%7EAj3Y5XsoAaZ4OuhZQJ-BEVsovacXzxToibrc6AMNqy2Xo4sd4JOIzaz8H1yFyFk90j9iq7pAzQvbiDwqG4qCbGLw4jBTZag%7EKqoElEiYVP0Qjm37-wZwhr4RWQpcf62puenhG0H1gwVpzyQfAkN-8Mp69Ruc8h0v-ZBcFuW0evm4jtjyamDisC-RZWo8AXS8DXxAjzrVTu4iEanfMPkr5s-QnRioo31NKxqeMCvwXH%7El5mvrjQH50OUBz2DA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5208f16ad726b03b7ea1c1bd4747289c PDF Text Text rgj | fc • ’ . ■ ‘ * "f ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE PAR EMILE SAISSET. PREMIERE PARTIE.—ETUDES HISTORIQUES SIXlfiME fiTUDE. — LE SCEPTICISME DE KANT. Ai-je enfin trouve dans Leibnitz la verite complete et absolue sur Lieu, et ne me reste-t-il qu’a la conserver comme mon plus cher tresor et a la preserver des atteintes du scepticisme ? Je l’ai cru longtemps, et chaque fois que je relis les Essais de theodicee, je me reprends a le croire. Quelle admirable creation! Comme la pensee y est grande, et comme elle est simple! Que de genie et que de bon sens! Tous les besoins de Fame y sont satisfaits : le coeur est touche, la raison convaincue, et en meme temps l’imagination curieuse et bardie voit s’ouvrir devant elle des horizons sans limite. Je voudrais m’arreterla, mais c’est impossible. Plus je considere 1’enchainement des pensees de Leibnitz sur les choses divines, plus je vois que toutes ses vues se rattachent a un vaste systeme dont il est bien difficile de les separer. Et certes, ce systeme est d’une grandeur et d’une ricliesse merveilleuses. Il embrasse tous les objets que la curiosite humaine peut se proposer; il poursuit jusqu’aux dernieres limites de la raison l’explication de l’enigme des existences. C’est, je crois, le systeme le plus Vaste qu’aucune intelligence d’homme ait jamais concu; mais si vaste qu’il soit, est-il autre chose qu’un systeme ? Dieu" concu comme la monade supreme dont toutes les monades �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPIIIE RELIGIEUSE. 27 finies sont des fulgurations continuelles, est-ce la une pensee entierement exempte d’erreur et de peril? Je crains d’y trouver quelque analogie avec la nature naturante de Spinoza. Si Dieu en effet est defini la force absolue, puis-je concevoir cette force autrement qu’en acte? n’est-il pas de 1’essence d’une force de se developper? Mais alors que devient la notion de l’etre tout parfait, de ce principe immuable, accompli, qui se suffit pleinement a soi-meme et a’a besoin de rien autre que soi? Et puis ces monades qui emanent confinuellement du Createur, chacune renfermant en elle le germe de tous ses developpements, est-ce une conception qui satisfasse aux donnees de Texperience? N’y a-t-il pas dans cette evolution reglee par lla loi de continuity une espece de fatalisme universel? Et meme, a y regarder de pres, ces forces, qui ne sortent pas d’elles-memes, qui sont hermetiquement fermees a toute influence exterieure, ri’ay ant, point, comme dit Leib­ nitz, de fenetres sur le dehors, sont-ce des forces yeritables? Ne ressemblent-elles pas plutot a des abstractions mathematiques, telles, par exemple, que les points successifs d’une courbe rigoureusement continue dont l’equation serait ecrite de toute eternite? Je demande aussi a Leibnitz comment ces monades, qui sont par definition des unites simples, peuvent expliquer l’etendue et le mouvement? Il me dira que 1’etendue etie mouvement ne sont rien d’absolu, mais de simples phenomenes, des apparences fugitives, pareilles a l’arc-en-ciel. Dites le mot, Leibnitz. Ce sont pour vous de pures illusions. Or deja, a vous en croire, l’influence que je m’imagine exercer sur mes membresest une ilfSbilX gallon dt la reaction perpetuelles des etres de la nature les uns sur les autres, encore une illusion. J’habite doncun monde d’illusions! Et qui sait done si le Dieu que je me represente comme T© centr| vivanf et actif de ce monde, n’est pas, lui aussi, une illusion comme tout le reste? Voila done le terme ou me conduisent, par des chemins difierents, Descartes et Leibnitz, Malebranche ef Newton. L’un'me,presente ses tourbillons, l’autre ses monades; l’un estpour le plein, 1’autre pour le vide; l’un se declare mecaniste, l’aiitre dynamiste, Ils n’ont tous peut-etre qu’un trait commun, e’est d’habiter le pays des chimeres. Descartes me parle d’un Dieu dont la :toute-puissance est tellement absolue qu’elle fait a son gre non-seulement Ips etres, mais les verites. Point du tout, dit Malebranche, la volonte de Dieu est reglee par sa sagesse. Voici Newton qui se represente son Dieu comme re- ? �28 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. pandu dans la duree et dans l’espace, et bornant sa fecondite derisoire a disperser a travers les champs infinis de l’immensite quelques atomes dont l’economie fragile menace a chaque instant de se dissoudre. Leibnitz proteste et soutient que Dieu est en dehors et audessus de l’espace, et que, sans tomber dans le temps, il remplit les espaces et les siecles des fulgurations de sa puissance infinip. Quel amas de pensees contradictoires ! Si Descartes et Newton, si Malebranche et Leibnitz ne se sont pas entendus, la faute en est-elle ] a ces grands genies? Le seul coupable, c’est l’esprit humain. Car1 enfin pourquoi, en metaphysique, les systemes succedent-ils aux systemes, sans que jamais rien puisse durer et s’etablir? A quoi bon ces mouvements qui agitent la pensee sans la faire avancer d’un pas ? Ne serait-ce point que le probleme de la nature des choses surpasse l’homme, que les systemes exprjment tout simplement les formes de notre enfendement, c’est-a-dire les divers points de vue sous lesquels nous nous representons les choses, que nous n’avons de prise certaine que sur les objets de l’experience, et qu’il faut se resigner a explorer la surface des choses, dans une impuissance eternelle de percer le my stere de leur origine et de leur fin. Voila les impressions et le&dputes qui se glissent dans mon esprit aii-spectacle des contradictions du genie. Sont-ce la des pensees qui me soient propres? Non; elles sont venues a de grands esprits, a Voltaire, a Reid, a Locke, a Hume, a Kant; elles ont ete l’opinion commune de tout un siecle. Je me ferais scrupule de ne pas consulter a leur tour ces grands douteurs, et je veux leur donner ' pour interprete celui qui passe pour avoir le plus resolument embrasse et le plus, fortement congu et combine ce qui etait dans l’esprit de tous les autres. Cet homme est Kant. On dit que les formes de son systeme sont lourdes et pedantesques. Peu m’importe, pourvu que je puisse en comprendre le fond. Kant nous raconte, avec cette sincerite et cette candeur qui relevent en lui la force et l’originalite du genie par la beaute du caractere, que son initiateur en philosophic fut David Hume. Quand la lecture du philosophe ecossais l’eut, dit-il, reveille de son sommeil dogma- i tique, le premier fait qui frappa. son attention, ce fut la variete, la contradiction et le rapide declin de tous les systemes metaphysiques* | D’ou vient, se demanda le disciple desabuse de Leibnitz et de Wolf, d’ou vient que la philosophic, depuis deux mille ans, erre ainsi a l’aventure, a la merci de ces reveries steriles et changeantes qu’on �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 29 appelle des systemes, alors que d’autres sciences deploient une activite si reguliere en ses mouvements, si feconde en ses produits? Les mathematiques ont eminemment ce caractere : elles changent et se renouvellent, ilestvrai, mais pour s’accroitre et s’enrichir sans cesse. Descartes a surpasse Euclide, et tous deux ont ete surpasses par Newton; mais le calcul infinitesimal n’a pas detruit F analyse cartesienne, pas plus que celle-ci n’avait renverse la vieille geometric. En metaphysique, au contraire, les systemes renversent les systemes. Un philosophe ne peut croire qu’il a raison sans condamner tous les autres a 1’erreur, et 1’oeuvre incessamment reprise dans son entier est toujours a reprendre encore. Pour penetrer la cause de ce contraste extraordinaire, Kant soumet a une analyse profonde la constitution intime, des sciences., Il re­ marque, et c’est pour lui un trait de lumiere, que les mathematiques n’ont pas pour objet de connaitre les choses en elles-memes, mais seulement de developper certaines notions inherentes a l’esprit humain, les notions d’unite, de nombre, d’espace, et autres semblables. Par exemple, la geometrie s’inqui'ete peu de l’essence des corps de la nature; elle s’attache a la notion d’etendue, notion independante des sens, et avec cette don"ee toutJSleoout M^raite, llle developpe la serie de ses constructions et de peg L’objet du geometre, ce n’est pas une essciiqe, un etre en soi, c’est une idee. De meme, \ l’algebriste ne s’interesse en rien a ces objets changeants dont l’egaI lite n’est qu’apparente, dont l’uriite csrtouten?mative; ctest la quantite * ideale, le nombre abstrait, c’est-a-dire encore une idee, une notion, qui fait la matiere de ses equations. Telle est, suivant Kant, 1’explication de la solidite singuliere et de jl^B^i^u^iiBntestee des sciences mathematiques. Elles n’ont pas seules ce privilegeWle^sciences' phwques yantent avec raison leur caractere positif et leur regulierl developpement; mais depuis quand ont-elles prisle rang eleve qu’ejles occupent dans l’estime des hommes? depuis qu’elles'se sent separ&^de la meta­ physique et qu’elles ont abando'nnu la*chimere d’una,explication absolue des choses pour se reduire* a l’experience et au calcul : a ■’experience, quirecueille les faits, au calcui, qui leur’applique les lois de la pensee. La physique n’a rien a demeler avec l’essence im­ penetrable des choses. Les corps sont-ils ou non divisibles a l’infini? Le monde a-t-il eu ou non un commencement? Qu’importe a Ga­ lilee et a Kepler? Ils laissent les docteurs de l’ecole argumenter pour �30 ESSAI DE PIIILOS.OPHIE RELLGIEUSE. et contre ces fantomes opposes; il leur suffit d’explorer la nature etde mesurer les cieux. Interrogez l’histoire des sciences philosophiques elles-memes. Depuis Aristote, tout a change en philosophic, une seule chose exceptee, la logique. Ainsi la metaphysique varie avec les systemes, la logique leur survit. Pourquoicela? c’est que la logique ne s’occupe en aucune facon des objets de la pensee, mais seulement de la pensee en ellememe. Le premier qui s’est pose ce probleme : A quelles conditions la pensee peut-elle, ense developpant, rester toujours d’accord avec ses propres lois? celui-la a cree la logique. Que sont devenues les entelechies d’Aristote, et ses formes substantielles, et son premier ciel? Tout cela n’est plus,, mais Y Organon est reste; il est reste avec YHistoire des Animaux^ parce que. deux choses seules restent dans les sciences : les faits de la nature visible et les lois de la pensee. Telle m’apparait Fidee mere de la Critique de la Raison pure die est aussi simple que bardie. Des deux elements dont le rapport et. 1’harmonie composent la science, savoir, l’esprit humain, d’une part,, le sujet et; deFautre, les choses,, les etres, Vobjet, Kant se propose: de supprimer le seeond et de reduire la science au premier. Ecarter a jamais ^objectifi comme' absolument inaccessible et indetermi­ nable, wit resoudre dans le subjectify, voila son but, et de la les grandes lignes de son entreprise. Kant me fait suivre four a tour deux voies diverses et convergentes. Il m’enferme d’abord dans le sujet,c’est-a-dire dans l’analyse de l’es­ prit humain, et ramenant toutes les lois. qui gouvernent la pensee a mi certain nombre de concepts elementaires rigoureusement definis et classes* il s’efforce de me prouver que ces concepts n’ont qu’une valeur subjective et relative,, incapables qu’ils sont de me rien apprendre sur 1’essence des choses, et uiiles seulement a coordonner les phenomenes de Fexperience, ou, en.d’autres termes, a imprimer aux connaissances humaines le caractere de Fiinite. Cette oeuvre achevee,. Kant me propose de. soumettre a une grande epreuve dialectique les resultats de son analyse: il parcourt avec moi successivement les trois grands’objets des speculations metaphysiques, l’ame, l’univers et Dieu, et entreprend de me faire voir qu’il n’y a pas une seule asser­ tion dogmatique sur Fessence de Fame, sur l’origine et les elements de l’univers, enfin sur Fexistence de Dieu, qui ne puisse etre convairicue de s’appuyer sur un paralogisme, de couvrir une antinomie oude realiser arbitrairement une abstraction. �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 3£ Je vais suivre tour a tour la Critique de la Raison pure sur le ter­ rain de l’analyse et sur celui de la dialectique. Kant decompose tout le mecanisme de la connaissance humaine en trois fonctions intellect tuelles, savoir : la Sensibilite, l’Entendement et la Raison. Apercevoir les choses particulieres, ou en d’autres termes former des intui­ tions, voila l’acte propre de la Sensibilite; saisir les rapports des choses et former des jugements, voila Facte propre de l’Entendement; former enfin des raisonnements,, c’est-a-dire lier entre eux les juge­ ments et rattacher les consequences a leurs principes,./voila Facte propre de la liaison. Or, dans l’exercide de chacune de. ces. trois fonc­ tions intellectuelles, F analyse dccouvre deux elements, Fun qui est a priori, l’autre qui est a postw®ri.-Le premier constitue la matiere; de la connaissance, le second sa.forme,., Celui-la est domic * pour ainsi dire, du dehors; celui-ci sort.du propre fonds. de F esprit, de* son activite, de sa spontaneity natives..Par.. exemple v nul acte de la sensibilite ou nulle intuition'n’est:possible.qu’a.Kaide des notions d’espace et de temps. Kant soutient que ces notions sont a priori, et il les appelle formes pures de la sensibilite. De meme, nul acte de l’entendement ou nul jugement n’esfc possible quia* Fiaide, de eertaines notions d’unite, de realite,vde possibility, etc., lesquelles sont egalement a priori, et que Kant appelle les concepts purs de l’entendement. Enfin, nul acte de la raison ou nul raisonnement n’est possible qu’a l’aide de certaines notions de Fabsolu ou de: Finconditionnel.. Kant leur donne le nom d’idees pures de la raison. Il s’agit maintenant de recueillir ces formes, ces concepts, ces idees,,1014 supremes;, ressorts constitutifs de la. raison Kuniaine,. pour. en. approfondir la. nature et en mesurer la portee. L’analyse de la sensibilite est dans le systeme de Kant une affaire capitale. La sensibiliteH.effetestlasource des.intuitions,, lesquelles deviennent la matiere des jugements et par suite des raisonnements,, ‘ ce qui nous conduit jusqu’a l’idee de Fabsolu, forme supreme de toutes nos connaissances. Dans toute perception d’tin phenomena exMrieiir., /^ffljtWsiihgue. deux choses : d’une part,Je. phenomeneexemple tel; mouvement corporel; de l’autre, la condition de ce phenomene,. savoir l’espace, sans lequel aucun mouvemem ne saurait etre percu. Les phenomenes exterieurs varient.a l’infini; Jacondition.de ces phenomenes, l’espace, esttoujours la .meme. Liespace est done, suivant Kant, la forme pure des sens exterieurs. De meme, le tempsl est la �32 ESSAI DE PHIL0S0PH1E RELIGIEUSE. forme pure du sens intime, nulle sensation et en general nulle modi­ fication de nous-memes ne pouvant etre percue que sous la condition du temps. L’espace et le temps, voila done les deux formes pures de la sensibilite. Etant concus comme anterieurs aux phenomenes j| comme uns et infinis, l’espace et le temps ne sont pas des objets de l’experience, qui ne donne que des phenomenes toujours divers et toujours limites. Qu’est-ce done que l’espace et le temps? Voulezvous en faire des choses absolues, objectives? mais alors, soit que vous les eleviez au rang d’etres en soi, soit que vous en fassiez des attributs de Dieu, soit enfin que vous les reduisiez a des proprietes ou a des rapports des etres de la nature, vous tombez egalement dans l’absurde. Dans le premier cas, en effet, vous aboutissez a deux etres absolus qui sont des non-etres; dans le second, vous confondez le temps avec 1’eternitej l’espace avec l’immensite; dans le troisieme, comme vous ne donnez a l’espace et au temps qu’une valeur contingente, vous etes dans l’iinpossibilite d’expliquer le caractere absolu de deux sciences fondees sur les notions d’espace et de temps, savoir, la geometrie et la mecanique rationnelle. Il suit de la que l’espace et le temps n’ont aucune sorte de realite objective et ne peuvent etre autre chose que des formes de la connaissance: formes necessaires, univer­ selies, donnees a priori, mais n’ayant aucune portee au dela du sujet, n’exprimant que la nature de la pensee, ne servant qua rendre l’experience possible. Telle est en substance 1’esthetique transcendantale de Kant, et il faut convenir qu’elle est subtile, profonde, originale; mais est-elle exacte? il me semble que non, et si les principes manquent d’exac­ titude, comment les conclusions ne manqueraient-elles pas de rigueur? Toute cette ingenieuse theorie de Kant sur l’espace et le temps renferme une erreur qui se retrouve dans toute la suite de son oeuvre analytique et en corrompt tous les resultats; au lieu d’observer la realite, il tourmente des abstractions; au lieu de chercher dans la conscience l’origine des notions fondamentales, il les prend toutes formees, a l’etat ou une longue suite d’abstractions les a portees, et il s’imagine que ces notions abstraites sont anterieures a l’experience, sans laquelle pourtant elles seraient parfaitement vides et inintelli— gibles. • Kant considere l’espace et le temps sous leur forme la plus gene­ rale et la plus abstraite, anterieurement a toute notion d’etendue sen­ sible et de duree particuliere et determinee. Or, il est parfaitement �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 33 inexact que mon esprit debute par de telles conceptions. Avant l’abstrait, le concret; avant la notion d’espace, la notion d’etendue; avant la notion de temps, les notions de succession et d’identite personnelle. Je vois un corps ou je le touche, je le percois comme etendu; en le maniant, je passe d’une impression a une autre, je me sens identique dans la succession de ces deux etats, je me sens durer; il n’y a point encore dans mon esprit Fidee abstraite d’espace, Fidee abstraite du temps. Ce n’est qu’apres avoir percu bien des etendues et bien des durees que je formerai, par l’abstraction, l’idee generale d’espace et l’idee generale de temps, pour arriver enfin a concevoir, par la, rai­ son, au dela de tous les corps et de toutes les durees, un etre infini, absolu, pur des limitations de l’etendue, etranger aux vicissitudes du temps, en un mot, immense et eternel. Ainsi done, d’abord, par un acte d’in tuition, les notions concretes de telle etendue sensible, de telle duree delerminee; puis, par un acte d’abstraction, les nations generates -d’espace et de temps; puis, par un acte de raison, leS conceptions absolues d’eterriiteet d’immensite; voila la vraie histoire de mon esprit a la place de l’histdire fantastique tracee par Kant. Ayant une fois sepafe, isole l’espace et le temps de toute intuition concrete d’etendue et de duree, il n’est pas mervci’lleux qn’il trouve ces notions vides, creuses, insignifiantes; pour leur rendre leur rea­ lite et leur sens, il suffit de les rapporter a leun'^reritableorigine, de les replacer au sein de la conscience. Un kantien me demandera-t-il maintenant ce que -je pense de la nature objective'de l’espace et du temps? Je lui repondrai qu’il faut distinguefientre fl*etendue, l’espace et l’irnmensite, comme ilfaut distinguer entre-la duree, le temps et d’eternite. L’etendue est une propriety reelle des corps*, et 'la duree une propriety reelle de> tousBes etres qui| changent ;* l’immensite et l’eternite sont deux atfribuWMe Ffitre divin, lesquels expriment la permanence et l’omnipresence de son etre, profondement distinctes et independantes de toute succession et de toute forme finie; l’espace et le temps enfin sont de pures abstractions. Oui, j ’en conviens, faire de Fespace et du temps des etres en soi, cela est deraisonnable; concevoir Dietl Confine durant et etendupmeme a l’infini, cela n’est pas moins insoutenable^je l’accorde encore; mais je ne suis pas pour cela condamne a refuser a la science de l’etendue et a la science du mouvemdni leur caractere absolu. En effet, tout en reconnaissant que les propositions de la geometric sortt absolument Tome III. — 9* Livraison. 3 �34 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. necessaires, je puis expliquer autrement que Kant leur necessity. La geometrie repose sur l’idee de l’espace, idee abstraite a mon avis; mais cette idee abstraite etant donnee, toutes les consequences qui s’en deduisent sont necessaires, par la necessity inherente au principe meme du raisonnement, au principe d’identite. Le triangle, le cercle ne sont pas des choses reelles, ce sont de pures constructions de 1’esprit tracant pour ainsi dire au sein de Tidee abstraite de l’etendue' diverses limitations precises; mais le cercle etant une fois pose comme cercle, il est necessaire que ses rayons soient egaux, Voila la necessity inherente aux propositions geometriques; die n’a nul besoin d’une pretendue intuition a priori de l’espace un et infini; elle n’a besoin que de la necessity de ce principe : A est A, un cercle est un cercle, en general, une chose ne peut pas etre differente d’elle-meme, prin­ cipe evidemment necessaire et absolu, qui communique sa necessity a toutes ses consequences, L’analyse de l’entendement a, dans le systeme de Kant, les memes defauts que celle de la sensibilite : elle est artificielle et fausse, prenant des abstractions pour des realites, etrangere a l’observation vraie de la conscience. De quoi s’agit-il en definitive? de rendre compte d’un •certain nombre de notions premieres qui sont, en effet, presentes dans tous nos jugements, comme les notions de cause, de sub­ stance, d’unite, lesquelles deviennent la base de ces grands principes sur Lesquels repose le systeme tntier de nos connaissances. Que fait Kant? au lieu d’observer la conscience humaine et d’avoir l’oeil fixe sur ce principe reel et vivant qui dit moi, qui se saisit immediatement lui-meme, qui se sent vivre, agir, durer, qui s’apercoit, non comme une condition abstraite de la pensee, mais comme un sujet reel et vivant, comme une veritable cause, une veritable substance, une veritable unite, au lieu, dis-je, de contempler ce monde des rea­ lties interieures, Kant se perd dans un labyrinthe inextricable de conceptions abstraites et de distinctions arbitrages, Il dresse une table de tous les jugements possibles ; il en reconnait douze especes, reparties trois a trois dans quatre cadres distincts, suivant leur qua­ lity, leur relation et leur modalite. Ces douze especes de jugements, generaux, particuliers et singuliers, affirmatifs, negatifs et linaitatifs, categoriques, hypothetiques et disjonctifs, problematiques, assertoriques et apodictiques, representent a ses yeux douze fonctions logiques de I’entendement, douze procedes distincts pour ramener une variete donnee a 1’unite. Il conclut de la qu’il doit y avoir dans 1’entende- �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 35 ment douze concepts purs, qui seuls peuvent rendre possibles ces diverses formes du jugement. G’est ainsi que sont introduites les .fameuses categories : unite, pluralite et totalite; realite, negation et Limitation; inherence, dependance et reciprocite ; possibility, existence et necessity. Suivant Kant, tous ces concepts sont a priori, antgrieurs a toute experience, absolument necessaires a la formation du.moindre juge­ ment. Ge n’est pas tout, une nouvelle condition est nece^aire : audessus de ces douze formas pures de l’entqndement’, Kant place une forme generale qu’il appelle ljunite synthetique de l’aperception, ou ' encore Funi te trans^ndantale de la ^conscience. Etji’allez pas croire qu’il soit ici question, de la .conscience que chacun de nous a -de ses actes, de cette conscience qui se traduit par .des affirmations comme celles-ci: Je sens, je pense, je suis. Non, la.conscience de Kant est une conscience abstraite, un cogito logique, une forme generale de la pensee; en un mot, ce n’est pas un fait, une realite est une pure abstraction, arhitrairement erigee en condition necessaire ei a priori de tout jugement possible. Voila une analyse qui paraitdejabien compliquee, mais Kant n’est pas encore au bo.uE Il se flatte :|.uavdnf rendu compte des con­ cepts purs d’unite, d’inherence, de dependance, etc1. ; nicds 11 n’a pas encore atteint les notions de cause, de substance, d’activi^, ni les principes correspondants. G’est pourquoi4.il ajopite lei sa theorie du schematisme. Outre ses’douze concepts purs, il lui faut douze schemes, c’est-a-dire douze representations a priori du temps, schemes de quantite , scnemesi de qualite, schemes de relation , schemes de modalitd’ il lui faut ces representations pour vivifier ses concepts abstraits, pour ges rendre applicables aux donnees de Fexperience, pour leur donnejune valeur et un sens. J’ai epuise enfin la serie compliquee, ’subtile, laborieuse, des con­ ditions sous lesquelles Kant .croit parvenir a rendre compte des prin­ cipes de l’esprit humain, et par exemple des principes de causalite et de substance. Or, s’il faut dire tout ce que je pense, ,il n’y a rien de plus faux, rien de plus vain que cettepretendue deduction qui lui a coute tant d’eflorts. Kant altere 'essenticllement les notions de cause et de substance. La notion1 de cause se transforme pour lui en celle de succession con stante; la notion de substance en celle de perma­ nence. Ge sont la deux erreurs psychdlogiques de la deriiiere gravite. Quand je produis une actionvolontaire, un efiori des muscles, par �36 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. exemple, il n’y a pas entre ces deux termes, ma volonte et l’effortJ une simple relation de succession, comme entre le jour et la nuitl ou, si Kant aime mieux, entre le vent qui souffle et le roseau qui plie. Il y a une relation bien plus intime, bien plus profonde : ma volonte produit l’effort, ma volonte est une cause dont l’effort est un effet, cause fixe, une, identique, qui se manifeste par une variete indefinie de phenomenes. Plus j’approfondis la notion de cette acti—j vite, de ce moi qui fait le fond de ma conscience, plus je reconnaSi qu’il s’apercoit, non-seulement comme cause, mais comme sub­ stance, je veux dire comme un etre tour a tour ou simultanement actif et passif, mais toujours identique sous la succession de ses modifications diverses. Ce n’est point la une substance abstraite, comme celle de Kant, un je ne sais quoi concu comme permanent, en opposition avec un ecoulement de phenomenes dont ce terme per­ manent serait la condition abstraite et a priori; c’est une substance reelle, une substance determihee, une substance qui se sait et se sent exister et agir. Voila une analyse bien simple, bien facile a verifier; cependant elle suffit pour faire crouler tout l’echafaudage d’abstrac­ tions, symetrique, subtil, ingenieux, j’eii tombe d’accord, mais tout artificiel, eleve par la main de Kant.' A la place de ces concepts a priori, parfaitement vides et creux, il faut done substituer des intui­ tions immediates de la conscience, pleines de realite et de vie; a la place de ces principes arbitraires, sans usage et sans portee, de veritables principes tenant par leurs racines a 1’experience, et dans leurs amples developpements embrassant l’univers et portant jusqu’aDieu. Tels sont les vices essenliels qui me frappent dans l’oeuvre analytique de Kant, et cela suffit pour me mettre en garde contre les con­ sequences qu’il va tirer de ces faux principes dans la partie dialectique de son entreprise. Kaiit m’a explique tout a l’heure quel est, suivant lui, le role de la raison dans l’economie de nos connaissances. La raison prise en gene­ ral est la faculte de raisonner, e’est-a-dire de ramener le particulier au general^ Or, cette operation suppose un dernier principe general qui soit la condition de tous les autres et qui lui-meme soit inconditionnel. La conception de cet inconditionnel, tel est l’office de la rai­ son pure. Mais la raison pure ne se borne pas a concevoir l’inconditionnel; elle entend se servir de cette idee pour speculer a priori sur la nature des etres. De la, si j’en veux croire Kant, des illusions �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 37 necessaires. Pour les detruire a jamais, il entreprend d’en decouvrir I les sources psychologiques et de faire en quelque sorte la science des T erreurs naturelles de l’esprit humain. Le principe general de la raison pure est celui-ci : Le conditionnel etant donne, avec lui est donnee la serie entiere des conditions et par ( consequent l’inconditionnel lui-rneme. Ceprincipe revolt,trois grandes applications, l’une au sujet de la pensee, F autre aux^objet^sensibles, la troisieme aux choses en general. De la trois idees : Fidee psycho] ogique, l’idee cosmologique et l’idee theologique. La raison cherche dans la conscience un sujet qui ne soit pas l’attribut d’un autre sujet, un sujet absolu, l’ame ou la substance pensante. En presence des objets sensibles, elle remonteu&e phenomene en phenomene et concoit quelque chose de premier et de definitif comme servant de base et de ■principe aux phenomenes du ^^m>s J Egbragsarf renfip, U totality absolue des existences possfBlK elle pose, comme condition de cette totality, une unite absolue qui est Dieu. Ces trois idees, ces trois principes, Fame, le Cosm(^eLDieu,^&peuyen^te,-W3dgonature meme, ni demontres, ni peuvent gKp^^Bmfces, puisqu’ils sont ce qu’il y a d^Mnstration; ils ne peuvent etre realises, puisqu’ils representent ce qui est au dela de toute experience possible. Leur valeur est done purement subjective*, ils n’etendent pas la connaissance humaine, ils la circonscrivent et l’achevent, voila tout. La metaphysique a d’autres pretentions pretend faire la science de Fame, celle du Cosmos et celle meme de Dieu. De la conce|)tion abstraitedenotre e^e.pehsant, Jaquirie ®en de multiple, elle conclut a l’unite absolue de cet etre, ce qui est un ’ paralogisme. De F impossibility de s’arreter dans la serie regressive ' des phenomenes, elle..cqnfelut Jl uneSadition' cette condition se presente de deuxMccm^^^^dict^^il enresulte une antinomie; enfin, de la totalite desaiobi'et^.eEL' general, elle conclut a l’etre des etres comme condition de la possibi­ lity des choses et fondement deMie^^nceMniv^^lle.!S|n que cet etre nous soit absolument inconnu. De .la, un. ideal nuenous transformons arbitrairement en chose reelle et oil nous voyons meme le fondement de toute realitq. AinsjL l’lmel% runjfeJa|fDieu, tous les objets de notre pensee,, tout l’edifice de nos croyances, tombe Apiece a piece et s’ecroule sous la main de Kant, et la conclusion de cette dialectique negative, c’est que la nietaphysique entiere, avec les �38 • ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. trois sciences qui la constituent, psychologie rationnelle, cosmologid rationnelle, theologie rationnelle, est ruinee a jamais. J’entends dire autour de moi que ces objections de Kant sont absolument invincibles. Mais sans dissimuler ce qu’elles ont a quelques ogards de fort et de serieux, il me semble von? ici, comme dans son oeuvre analytique, beaucoup plus d’artifiee que de solidite. Kant reduit la psychologie .aux quatre theses suivantes : lame est une substance, lime est simple, Fame est une, Fame est spirituelle. Or, suivaut bailees quatre propositions reposent uniquement sur quatre; arguments vicicux ou se retrouve toujours le meme paralogisme. On pose, dit-il', dans les- premisses un moi purement subjectif, qui n’est1 autre chose1 qu’une condition logique de la perception des pheno— menes, et dans le passage des premisses a la conclusion, on trans­ form^ ce moi subjectif et logique ehJun moi objectif doue d’une realiteabsolue / Je repondrai a Kant que sa dialectique peut etre vietorieuse eontre Ja psychologie concue a la maniere de Wolf, je veux dire exclusivement fbndee sur Fabus des procedes logiques, mais qu’elle ne saurait atteindre la veritable science de Fame, celle qui prend son point d’appui, non dans des syllogismes, mais dah^’ttne analyse approfondie de la nature humaine. En effet, quelle est la veritable base de la psycho­ logie ?un fait permanent et tiniverseL le fait de conscience. Je sens vivre au dedans de moi un principe toujours present, qui ne se confond pas avec la seriede mes modifications, que je retrouve identique a lui-mfeme sous les vicissitudes de mon existence mobile, qui, sort en subissant Faction des choses exterieures, soit en reagissant art' dehors, soit en sei concentrant sur soi dans une action tout interieure, a chaque instant se connatt, a chaque instant Faffirme avee une darts et une certitude infaillibles. Est-ce la le moi dont parle Kant, ce sujet logique, cette forme abstraite* pure condition de la possibility de Fexperienee? non, evidemment non; Le moi de la conscience est une force en action, une Energie qui se deploiej quelque chose d’essentielI'ementreeT, contret, vivant. Maintenaht, pour etre reel et concret, ce moi n’a-t-il qu’une valeur empirique? n’esHT pas un veritable etre, une veritable substance?On refusera d’fen eonvenir, si: avee Kant! on fait de la substance un principe mysterieux, un je ne sais quoi, un X algebrique, si avee lui bn se plait a creuser un abime infranehis*sable entre la consdence et la Faison, ent re le monde des phenomenes ei le monde des etres. Mais- cette separation n’a aucun sens pour l’obr - % �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 30 ^TS^eur attentif. Dans l’acte de conscience en effet, le sujet se saisit lui-meme et s’affirme comme objet. Entre le moi qui agit et le moi qui se sent agir, l’analyse peut distinguer, mais la nature, le mouvement reel de la vie ne distinguent pas, Fobjectif et le’subjectif ne font qu’un. Et maintenant, pow; dfeblir Fwitei,, la simplicity lagubstotialite^ la spirituality de Fame, faudra-t-il faire appel au raisonnement, construire des syllogismes?Il est cl air qu'e cefe est parfaitement inutile; j’ajoute que cela m’a toujours paru tres-dangereux. En effet, raisonner pour trouver Famy^estadmettire que' Fame ne s’apercoit pas elle-meme, c’est eteblir une' distinction factice entrb' dJdtix moi,f le; moi de la conscience et fe mor dh la raison, c’est eiever enfre eiix une bstt’riere arbitraire que le raisonnement ne pourra pas franchir. A ce point de vue, Kant a raison. Il n’y a plus de psychologie, des qu’il n’y a plus une intuition de conscience qui atteigne 1’elre, Funite, la substance dans leur profondeur. C’en est fait de toute metaphysique, et I’esprit humain esl condamne aignererFunivers ef Dieu, arester enferme dans la region des phenomenes. Voila ce que Kant a supe— rieurement vu; voila pour moi la valeur et l’interet de sa dialectique.’ Mais ce qu’il n’a pas vu, c’est que la science de Fame a pour base, non pas un moi logitjue^ mats un moi reel, non pas un moi purernent phenomenal, mais un moi cause, un moi substance, un moi un, iden­ tique, vivant, objectif et subjectif tout ensemble. Retablir ce principe, c’est refuter Kant, et c’est du meme coup rendre a la psychologie rationnelle et a la mdtaphysiquq leur fondement. J’oserai maintenant jeter un coup d’oeil sur ces fameuses antino­ mies qui passent chez beau coup d’e sprits pourlede sespoiretern el‘ et l’insurmontable ecueil de la philosophic speculative. Elles resultent, dans le systeme de Kant, de l’application du principe fondamental de la raison, savoir que le conditionnel etant donne, aved fui ment donnee la serie entiere des conditions et partant l’inconditionnel lui-meme. Appliquez ce principe a l’idee du mbndb, considere comme un ensemble de phenomenes exterieurs, vous verrez se former quatre theses, contre lesquelles s’eleveront aussitot quatre antitheses, d’ou resultera une quadruple antinomie. Comment cela? c’est que, selon Kant, chaque fois que vous affirmez qu’un phenomene est subordonne a une serie de conditions, vous pouvez egalement concevoir cette serie comme finie ou comme infinie. Dans les deux cas, l’absolu semble donne, et Fabsolu JcVst fa chi’rtiefb’ que l’esprit �40 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. humain, en vertu des lois de sa nature, cherche sans cesse sans pouvoir jamais la saisir. Considerez-vous le monde suivant les categories de la quantite et de la qualite? vous le concevez avec un droit egal comme limite en extension et en duree, c’est-a-dire comme fini, ou comme illimite dans Fespace et dans le temps, c’est-a-dire comme infini; vous vous le representez tout aussi bien comme compose de parties simples que comme infiniment divisible. .£e sont la les antinomies que Kant appelle mathematiques. Concevez-vous le monde sous de nouveaux points de vue, ceux de la relation et de la modalite ? vous etes porte a rattacher tous les effets,a une cause premiere et libre, ou bien, tout aussi arbitrairement, a les concevoir comme une chaine infinie de phenomenes lies par une aveugle fatalite. De meme, vous etes egalement enclin a donner pour base a la serie des choses contingentes une existence necessaire et a concevoir cette serie comme indefinie. Ce sont la les antinomies dites dynamiques et qui completent ce systeme de .contradictions regulieres imposees par Kant a l’esprit humain. Je noterai ici une premiere reflexion, flont je suis frappe, c’est que Kant ne considere comme absolument insolubles que les antinomies mathematiques .; il admet pour les autres une solution, et il travaille meme a la decouvrir. Certes $ voila une concession qui est de la derniere importance. Car il est assez clair que les antinomies dynami­ ques sont les plus gravesde tputes, puisque l’existence de la liberte y est engageej et deja meme, par anticipation , ,Fexistcnce de Dieu, c’est-a-dire la morale et la religion. Kant accorde done que sur ces grands objets la raison n’est pas reduilev,au desesperant aveu d’une contradiction inevitable. La morale et la religion sont a couvert. D ne reste done plus de serieusement compromis que l’interet de curio­ site qui s’attache pour l’homme a ces questions purement metaphysi- ■ ques, qui restent pour la masse du genre humain parfaitement indif- ; ferentes et sur lesquelles l’ignorance est facile a supporter, meme au petit nombre d’esprits curieux qui les agitent, par exemple, la ques­ tion de savoir si la matiere est ou non divisible a l’infini. Voila done ou aboutit ce grand et solennel acte d’accusation si laborieusement dresse, ou le scepticisme a epuise toute sa force et tous ses artifices. Concentree sur ce terrain, j’avoue que la discussion perd de sa gran­ deur, mais elle perd aussi de ses perils. Si la morale et la religion sont hors de cause, qu’importe apres tout que, sur quelques points �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 41 de subtile metaphysique, mon esprit soit oblige de confesser son impuissance? • Mais meme dans cet ordre de problemes abstraits, il me semble que Kant n’aboutit pas a la conclusion oil il aspire. Je m’armerai contre lui de ses propres aveux. Il resout les antinomies dynamiques par une distinction fort juste entre le point de.vue de l’experience et le point de vue de la raison. De ce que pour les sens: il n’y .a que des phenomenes contingents,! on ne pent pas:conclure, ditsil,' qu’au dela des phenomenes, darisi une region?ou les sens, ne peuvent atteindre, il n’y ait pas un etre necessaire,iune cause, spontanee ebpremiere qui soit le principe de tous les phenomenes de l’univers. Fort bien; mais je dirai a Kant, ennui empruntant son moyien de s-solation &t en le poussant plus loin que lui, .que si les sens et ^imagination nous invitent a nous representer un monde fini,, cela ne prouve pas que la raison n’ait pas le droit.de co.riqp¥®ir,f.au.moip^ commeipossible, un univers sans bornes, dont l’etendue et la duree illimitees reflechissent en quelque sorte l’eternite et l’immensite incommunicables de Dieu. De meme, si les sens et l’imagination s’arretent avec com­ plaisance a la vieilleet grossiere hypothese des atomes, rien n’empeche la raison de detruire ces fausses‘apparences, de nousdaire comprendre l’impossibilite d’un atome etendu , c’est-a-dired’un indivisible divi­ sible ; rien ne l’empeche surtout de .saisiig.au dela d^l’etehdue et du mouvement, les causes invisibles dont Faction permanente anime la face du monde, et de concevoir ces, causes commo des principes doues d’unite, inferieurs sans doute, mais plus ou moins analogues a cettc cause simple et indivisible que.iiiousjsentons vivre; et .palpjter au dedans de nous. Ainsis’evanouit le fantastique assendjlage.de con­ tradictions imagine par le sceptieismp, et il.ne reste^deftanbdiefforts d’un genie fait pour unautre.usage^ qu’une leGpn. de modestie donnee a l’esprit humain. Sices vues sont justes, je puis aborder avec un peu plus de confiance les objections de Kant contre la possibility d’une theologie rationnelle. A ses yeux l’idee„de Dieu,ou de l’etre de^gOp^ estdajpluswhaute de la raison et la plus necessaire, puisquey e’est par elie que la raison Tonsomme son oeuvre synthetique en^ dormant aul’ensemble de la, connaissance liumaine sa derniere ignite; mais tout ce qui>resulte de la, dit-il, c’est que DieU est, non pas la realite supreme, mais seu­ lement le supreme ideal, rien de plus’. Or, il arrive que la curiosite �42 * • X (< g.scX J ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEHSEi humaine ne se peut satisfaire d’un simple ideal; emportee par le desir de penetrer jusqu’au fond des choses, elle transforme cet ideal tout subjectif et tout relatif en une realite absolue, et se flatte de pouvoir saisir, embrasser et decrire le principe de 1’existence. Cette illusion se produit, d^apres Kant, selon une marche reguliere. D’abord la raison, en contemplant co vaste et harmonieux univers, le>rattache a un principe invisible puis, elle conceit ce principe comme necessaire pour y trouver la raison, d’etre de l’ensemble des choses contingentes ; enfm, de 1’etre necessaire elle s’eleve a l’Ctre des etreSy c’est-a-dire a I’etre qui contient toutes- les realites et toutes les ptjssibilites , cet etre pouvant seul renfermer la. raison universelle et absolue de toute existence-. La theologie rationnelle exprime a sa maniere cette evolution spontanee de la raison speculative, en demontrant. [’’existence de Dieu par trois arguments 5 ^’argument, physico-theologique', qui s’appuie sur l’ordre de l’univers, 1’argument cosmologique, fonde sur la contingencedu monde, 1’argument ontologique,. qui deduit du concept de Fetre parfait son existence reelle. Je dois convenir d’une chose, c’est que Kant me semble avoir parfaitement reussi a mettre enlumiere les defauts de ces arguments, de meme qu’SL triomphaitaisement tout a.l’heure des; preuves syllogistiques de la spirituality de Fame. Mais qu’en faut-il conclure? que les bases de la theodicee sont detruites > nullement; mais que Kant n’a connu ^es veritables bases de la theodicee. lEadt a l’heure, il alterait et niait F intuition immediate du moi pair lui-meme; maintenant il altere et nie une autre intuition, moins claire peut-etre, mais egalement irrefragable, l’intuition de l’etre parfait et absolu. let encore, il n’y a pas, d’un cote, un concept abstrait, logique, le concept d’une existence absolue envisag^e commo purement possible; de l’autre, l’esprit humain se consumant en raisonnements steriles, entassant les syllogismes pour irouver, par dela ce concept parfaitement vide de toute reality un Dieu reel et vivant qui sans cesse lui echappe et semble se derober a ses efforts. G’est la une fausse image de la con­ science humaine, d’oil ne pent sortir qu’une fausse et sterile theolo­ gie. De meme que je ne saisis pas d’abord un moi abstrait, un moi i possible, pour arriver ensuite, a travers des raisonnements arbitraires, q a un moi reel, coneret, effectif, substantiel; de meme, quand je rat- \ tache mon existence fragile a cette source infinie d’etre, de pensee et ! de vie quu j’appelle Dieu, ce n est point la. un raisonnement fonde. j �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. i r: I 43 snr des conceptions abstraites, e’est une veritable intuition, ou l’Etre | desetres est saisi et affirme, non comme possible, mais comme reel; et present. > ri Vienne maintenant Kant; reduire1 la theologie rationnelle a trois syllogismesje lui dirai qu’il pent avoir raison con lire une theologie raisonneuse et nourrie deputes abstractions^ telle par exemple que la theologie toute scolastique de Wolf; mais qu’il n’atteini pas une theologie amie des faits et solidement appuyee sur les intuitions reelles et fecondes de; la conscience. Voici en effet le procede dont se sort Kant pour battre em br'eche la theologie rationnelle. Apres avoir aftaque 1’argument physico-theologique, fonde sur les causes finales,/tequel devient enlre ses mains une preuve purement empirique, etrangere a toute notion de perfec­ tion absolue,. incapable par consequentld’atteindre jusqu’au principe de l’existence, il ramene subtilementl’argument cosmologique tire de la contingenee du monde a l’argument ontologique sur'lequol il lui plait de concentrer tout le dehai. Or, quel est eet argument supreme T e’est la preuve inspireeva saint Anselmepar le genieisubtil de la sco­ lastique, et mal a propos ressuscitee. par le grand geometrefiqui a. fonde la philosophic moderne.. Elle cqnsiste a poser le concept d’une perfection possible pour en? fairs iojdir par fife dSisonnement »|Vxistence reelle et actuelle d’un etre parfait. Toute la subtilite ingenieuse de saint Ans.elw> tout© I’industrie geometriques de. Descartes sont impuissantesr il est Vraa f a operer cette deduction.. Je l’accorde a Kant, et voila le resuriat^mTde cette. partie de son entreprise, dialectique; mais a-t-il atteint son but? a-t-il prouve I’impuissance de l’esprit humain a saisir le principe premier de la pensee et de 1’etre ? il est clair que non. Telle est 1’impression que me laisse l’etude de la Critique de la Raison pure speculative, et il semblerait en resulter que les pro— blemes religieux n’ont idea avee Kaaatj si '6e n’esta titred’adversaire. Mais le grand ouvrage que. je viens de mediterne eon— tient qu’une m@itM.de I’entreprise philosophique' db> Kant Hl II y aft deux hommes en lui, le metaphy sicien et le moraliste. Le metaphysicien aboutit, comme je viens de le voir, au seepticisme absolu; mais le moraliste est profondement dogmatique^ et il ramene le metaphy— sicien a la certitude et a Dieu. Si la raison speculative etait la raison tout entiere, l’homme de Kant ne ^prtirait jamais-de sa propre. pen­ see; il y languirait comme dans une: etroite prison,, contemplant �44 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. sterilement ces ideaux, ces concepts, vaines images d’un monde intel­ ligible a jamais insaisissable a ses yeux. Mais, a cote de la raison speculative, il y a en nous la raison pratique. Les formes pures de l’intuition, les concepts de l’entendement, les ideaux de la raison n’epuisent pas l’analyse de la conscience humaine; elle renferme encore d’autres elements a priori, par exemple, ces deux grands con­ cepts du devoir .et de la liberte sur lesquels repose toute notre vie morale. L’homme de la raison speculative, c’est un etre purement intellectuel, n’ayant rien autre chose a tfaire qu’a penser; mais l’homme veritable n’est pas un pur esprit, c’est un etre actif, sen­ sible; il a des besoms, des desirs, des obligations,ail aspire au bonheur, a la.perfection, a rimmor.talite. He bien! le voila qui va retrouver au sein de la vie morale la certitude qui lui echappait dans ses recherches speculativesl L’ame spirituelle et Immortelle, Dieu, la Providence, s’etaient jusqu’a present derobes a tous ses efforts; appuye sur l’idee du devoir, ii saisit d’une main sure toutes ces verites desormais a l’abri de toute atteinte. L’idee du devoir est le Cogito ergo sum de Kant ; c’est le minimum quid inconcussum, invincible au doutequi sort a cenouveau Descartes a*consolider tout ce qu’il avait ebranle. Telle est 1’idee generate de la Critique de la Raison pratique, let c?est la pretention formelie de Kant, que ce second ouvrage, loin d’etre, une aite?ajoutee apres coup) I un edifice mal construitpar un architecte imprevoyant, ^ient au contraire concourir aved lai Critique de la Raison speculative a former un monument regulier, complet et harmonieux *. Comment la morale de Kant peut-elle servir de base a une theodicee? comment Dieu est-il, avec la liberte et la vie future, un des trois postulate dela Raison pratique? voila maintenant la question. Kant part du concept fondamental de la raison.pratique , c’est-adire^du. concept du devoir, et il.stattache a etablir que ce concept a uneveCtu objective que me possede aucun des concepts de la raison speculative ;lcela fait,jril< soutient que le concept du devoir commu­ nique immediatement sa vertu objective a un second concept, celui de liberte, tellement lie avec le premierqu’ils forment a eux deux un tout inseparable. 'Cela etabli, Kant .se flatte d’avoir deja fait un pas hors du cercle de la conscience ; .rear Jia liberte, . a l’en croire, ne se 1. Je ne disrifen d’une troisifeme’tritiqufe/laCritique duJugement, qui vient encore accroitre et compliipifer le syst&me de Kant. �E1SSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 45 sent point, elle se conclut. Les concepts de devoir et de liberte, avec la force d’objectivite qui leur est propre, ont done fait ce que n’avaient pu faire les speculations les plus puissantes de la metaphy­ sique: ils m’ont assure de l’existence reelle d’un etre en soi, d’un noumene.,.car ils m’ont fait saisir l’etre libre et moral, oblige de faire Son devoir et aspirant au meilleur usage, de sa liberte, c’est-a-dire au souverain bien. 0r^ maintenanl|4e concept du souverain bien, ou se resume la morale, est lie a deux nouveaux concepts, oil se resume la religion : de sontdes concepts., deilDieia>e.L de la vie future. Qu’arrive-t-il de la? e’est quelle' concept mo^al communique aux concepts religieux la vertu objective qui estleii lui^ et de la sorte, Dieu et;la vie future, qui n’etaient pour-liaison speculative t»e des ideaux' et des possibles, deviennent indirectement pour nous des realites certaines. Il faut reprendre, anneau par anneau, la chaine de cette deduction, afin d’en toucher au doigtple fort et lefaiole. K.ant commence*par le concept de devoir, et y appliquant.^analyse aveejune rigueur et une profondeur justement admirees, il en etablit l’existence et les caracteres. Il y a des devoirs, et tout devoir est absolu par son essence. Tu ne mentiras pas^ tu ne deroberas pas, ce sont des maximes evidentes par elles-memes. Or, l’obligation qu’ell es expriment est-elle particuliere a tel temps, a tel lieu, a tel individu, a telle circonstance? nullement; ces maximes sont universelies et necessaires; y supposer une seule exception, e’est les detruire. Partant de la, Kant pose comme criterium de la moralite cette fameuse regie : Agis toujours de telle sorte que la maxime de ta volonte puisse etre consideree comme un principe de legislation universelle, et il refute victorieusement tous les philosophesjqui pret‘dndenfr£expliquer»lc d&voir, soitipar 1’education, comme Montaigne, soit par la constitution civile, comme Mandeville, soit par le bonheur, comme Epicure, soit par le senti­ ment, comme Hutcheson, soit par la perfection, comme Wolf apres les stoiciens, soit enfin par la volonte divine, comme Grusius et d’autres theologiens et philosophes. Le devoir est done un principe absolu, cela est demontre; mais y a-t-il quelque raison pour accorder a ce concept une valeur objec: tive, quand on le refuse a une fonle d’autres concepts; egalement absolus, tels que ceux de la raison speculative? C’est ici que Kant epuise, mais bien vainement, toutes les ressources de son esprit inventif et subtil. Il pretend distinguer le concept du devoir d’avec les- notions d’es- �46 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELJGIEUSE. pace, de temps, de cause, de substance, et autres semblables, soit en ce que l’espace et le temps se rapportent aux objets de l’experience, tandis que le concept du devoir en est entierement independant, soit en ce que la cause et la substance, si Ton fait abstraction de leur | usage dans les, choses de I’experience, n’ont plus qu’un rapport loin-| tain et hypothetique avec les objets intelligibles auxquels on vent |' ■etendre arbitrairement .leur application, tandis. que le concept du devoir, reglant immediatement et absolument ce qui doit etre fait, ce qui oblige tout etre raisonnable, acquiert par cela inline une force d’objectivite incontestable, puisque 1’etre raisonnable ne peut nier la valeur objective du concept du devoir,*saus nier le devoir hdineme. Investi par Kant de ce privilege objectif,_le concept du devoir le communique a plusieurs autres, et d’abord, d’une facon immediate, a celui de la liberte . J e. touche <a un des paradoxes les plus extraordinaires de Kant. lout en reconnaissant hautement la liberty il pretend que nous n’en .avens pas conscience. La liberie n’est pas un fait a ses yeux; c’est sun concept a priori. Prise en elle-meme, ce n’est qu’un ideal, et eel ideal ne devient une realite quepar la force d’objectivite attribuee au concept du devoir.UDe sorte que nous ne connaissons pas immediatement que nous sornmes* fibres, nous le concluons. En verite, je ne puis m’expliquer cette artificielle et etrange deduction qu’en me disant que Kant etail condamne d’avance aux vains raffinements de 1’analyse et a toutes sortes d’eijreurs par son scepticisme -absolu en metaphysique; II. a voulu en effet, dans la Critique de la Raison speculative, etablir une pretendue antinomie entre les lois de la nature et les lois de 1’ordre moral. A l’entendre, dans la region des choses de I’experience (laquelle embrasse les faits du sens intime), I lout est sounds a une .fatalite absolue; un phenomene, quel qu’il soit,, extern® ou interne, est determine par les phenomenes anterieu^|, de sorte qu’il n’y a la aucune place pour la liberte. Au contraire, dans la region des choses du devoir, les phenomenes, qui sent des actions raisonnables, ont pour caractere propre de se rap­ porter a use cause libre. Voila la these d’une part, et l’antithese de 1’autre, d’ou -resulte une antinomie. -C’esl pour la resoudre et pour : sauver la morale, menacee d’etre emportee dans la ruine de l’ontologie, que Kant a imagine sa theorie de la liberte. Il veut que la liberte soit en dehors de 1’experieuce, en dehors meme du sens intime, afin �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 47 de la soustraire a la loi qui regit suivant lui le monde des faits; il la transporte done dans les regions des choses ideales, et se flatte ainsi de resoudre l’antinomie qu’il lui avait plu de supposer. Mais s’il suffisait, dans la Critique de la Raison pure, ■d’idealfeer la liberte pour la conserver, dans ^ Critique de la Raison pratique, cela no suffit plus. Il faut a Kaul, non pas une liberte ideate, line liberte abstraite et purement possible, mais une liberte reelle, pour avoir une morale reelle etdes devoirs effectifs^'Que fait-ilT il transforme l’ideal en reel, d’une maniere aussi ingenieuse et aussi vaine qu’il transformait tout a Theure le reel ctfjdeal. Nous; n’avons;^! est 4rai, si on veut s’en tier a lui, qu’un concept delnotre liberte, a la place d’un sentiment immediat et precis; mais, grace au concept du devoir et a la merveilleuse faculte objectivante dont il l’a gratifie, cette liberte possible et tout ideale se metamorphose en^triie liberte eHec— tive. En effet que signifierait, dit-il, le concept de devoir pour un etre qui serait depourvu de liberte ? Tu dois, done tu peux. Si nous avons des obligations, comme cela est evident de soi, nous sommes libres de les accomplir. Autrement nous ne connaitrions que le desir et la necessite. Le desir incline, la necessity contraint, le devoir seul oblige, parce qu^seuTiLsuppos^Ialibea’te.^ C’est a 1’aide de tous ces detours compliques et laborieux que Kant aboutit au premier postulat de Idraison pratique ^existence reelle de la liberte. S’imaginant avoir arrache la morale au scepticisme, par la morale il tente de lui arracher aussi la religion. Si la morale est vraid* la ‘morale telle que vientflde la constituer Kant, avec la loi dii devdih pour principe et la liberte pbntlMlfoquence, quelle est la fin de Fhomnte^ Kant# demande si We'fin est la vertu seute, la vertu se suffisant pleineriitmt a elle-meme, ainsi que Font enseigne les stoiciens. Il examine alors le principe fondamental de cette grande ecole *ieHle comparant avbe te principe contraire des epicuriens, il fait voir avec une force eirijbe iagejj ddulirV hies que ni la vertu, ni te bonheur ne constituent separement la fin de l’bomme, le souverain biefi". Sans meconnaitre la superiority du principe stoicien, Kant prouve qu’il est insuffisant et qu’il a besoin d’etre tempere pfe^fe priilcipe epicurien, qui a sorltour reduit a lui-meme, serait ^ansWtorite comffie sans dignite-ferales. ZJRduverain bien n’est done ni?Ta vertu seule, ni le seul bbfifeur,%iais l’harmonie du bonheur dtde la vertu. Br, maintenant, ce souverain bien, vers lequel la raison nous ordonne de lendre sansMHk, est-il �r ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSeSP realisable dans les conditions du monde sensible? Kant demontre superieurement le contraire. Sans aucun doute, la vertu est accessible a l’homme dans une certaine mesure, puisqu’elle depend de sa volonte; mais la vertu parfaite c’est la saintete, et la saintete est un ideal que la volonte ne peut atteindre ,. quoiqu’elle puisse et doive y tendre sans cesse. AinJI done, des deux elements du, sopverain >bien, le premier ne saurait etre realise dans l$s limites d’une existence bornee. D’ou il suit qu’il faut de deux choses,Funes: ou bien admettre que cet ideal est une . chimere trpjaipeuse, ce qui renyerse tout l’ordre moral, ou bien ' reconnaitre apres la vie presente une carriere indefinie de perfectionnements pour la moralite humaine. Cette derniere conclusion se confirme encore, si l’on considere le second element, du^ souverain bien, le bonheur. Non-seulement le bonheur n’est pas et ne peut pas etre de ce monde, ce qui acheve de prouver la vie future, mais le rapport du bonheur et de la vertu est completement independant de notre volonte, et ce rapport ne peut etre etabli selon les lois absolues de la justice que par une volonte superieure a-j,’p^^ers,f.et qui tienne en quelque sorte l’humanite et la nature dans sa main. C’cst ainsi- que le souverain bien, que la raison pratique nous,.fait.concevoir.comme l’objet necessaire de notre volonte, supposant lui-meme, dit Kant, un Souverain bienprimitif d’ou il puisse deriver, il est moralement necessaire d’admettre Fexis­ tence de Dieu., Wila.donc notre grand sceptique en possession d’une existence absolue, et certes ce resultat ^st deja ysingulierement surprenant. Mais ce qui est plus extraordinaire encore, c’est qu’apres avoir affirme Dieu, il entreprenne de determiner sa nature. Quoi! Fauteur de la Critique de la nation pyre construire jane dheologie rationnelle a la maniere de Wolf! Quoi^vous avez consume toute votre puis­ sance d’analyste?sltoute votre vigueur de dialecticien a prouver que la metaphvsique est impossible, et vous venez apres coup nous proposer la solution du probleme metaphysique le plus eleve! Votre circonspectipn systematique etait tellemue.vous ne vouliez rien affirmer de l’objet meme qui est le plus pres de nous, de ce principe qui en nous pense et agit sans,.cesse ,a.l|plumiere de la conscience, et maintenant vous vous flattez de penetrer legrand my stere de l’existence, d’atteindre Fabsolu et de le decrire! Que va devenir l’idee fondamentale ue votre reform e philosophique, cette idee qui devait �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 49 modifier si profondement le cours de l’esprit humain, et changer la face de toutes choses dans l’ordre philosophique, comme avait fait, tdans l’ordre physique, la decouverte de Copernic ? . Certes je ne puis douter que Kant, un des esprits les plus systematiques du monde, ne se soit propose, toutes ces objections et bien d’autres encore. Mais une fois resolu a sauver^le principe des verites religieuses, une fois entre dans la voie de la Critique de la Raison pratique, je comprends aussi qu’il lui etait bien difficile de ne pas aller au dela de la simple affirmation de Dieu. A quel titre, en effet, avons-nous le droit, sui\ant Kant, d’affirmer que Dieu existe ? c’est parce que le souverain bien, qui ^iLneces^^menl realise, ne peut l’etre qu’en supposant Dieu. Mais s’il en est ainsi, nous avons une methode pour determiner la nature de Dieu. Bien que saisi par nous indirectement, Dieu n’est na& poufegel^jM l^^^^CRiyniatique. Nous ne voyons pas digcGtement ce qu’il est, mais nous savons ce qu’il doit etre, car noiis savons qu’il doit avoir tous les gttributs sans lesquels il lui serait impossible d’etre ce qu’il est, c’est-a-dire le principe qui realise le souverain bien. Or, pour realiserle souverain bien, il faut d’abord le connaitre. Done, DieS est intemgwffl. Il ne suffit pas de le connaitre, il faut l’aimer et le vouloir. Done Dieu est bon et puissant. H Ainsi parle la logique; mais je JfaisTe parler Kant lui-meme: « Dieu doit etre omniscient, diL-jl, afin de penetrer nos plus secretes intentions dans toushles’cas possibles et dans tous les temps; omni­ potent, afin de departir a ma conduite les suites qu’elle rnerite, et de meme, omnipresent, eternel, etc.1 » Et c’est ainsi, ajoute Kant, que la loi morale determine, a l’aide de l’idee du souverain bien, la notion de l’Etre supreme, ce que ne pouvaient faire ni la physique, ni la metaphysique, nuen gen^Oltoute speculative. Arrive au terme de la Critique de la Raison pratique, Kant fait d’incroyables efforts pour se demontrer a lui-meme qu’elle est d’ac­ cord avec la Critique de la Raison* spjl&dMiA Pu. douter de Dieu dans celle-ci et l’affirmer dans celle-la sans aucune contra­ diction. La raison pratique, remarque=-t-il, n’etend point la connais­ sance speculative; elle nous fait seulement connaitre comme reel co que la raison speculative concevait comme problematique. La liberte, tt’immortalite, Dieu, ne son|tpas nou/Epsaisoii speculative des objets 3. Critique de la 'Raison pratique, traduction de M. Jules Barni, p. 358. Tome III.— 9" Livraison. 4 �50 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. nouveaux; la raison pratique se borne a nous assurer de leur realite; objective, que nous ignorions. Pour la liberte, cela se fait immediatoment: tu dois, done tu es libre; la liberte est la condition a priori de la loi morale. Et quant aux deux autres grandes verites religieuses, 1’immortalite et Dieu, lteur realite objective est liee a celle de la liberte , qui elle-meme est inseparable de la loi morale, dont nous avons l’immediate conscience. Lorsque la raison pratique affirme 1’immortalite et Dieu, ce n’est pas un simple besom speculatif, un simple moyen de donner a nos connaissances un plus haut degre d’unite et de perfection; e’est un besoin legitime d’admettre une chose sans laquelle ne pourrait avoir lieu ce que nous devons necessairement nous proposer pour but de nos actions. Ainsi done, la raison pratique ne contredit pas, elle confirme la raison speculative. Il y aurait contradiction entre elles si la raison pratique pretendait etendre le ehamp de nos speculations theoriques et donner aux idees un usage transcendantal. Mais non ; si la raison pratique donne a certains concepts une portee que la raison speculative ne pent leur attrfbuer, ce n’est pas une portee speculative* Dieu et 1’immortalite restent pour nous speculativement des choses impenetrables; nous savons seulement d’une maniere certaine qu’il y a un Dieu et une vie future. La raison speculative nous avait averti qu’au dela du phenomena il doit y avoir autre chose. Cette autre chose reste inconnue a la raison pratique en ce sens qu’elle ne peut le determiner speculativement, ou du meins qu’elle n’ajoute rien aux concepts speculatifs que nous en avions; mais ces concepts speculatifs nous presentaient l’idqal et l’absolu simplement possibles; la raison pratique noiis les donne comme certains. Que- faut-il penser de ces explications ingenieuses? A dire le vrai, je les trouve parfaitement vaines, et il me semble que toutes les tentatives de Kant pour donner au concept du devoir la portee objective ' qu’il refuse aux autres concepts de la raison, ont completemeni Lechoue. II dit que le concept du devoir a une force d’objectivite qui ■ lui est exclusivement propre, en ce qu’il exprime ce qui doit etre fait ’ par toute volonte raisonnable, abstraction faite des conditions de 1’experience, et realise ainsi lui-meme ses objets, puisqu’il depend toujours de la volbnte de Tester fidele au devoir. — Je reponds que le concept de la cause et eelui de la substance sont, tout aussi bien que la loi du devoir, independants des objets sensibles. Supposez, en effet, l’univers aneanti, ees concepts gardent une valeur propre; car �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE! 51 il reste vrai que tout effet suppose une cause et tout attribut une substance. — Ce sont la, dit Kant, des concepts vides. — Soit; mais quoi de plus vide aussi que la notion du devoir;, s’il n’y avait pas des etres doues de volonte? Le deyoir, ditej^yous, non-seul.ement regie le monde moralcomme la Joi de la causajite regie le monde physique, mais il leconstitue, Suhtije et fgusse distmetiond Otezles etres moraux, dont ^experience seule, no.us apprend I’exkten^ au x dedans et au dehors* de^ous^ le devoir n’est plus qu’une abstraction sans realite. Tous les raffinements et toutes les subtilites imaginees pour creer ici une difference ne prouvent qu’une chose, c’esf. que le ’ bon sens de Kant et sa bonne conscience ne peuvent tenir dans le , systeme d’abstractions et de doutes ou la peur de la metaphysique l’a ' conduit a s’emprisonner. Supposons maintenanWuele concept, du devoir,. tel que Kant le Mecrit, possede en effet une valeur objective,fc|e dis,qu’il ne pourra la communiquer ni aux concepts de la. vie future et.de Dieu,7m meme an concept de la liberte., C’est sans doute une maxirne tres-belleet tres-vraie que celle de Kant: tu dois,. done tu peux, et il est incon­ testable en soi que le devoir et la liherte sont inseparables; mais j’ose dfere que cela est yj» pour tout le monde excepfe pour Kant. Ek# effet, quiconque s’interroge saps pardi pris reconnaitra aisem,ent qu’aussitdt que la raisoa fait, (ii^tinguer a rh.omme le bieu du mal8, la conscience lui apprend qu’il est lihre dmchoisir J’un ou l’aufre. Ce qui est bien en soi^coneu comme obligafoire pour un etre libre, voila le devoir. Otez-moi la conscience de ma liberte, vous m’otez la notion du devoir tout ,missi s^omgnt quo si fvous m’blic^’idoe dir bien et du mal. Or, e’est la doctrine consfanle et systematique dp Kant, que la liberte ne tornbe pas sous la conscience.. A ses yeux, la liberte n’est pas un fait, e’est un concept a priori. Cette doctrine est etrange, j’en conviens, contraire au temoignage eclatant de la conscience, j’en suis convaincu, mais e’est la doctrine de Kant dans la Critique de la Raison,spsculaldv^r^ if.pretend y rester fidele dans. Id, Critique de la Raison pratique. ' 5 Supposons donq &vechii-g^n homme' fmaginaire qui n’aff pas* ; conscience de saliberte. Cet homme aura, je veux bien l’admettre un ■instant, le concept du devojj?,. Qu’Oil resultera4-il? ‘luiyant Kant? 10’ devoir supposant la liberte, gelubqui feconnait'le devoir doit concluru qu’il est libre. Entendons-nousrLe devoir, tant que j’ignore si je suis libre, n’est pour moi qu’un devoir possible et abstrait. Ce devoir �S2 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. suppose un etre libre, soit; mais un etre purement possible, une liberte tout abstraite et tout hypothetique. Je dis par exemple : c’est un devoir pour un etre libre de ne pas nuire a son semblable, mais ce devoir existe-t-il pour moi? oui, si je suis libre; si je ne le suis pas, non. Admettez, en effet, qu’au lieu d’une personne morale je lusse un pur esprit sans besoins et sans passions, ou bien un animal soumis dans ses actes au seul instinct, il est clair que le devoir de ne pas nuire n’existerait plus pour moi. Il suit de la que dans le systeme de Kant il n’y a que des devoirs conditionnels; l’homme de son sys­ teme connait les lois de la morale comme il connait les lois de la geometrie, c’est-a-dire comme des lois absolues, mais qui se rap­ portent a d’autres etres que lui. Reste a savoir s’il doit se les appliquer a lui-meme. Or, cette question de fait ne pourra etre resolue que par sa conscience, et sa conscience, selon Kant, etant muette sur la liberte, il en resulte que la question est pour lui insoluble. J’accorde maintenant pour un moment tout ce que Kant s’est vainement efforce d’etablir, et la force d’objectivite accordee au concept du devoir, et cette force communiquee au concept de liberte, et la morale sauvee du naufrage, je dis que Kant donne vainement la tor­ ture a son esprit pour tirer de la une theodicee. Dieu ne nous est connu, dans son systeme, qu’a titre de condition necessaire de la rea­ lisation du souverain bien. Mais, en verite, quoi de plus fragile et de plus etroit qu’une telle base, et comment un esprit ferme et vigoureux comme celui de Kant aurait-il pu se faire illusion sur ce point? Voici un philosophe qui s’est donne pour mission d’introduire dans la science un esprit de reserve et de rigueur jusqu’alors inconnu. Les affirmations absolues lui paraissent suspectes touchant les objets les plus familiers, du moment qu’on peut craindre que l’homme ne confonde les lois et les besoins de sa nature avec la verite des choses. Et maintenant, pour affirmer l’existence de l’etre le plus mysterieux, il lui suffit de cette raison que l’homme a besoin de cette affirmation, et que sans elle il ne pourrait comprendre le gouvernement moral de 1’univers. Mais qui vous dit que ce besoin de Dieu et cette impossibilite d’expliquer sans lui le monde moral ne sont pas une suite de la constitution de l’esprit humain ou seulement de ses limites! qui vous assure que Dieu est la seule hypothese legitime, et qu’il n’y a pas mille aulres explications ue cette enigme qui pese sur notre faiblesse! Cela est si evident que la bonne foi de Kant n’a pu s’empecher de �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 53 le reconnaitre en un passage remarquable de la Critique de la raison 1 ou il se demande si le jugement que nous portons sur T existence de Dieu, comme condition necessaire de la possibility du souverain bien, a veritablement une valeur objective La raison, dit-il, a-t-elle bien le droit de decider que l’harmonie ou reside le souverain bien ne pout absolument deriver de lois universelies sans le concours d’une cause sage qui y preside? non, elle ne le peut, et pour dire le vrai, cette impossibilite ou nous sommas de pqncevoir comme possible la parfaite harmonie (ju bonheuret de la moralite sans supposer une cause morale du monde, estpurement subjective. Il est inutile de rien ajouter apres un tel aveu 1* et l’on comprend maintenant sans peine que, du vivant meme de Kant, lorsque son disciple Fichte vint reprendre tout le systeme pour lui donner plus de rigueur et d’unite, un^de .ses premiers soins fut de le debarrasser de cette chancelante theodicee comme d’un appendice inutile, et de substituer a 1’idee d’un Dieu legislateur qui lui paraissait arbitraire et anthropomorphique, celle d’un ordre moral resul­ tant de la nature des choses, ordre necessaire et impersonnel par qui serealise eterncllementrharmonie legitime du bonheuret de la vertu. SEPT I £ ME ETUDE. — LE PANTHEISME DE HEGEL. Je n’en puis douter: l’idee que Kant s’est faite de la Divinite est en desaccord avec son systeme. Dois-je conclure delaquelekantisme est faux? non, car si. je prends ce systeme en lui-meme, apres l’avoir degage de tout element etranger, il semble formermn tout assez bien uni, et ce tout est peut-etre la verite. Voila un dernier doute que je veux: eclaircir. Ou aboutit en defi­ nitive le systeme de Kant? J’entends dire qu’il mene a l’idealisme de Fichte, et que cet idealisme lui-meme a conduit Fichte a un pantheisme subjectif d’ou est sorti le pantheisttie absolu de Schelling et de Hegel. Idealisme, pantheisme subjectif, pantheismeOsolu, que veulent dire ces formules? Qu’est-ce que cette etrange genealogie qui fait sortir Fichte de Kant, Schelling de Fichte,, Hegel de Schelling? Je 1. Critique de la raison pratique, liv. II, ch. n, § 8. �54 ?ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. voudrais comprendre tout cela, je voudrais surtout avoir la clef du systeme de Hegel, puisqu’il contient, a ce qu’on assure, le dernier mot de la philosophic allemande. Un premier point qui me parait clair, c’est que le mouvement d’idees suscite par Kant ne pouvait s’arreter avec lui. J’ai deja recoimu en effet que la Critique de la Raison pure et la Critique de la Raison pratique ne forment pas uhe philosophic homogene, mais, en quelqtie sorte, deux philosophies distinctes et contraires qu’aucun artifice de logique ou d’analyse ne saurait concilier, sans compter que Kant a ecrlt une troisieme critique, la Critique duJugement, qui, en s’ajoutant aux deux autres par d’ingenieuses combinaisons, enrichit sans doute, mais aussi complique a l’exces l’ensemble du systeme. * Mais je consens a m’enfermer dans Fenceinte de la Critique de la /Raison pure et a oublier tout le reste. Le systeme simplifie de la ’sorte a-t-il une rigueur parfaite et une parfaite unite? telle est la question que se posa Fichte, et qui le conduisit a substituer une doc­ trine nouvelle a celle de son maitre, tout en ne s’etant propose d’abord que de la perfeciionnet. Suivant Fichte en effet, le systeme developpe dans la Critique de la Raison pure manque essentiellement de cette severite logique qui est pour lui le caractere de la science. La premiere parole de Kant, c’est que rien ne se produit dans la pensee que.. par suite de l’cxperience et des phenomenes qui frappent nos sens. Or, ces phenomenes, que l’esprit rencontre et qu’il ne pro­ duit pas/supposent un principe etranger. TVoila des le debut une concession euorme, et qui’ d’avanee mine tout le systeme* de la philo­ sophic critique. Qcioi! la science a pour infranchissable enceinte l’esprit humain, le .sujet, et cependant il existe autre chose, et la premiere condition de la science est de supposer un objet qu’elle ne conMait pas, qu’elle ne peut atteindre et qui est l’unique origine de tout! elle debute done par une hypothese, et par une hypothese contradictoirea sa nature ; elle laisse son principe hors d elle, ou plutot elle n’a pas de principe, elle n’est pas. Donner a la science un principe, un vrai principe , e’est-a-dire un principe absolu, ne reposant que sur soi et servant de base a tout le reste, tel est le but que propose Fichte et qu’il essaye d atteindre dans sa Thdorie.de la Science. Ici, Tidealisme de Kant est embrasse dans toute sa rigueur; plus d’element objectif suppose arbitrairejnent, meme a titre de simple phenomene. Tout cst severement �r*. -rV-'-- ESSAI DE PIIILOS©PHIE RELIGIEUSE. 55 deduit du seul terme de la connaissance qu’admette l’idealisme, du sujet. Le probleme pour Fichte est celui-ci: tirer du moi la philoso­ phic tout entiere, et l’audacieux raisonneur pretend donner a cette deduction une rigueur superieure a celle des mathematiques. L’algebre s’appuie en effet sur la loi de l’identite qui s’exprime ainsi: A= A. Fichte soutient que'cette loi en suppose une autre, la.seule qu’un philosophe ait le droit d’admettre sang la prouver, et ,1a .seule aussi dont il ait besoinMOI =fc=MOI. Quand vous dites A = A,, vous n’entendez rien a ffirinersur Insis­ tence de A. Vous> affirmez seulement que si A est A, A tie peut pas etre autre chose que A. La proposition A=A n’esi done, dit Fichte, vraie absolument>que dans sa forme., et non dans sa matiere ou dans son contenu. Je ne safe si A existe effectivement, mateniellement, ou s’iln’existe pas; mais peu importe, j’ai la certitude d’ormelle queA 4tant pose, A ne peut differer de A, .et qu’il y a entre ces deux termes un rapport necessaire. G’est par 1’analyse de ce rapport que Fichte efftreprend de prouver l’exfetence du moi. En effet, dit-il, dans la proposition A = A, le premier A n’est pas considere sous le meme point de vue quele second A. Le premier A, nous l’avons reconnu, est pose conditionnellement.; le second est pose d’une maniere abso­ lue. Qu’est-ce qui ramene ces deux termes a l’unite? qu’est-ce qui les met en un certain rapport? qu’est-ce qui juge, affirme et constiiue ce rapport? evidemment, le moi. Otez le moi, vous otez lerapport, vous otez les deux termes, vous otez la proposition A = A. Ily a done au-dessus d’elle une write plus haute., plus immediate. Le principe del’identite n’est absolu que dans sa forme; le principe MOI == MOI est absolu dans sa tonne et dans sa matiere: il -est seul- waiment absolu. Je n’ai pas besoin de suivre Fichte dans le cours de sa deduction, la plus subtile et la plus artificielle qui se puisse concevoir. Il me suffit de savoir qu’il a pousse jusqu’au bout l’etrange idee de deduire ' tout un vaste systeme de philosophic de ce seul principe, le moi. C’est sur cette pointe aigue qu’il pretend faire reposer 1’edifice entier des croyances humaines. La nature et Dieu ne sont que des developpements du moi. Le moi seul est principe, expliquant tout, posant tout, creant tout, s’expliquant, se posant, se creant lui-meme. Je <ne safe ici ce que je dois admirer le plus, soit de l’exces d’extravagance ou peut s’emporter 1’esprit humain, soit de 1’etonnante feeondite de ses ressources. Le voila condamne par Kant a igtiorer 1’u.nivers et i, I �56 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE* Dieu et a s’emprisonner dans le moi; laissez-le faire: ce seul point conserve lui fera retrouver tout le reste. Il ira meme des dernieres limites du scepticisme au dogmatisme le plus absolu. Tout a l’heure, il doutait de tout; maintenantil se vante, non-seulement de connaitre la nature, mais de la creer; que dis-je? il se vante de creer Dieu. Ce sont les propres expressions de Fichte, a la fois absurdes et consequentes. Oui, Fichte tire du moi la nature et Dieu. Le moi en effet suppose le non-moi; il se limite soi-meme, il n’est soi-meme qu’en s’opposant un autre que soi, il ne se pose qu’en s’opposant son contraire, et Ini-meme est le lien de cette opposition , la synthese de cette anti­ nomie. Si en effet le moi n’est pour soi-meme qu’en se limitant, cette faculte qu’il a de se limiter suppose qu’en soi il est illimite, infini. 11 y a done au<dessus du moi relatif, du moi divisible, du moi oppose au non-moi, un moi absolu qui enveloppe w nature et l’homme. Ce moi absolu, c’est Dieu. Voila done la pensee en possession de ses trois objets essentiels, voila Fhomme, la nature et Dieu dans leurs rela­ tions necessaires, membres d'une meme pensee a trois termes, separes a la fois et reconcilies, voila une philosophie digne de ce nom, une science rigoureuse, demontree, homogene, partant d’un principe unique pour en suivre et en epuiser toutes les consequences. Telle est dans son principe general la metaphysique de Fichte; sa morale en est une suite, imprevue peut-etre, mais rigoureuse. Elle est fondee suf le moi.: Le caractere eminent du moi, c’est la liberte. Conserver sa liberte, son moi, c’est le devoir; respecter le moi, la liberte des autres, c’est le droit. De la ce noble stoicisme de Fichte et cette passion pour la liberte qui ont ete en si parfait accord avec la male vigueur de son caractere et le role genereux qu’il s’est donne dans les affaires politiques de l’Allemagne. Mais l’importance du systeme de Fichte n’est pas la. Sa grandeur et son originalite, je les ■ trouve dans cette extraordinaire metaphysique, si justement et si hardiment appelee par lui-meme l’idealisme subjectif absolu. Elle a ce ; caractere singulier qu’en poussant a ses plus extremes consequences le scepticisme de Kant, elle prepare le dogmatisme de Schelling et de Hegel. Et non-seulement elle le prepare, mais deja elle le com­ mence et meme le contient. Fichte en effet aspire ouvertement a la science absolue. Il explique toutes choses, l’homme, la nature et Dieu. 11 mene la philosophie allemande, si je puis dire ainsi, du subjectif a l’objectif par le subjectif meme. Du scepticisme absolu il �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 57 la jMte dans un dogmatisme eiiorme, et parti d’une doctrine tellement timide qu’elle ose a peine affirmer un 6tre effectif, «il prelude a r cette philosophie ambitieuse qui embrasse dans ses cadres immenses l’histoire de l’humanite et celle de la nature, et pretend sans mesure et sans reserve a l’explication universelle des choses, Schelling a commence sa carriere philosophique par accepter le ^ysteme de Fichte, comme Fichte avail d’abord adopte celui de Kant. Son premier ecrit, compose a vingt ans, porte ce titre expressif : Du I vgzoz comme principe de la philosophie. Mais il ne tarda pas a s’apercevoir de l’impossibilite absolute de maintenir fc philosophie dans cette etroite enceinte ou elle etouffait. Egaree sur les pas de Fichte, la pensee humaine avait perdu la nature; il s’agissait de la reconquerir. La nature existe en face du moi. Ce n’est la qu’un fait, mais c’est un fait que la science doit expliquer. Or toute tentative de deduire du moi la nature, du sujet l’objet, est radicalement impuissante, 1’exemple de Fichte Fa prouve, On ne reussirait pas mieux a deduire de l’objet le sujet, de lamdure le moi", de l’etre la pensee. Ainsi point d’etre sans pensee,, Joint de pensee sans etre, etgancun moyen de resoudre la pensee daiig 1’eire ou l’etre dans la pensee. C’est dans ces termes que se posait devant Schelling, le probleme philos^phique. Je m’explique assez simplement la solution ou il fut conduit. Sui­ vant lui, la pensdget l’etre, le sujet et l’objet, ne peuvent etre ala fois irreductibles et inseparables que s’il y a un .plincipe commun de l’un et de l’autre, principe a la fois subjectif et objectif, intelligent et intelligible, source unique de la pensee et de l’etre. Ce principe, ce sujet-objet absolu, comme l’appelle Schelmg, S Fiuee^mere de sa philosophie. Aussi bien c’est a peu pres de la meme maniere que Spinoza fut conduit a l’unite de la substance. Son'mait^Descartes. en effet, avait constate, au debut de kuscience, une dualite fdndamentale. En face de l’e® qui pense, il avait reconnu l’etre etendu. Com­ ment expliquer leur coexistence, bien plus, leur union? Malebranche, preludant a l’idealisme de Kant, ayait niegju’on piit connaitre les corps; Berkeley, devangant Fichte, ayait essaye d’expliquer l’etendue comme une creation.de la pensee. Spinoza^ sentantrd’avanceja vanite de ces tentatives, declare hardimeiltque«la coexistence de la pensee et de l’etendue n’etait possible que par une substance infinie, a la fois etend^ue et pensante,. a la fois nature et humanite. L’analogie est sensible, mais je dois prendre garde de l’exagerer. Le mouvement de la philosophie allemande a un caractere qui lumest propre et une �58 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELTGIEUSE. -originalite limitee, mais reelle. Schelling n’est point le plagiaire de Spinoza, bien qu’il l’ait connu et admire des sa jeunesse, bien que la polemique ardente qui divisa Mendelsohn et Jacobi, et a laquelle prit part toute l’Allemagne pensante, soit anterieure de quelques annees ■aux premiers ecrits de Schelling |t Fait de ‘bonne heure si vivement frappe cpill exprimait o’uvertement, dans son premier essai, l’esperance dgfeWM^r un'jour un systeme qui fut le'pendant de Vtdhique de Spinoza *."C’lesi justement ce qui est arrive. ' , Dans1’univers de Spinoza, il y a deux mondes, a la fois unis et opposes., le monde de la pensee bu des ames, etie monde de l’etendue ou des corps. Ces mondes se penetrant 1’un l’autre. Foute ame a un corps,’ tout corps a line ame. La pensee ’a ses Ibis, la nature a les sicnnes; mais ces lois se correspondent etroitement. Un des grands iheoremes de Spinoza est celui-ci: L’.ordre et la connexion des idees est le mime que •Tbrdre et la connexion des 'choses2. Quel est le secret de cette identite? .e’est que la pehsee bt Tetendue, les ames et les corps, ne sont que les deux faces d’une meme existence. La na­ ture, d’e^t Dieu daris Fetendue et lemoUvement; I’dme, e’est Dieu dans la pensee. Dieu etant un, les lots de son d’eveloppernent sont unes. Ainsi toutes les ’existences se penetrent, tout s’unit, tout s’identifie. ’’‘“ 'C'"' 1 *’'' ' Schelling part aussi de cette dualiie,_.la pensee on Je sujet, les ehoses ou l’objet, ou encore la nature et Thumanite. La nature a des lois•; mais une loi, e’est essentiellement quelque chose d’intellectuel, e’est une idee.1 La nature est done toute penetree d-intelligence; d’un autre cbte, 1’humanite a aussi seslois; elle est litre sans doute, mais elle n’est pas livree au hasard. Des reglef aibsolues gouvernent son developpeinent. 11 y a done parente entre l’humanite et la nature. D’ou vient leur distinction? e’est que la nature obeit a ses lois sans cunscience, tandis que rhuinanite a conscience des siennes. En d’autres termes, il y a de 1’ietredans lapensbe, del’ideal dans le reel, etil y a aussi de la pensee dans I’dtre, du reel dans I’ideal. La difference, e’est qu’ici la pensee et la l’etre dominent; mais au fond la pensee et Fetre sont inseparables. Il 'y a done un principe cornmun qui se developpe tantdt sans conscience et tantot avee’conscience de soimdme.-G’est le Dieu de Schelling|B 4. Schelling, Du moi con sidere comme principe de la philosophic. 2. Ethique, part, n, prop. 7. i. ; \ �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 59 Jusque-Ia le philosophe hollandais et le philosophe allemand ne different pas; voici le point ou ils se separent. Dans 1’univers de Spi­ noza, il y a un abime entre la pensee et l’etendue. La pensee et l’ertendue, c’est toujours Dieu sans douteJ, inaiS il ny'a aucune sorte d’union entre cesdeux parties de sonetre. Leflot des idees coule d’un, cote, le flot des corps coble de Taiitre. Dieu les cmbrass’e,’ it "fest vrai,| mais dans cet ocean infini, les ondes contraires ne s’unissent pas. De la au sein de la nature toe sblmion decbiffinhitd eternelle. Il ’en est tout autrement dans le systeme de Schelling. L’ensernble des etres compose une echelle continue ^t ndinogene du. chaque forme de l’existence conduitJ a une forme superieure' La hdttfteii’y esi pas, comme chez Spinoza, destituee d^n^ellige^cp,^ Uncobfant infini de pensee circule dans toutes ses parties; seulement cette pensee n’arrive pas du premier coup a la plenitude de son etre. G’est d’abord une pensee tellement' obscure, tellement Sourde, qu’elle s’edhappe absolument a elle-meine. Par degres, elle s*eclaircit et se replie sur soi; elle se sent d’abord, puis se distingue, enfin elle arrive a se reflechir, a se posseder, a se connaitre parfaitement. « La nature, dit Schelling, sommeille dans la pl ante, elle reve dans l’animal, elle se reveille dans l’homme. » Ge developpement merveilleux est ce que les Allemands appelleht le'pWgr^ ou le ^roce^^deTdtr’b^/’o^s), et s’il faut les en croire, l’idee du processus est la conquete propre et le grand titre d’honneur de’Schelling.^ C’est oublierque Leibnitz et, deux mille ans avant Leibnitz, Aristote, avaient honcu la nature comnle une serie de formes homogenes s’elevant de degre en degre, a une perfection toujours croissante; mais peu importe, il est ciair que Schelling n’a copie personne, ni Leibnitz, ni Spinoza; c’est le mouvement propre de sa pensee, c’est le courant de la philosophie kantienne qui l’a conduit ataphiloso^hie deridcntiVe. ’ ■ Le systeme de Schelling en effet, bien qtl’il soil' ’en 'nn^sens toe reaction extreme effio la doctrine de Fichte,' en un autre’sens la continue. Fichte'n’^Bwttait-il paoussi riddntlW a'bsoluccles3choses? ne resolvait-il pas l’opposition du moi et du non-moi dans uh prin­ cipe superieur? Seuwienf ce principe supbffeur'detail fftijours Ie moi, et de la le caractere idealiste et subjectif de tout le systeme. Cette identite admise par Fichte, Schelling la generalise et la transforme. Elle n’est plus pour lui renfermee dans cette etroite prison du moi, elle est le fond de touteschoses. On peut dire que Schelling a pris des mains de Fichte les cadres d’e's’a pfiilbSophie, trials qu’en le'S ’eiar- �^0 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIETOEM gissant, il leur a donne une ampleur infinie. Il a fait entrer dans le systeme de Fichte la nature proscrite, il y a repandu a pleines mains la realite. L’evolution de la philosophic allemande ne pouvait s’arreter a Schelling. Le systeme^de Schelling . §n effet, renfermait bien un I principe, mais elle ne fournissait aucun ■ moyen de le developper ! scientifiquement. Qu’avait fait Schelling? il avail concu l’ensemble , des choses comme la serie progressive des formes variees d’un prin-lI cipe identique. Or, comment saisir ce principe? comment atteindre ' la loi de son developpement? comment la demontrer? e’est. ce que Schelling nefaisait pas. Pourquqi ce principe se developpe-jd-il? pourquoL devient-il tour a tour pesanteur, lumiere, activile,-conscience ? Est-ce a l’experience qu’on le demandera? Mais 1’expprience constate les faits, elle ne les explique pas. Dira-t-on que le sujet-objet se developpe par sa nature? On demandera quelle est sa mature, et Schelling ne la determine en aucune fagon. Il faut done admetlre ici la qualite occulte d’un prin­ cipe inconnu. Que de mysteres et d’hypotheses! et a quoi tout cela sert-il? Otezl’experienge, nul moyen n’apparait de construire regulierement ou meme d’ebaucher la science. jC’est souslepoids de cette difficulty que Schelling avait imagine son intuition intellectuelle, faculte transcendante qui atteint l’absolu d’une prise immediate sans passer par les degres laborieux de l’analyse et de la reflexion; mais jamais Schelling n’a pu eclaircir la nature equivoque de cette intuiJ I tion pretendue. Est-ce un don naturel de l’esprit humain? est-ce un privilege? on ne jsait. Quoi de plus obscuqj de plus arbitraire, de plus incompatible avec les conditions de la science? Evidemment la philosophic allemande devait faire un pas de plus ou abandonner son principe, Ce dernierjpas^ Hegel le fit Hegel aicherche, il a cru trouver une methode pour construire la science absolue, pour la demon­ trer. Cette methode, e’est la logique. Rien ne/jparait au premier abord plus extraordinaire, et, pour trancher le mot, plus absurde que le systeme de Hegel. Non-seulement il pousse plus loin queue l’avait fait Schelling, etjusqu’a sa derniere limite, le/principe d£v lidentite,absolue de la pensee et de l’ytref mais * par une suite de cet exces meme, il introduit une loi qui est le renversement de toutes les idees-recues, savoir : que les contradictoires sont identiques, l’etre identique au neant, le fini a l’infini, la vie a la mort, la lumiere aux tenebres. La philosophic �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 61 consiste pour Hegel a trouver en tout 1’unite sous la contradiction, l’identite sous la difference. On se sent dispose tout d’abord en face d’une telle entreprise a la defiance et presque au dedain. Supposez que Kant, en 1820, fut sorti de son tombeau , nul doute qu’en voyant ce que la philoso­ phic etait dcvenue entre les mains de Hegel,4Ine se fut eerie, comme Malebranche en lisant Spinoza, que e’etait une epouvantable chimere. Et cependanf^a y regarder de*plus pres, ces deux principes si etranges et si dangereux, l’identite des contradictoires, -I’identite de la pensee et ^e I’etre^ sont deja dans le systeme de Kant. N’est-ce pas Kant, en effet, qui dans sa dialectique a donne 1’eXemple d’oppo­ ser les idees 1’une a l’autre et de prouver que les theses contradictoires sont egalement vraies? La logique de Hegel, sous ce point de vue, n’est-elle pas le developpement des antinomies? mais ce qui est plus evident encore et* d’une#plus grande consequence, e’est que Kant a prepare 1’identification absolue de la pensee et de d’etre. C’est une etude infiniment isurleuse a se proposes que-Thistoire de ce principe dont 1’Allemagne est si fiere , et ou elle fait consister son principal titre d’honneur. On le void. naitre aveg Kant, se developper dans Fichte, se transformer dans Schelling, et arriver enfin dans le systeme de Hegel a son pfein developpement. Suiya-fi^Kant, ce que nous appelons les lois de la nature, ce sont en realite les formes de notre intelligence que nous appliquons aux phenomenes. La grande erreur des philosophes, e’est de detacher ces lois de leur veritable principe, qui est 1’esprit humain ou*'le sujet,' pour les transporter dans les choses, pour les objectiver. Kagabaimait a rendre sensible 1’idee de sa reforme philosophique en la rapprochant de celle que son compatriote Copernic avait introduite dans l’astronomie. Le vulgaire croit que les astres tournent autour de la terre, ce qui ne peut K’accorder avec robservation exacte desjfaits. Changez l’hypothese, faites tourner la terre autour du soleil, toute contradiction disparait, tout s’explique et s’eclaircit. De meme on est accoutume a subordonner la pensee a l’etre, tandis qu’au vrai, suivant Kant, c est 1 etre qui est subordonne a la pensee. Jb De cette conception a celle de Fichte, il n’y a*qu’un pas-. Si-les choses ne sont que ce que lfes fait4a pensee, e’est la pensee qui coiistitue, qui cree les choses. Lqmoi1,; en se pensant, .en se posant , se cree lui-meme. Voila l’identite absolue de la pensee et de 1etre, egplicitement professee par Fichte et deduite avec hardiesse, mais �62 ESSAI DE PHdLOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE, avec rigueur, de l’idee fondamentale de Kant. Seidement cette iden­ tity absolue a le caractere particulier du systeme de Fichte; je veux dire qu’elle est purement psychologique et subjective; l’etre, pour Fichte, comme la penseec’est .toujours le moi ou un developpe­ ment du moi. Fichte ne pouvait donner a l’identitede la pensee et de l’etre un autre sens qu’a condition de sortie de son systeme. Schelling rcprit,en le transformant,radicalement,jlesysteme de Fichte. A ses yeux, le,moi et, le. non-moi out une egale rpalite * la nature et l’humanite, subsistent en face Tune deT’autre; elles trouvent leur union dans un principe a la fois ideal at reel, subjectif et objectif, qui les constitute et les. contient, Cette identity de la pensee et de FMre, du sujet et de Fobjet, concue comme reelle et objective, voila le principe commun de la philoso­ phie de Schelling et de celle de llegel^et par la elles se rattachent etroitement, l’une etl’autre, aux doctrines antejieures. Voici mainte­ nant la difference des deux systeme§> Schelling n’identifie la pensen et 1’etre que dans leur principe premier qui est Dieu; mais au-dessous de Dieu, la pensee etl’^tre, sans jamais seseparer, se distinguent, 11 y a^plus d’etre dans la nature, Uy a plus de: pensee dans 1’homme, S’il enest ainsi?.1’etre et la. pensee sent deux choses differentes, et le principe de Tidentite est en ddfaut. A la rigueur en effete si 1’etrent la pensec sont une seule et meme essence, non-seulement la pensee doit se trouver partout ou est L’etre, mais elle doit s’v rencontrer dans la meme proportion* Pourquoi pet equilibre,est-il rompu et comment est-il possible qu’il vienne a. so rompre?: pourquoi Dieu est-il pins dans, 1’humanite que dans la nature ? Question temeraire sans doute, mais a laquelle est tenu de repondre celui qui ose soutenir que la science absolue est possible a L’homme. Qr cette question 9 Schelling ne la reseat pas et ne peut pas la resoudre, Le voila convaineu d’inconsequence. Il a proclama le principe de l’identite de la pensee et de Tetre^il l’a degage du caractere relatif et subjectif qui le defigurait/dans Fichte et dans Kant, mais il n’a pas ose le developper avec rigueur; aussi sa philosophic ne s’est-elle soulcnue que par des hypotheses ou par des emprunts deguises qu’il a faits a 1’ex­ perience.; Hegel met sa gloir.e a etre, plus consequent et plus hardi que son devancier, et il pretend tirer du pifincipj^de L’jdentite ce que Schel­ ling ni aucun philosophe n’avaient jamais pu lui faire rendre, une science du developpement des choses. �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEI’SE. . 63 La pensee et 1’etre, e’est tout un. A quoi bon deux mots pour exprimer une essence unique ? Ne disons pas la pensee, l’etre, disons l’idee. L’idee, voila le Dieu de Hegel; le developpement de Tideer voila la realite; la connaissance de ce develqppement, voila la scienceLa science de i’idee s’appelle la. logique,. et ainsi la metaphysique et la logique se confondent.. . Grace a cette identite vraiment absolue, la science.devient possibleElle se reduit en effet a determiner les rapports necessaires des idees,Dans la theorie d<8chelling, on etait reduit, soit a s’appuyer sur I’experience pour decrire le mouvement de Petre dans la nature,, ce qui ne donnait pas une veritable science, soit a donner carriere a ■^’imagination et, a presenter des hypotheses deguisees sous le beau nom d’intuition intellectuelle. Cela tenait a Le que 1’essence du pre­ mier principe restait indeterminee, et a ce que Eon admettait une distinction arbitrage entre Ips objets de4jla pensee et la pensee elle— meme. Maintenant que^.nous savons que ce premie^ principe e’est l’idee, et que la nature et l’hnmanite ne sont autre chose que le developpement de 1’idee, quand les lois de 1’idee seront connues, la science sera trouvee. On demandera a Hegel comment les IdiT de l’idee peuvent letra determinees. H repond a cette question par sa logique. qui est la determination scientifique des lois de Tidee- Elies se deduisent tou­ tes d’une loi unique et fondamentale, laJ.oi de 1’identite des contra­ dictoires. Suivant Hegel, toute pensee, tout^etre,. toute. idee renferma une contradiction J et non-seulement cette contradiction existe dansles choses, mais'elle les constitue. La vie est essentiellemenf la synthese, Turnon de deux elements qui tout ensembl"s’excluent et s’appellent necessairement., Au premier abord^ dit. Hegel,,, cette doctrine revolte le Sens commun et parait favorable au scepticisme. Les Pyrrhoniens triomphent de l’opposition des ideesj,j mais cette opposition n’embarrasse en rien.. le vrai philosophy qui y volt la condition et le mouvement meme de, la vie. Aussi bien. le sens commun, loin de repousser le principe de» l’identite des contradictoires, luirend a chaque instant temoignage-. Ne maintient-il pas, fiermement de siecle en sieele la difference et; l’identite de Tame et du corps, la coexistence et I’opposition dela, prescience de Dieu et du. libre arbitre? C’esi manquer an sens? commun que d’abandonner une de ces verites pour l’autre^ sous le vain prptexte qu’elles se contredisent. Examine? le sens commun �64 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. sous sa forme la plus haute, la religion. L’ame religieuse n’adoret-elle pas un Dieu a la fois personnel et infini, un Dieu immobile et vivant, visible et invisible tout ensemble? Le sceptique croit triompher en opposant ces attrihuts; c’est que le raisonnement a etouffe en lui la raison. Pendant qu’il se tourmente a alter d’un de ces contraires a l’autre, un elan du coeur vers Dieu les unit. La plus raisonnable des religions, la religion chretienne, n’enseigne-t-elle pas au genre humain depuis dix-huit cents ans que Dieu a fait le monde de rien, que Dieu s’est fait homme? Et ne sont-ce pas la autantde contradictions, mais des contradictions pleines de raison, de vie et de verite? Les sciences nous offrent aussi mille exemples de l’identite des contradictoires. En physique, n’admet-on pas sans aucune difficulte que la lumiere suppose les tenebres? Imaginez une lumiere sans ombre. Les objets egalement eclaires ne se distinguent plus, et ce jour uniforme est en tout identique a la nuit. Ainsi la lumiere implique son contraire, l’obscurite. Non-seulement elle la suppose, mais elle la porte en soi, elle l’engendre; et d’un autre cote, en la produisant, elle se realise elle-meme. Le produit, c’est la lumiere effective, la couleur. Nous pouvons sur ces exemples tres-bizarres "mais tres-simples, prendre une idee generale du systeme de Hegel. Toute idee renferme trois elements, ou pour employer le langage consacre, trois mo­ ments. Vous pouvez'ia considerer ou en elle-meme, ou dans son opposition avec l’idee contraire qu’elle renferme, ou enfin dans l’union qui les concilie. Le premier momentest celui de l’idee en soi; le second, celui de l’idee hors de soi ; le troisieme enfin, celui de l’idee en soi et pour soi. L’idee existe d’abord d’une maniere simple et immediate, puis elle se divise et s’oppose a elle-meme; enfin, elle ramene ses deuxi membres a l’unite. Le moment de l’unite est celui de la vie, de la realite concrete et individuelle. Celui qui ne considere l’idee que dans les moments anterieurs ne connait que des abstractions, et voila la commune infirmite du vulgaire et de ces pMIosophes qui suivent la logique de l’ecole. Le vulgaire s’en tient aJ cette premiere vue des choses qui nous les fait connaitre dans un etat de melange et de con­ fusion1. C’est la perception des sens. L’entendement s’applique a cette matiere grossiere, la divise, la decompose. Ici eclatent les oppositions, toutes’choses paraissent coiitraires, la vie et la mort, le mouvement �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 6S et le repos, Fame et le corps, le fait et le droit, la societe et la nature, la philosophie et la religion. Les esprits qui s’attachent a ces opposi­ tions ne peuvent manquer de tomber dans le scepticisme, absurde extremite aussi eloignee du sens commun que de la yraie philoso­ phie; mais s’arreter au scepticisme, c’est bien mal connaitre la nature des choses et la puissance de la pensee; 1’entendement est au-dessus des sens, mais la raison est aii-dessus de Fentendement. Ce que Fentendement separe, la raison l’unit; les choses qui semblaient incompatible^ apparaissent comme inseparables; a la confu­ sion succede l’ordre, ® la guerre la paix, au doute. la foi,.aux r angoisses de Fame, auxhesitations du raisonnement la serenite ’ d’une affirmation sure dtelle-meme, la plenitude d’une comprehen­ sion parfaite. La vie et la mort ne sont que les deux moments de l’existence, le fait etle droit, les deux aspects d’une meme necessite, la societe un progres fait sur la nature, la philosophie un developpe­ ment de la religionM J’entrevois maintenant comment Hegeh< pwtreconduit au prin­ cipe de sa logique et de toute sa philosophie, Fidentite des contradic­ toires. Trouver dans chaque idee une idee contraire et les unir dans une troisierne idee, opposer a la these Far|tithese et les reunir dans la synthese, considerer successivement Fidee ensoi, hors de soi. efc pour soi, telle est sa methode constants, iffidee a. laq,uelle Hegel aboutit au terme de chaque opposition, n’est pas autre chose que l’idee premiere, mais vivifiee par cette opposition elle-meme, d’abstraite devenue concrete, de morte vivante. Cette meme idee ainsi transformee traverse une. nouvelle opposition, une nouvelle contradiction, pour en sortir victbrieuse, et ainsi de suite a l’infini, depuis Fidee la plus simple, qui contient le germc de toutes les autres, jusqu’a la plus composee, qui en exprime le plus complet developpement.,.La; chaine de ces oppositions, c’esMi*science. Elle consiste a faire voi® F universelie identite : partie d’une idee- primi­ tive au plus has degre de la pensee, felle la retrouve au faite,. et toutes. les idees intermediaires ne sont tousjburs qftie la meme idee qui se , deploie a l’infini. 1 Cette vue generate me permet de m’orienter au sein de ce vaste edifice d’abstractions accumulees ou se joue avec une fecondite et une subtilite inouies la pensee de Hegel. Rien ne resteen dehors de ce Isysteme, et il y a la, je ne son-ge pas a en disconvenir, un effort im­ mense pour tout embrasser et tout expliquer. Voici les grandes lignes Tome III. — 9e Livraison. v 5 �66 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. du monument. L’ceuvre de Hegel comprend trois parlies: la logi­ que proprement dite, la philosophie de la nature et la philosophic de 1’esprit. Le principe premier et dernier des choses, ce que Hegel appelle Vidte, doit d’abord etre envisage en lui-meme, dans les profondeurs de son essence non encore manifestee, dans ces lois necessaires et primitives qui la constituent et qui se reflechissent plus tard en toutes ses oeuvres. La science de l’idee en soi,. e’est la Logique pure, clef de voute de tout le systeme. Maintenant l’idee, par une suite necessaire de sa nature, telle que la logique 1’a decrite et expliquee, 1’idee se developpe, ou pour mieux dire, se brise et met a nu ^element de la contradiction qui etait renferme en son sein. Elle etait Dieu en soi, elle devient nature; eternelle, elle tombe dans le temps, iinmuab'le dans le changement. De la la Philosophie de la nature qui nous developpe la serie des mouvements necessaires de l’idee a travers tous les degres de l’echelle des etres sensibles. Les lois de la mecanique, de la chimie, de la physiologie, se resolvent dans une serie d’oppositions; mais le principe supreme qui preside a ce developpement vent que la contradiction, necessairement posee, soit necessairement detruite. L’idee, qui s’ignorait et se niait dans la nature, retourne a soi pour devenir esprit. La science du re­ tour de l’idee a elle-meme est la Philosophie de I'esprit. Les reli­ gions, les aits, les systemes, les institutions sociales, ne sont que les phases diverses de cette evolution que regie une eternelle et inflexible geometric. L’histoire de Thumanite reflechit celle de Dieu; e’est une logique vivante, e’est Dieu qui se realise, qui, parti de soi, revient a soi, refermant ainsi le cercle infini et eternel. Je reprends ces grandes divisions : la logique, dans le systeme de Hegel, tient la place qu’occupe la theodicee dans les systemes ordinaires; elle est la science de Dieu considere en soi, avant la creation, si toutefois les mots Dieu et creation ont ici un sens. Strange theo­ dicee en effet, ou, a la place de ces attributs sublimes de la justice eternelle, de la bonte infinie, de la beaute pure et sans melange, je trouve une seche enumeration d’idees abstraites, l’etre, le neant, la qualite, la quantite, la mesure, 1’identite, la difference. Rien de plus aride que cette algebre qui ajoute, a la monotonie de notions toujours indeterminees, l’insupportable uniformite du procede qui les oppose et les combine sous la loi d’une trichqtomie. toujours renaissante. La Somme de saint Thomas, qui comprend quelques milliers de syllo- �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGTEUSE, 67 gismes a la suite les uns des autres, ou pour choisir un plus conve­ nable exemple, les deux cents propositions, corollaires et scolies de XEthique, sont a cote de la logique de Hegel , des oeuvres pkines de charme et de vie. Ces abstractions et la loi qui les enchaine constituent pour Hegel le fond des choses. Le vulgaire y volt de vaines eombinaisons de l’esprit; ce sont les veritables realites. Quelle abstraction plus vide, a ce qu’il semble., que celle de l’etre? Tbut pour Hegel en va sortir. L’auteur de la Logique semble avoir voulu accumuler ici tous les sujets de defiance et d’etonnement, D’une idee abstraite, il pretend faire sortir la realite, et comment, je vous prie? par 1’intermediaire d’une idee encore plus vide, celle du meant. L’idee confondue avec, Fetre, l’etre avec le meant, le eoncret sortant de 1’abstrait, la contradiction placee a l’origine des choses, voilci l’epreuve ou Hegel ne craint pas de soumettre noire ben sens ei metre patience. L’idee de 1’etre est en effet la plus simply de toutes les idees; toutes les autres la supposent et elle n’en suppose aucune avant elle. Or, l’idee de l’etre ou l’etre, car Hegel identifie ici comme toujours ees deux choses, est identique au neant. Qu’est-ce en effet que Fetre considere en soi? e’estd’etre absolument indetermine, ce qui n’est ni fini, ni infini, ni esprit, ni matiere, ce qui n’a ni quantile, ni qualite, ni rapport. Tout cela peut s’affirmer du meant. Penser au neant, e’est faire-abstraction de toutes les formes de l’existence, e’est la mhme chose par consequent que penser a l’etre en soi. D’un autre cote, Hegel ne nie pas que l’Mre et le. meant, ee qui est et ce qui n’est pas, me soient deux termes contradictoires. Ils sont a lafois contradictoires et identiques. La contradiction dans 1’identite, voila la-souve.raine loi de la pensee et des choses. Ainsi du sein de 1’idee de l’etre, matiere primitive des choses, sort Fidee du neant; mais Fetre et le neant ne restent pas en face Fun de Fautre. L’etre exclut ef appelle le meant; ee double mouvement suscite une troisieme idee que Hegel appelle le devenir et qui reconcilie les deux autres. Le devenir, e’est Fidee du developpement par lequel un etre devient ce qu’il n’etait pas. Cette idee implique a la fois celle de l’etre et celle du meant; elle en est la synthese. Nous, voila sortis de cette abstraction confuse oil tout se mele et se perd;: nous mettons le pied sur le terrain de la realite; nous avons affaire a Fetre deter­ mine, a la qualite. �68 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. A travers cette deduction interminable, que je renonce a poursuivre en detail, l’idee dominante du systeme de Hegel se maintient avec une fermete singuliere. Partout l’idee traverse les trois moments necessaires; elle est d’abord l’identite confuse des contraires, puis elle se divise, pour rentrer finalement dans son identite primitive, eclaircie et vivifiee. Cette loi domine toutes les spheres de la pensee, non-seulement la physique, l’astronomie et les sciences naturelles, mais aussi la psychologie, la morale, le droit, l’histoire de la civilisa­ tion, celle des religions et des philosophies. Il y a trois facultes dans l’esprit humain: la sensibilite qui nous livre les idees dans leur confusion, l’entendement qui les debrouille et les oppose, la raison qui les unit. L’homme est d’abord pour lui-meme unite confuse d’une ame et d’uncorps: cetteunite se brise par la reflexion; Fame s’oppose le corps, mais elle s’apercoit que le corps, c’est encore elle-meme, et alors elle le ramene a soi comme un moment necessaire de son existence. Dansl’homme, tout est d’ahord mele: l’instinct, la volonte, la raison. L’homme existe deja sans doute dans l’enfant, mais d’une maniere abstraite et indeterminee; il est en soi, il n’est pas pour soi. L’age de la reflexion arrive; une opposition se declare entre l’instinct et la raison, entre la nature et la volonte. De la le mal, mais de la aussi le bien. Le bien suppose le mal; car celui qui fait le bien sans effort, sous la seule impulsion d’une nature excellente, n’est pas veritablement bon. Ici se verifie avec eclat, suivant Hegel, le principe de Sa logique. On ne peut concevoir le bien sans concevoir en meme temps le mal. Le bien en un sens implique done le mal, et cependant il l’exclut. Il l’exclut et il le suppose, voila la contradiction qu’il faut resoudre. Hegel y croit parvenir en demontrant qu’au fond l’instinct et la raison sont identiques. L’instinct, c’est la raison qui s’ignore : apres s’etre opposee a elle-mdme dans la lutte de la volonte et de la nature, elle reconnait leur identite, et des lors tout rentre dans l’ordre au sein de Fame pacifiee; l’instinct comprend qu’obeir a la raison, c’est etre fidele a lui-meme; la raison comprend qu’elle est faite, non pour etouffer ou comprimer l’instinct, mais pour le conduire, et cette harmonie intelligente et volontaire de l’instinct et de la raison, c’est la vertu, source du bonheur. On s’imagine que le bonheur et la vertu sont deux choses differentes: philosophie etroite, philosophie de Fen­ tendement ! La raison identifie ce que le coeur de .l’honnete homme �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 69 ne separe jamais, le bien-faire et le bien-etre, Taction vertueuse et la felicite. Partout a la surface, la contradiction, la difference; partout au fond, l’barmonie et l’identite. Quoi de plus oppose, a ce qu’il semble, que la philosophie et la religion? quoi de plus divers que les cultes? quoi de plus contraire que les systemes philosophiques? En realite, toutes ces institutions religieuses, dont la variete nous confond, dont l’opposition nous etonne, ne sont que les membres d’un meme corps, les moments d’une meme idee. Cette idee, qui se developpe dans la suite harmonieuse des religions, est la meme qui, sous des formes plus claires, deploie dans le mouvement regulier des systemes philo­ sophiques sa nature toujours diverse et toujours identique. Les lois de la logique, partout presentes, parce qu’elles sont le fond de tout, determinent et gouvernent souverainement cette double evo­ lution. Il y a trois grandes religions : la religion orientate, la religion grecque et la religion chretienne, lesquelles correspondent aux trois moments necessaires de l’idee logique. La religion orientale, cest l’idee de Dieu a son premier moment, celui qui comprend tous les autres dans leur unite confuse. L’homme adore Dieu, mais sans le connaitre et sans se connaitre soi-meme. Univers, homme, Dieu, tout cela ne forme encore qu’un tout indecis, la nature. La religion grecque, c’est l’idee de Dieu au moment de la diremption, de la con­ tradiction. Dieu se divise, pour ainsi dire, s’ebranche en mille rameaux, s’oppose a l’homme et a lui-meme; T infini se perd et se dissout dans le fini. La religion chretienne est par essence la religion de la reconciliation. Fille de l’Orient et de la Grece, elle les reproduit etles identifie. Dieu, qui s’ignorait dans les obscurs symboles de l’lnde, qui errait en quelque sorte hors de soi dans la prodigieuse variete des divinites contraires de la Grece et de Rome, revient a soi danS le christianisme pour prendre conscience claire et pleine posses­ sion de soi. Aussi, le christianisme est-il la seule religion complete, la seule vraie, la seule evidente par elle-meme: c’est Dieu se sachant et s’affirmant Dieu. Ce qu’on appelle les mysteres de la religion chretienne, ce sont les lois absolues des choses, obscures pour les sens, absurdes et contradictoires pour l’entendement, claires et harmonieuses pour la raison. Le premier de ces mysteres, n’est-ce point celui de la sainte Trinite? Or la sainte Trinite, c’est, sous la forme du symbole, le principe �70 ' ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. m&ne de la logique. Le Pere, e’est 1’idee en soi; le Fils, e’est Fide'e hors de soi, dans sa manifestation visible, sous la double forme de la nature et de l’humanrte; l’Esprit, e’est l’idee en soi et pour soi, parvenue au terme de son mouvement, se reconnaissant identique dans tous les degres qu’elle a parcourus. Au sein meme du Pere se retrouvent les trois moments de l’idee, mais sous une forme encore tout ideale: I’Etre ou la Puissance, objet de la pensee; le Verbe ou l’lntelligence, ou entore la Pensee, engendrde par FEtre; l’Amour enfin, qui procede de tous deux et qui les unit. Cette Trinity tout ideale se realise par la creation, royaume du Fils; mais, pour rattacher la creation & son principe, il faut que le fini se sache infini, que Fhomme se connaisse Dieu : e’est le royaume de l’Esprit. Il appartient eminemment & la philosophie de realiser sur la terre le royaume de 1’Esprit. C’est elle en efiet qui, en rattachant les symboles du christianisme aux lois de la pensee, demontre et explique ce que la religion ne faisait qu’affirmer, Funion intime de l’homme et de Dieu. La premiere forme de cette union se trouve dans la Communaute chr&ienne de l’eglise au berceau; la seconde, c’a et6 l’Eglise organisee; la derniere sera l’Etat, oh toutes les croyances religieuses sont appelees h s’allier un jour sous la loi de la raison et de la liberte. * Je 1’avouerai i mon premier sentiment, au sortir de ces specula­ tions Stranges de FAllemagne contemporaine, e’est de m’etonner que dans la patrie de Leibnitz elles aient pu captiver si longtemps les intelligences. Si jene me trompe, la philosophie allemande est depuis un deml-siecle sous l’empire et comme sous le charme d’une illu< sion, c’esl de croire que la science absolue est possible pour l’esprit humain. La science absolue, je veux dire l’explication universelle et adequate des choses, voila la chimere que poursuit depuis Fichte la philosophie allemande, et chacun des systemes qu’elle a tour a tour enfantes n’est qu’un effort pour saisir 1’insaisissable fantome. On dit que cette confiance demesuree dans la pure theorie tient au genie speculatif de la race germanique, et cette explication est vraie, mais elle ne suffit pas; car enfin cette terre de Fenthousiasme a porte de grands critiques, Wolf, Heyne, Paulus; cette race chimerique a prqduit Kant. Je croirais plutot que e’est 1’exces meme dti doute dans la doctrine de Kant qui a produit dans celle de Hegel l’exces de l’orgueil dogmatique. Il y a dans la philosophie a tenir �ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. , 71 compte de deux elements essentiels : d’un cote,, l’esprit humain avec, sa nature, ses limites, ses faiblesses de toute sorte; de l’autre, l’ensemble des choses, leur essence, leurs rapports. Reduire l’esprit humain a connaitre sa constitution dans l’oubli de la nature des choses, c’est nier la science; concevoir la science comme independante de la nature de l’esprit humain, de ses conditions, de ses lois, de ses limites, c’est la nier encore, car c’est la rendre impossible et contradictoire. La philosophie allemande me donne le spectacle de ces deux exces contraires. Kant commence par reconnaitre que dans la science les philosophes n’ont pas su faire la part de 1’esprit humain, la part du sujet: vue profonde autant que solide, d’ou est sortie une incom­ parable analyse de la raison; mais, bientot entraine par son prin­ cipe, ce sage esprit oublie sa sagesse au point d’interdire a 1’esprit humain tout acces dans la realite des choses, Hegel s’est jete a 1’extremite opposee. L’auteur de la Critique, de la Raison pwe osait a peine affirmer l’existence des objets exterieurs; l’auteur de la Logique en connait a fond, en explique, en deduit, en demontre 1’origine, l’essence et les lois. Le pare de la philosophie allemande reduisait la theodicee a soupgonner la possibilite de Dieu; pour le dernier heritier de cette philosophie, la nature divine n’a pas de mysteres; le nombre et 1’ordre de ses attributs se decouvrent avec la meme clarte que les proprietes des courbes geometriques. Kant enfermait la raison dans le cercle de l’experience; Hegel refuse a 1’experience toute autorite scientifique; tout doit etre demontre en philosophie, c’est-a-dire deduit des idees pures. Les plus hautes conceptions de l’esprit humain n’avaient pour le maitre qu’une valeur relative et subjective; rien de relatif et de subjectif, si l’on en croit le disciple, n’a de place dans les cadres de la science. Ainsi, des deux termes necessaires de toute connaissance, l’esprit humain et les choses, Kant supprime le second, Schelling et Hegel retranchent le premier. Fichte marque la transition d’un exces a l’autre. Fichte en effet, tout en exagerant le kantisme, poursuit la chimere de la science absolue; mais c’est dans le moi qu’il se flatte de la trouver. Il supprime comme Kant les choses, mais il en con­ serve les idees et prepare la transformation future qui, de ces idees, va faire les choses elles-memes. Ainsi, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, et on peut ajouter a ces noms �72 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. eminents ceux de tous les philosophes de la moderne Allemagne, ont ce point commun au sein des differences qui les separent: e’est de croire que la science absolue est possible, e’est de la chercher, e’est de la construire. De la leur methode commune, aussi chimerique, aussi vaine que l’objet qu’elle poursuit. Son trait distinctif, e’est la suppression de l’experience ou du moins la subordination com­ plete de l’experience aux donnees de la raison pure. L’Allema­ gne a le plus parfait mepris pour l’observation. Tenir compte des faits, e’est a ses yeux tomber dans l’empirisme, dernier degre de l’abaissement intellectuel. La science est essentiellement l’explication des choses; or, l’experience n’explique rien; la science en expliquant demontre, l’experience ne saurait rien demontrer. L’experience est enfermee dans des limites necessaires; elle sait ce qui arrive en tel temps, 'en tel lieu; la science veut des resultats universels et dura­ bles ; l’experience est l’ouvrage d’un esprit fini, et partant elle est toujours relative et toujours subjective; la science est absolue et objective par essence. Evidemment, si la philosophie poursuit la science absolue, la me­ thode philosophique, e’est la methode a priori, fondee sur les idees pures, suivant l’ordre des choses, expliquant tout, deduisant tout, meprisant l’experience, ne reconnaissant aucune limite, aucune con­ dition. A une telle science il faut une telle methode; ces deux chimeres sont faites l’une pour l’autre. Si je ne m’abuse, le secret de toutes les speculations allemandes est la : le principe de l’identite de la pensee et de l’etre, commun fondement du systeme de Schelling et de celui de Hegel, le principe plus dangereux encore de l’identite des contradictoires dont la logique hegelienne est une perpetuelle application, enfin cette idee eminemment pantheiste du processus des choses qui fait de l’esprit humain le terme supreme oil les developpements successifs de l’existence viennent se concentrer et se reflechir, tout cela m’apparait comme autant de suites necessaires de la double illusion que je viens de signaler. Pour que la science absolue soit construite, il ne suffit pas en effet que l’ordre des idees exprime l’ordre des choses, il faut que les idees embrassent, penetrent, constituent les choses; il faut que les idees soient les choses. Supposez que les choses soient separees ou seule­ ment distinctes des idees, un doute est possible sur la conformite parfaite des idees avec les choses; l’essence des etres est soupeonnee, entrevue, elle n’est pas saisie, atteinte dans son fond. C’en est done �/ ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. 73 fait He wteeuce absolue, s’il n’y a pas identite entre les idees et les choses. jLa science absolue doit partir d’une premiere idee et en deduire toutes les. autres. Quelle peut-etre cette idee? la plus comprehensive et la plus vague de toutes, l’idee de l’etre indetermine. Mais comment passer de 1’etre indetermine a l’etre reel, de l’abstrait au concret, du neant de l’existence a la vie? Il y a la une contradiction. Eh bien! au ytett de la dissimuler, acceptons-lahardiment. La contradiction est a I origine des choses : que cette contradiction primitive devienne la loi fondamentale de la pensee et de l’etre, qu’elle se retrouve dans toute la feature, qu’elle soit la force cachee par qui les idees sortent les unes Ides autres depuis la plus pauvre jusqu’a la plus riche, de sorte qu’en definitive le neant soit le prineipe, Dieu le terme, et que le lieant devienne Dieu. M^Wais comment l’esprit humain pourra-t-il connaitre et decrire cette vaste et merveilleuse evolution? a une seule condition, c’est que l’esprit humain soit le degre superieur oil tout aboutit, le dernier cercle qui enveloppe et penetre tous, les autres, a condition que l’esprit .humain soit tout, que l’homme.soit Dieu. L’homme divinise, voila le .dernier mot de la philosophie.allemande. ’ Schelling dit que Dieu, c’est le sujet-objet absolu; Hegel que c’est l’idee, l’esprit infini. Mais.il faut bien s’entendre. Le'sujet-objet, .considere avant son developpement, n’est qu’une abstraction, une identite vide. J’en dis autant de 1’espri.t infini, de 1’ideeen soi. Hegel lui-meme declare que l’idee en soi est identique au neant. Si c’est la Dieu, il faut s’expliquer avec franchise mais non, le Dieu de la philosophie allemande n’est pas au commencement des choses, il est a leur terme. Ce Dieu, c’est l’esprit humain, ou plutoi Dieu est a la foi&a l’origine, au terme et au milieu, ce qui revient a dire qu’il n’y a pas de Dieu distinct des choses. . - Ces etranges doctrines, a defaut de merite plus solide, ont-elles du moins celui de la nouveaute? c’est encore la une des illusions de la philosophie germanique. Rien de plus naif que les pretentions de nos voisins d’outre-Rhin en fait d’originalite. Dans l’ecole hegelienne en particulier, on les a portees a leur comble. Hegel ne reconnait en ses Lecons sur Vhistoire cfe la philosophie que deux grandes epoques, l’epoque grecque et l’epoque germanique. Or, il va sans dire que la philosophie germanique est comprise entre Kant et Hegel. C’est rayer d’pn trait de �74 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. plume des annales de la pensee humaine la scolastique et la philoso­ phie fran^aise, des noms, par exemple, comme ceux d’Abelard et de Descartes. Que 1’Allemagne traite avec ce mepris superbe des philosophes fran^ais, cela peut a la rigueur se concevoir; mais rabaisser aussi Leibnitz, n’est-ce pas l’exces de 1’ingratitude? EUe est d’autant plus choquante que ces altiers contempteurs de la philosophie du dix-septieme siecle n’ont pas dedaigne de lui emprunter ses vues les plus originales. Le principe de l’homogeneite universelie des sub­ stances, la loi de continuite suivant laquelle tous les etres s’enchainent et s’echelonnent, le dynamisme interieur qui se fait sentir dans toute la nature sous l’apparent mecanisme de ses phenomenes, l’analogie profonde des lois de l’univers physique et des lois de l’humanite, toutes ces grandes idees qui sont la force et la richesse du systeme de Schelling, ne viennent-elles pas de Leibnitz? Un autre cartesien, Spinoza, n’a-t-il pas aussi a revendiquer sa large part tJalt dans les speculations de 1’Allemagne? Le principe de l’identite de la pensee et de l’etre n’est-il pas, je viens de m’en assurer, le propre fonds du spinozisme? Hegel accuse le Juif d’Amsterdam d’avoir meconnu le principe occidental, le principe modeme de la personnalite, d’avoir fait de Dieu la necessity ou la chose absolue, sans reconnaitre en lui le sujet, la personne; mais est-ce bien a Hegel qu’il , « appartient d’elever contre le spinozisme une telle accusation, d’ailleurs I si legitime? Cette personnalite qu’il invoque, l’a-t-il respectee dans Lhomme et en Dieu, lui qui n’a vu partout, du sommet de 1’etre jusqu’a son plus bas degre, que la rigoureuse geometrie de l’idee? '9 Tout en se distinguant de Spinoza, Hegel reconnait pourtant a la philosophie germanique un grand precurseur. Lequel, je vous prie? fl ce n’est pas Spinoza, ce sera peut-etre Descartes? non; e’est un Allemand du seizieme siecle, le chimerique auteur de XAurore naissante, le cordonnier philosophe de Goerlitz, Jacob Boehme 1 Je laisse parler Hegel lui-meme : « Nous verrons, dit-il dans un discours celebre, que chez les autres nations de l’Europe ou les scien­ ces sont cultivees avec zele et autorite, il ne s’est plus conserve de la philosophie que le nom, 1’idee en a peri, et elle n’existe plus que chez la nation allemande. Nous avens re$u de la nature la mission d’etre les conservateurs de ce feu sacre, comme aux Eumolpides d’Athenes avait ete confiee la conservation des mysteres d’Eleusis, aux habitants de Samothrace celle d’un culte plus pur et plus eleve, de meme .que, plus anciennement encore, l’esprit universel avait �■ ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. -15. donnd a la nation juive la conscience que ce serait d’elle qu’il sortirait renouvele *. » Ce qui m’etonne dans l’exaltation naive de ces paroles, c’est que 1’histoire de la philosophic, qui a ete cultivee avec tant de patience et de profondeur par les compatriotes de Hegel etpar Hegel lui-meme, n’ait pas quelque peu altere la serenite de leur orgueil speculatif. Sans remonter aux temps reeules de la philosophie grecque, je trouve audeclin de la civilisation greeque et romaine un mouvement philosophique plein d’analogies frappantes avec celui qui agite depuis soixante ans l’Allemagne, je veux parler de la philosophie Alexan­ drine. Elle aussi avait ete precedee par un radical scepticisme, celui d’CEnesideme, d’Agrippa et de Sextus. Elle aussi s’elan^a a 1’extre­ mity contraire pour embrasser le fantdme de la science absolue. Comme Hegel, Plotin dedaigne l’experience; comme lui, il pretend saisir l’ordre absolu des choses, et non-seulement le saisir, mais le deduire et le demontrer; tous deux admettent dans l’etre un mouvement dialectique qui se reflechit dans la science et identifie la raison et 1 etre Eans l’idee. A Alexandrie comme a Berlin, on voit clair dans les mysteres de l’essence divine; on la decompose en trois elements a la fois distincts et inseparables, trinite primitive qui se retrouve au fond de toute chose et de toute pensee. Cette trinite devient pour les deux ecoles une baguette magique qui fait tomber tout voile, eclaircit toute obscurite, efface toute difference. Les systemes philosophiques se rapprochent, les symboles religieux se confondent, tout se penetre et s’unit. Au sommet de la trinite, par dela toutes les determinations de la pensee et de l’etre, regne l’Unite absolue, identite du neant et de S’ existence, abime ou la pensee humaine, apres avoir parcouru le cercle necessaire de ses revolutions, vient chercher le repos dans I’aneantissement de la conscience et de la personne. Ainsi meme principe, la recherche de la science absolue| meme methode, la speculation toute rationnelle; memes resultats, l’identite des contradictoires et l’homme s’unifiant avec Dieu. Je connais done le principe etle terme de la philosophie allemande: elle commence, par le scepticisme, elle finit par le pantheisme. Et voila les deux sources ou s’abreuvent les generations nouvelles : Kant leur verse le scepticisme, Hegel le pantheisme, et ces deux 1. Paroles prononc^es par Hegel, d Heidelberg, en octobre 1816, aFouverture de son cours d’histoire de la philosophie. �76 ESSAI DE PHILOSOPHIE RELIGIEUSE. courants d’idees se rencontrent dans la doctrine du Dieu impersonnel. Ainsi e’est vainement que Descartes et Malebranche, Newton et Leibnitz ont epuise leur genie a organiser en systeme la croyance universelle du genre humain. Le Dieu personnel, le Dieu du bon sens, le Dieu de la philosophie spiritualiste succombe, et a sa place le scepticisme et le pantheisme conjures introduisent la substance indeterminee des etres. Est-ce la que je dois aboutir? Ce resultat est-il le dernier mot de mes longues recherches historiques ? e’est ce que je veux me demander serieusement une fois dans ma vie. J’ai assez lu, j’ai assez discute, l’age mur arrive, il faut fermer les livres, me replier au dedans de moi et ne plus consulter que ma raison. (La suite a la prochaine Livraison.) � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 A name given to the resource Essai de philosophie religieuse. Premiere partie - Etudes historiques. Sixieme etude - Le scepticisme de Kant Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Saisset, Emile Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [Paris] Collation: [26]-76 p. ; 26 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Le Megasin de Librairie: literature, histoire, philosophie, voyages, .... Vol. 3. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1859] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5410 Subject The topic of the resource Philosophy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p class="western">This work (Essai de philosophie religieuse. Premiere partie - Etudes historiques. Sixieme etude - Le scepticisme de Kant), identified by <a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource French Conway Tracts Immanuel Kant Philosophy and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/545d81728e21adef664b43c0ce0e15d8.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=E29c0APv352C8lKS4PswxLTyeuPcdz%7ESOlfiJLK5XGDqdRdo6eKDU%7EjWOdnwxAnUQ-61Erj9xcK7eFqFkHXtYFYJFsSIEF9zTeDPz2Vc9DrPCbxIcOSwfrZdecq0mLpyCGojltDwfWcnFOrcojZvcVS9cPBVh3tSJ%7Edpnw363s1nVMY7NGRoiqcRqu1wE29KKK%7E7UJZzLX0VMnNfXN2s9apRnWKdyF0%7E7hRfLOkz-nJifHfzP8U5wiSjc-8EKvAvkfwLR8rps-4nt2XbscEVgDfMhMDei9xpbfij8Q7ZnCfMBRysEkeHnn8OapDriUyaLlmowoGMTBIml6ft4U2Ecw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM fef4a179f36bad594b2e5e31151a46ff PDF Text Text THE PHILOSOPHY OF “GETTING RELIGION.” TTIRST in order, let us ascertain what is meant by the phrase, “getting religion.” All will concede that.it is not a Scriptural phrase, but the term religion is. Etymologically, the word religion means, to re­ bind, to bind again. If the term be applied to persons, this meaning suggests several ideas : i. A person to be bound again ; 2. A person to whom he shall be bound again; 3. That the person to be bound has been loosed; 4. A bond. If we consider this word historically and theologically, all these thoughts find in it an authorized symbol. Under this view of the term, to say that a man “gets religion,” con­ veys no definite conception. If then, we would arrive at the current meaning of the phrase, we must consult the usus loquendi—the usual mode of speaking, past or present. Inasmuch as words and phrases are the signs of ideas, and! because neither this phrase nor its synonym was used in apostolic times, we have evidence, prima facie, that the idea.3is of post-apostolic origin. Hence, on theological grounds, our jealousy of it may be justified. The usus loquendi, then and now, assigns to the word religion a meaning which Webster thus expresses: “ Theology, as a system of doctrines or principles, as well as practical piety; a system of faith and worship.” The proper reception of the Christian doctrine, as a rule of life, binds a man to God in covenant relationship. The term, therefore, ordinarily relates to the system which a man receives under the idea of a bond. This is one of the thoughts growing out of the etymology of the term. But usage has made this the paramount idea. Can it be, then, that to “get religion” is to possess one’s self with the Christian system of truth? Surely not. Then there must be some idea involved by the term, as phrased, different both from its etymological and ordinary sense. It is certain that this phrase is eminently peculiar to the litera­ ture of a special class of religionists; particularly those who adopt �2 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' the “anxious-seat” as an instrumentality to facilitate conversion. They evidently mean, by the phrase, a subjective or psychological experience—a sudden revulsion of the emotions from a more or less profound depression, through conviction of sin and fear of its conse­ quences, to a high state of exultation and joy, on account of pardon. It must not be supposed that a psychological experience is peculiar to this class, although some, under the influence of this system, have denounced others as “ head religionists;” for we must believe that every one who becomes reconciled to God has an experience pecu­ liarly his own. But from the fact that, under this system, this ex­ perience is sought for by peculiar methods as the direct gift of the Holy Spirit, and as having a priceless value as the evidence of par­ don, it becomes the paramount object of the sinner’s seeking. And as this revulsion, by a singular use of the word, is called religion, naturally enough the obtainment of it is called “getting religion.” With others, the objective point is not “getting religion,” but getting themselves into' harmony with religion, or the Christian system, knowing that if they can effect this, their emotions will take care of themselves. Hence, they do not need to coin a new phrase to ex­ press a new religious idea, but simply to use the Scriptural term, reconciliation. INFLUENCE OF THEORIES. Every theory determines its own methods and inspires its own literature. The literature of the theory now referred to, is character­ ized by such expressions as “ experimental religion,” “ seed of grace,” “grace of God in the heart,” “grace of faith,” “getting the power,” “ getting through,” “ soundly converted,” “ hopefully converted,” “ I feel to thank God,” “ I feel to do right,” “ I know that I am a child of God, because I feel it.” The emotions are first, last, and all the time. They become the standard of truth, as well as duty. And if, under the law of affinities, the most abundant harvests of converts are not gathered from the emotional classes, there would be occasion to revise all our systems of mental philosophy. Nor is it surprising that there should be a perplexing confusion of Scriptural terms, in order to adjust them to a system whose central thought places its advocates under the necessity of coining so many unscriptural words and phrases, in order to furnish it a lingual habi­ tation and a name. The terms conversion, regeneration, change of �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion: 3 heart, born again, are modified by the phrase “getting religion,” or made its synonyms ; generally, the latter. Were it not for the logical and theological connections of the idea of “ getting religion,” we might tolerate it as a comparatively inoffen­ sive affair. But just here we hesitate. It is affirmed that it is the immediate—without means—direct work of the Holy Spirit; that saving faith is an inspiration by the Holy Spirit, as the writer re­ cently heard in a discourse by a prominent minister. The necessity for this position is laid in a theory of the fall of man—in .the doctrine of total native depravity, as the hereditament from Adam of every human being; that this corruption of man’s na­ ture is such, that “he can not turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength, to faith and calling upon God, . . . without the grace of God, by Christ, preventing [anticipating] us, that we may have a good will ” (see M. E. Discipline, Arts, vii, viii) ; that man can not exercisesaving faith when he hears the Gospel, because of natural inability inherited; that the Holy Spirit must directly im­ part the power. Hence, a distinguished writer in the Methodist Quarterly, of A. D. 1869, page 266, says, “The method of Meth­ odism is inspiration, in distinction from The'larger Catechism (questions and answers 25, 26, 27, and 67,) avows the same doctrine of original sin, with the necessity for Spirit impact, in order to predetermine man’s will to the exercise of saving faith. In accordance with which, Dr. Rice, in Debate with Alexander Campbell, page 672, says: “ Every thing has its nature. The lion, however young, has its nature. . # . Plant two trees in the same soil, and let them be watered by the same stream, and one will produce sweet fruit and the other bitter. They possess different na­ tures.” From these comparisons, we learn that man’s nature since the fall differs from his nature before the fall, as a lion’s from a lamb’s nature, or as the nature of a peach-tree from that of a crab-apple tree. But man’s nature before the fall was created by God, and was a human nature. He fails to tell who created his second nature, and of what kind it is. Its creator must have been God, man, or the devil. If God, then every creature of God is not good. If the devil, then one thing was made without the Word. If man, then why can he not new-create himself? That Dr. Rice understands his stand­ ards to teach that God’s original creative power is exerted in regen­ eration, is clear from page 635 : “Now, if God could originally create �4 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion? man holy without words and arguments, who shall presume to assert that he can not. create him anew, and restore his lost image ?” This he said, in order to show the possibility of infant moral regeneration, which, but for the logical demands of a theory, no one need attempt to prove, since the Savior has said, “ Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” When Mr. Campbell charged that Dr. Rice’s theory made every conversion a miracle, he was met by an emphatic denial. But the logic of a system will sometimes crop out through advocates who are not constrained by controversial considerations. Hence, in his ■ Early Years of Christianity,” page 24, Dr. E. Pressense declares that the Church, “born of a miracle,' by a miracle lives. Founded upon the great miracle of redemption, it grows and is perpetuated by the ever-repeated miracle of conversion.” We would not be understood as disparaging the terms conversion, regeneration, born again, change of heart, being healed, new creation, in their Scriptural usage; nor the eminently Scriptural idea that the Holy Spirit is the efficient agent in regeneration; but we do most courageously object to any theory which requires such a set of exegetical laws as makes these beautiful figures mutually destructive, and arrays them all against every man’s consciousness and the analogy of faith. For example, if the sinner is dead, in the strained sense put upon this figure, how can he, under another figure, be diseased and capable of cure ? If he must be created anew, according to and in the manner this theory demands, how can he be born again ?, RATIONAL VIEW. That a revulsion of the emotions, called “getting religion,” does occur, as is claimed, the writer sincerely believes. It is not a ques­ tion of fact, but of the explanation of the fact. Those who question the fact, speak unwisely; for this would be to assume that many of the most estimable men are guilty of hypocrisy and downright false­ hood—the only effect of which would be to shut the ear against reason, to turn the edge of argument before whetting, to clothe the claimants with a coat of mail more impenetrable than Greek or Ro­ man warrior ever wore. If this revulsion is the effect of an imme­ diate impact of the Holy Spirit, then we must concede all its logical and theological antecedents and consequents. If it can be accounted for without transcending the bounds of natural causes and natural �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' 5 laws, then the opponent must cease to demand for the fact a solely supernatural explanation, or stand self-convicted of fanaticism. Let no one deny our right to deal with this subject philosophic­ ally ; for Rev. C. G. Finney, late President of Oberlin College, has defended it upon philosophic grounds. He, more than any other man, perhaps, was instrumental in promoting the great revivals which swept the country forty years ago. His staid, quondam Presbyterian brethren objected to certain “ new measures ” used by him to promote revivals; one of which was the anxious-seat. In his “ Revival Lec­ tures,” page 253, he replies: “Of late, this measure has met with more opposition than any of the others. What is the great objec­ tion ? I can not see it. The design of the anxious-seat is undoubt­ edly philosophical, and according to the laws of mind'.' Singular how extremes meet. Mr. Finney swung off to an oppo­ site extreme from the prevailing theories of conversion, and adopted the anxious-seat as a measure to facilitate conversion, because its design is philosophical, and in accordance with the laws of mind, while others held on to the old theories, and adopted it for the same purpose, disclaiming its design. Whgr^ consistency lies, the reader must pronounce. Chide us not, then,, nor complain, if we at­ tempt to ascertain these laws of mind, or the philosophy of “getting religion.” Let us look in upon a revival scene, The . sermon culminates in an impassioned, rhetorical descpption of the sinfulness of sin, the terrors of judgment. The peroration flames and fumes with fire and brimstone. As the writer once heard, “ Hell is uncapped, and the wails of the damned salute the sinnerjs earhe “ is hair-hung and breeze-shaken over the gulf of damnation.” The imaginative, no less than the moral, emotions are wrought up to a fearful pitch. The cry is heard, “What must we do ?”“ Come to the anxious-seat, and the Lord’s people will pray for you. and. the Lord will speak peace to your souls.” They come. Preacher and people wait on them to in­ struct, admonish, exhort, or entreat,jMpeach case may require, or as the psychological condition of each may. seem to demand. “ How do you feel ?” If the sense of guilt does not seem deep enough, the effort is to “ break him down, so that he can neither stand nor go or, in other words, to depress the emotions to the lowest possible point. This done, the effort begins to “ get him through,” or to se­ cure a rebound of the emotions. For this purpose, the power of �6 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' payer and song and encouraging exhortation is called into requisiton- The penitent is addressed thus : “ Do you not believe that God is able to save you ?” “ Is he not willing ?” “ Heaven, with all its glories, is yours, if you will only surrender your heart to the Lord.” “ If you will only give up all your sins; if you will only believe, the Lord will receive you, and give you the evidence of accept­ ance.” “ Ask, and you shall receive.” “ Seek, and you shall find.” He repents, and prays, and weeps, and mourns. He asks, but does not receive. A flash comes over him ; but it is a flash of withering skepticism. “ Surely,” he thinks, “ if what I am told is true, I would obtain the blessing so long and earnestly sought for.” Some one by his side, who came long since he did, rises with a glow­ ing halleluiah upon his lips. This only perplexes him the more. He, after along struggle, is still unblessed, while the joyful convert by his side has received the blessing after a very short struggle. The thought steals upon his mind, “ Surely, God must be a respecter of persons ; but if he is, the Bible is false, for it says the contrary.” Discour­ aged, disheartened, and perplexed beyond measure, he sinks into a skeptical stolidity. His friends note it. They come about him with increased solicitude and intensified prayerfulness. One says to him: “ This is a device of Satan to ruin you, when you were just escaping from his power;” “Don’t give way to your doubts.” “I was just so, says another ; “ I had a long struggle and a hard one to get relig­ ion, but I finally succeeded, and I was so happy.” “ Pray on, brother ; we will pray for you, that you may yet prevail.” “ If you will only believe, God will speak peace to your soul.” “ Pray to the Lord to give you faith ; to give you the victory over Satan.” His doubts overcome, at least quieted, by the confidence he has in those who re­ late their experiences, and encouraged by their earnest exhortations, he plunges again into the struggle. Special attention is now given him, as a brand that must be plucked from the burning. He and others are animated for the struggle with the idea that it is a hand-tohand conflict with Satan, who is striving, with more than usual per­ sistency, to keep this soul under his dominion. Victory over an opposing foe is always sweet. Prayers go up, earnest, sincere, tearful, agonizing prayers. Songs are inspired with the hope of impending victory. Heaven is addressed: “Lord, send down the power.” “Come down, and convert this poor sinner.” “ Drive back Satan to his own native hell, and give this soul release.” “ Lord, baptize him with the �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' 7 Holy Spirit and fire.” “ Lord, pour light into this darkened soul.” Meantime, the penitent is exhorted: “Now give up all to Christ.” “Hold back nothing.” “Turn away from all your sins.” “Ask, and you shall receive.” “Now, don’t you believe?” “Just believe that you have the blessing, and you have it.” “Just believe that God has pardoned you, and you are pardoned.” “Just rise up, and shout glory to God, and it will be all right; you will feel happy.” “ Open your mouth, and the Lord will put a new song into it.” Then the altar resounds with the chorus: “O believe him, O believe him, O believe him, just now. He will save you, he will save you, He will save you, just now !” A heavenly smile begins to chase away the sadness which has hung like a pall over the penitent’s countenance. Before he has had time to express a word, a score of happy voices lift the choral halleluiah, in which he joins with his shouts of joy. “His was a mighty work of grace.” “The Lord was merciful.” His conversion becomes the theme of sermon and song, to incite others to seek religion. How fortunate for the poor penitent, when he was on the verge of infidelity, that his reasoning process was cut short and his judg­ ment overborne by the solicitude of friends! Otherwise he might have deepened skepticism into confirmed infidelity, with the contra­ dictions and inconsistencies of the system. The preacher had told him that the unregenerate can not exercise saving faith, without the enabling power of the Holy Spirit; yet all the while he was exhorted to believe—to believe just now. What ? That Jesus is the Son of God ? No. He believed that already. Believe that he was a sinner ? No. What then? Why, “just believe that you are pardoned, and you are pardoned.” Or, otherwise, a man must believe in order to be pardoned; still he can not, being unregenerate. Then, he is par­ doned if he believes so. Then, of course, believing that he is par­ doned, he will be happy, has the desired revulsion of the emotions, or has “gotten religion.” Then, his feelings become the evidence of pardon ; or he believes he is pardoned before he has the evidence, in order to obtain the evidence. But did he believe without evidence entirely ? Surely not; for that is impossible. His faith must have rested upon the testimony of his advisers, or it was nothing but imagination, or both combined. Of the power of the imagination, �8 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' hear what Professor Haven, of Amherst, says in his “ Mental Philos­ ophy,” page 153. This is a standard text-book in many of our insti­ tutions of learning: “ Errors of Imagination.—Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices, illusions of the imagination ; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some wrong use of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We dwell upon its pleasing visions till we forget the sober face of truth. We fancy pleasures, benefits, results, which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark and dreary side of things, till all nature wears the somber hue of our disordered fancy.” It would seem that Professor Haven must have had his eye upon the anxious-seat when he penned this paragraph. While presenting the foregoing description of anxious-seat conversion, the thought occurred to the writer that he might be charged with an attempted caricature; for, he is free to confess that, if he had not carefully noted the facts, it would be difficult to regard it as a representation of sober reality. But those who have frequented such scenes, will confess that he might have colored the picture even more highly, without violence to truth. He is not conscious of “ hav­ ing set down aught in malice.” With this procedure before us, we propose to deduce those mental and emotional laws which should be recognized in this process of “getting religion,” and under the operation of which it is believed the fact may be rationally explained. In order to appreciate this psychological experience in its varied manifestations, it must be pre­ mised that the intensity of emotional activity depends largely upon the strength and development of the moral sense and the imagination; that the intensity of emotional activity, caused under the influence of the imagination, is ordinarily greater than that produced under the influence of the moral sense. But if both the imagination and the moral sense are involved, as is generally, if not always, the case in religious excitements, we may expect an intensity of emotional ac­ tivity correspondent to the united strength and development of both these faculties, only modified by the degree of precision and force with which the objects producing the excitement are presented to the mind, and also the nature of the objects; for, if the objects be such as are not trivial, but directly connected with our highest interests for time and eternity, they would naturally command our most ear­ �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' 9 nest solicitude. Hence, we would most confidently expect, what is a notorious fact, that the results of revivals, conducted according to the anxious-seat method, should depend largely upon the rhetorical and emotional power of the minister. If he be a man of warm, impulsive nature, with a vivid imagination and good pulpit address, so that he can clothe his transcendently important themes with the chameleon changes of the sublime and the sorrowful, the terrific and the beau­ tiful, the awful, grand, or pitiful; if he can touch, every note in the diapason of human feeling, with the exquisiteness and the dash of a well-skilled orchestra,—then we may readily believe that great results will be achieved. Hence, in our time, an evangelist is regarded as little else than an expert revivalist. Let no one think, because the writer speaks thus, that he is opposed to revivals. Far from it. If procured and conducted in accordance with the Word of God, they are great instrumentalities for good. But it is the abuse of them, by pressing them into the service of a human system, that has well-nigh turned the world against them. MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL LAWS. I. We most readily imagine or believe that which is in accordance with our desires. II. The facility of faith is variable in different persons, on account of constitutional peculiarities, and in the same person at different times, on account of associations, personal habits, or other causes. III. Confidence in the veracious character of witnesses predisposes the mind to faith in their testimony. IV. Imagination and faith exercise a controlling power over the emotions. We feel as we imagine or believe. V. The imagination or belief of a falsehood affects the emotions in precisely the same manner and to the same degree as the truth upon any given subject, provided the falsehood appears to be truth. VI. If the emotions be borne out of their normal condition to any extreme of intense activity, nature demands a revulsion, or a gradual subsidence, at the peril of insanity. VII. Generally, if the emotions be intensely excited under the influence of the imagination or moral sense, or both combined, bodily agitations will appear, particularly in persons of a nervous temperament. VIII. Generally, emotional excitement is contagious. �1° The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' These laws of mental and emotional activity are not submitted as applicable only to religious revivals, but to mental and emotional activity under all circumstances. Without undertaking to prove or illustrate them, which would be a pleasant pastime, if space allowed, the writer appeals to the consciousness of every reader for their jus­ tification, confident, also, that the observation of every man will afford an abundance of facts from every-day life to fully illustrate them. APPLICATION OF THE ABOVE LAWS. Let us recur to the penitent whom we left, a little while since, filled with the new-born joy of “getting religion,” that we may trace his psychological experience, to ascertain whether or not it was gov­ erned and explainable by these laws. Why were his emotions so depressed, even to the very verge of an anguishing despair, till he could say, “ The pains of hell get hold on me?” Was it because of an immediate impact of the Holy Spirit upon his spirit? Or, was it because he believed himself to be a sin­ ner, exposed to the wrath of God ? Because he saw, through faith in the Word of God, a hell yawning to receive him, and his imagination pictured the woefulness of its torments to his mind. Because he had begun to realize that he deserved it all, for sinning so long against a Holy God, whose matchless love, in the death of Christ, he had so long despised. Because, too, not only his own faith and imagina­ tion had shown him these things, but the faith and imagination of preacher and people had assisted his own vision. His faith and imagination being intensely active, his emotions were agonizingly depressed. (See Law IV.) But, says the objector, if the Spirit of God had not been striving with him, he would not have felt this deep conviction. Grant it. But did the Spirit strive, by direct impact, or through intervening instru­ mentalities, in accordance with the laws of our mental and moral con­ stitution ? This is the point. If in the former manner, then his conviction had no moral character, for he must have been without will in the matter. If in the latter manner, then his own agency was involved; and conversion is not a miracle, but to be effected in a rational way, although none the less by a supernatural, efficient cause. Why did the penitent’s feelings rebound so suddenly? and why did they not rebound sooner? For, perhaps, he had been “seeking religion” for weeks—may be months. In favor of this revulsion several �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!1 11 principles conspired: I. He earnestly desired and sought for the par­ don of his sins. (See Law I.) 2. He had confidence in his religious advisers, who testified that God would pardon him, and gave their own experience in proof. (See Law III.) 3. Nature demands a re­ bound of the emotions when borne away to a given extreme. (See Law VI.) 4. Many around him were happy, having recently “gotten religionothers were happy in the demonstrative joy of the new converts, and in the faith of their own salvation. (See Law VIII.) Why, then, should he not find the object of his seeking sooner ? His faith and imagination combined to depress his emotions; why did they not, under these seemingly favorable circumstances, combine to exalt them to the acme of peace and joy? Here is the puzzle, if con­ version, or “getting religion,” is an effect of the direct, immediate operation of the Holy Spirit. Does not the Holy Spirit aim at and de­ sire every sinner’s conversion ? Had not many already been converted, who came to the anxious-seat long since this penitent came ? Why, then, is he not converted sooner ? Perhaps this explanation may avail us: The Word of God testifies plainly against sin, showing us also its sinfulness and its punishment; also, of the love of God, and the death of Jesus for the sinner. The Holy Spirit had laid a broad foundation for the penitent’s faith in regard to his lost condition without Christ. That same Word had deigned to assist his imagination by such rep­ resentations of the fearful consequences of sin as were calculated to give activity to his imagination. We can readily understand how he was “pricked to the heart;” how he was prostrated under a sense of guilt and fearful apprehension. But in vain does the poor man search the Word of God for a promise of pardon connected with the anxiousseat. In vain does he search the Divine record for an example of conversion according to this method. The broad foundation where he rested his faith for conviction, is now wanting. He is dependent upon the testimony of men, that God will forgive his sins in this way. The fact that, in giving his experience, he may rest his faith upon some promise contained in the Scriptures, does not change the fact that the testimony of men is the real basis of his faith; for, if there is no promise of God connected with the anxious-seat, or if this method of conversion is unscriptural, then, of course, all promises construed with it are misapplied, and therefore cease to be the testi­ mony of God, and become simply the testimony of men,—just as the Scripture quoted by Satan, when tempting the Savior, ceased to be �12 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' the Word of God, and, as then applied, became simply a positive falsehood. Perhaps the convert was like Thomas, constitutionally incredulous; not inclined to believe, ordinarily, without palpable evi­ dence. Perhaps he may have become slow to believe the testimony of men, because his confidence had been violently shattered or weak­ ened by human treachery and deception. Perhaps his own personal habits may have replaced a confiding disposition. (See Law II.) If any or all these things were true of him, it is easily explained why he did not “ get religion ” sooner. Still, the very fact that he “ got religion” at all, indicates a preponderance of the favorable influences over the adverse. Now, the revulsion being at last secured, perhaps under a tremendous pressure of the imagination, combined with what strength of faith he was able to command, may be carried up to the most intense emotional excitement, producing bodily agitations of the most astonishing violence; or, the physical powers sometimes whelmed with the emotional flood, the man sinks into a semi-con­ scious state, when he is said to be in a trance. (See Law VII.) Then the mind is given up to the most delightful visions. This used ^to be regarded as evidence of an unusual display of the power of the Holy Spirit. Seeing that similar revolutions of the feelings, as well as bodily agitations, sometimes take place where no one contends that the Holy Spirit has any thing to do with them, suppose it should turn out that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with many of these sup­ posed “ sound conversions that there is a clear non causa pro causa committed,—then they would simply fall under and be explained by Law V. The belief or imagination of a falsehood upon any given subject will produce precisely the same emotional effect as the truth upon that subject, if the falsehood be accepted as truth. When Jacob saw the blood-stained coat of his son Joseph, he accepted it as evi­ dence of his death. Doubtless his imagination painted fearful and heart-rending pictures of his son’s fatal struggle with the wild beasts. He believed a lie. Joseph was not dead. But would his sorrow have been more pungent and agonizing if Joseph had actually been dead? Then, what a revulsion in his emotions when he afterward believed him to be alive, and next to the throne of Egypt! What a culmina­ tion of his joy, when the aged patriarch fell upon Joseph’s neck and kissed him, amid the splendors of his royal estate! The pious Catholic goes to confessional with a heavy heart; con­ �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' :3 fessing his sins, he receives the declaration of absolution from the priest, and departs a happy man. The pagan, too, distressed and agonized by a sense of guilt, offers his atoning sacrifice, and then re­ joices with a joy unspeakable. Men under delusion may believe a lie, be happy, and yet be lost. RESULTS OF THE SYSTEM. The worst is not yet. According to Law VI, nature demands a subsidence of excessive emotional excitement, whether the emotion be pleasant or painful. The new convert naturally measures the evi­ dence of his pardon by the nature and volume of his feelings. As the volume of joy diminishes and temptations crowd upon him, he begins to sing, in a doleful tone: “ ’Tis a point I long to know— Oft it causes anxious thought: Do I love the Lord or no ? Am I his, or am I not?” '- Sentiments about as unscriptural as the system which inspired them. What wonder that these doubts have ended so often in an incor­ rigible apostasy? The Methodist, one of the ablest papers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, declares that eighty out of every hun­ dred of their converts fall away. So unstable were they, that an­ other human expedient must be devised, not only unscriptural, but anti-scriptural and ruinous,—take them on six months' trial. Every theory works out through its appropriate forms. Another class are made infidels because they can not “get religion.” Failing to distinguish between religion and its abuse, they, like Gib­ bon, condemn it as a whole, because of their disgust with the abuse. Another class are made hypocrites. Under the pressure of a public commitment, by going to the anxious-seat, they feign. what they do not feel, or studiously conceal what, if revealed, would forfeit the good opinion of others. It is not averred, here, that there are more hypocrites among those who believe in the anxious-seat than among others, but that with a certain class there is a direct tendency in the system to produce hypocrisy; while, under the simple Gospel, if men are hypocrites, they must be so despite the system. There is still another ipore pitiable class—those who, having been long under conviction and fruitless agony, failing to find relief, and concluding that they have committed the unpardonable sin, under ♦ �I 14 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' the operation of Law VI, become hopelessly insane. Asylum records will abundantly corroborate this statement: Another fearful result is a wide-spread indifference to all religion. Apostasy is the rule ; or those who remain steadfast are only as one to five, according to the New York Methodist. The last state of the apostate is, uniformly, worse than the first. It is always more diffi­ cult to stir his religious consciousness. What, then, must be the effect upon the eighty out of every hundred converts—to say nothing of the indurating influence of so much apostasy upon the public mind—but indifference to all religion ? Of course, apostasy may and does occur under any system; but it is one thing to facilitate it by a system, and quite another thing to have it occur against a system. A CORRUPTION OF THE GOSPEL. President Finney admits it. On page 254, after contending that it is necessary to have a test for the sinner’s faith, he further says: “The Church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this pur­ pose. The Gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were will­ ing to be on the side of the Lord, were called on to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious-seat does now, as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians.” Baptism is confessedly a Divine command. Who authorized its substitution, for any purpose, with the anxious-seat ? That is a small matter, however, if it is only a “ mere form',' or if only “ something of the kind" of the anxious-seat. In apostolic times “ the Gospel was preached, and those who were willing to be on the side of the Lord, were called on to be baptized!' Now they are called to the anxiousseat. “It held the precise place that the anxious-seat does now!' Exactly. Hence a new Gospel. “ He that believeth and cometh to the anxious-seat, shall be saved.” “ Repent and come to the anxiousseat, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” “And he commanded them to come to the anxious-seat, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Arise and come to the anxious-seat, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” “ The like figure whereunto even the anxious-seat doth also now save us.” “ Know you not that so many of you as have come to the. anxious-seat, have put on Christ ?” Is this a perversion of the Gospel, or another gospel ? If the anxious-seat occupies the place of baptism, of course it is a com­ « �The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.' 15 mand of God, and the promises which He attached to baptism, must be attached to it; hence, baptism is pushed out of its place in the plan of pardon. It becomes a mere “ Church ordinance,” to be changed at pleasure, as to its form and uses. (See Bishop Gilbert’s “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” page 251.) SANCTIFICATION, Otherwise Perfectionism, is simply anxious-seat conversion in extenso. It is a subjective, or psychological experience, produced in the same manner as “ getting religion,” and explainable by the same laws. It is less frequently enjoyed, however, because the people generally have less faith in the doctrine; hence, fewer persons attempt the experiment. THE WAY OUT OF CONFUSION. “ Preach the Word.” Show the people their sins and their con­ sequences. The love of God in Christ manifested. If they believe, and are “pricked in the heart,” or become convicted of sin, and cry out, “ What must we do ?” tell them, as of old, “ Repent and be bap­ tized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Do not seek to work up the feelings by artificial means. Do not call into play the pride of character by public commitment, before the heart is ready. How often do we hear the preacher say, “ Now, if you wish to go to heaven [who does not ?], rise up.” “ If you wish the prayers of the Lord’s people [who does not ?], rise up.” “ Now, all who have voted that they wish to go to heaven, that they desire the prayers of the Lord’s people, come to the anxious-seat.” Ah, the trick! the trick !! thinks many a person who has voted, and instantly he is filled with disgust. People will endure, or even applaud, strategy ; but not in religion. Again: the religious sensibilities always shrink from public expo­ sure, unless the will is won over. To have one’s incipient religious experience displayed before the prurient gaze, or to be bandied about by the gossiping tongue, is exceedingly repulsive to a person whose sense of propriety is well developed. Many a sinner’s thoughts have been drawn off in the attempted reconciliation of himself to this unscriptural procedure, when they ought to have been engaged in the work of reconciling himself to God. Let the struggle begin and go �16 The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!' forward to a final issue without ostentation, then it will be time for public commitment to Christianity. If the friendly counsel of proper persons may be given quietly, to lead the soul out of its entangle­ ments, and break its sinful alliances, it is well. Reason, propriety, philosophy, and Scripture concur to demand this course. If the subject is ignorant of Christ as the Savior, tell him first, as Paul did the jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” As soon as he expresses a willingness to receive Christ, “speak to him the Word of the Lord,” for his enlightenment as to the Lord’s means of salvation, and through repentance he will soon find his way to baptism, and come again rejoicing through faith. (See Acts,xvi.) If he be a believing penitent, like Saul at Damas­ cus, tell him to “ arise and be baptized, and wash away his sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” In short, give to each, according to his condition, a portion of the Word suited to his case, in due season. Never mind your theories ; speak the Word. But, says the objector, must we rule out a psychological expe­ rience ? Must we simply have a “head-religion,” without any heart in it ? No ; by no means. Nor will there be the least danger, if we cling to the apostolic methods. The revulsion of the emotions from the pungency of conviction to the exhilaration of joy will always be secured, if the sinner really believes that he is pardoned, although he may believe a falsehood. (See Laws IV, V.) It matters not upon what kind of testimony his faith may rest. If, then, he be led to a hearty, intelligent submission to Christ, according to the Gospel plan, his belief that he is pardoned will rest, not upon the testimony of men, nor upon imagination, but upon the express promises of God, which can never fail. The Pentecostan converts began to be glad as soon as they learned from Peter that they could be saved. “ They gladly received the Word,” and were baptized the same day. But they were more joyful still, afterward, when they were able, through their faith and obedience, to appropriate the Divine promises. Then “ they, con­ tinuing daily, with one accord, in the temple, and breaking of bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.” � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 A name given to the resource The philosophy of "getting religion" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hobbs, Alvin Ingels [1832-1900] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Cincinatti Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm. Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Republished from Christian Quarterly. Attribution from Virginia Clark catalogue. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1873?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context G5351 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <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 philosophy of "getting religion"), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Subject The topic of the resource Philosophy Religion Conway Tracts Philosophy and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2e015fe80f0a4f1c3d3936e76689a015.pdf?Expires=1784764800&Signature=WqxpKX45ez85LnCXSuidirBD8jqPwozt8RM7FYJe3ek27JLG5sILuKdmnErcdp%7EHyRD5VRDv%7ENzCHl1PSaJdZJeKU42Hs8IdQPPWNvHEvHmMHygMHLA-YUjll5dBZw7fsJSHXi4AIw4QvH3kRnbegHhQ8xxSm6xxIy9tOMYX4aUKSGz5meT7GrSqedVleNQTOpKi7sKU8EmGcl3pOYObNWuN1rehZzjwHJnHfZKCAOFnsDdoog6kGmYOtiLKm94g3yhqnLWjzigkL8K87uTjbhC68VqCg9zax5tdgQ0XYBCCb07wTB2nVBDdoT2js-NRsCjhnvjw%7EIDFJNnGQE%7ElOw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d54126ad6ed761aeb91a4ff93718776a PDF Text Text REASON, RELIGION, AND REVELATION. BY EDWARD VANSITTART NEALE. “ Yet let us ponder boldly. ’ Tis a base Abandonment of Reason to resign Our right of thought.” Cliilde Harold, iv. 137. PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT, NO. 11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E. 1875. Price One Shilling, �LONDON: PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET HAYMARKET, W. �/ REASON, RELIGION, AND REVELATION. ----------- ♦—■ HE course taken by religious controversy of late seems to impose upon us the necessity of making clear to our own minds what we mean by Revelation, to which the one party insist that an unquestioning obedience should be yielded by the Reason, whose indefeasable superiority is asserted by the other. To reconcile these conflicting pretensions must appear, at first sight, a very hopeless task. And, in truth, they are commonly brought forward in such a manner, that the principle of Faith or Trust, which is of the essence of Religion, is in danger of being squeezed out of existence between the contending powers. It is my object, in the present tract, to offer some considerations adapted to remove this danger, and point out to the principle of Faith, which I regard as of the highest importance in the economy of human nature, a way of escape from the opposed foes, by showing that Reason and Revelation are really not antagonistic, but, on the contrary, are the inseparable factors of all solid knowledge—all that the Reason can be truly said to know, being a matter of Revelation ; while, on the other hand, there is no faculty except the Reason to which this Revelation could be made, and to it a Revelation has been made sufficient for its wants. So that faith, instead of being driven to a perplexing choice between Reason and Revelation, is called on only to follow her native instinct, by trusting in that which the Reason can accept as the Truth of Revelation. T �6 Reason, Religion, Knowledge of whatever kind, I conceive, ultimately rests upon the consciousness of some act of our wills, either in using the powers placed at their command, or in suffering some limitation of their action from that which acts upon us, and restricts the action of our wills. That which can be produced directly by the action of our wills we know, or may know, abso­ lutely. But the sphere of this knowledge is limited, though within that sphere the ingenuity and patience of successive generations has built up a marvellous structure of knowledge absolutely certain—namely, the knowledge called pure mathematics. But of what our wills are in themselves, apart from what they have done, we have no inherent knowledge : no knowledge from which we can predict positively what they will do under any given circumstances. All our knowledge of their tendencies arises from Revelation, i.e., from our consciousness of the way in which they commonly do act in ourselves, or our observation of their action in other persons, whom we assume to be constituted like ourselves, and to whom we turn in order to learn what we might become, or be disposed to do, under circumstances different from those which we have personally experienced. While of that which acts upon us we have no knowledge at all, except from observing how we are affected, and comparing these observations with the affections of other persons to whom we ascribe a natural constitution similar to our own. Setting aside the knowledge of our acts, all our knowledge, whether of ourselves or of that which is not ourselves, is strictly a matter of revela­ tion. That we are subject to likings or dislikings of various degrees of strength, to sensations of pleasure or pain, and impulses to action arising out of them that we can, to a great extent, control these impulses, and determine which we shall yield to, and how far that we have within, a resisting power which asserts the right to control them; all these, and manifold �and Revelation. 7 other facts concerning our nature, we learn only from the revelation of experience. The knowledge is not born with us; it is not a something discoverable by carefully looking into ourselves, as if it had always belonged to us. We learn it only by finding that the impulses come, and that the controlling power shows itself as occasion calls the one or the other forth. Only experience reveals to us what it lies in us to be. And what is true of ourselves, and of the powers immediately subject to our will, is true still more emphatically of that which acts upon these powers, which we call our bodies. That we live upon a solid mass of something on which we can move about; that we can get off it, by our unassisted strength, little more if so much as half our own height, and are always pulled back again, by a force which we cannot resist; that we are exposed to alternations of darkness and light, of greater or less heat or cold; that these changes are connected with the presence to, or absence from, our sight of a body which we call the sun ; all these and countless other similar facts, the materials of what we call science, are entirely matters of Revelation. We should not have any notion of them at all, if we did not find them experimentally to be what they actually are. * All our knowledge, then, except pure mathe­ matics, is revealed; but how is it revealed ? To what faculty is this revelation made ? To our Reason. That we know anything at all about the matters thus revealed, beyond the fact that there is some power not originating in our own wills, which * There is an additional element necessary before either class of facts mentioned in the text can become the ground­ work of science, on which I will not dwell further than to say that it appears to me to be an instinct of the Reason, namely the assumption that from similar antecedents similar conse­ quences will follow—that what has happened once will, under the like circumstances, happen again. �8 Reason, Religion, acts upon them, depends upon a two-fold action, proper to this Reason. 1st. Its constructive power of Imagination. 2nd. Its analytical power of Reflection. By these powers, acting within our own minds or upon materials which we present to our senses by our own act, the science of mathematics has been built up; and it is by applying these powers to inter­ pret what acts upon us that we have arrived at whatever knowledge of this external agent we have attained. Let us follow the process. 1. By our imaginative power we combine the reveal­ ing action of that which acts upon our wills under the forms of Space and Time, and the so-called cate­ gories of Quality, Quantity, Relation, Cause, &c., which belong to the constructive action of our ima­ gination, and constitute the staple of metaphysics. Thus we form to ourselves, out of that which affects our wills, objects on which we can reflect, as in mathematical science, by a similar action, we form such objects out of that which our wills determine for themselves. What is the purpose of this reflection ? Primarily, and in the objects of pure mathematical science exclusively, it is to understand our own work —to make clear to ourselves what is involved in the constructions of our imagination, by pulling them to pieces, and examining all their parts in their several relations, till they have become thoroughly intelligible to ourselves. Secondly, in all but pure mathematical science there comes in, after the first operation of reflection is ended, a second operation, without which what we call science would not exist, namely, the testing our imaginative constructions by carefully com­ paring what is observable in nature with what ought to be observable, if the action upon ourselves, which we observe, really arises from objects so constituted as those constructed by our imaginations; in other words, to ascertain whether the action of nature will �and Revelation. 9 fit into our ideas about it, so that these ideas, which we know in themselves, may furnish to us an intel­ ligible explanation of this action, which we know only by its effect on us. How great the importance of this careful testing of our imaginative constructions really is, modern science is a conclusive witness, by the almost total revolution made by it, through this operation, in the conceptions about the universe which formed the staple of ancient speculation. But at present I would especially call attention to the progressive character which this double action of the Reason necessarily imparts to the whole of the Revelations made to it. Bor, although the matter revealed is quite independent of our imaginations, and we have no ground for supposing it to have been essentially different in the earlier ages of human existence to what it is now, the real revelation to us, that is all the knowledge of it resting on any solid basis which we possess, has depended upon our success in inter­ preting the revealing record, by the conceptions which our imaginations have constructed ; and these Conceptions have required to be continually re­ moulded so as to adapt themselves to the observa­ tions made by successive generations of mankind about what they thus attempted to interpret. To the imagination of the ancient Greeks, for instance, it was revealed that the earth is round; not a mere round, flat surface, as the Jews of old appear to have imagined, but around ball. But the further revela­ tion that this ball turns on its own axis and moves round the sun, and thus produces day and night, summer and winter, was only suspected as a possi­ bility by some of the most sagacious of the Greek race, who were deterred from following up their pro­ found conception by the outcry of impiety raised against them, as it is now against those who, in inter­ preting records held to be divine, depart materially �IO Reason, Religion, from, the imaginations sanctified by popular faith. These conceptions had not then attained that cer­ tainty, produced by independent conspiring evidences, ■which to us has raised them, to the rank of unques­ tioned revelations. Now these modifications in our interpretation of the revealing record, however great the revolution in our conceptions to which they may give rise-—how­ ever considerable the disturbance produced in our minds from the necessity of recasting ideas grown venerable from the colouring of antiquity, obviously furnish no ground at all for doubting the reality of a revealing action addressed to the interpreting imagi­ nation.. The changes in our constructive imaginings prove, not that there is nothing behind the veil, but only that the veil has been imperfectly lifted, and that, in consequence, the nature of the permanent reality has been inadequately apprehended. Never­ theless, in the course of this world-wide revelation, there has often arisen a disturbing action, producing unnecessary doubt and distrust, from the claim unduly set up on behalf of some interpreting imagination to be the last word, the unerring utterance of absolute truth on the matters to which it relates. The rival­ ries of sects and schools in the ancient world, the long enslavement of thought in the Mediseval ages, to the teachings, actual or supposed, of Aristotle, the throes attending that great struggle for the “ right to ponder boldly,” of which the religious reforma­ tion of the sixteenth century was only one phase, are familiar but instructive instances of the danger in­ curred by the imagination, of becoming stifled by the products of its own creative action. The past of human effort seemed so vast, when men looked back upon it, that it dwarfed the present. The contrast in the individual of the wisdom of age with the rash­ ness of youth misled men by a false analogy. They forgot that, as has since been well said, if age owes �and Revelation. 11 its increased wisdom to a longer experience, each suc­ cessive generation of mankind, since it inherits the experience of its predecessors, may reasonably expect to attain a deeper insight into that which this expe­ rience can teach—that there is no ground whatever for supposing the Divine, revealing action to be limited to one age or race which has passed away—and that, therefore, to test the conformity of any received opinion to the reality of things, far from being an act of irreverent scepticism, is, truly, the evidence of a profound faith ; a proof of our belief in the continuous operations of that Divine Spirit in which the un­ wearied questionings of our intelligence originate. And we have, in modern science, an ever-growing testimony to the solid realities of truth thus attain­ able, by the greater clearness and comprehensiveness of the conceptions to which this process of faithful inquiry has conducted us. But, as I began by saying, the immediate revealing agent in all these operations is the human imagina­ tion, which, no doubt, fills only the office of an inter­ preter, and requires us at every step carefully to compare the interpretation with the document to be interpreted, but affords, in the continually increasing perfection of its interpretations, an ever-accumulating proof of the inherent correspondence between the interpreting faculty and that which is to be inter­ preted. Take away the imagination from the mind of man—you would perform on his intelligence an operation very analogous in its effects to the effect upon his power of perception of taking away that great instrument of the imagination—the eye. The consciousness of will, of the power which will can direct, of the affections to which it is exposed, and the impulses by which it is moved, might remain. The memory of sensation once experienced, if under such circumstances we possessed such a memory, might lead us to avoid what had caused us pain, and �12 Reason, Religion^ welcome what had caused us pleasure; but from all that constitutes the noble domain of knowledge, we should be shut out as completely as we should be from all that attracts or elevates us in poetry, or art. How could the astronomer have attained the con­ viction that the earth is a sphere, or learned to ascribe day and night to its regular rotation, if he had not been able to build up in his imagination the form of a spherical body in order, by an accurate analysis of its properties, to show that the phenomena observable upon the earth correspond to them. And if this first step in the revelation of the deeper secrets of the universe depends upon the constructive power of the imagination, much more is this the case with the following steps, where the imagination has enlarged the boundaries of space of which experience gives us any direct indication, first to the orbits of the planets in their courses round the sun, and then to the distances of the stars, now beginning to be mea­ sured through the ingenuity of the same creative faculty, by processes of which no abstraction from sensation^ can furnish the slightest exception F Or, to take an illustration from another science, how could the geologist have read into consistent meaning the revelations of the “ stone book,” if his imagination had not been competent to enlarge the bounds of time derived from experience, as widely as the imagination of the astronomer has been competent to enlarge the bounds of space derivable by abstraction from sensa­ tion ? Nor is the action of this constructive faculty con­ fined to the indefinite multiplication or more perfect determination of that of which the revelations of sense give it either direct intimations, as in the case of the fundamental conditions belonging to the exercise of will—space and time, or suggestive hints as in the case of the primitive geometrical forms—straight or curved lines, angles, circles, squares, spheres, cubes, �and Revelation. 13 cones, many-sided figures, &c. The greatest triumphs of scientific explanation in recent times have been won by the aid of an imaginative construction to which sensation cannot give the least assistance, because what is thus constructed is imagined to underlie all sensation and make the action of the senses possible. Read any recent exposition of the sciences of Heat and Light, you will find yourselves in the presence of an all-pervading something called the 2Ether, neither fluid nor solid, but uniting the properties characteristic of both, which, eye hath * never seen nor can see, nor tongue taste, nor nose smell, nor ear hear, nor body touch, but without which sight, and taste, and smell, and hearing, and touch would alike be impossible—the most daring creation ever made by the poetic faculty of imagination ; and yet a substance whose action is conceived to be sub­ ject to the strictest determinations of mathematical analysis; the practically unlimited agent of a power everywhere limited by the most stringent law, in which the indefinitely vast is inseparably bound up with the indefinitely little—the all-embracing, all­ separating, all-uniting, invisible, intangible, insensible condition of all that is visible, tangible, or sensible. It seems to me impossible that, before this proof of the extent to which the constructive ideality of the imagination enters into the conclusions of scientific research, the popular philosophy of the eighteenth Century, which resolved this ideal principle of know­ ledge into so-called abstractions from the assumed realities of sensation, can long continue to hold its * Every phenomenon of light points strongly to the concep­ tion of a solid rather than a fluid constitution of the luminife­ rous sether, and that in the sense that none of the luminous particles are supposed capable of interchanging places, or of bodily transfer to any considerable distance from their own special locality in the universe. —Sir John Herschell, ‘ ‘ Good Words,” 1865, 506. �14 Reason, Religion, ground * The little, hard, round, indestructible ab­ surdities which these philosophers called “ matter,” and were pleased to scatter in patches over the boundless void, have vanished before the profounder researches of later physicists. The long words Attraction, Repulsion, Gravitation, Electricity, Gal­ vanism, Magnetism, Affinity, Caloric, &c., &c., in which the idealising imagination of these naive deniers of ideas dressed up their imaginary matter, deluding themselves into supposing that they had ex­ plained natural phenomena if they succeeded in tying them into proper bundles, and ticketing each with a name of its own, are coming to be recognised for what they really are—namely, elastic strings by which the imagination has bound together the mate­ rials supplied it by the senses, for the more convenient examination of their mutual relations. And the ex­ planation of the phenomena thus classified is beginning to be found, and, from the success attending the attempts already made, is being everywhere sought, in the conception of modes of pressure, and the motions produced by their actions and reactions—■ conceptions in which the reflective Reason can find -verce causae, revealing the origin of phenomena, because in them the imagination deals with that of which it can form distinct ideas, inasmuch as it is that which our own will is able to produce by the powers at its immediate command.f * I say “so-called” abstractions because the process of un­ limited addition by which the notions of a boundless Time or Space are supposed to be formed out of sensations of limited Space or Time is clearly more than abstraction. + This statement may perhaps be objected to as not treat­ ing with proper respect Newton’s claim to have found in his conceptions of gravitating force the vera causa of the motions of the moon and planets. But my criticism affects not the claims of Newton so much as those set up by his followers. Newton, setting off from a phenomenon directly observable —namely, that a body unsupported falls to the earth with a �and Revelation. 15 1 Now what the imagination has done, more or less perfectly, during the whole recorded history of man­ kind, bnt especially during the four last centuries, for the world of natural phenomena, it has done also, but more especially during the earlier ages of our race, for the world of internal emotions, pro­ duced by the action of these phenomena upon us— the fear, dread, awe, on the one hand, and on the other the joy, hope, trust, confidence, which the great universe around us, by its mysterious union of that which lends itself to our desires with that which certain initial rate of movement, continually accelerated in proportion to the time of its continuance,said, “I will explain this phenomenon, the motions of the moon round the earth, and of the earth and other planets round the sun, and a number of other phenomena, if you grant me two supposi­ tions :—1st. That the power which makes bodies fall to the earth resides in each elementary part, both of the earth and of these bodies, each of which acts on all the others at the same distance from it with the same force, the total force exerted by any body depending on the number of these elementary parts contained in it—whence it followed that, as Galileo had shown, in opposition to the teaching of the Aris­ totelians, a piece of gold and a piece of paper will fall to the earth in the same time if the resistance of the air is taken away, and that the earth falls to a stone as truly as the stone falls to it. 2nd. That this power diminishes in proportion to the surface over which it is exerted—that is, in the inverse ratio of the square of the radius drawn from the centre of the body to this surface. I do not question the right of Newton to claim for this offspring of his imagination the character of a vera causa; that is to say, it furnishes conceptions from which the phenomena to be explained may be deduced with strict numerical precision, and thus satisfactorily accounted for. How bodies are able to exercise on each other the power thus defined, is quite another question—one in no way answered, as is often assumed, by saying that the attrac­ tion of gravitation is a property inherent in all matter, which, in fact, is only to say, in other words, ‘bodies attract each other in the way imagined by Newton because they do.’ What can be truly said is only ‘bodies act as if they did attract each other in the way supposed by Newton.’” The speculations referred to in the text make it probable that, by �16 Reason, Religion, thwarts them, of order and disorder, of tenderness and sternness, of the pleasurable and the painful, of growth and decay, of life and death, is adapted to produce, and which it produced with the greater vividness in the ages when the imagination had not yet seriously set itself to that task of drawing back the veil from the mysteries of nature, in which, by the help of the faculty of reflective analysis, it has gradually made so much progress. The first work of the imagination, in the exercise of its revealing function, was to create and mould into shape the idea another happy exercise of imaginative genius, we may ere long be able to demonstrate why they do thus act. Further, I would observe, that the phenomena really ex­ plained by the theory of gravitation are so explained only by means of an assumption, of which no other proof can be given but its power of explaining these phenomena. The attractive force ascribed by astronomers to the different celestial bodies is not the force with which they are experimentally familiar on the earth. If the sun, for instance, exercised as much attractive power in proportion to its bulk, as the earth exer­ cises, its attractive force would be fourfold that ascribed to it by astronomers. But then, if the theory of gravitation is true, its action upon the earth and the other planetary bodies would be very different from what it is. Now the astrono­ mers find that, if they assume the attractive power of the sun to be only one quarter of that which the earth would exert if it were as large as the sun, and if its power increased in pro­ portion to its size, the action of the sun is what, according to the theory of gravitation, it ought to be. Therefore they ascribe to the sun an attractive power diminished to the degree above stated when compared with the ascertained power of the earth; or, in the received scientific phraseology, they say “the density of the sun is only one fourth” that of the earth. I do not contest the conformity of this hypothesis to the nature of things; I wish only to call attention to the fact that it is an hypothesis—a creation of the human imagina­ tion in the exercise of its revealing function. And that our confidence in the truth of this revelation depends upon the completeness with which we can deduce from this creation of our imaginations, results corresponding to the phenomena ascertained by observation. �and Revelation. 17 of God. To borrow the profound words of the great German poet—• In Innern ist ein Universum auch, Daher der Volker loblicher Gebrauch, Das Jeglicher das Beste was er kennt Es’sGott Ja seinen Gott ernennt. j Ihm Himmel und Erde ubergiebt, Ihn furchtet, und wo moglich liebt. * It is with these creations of the imagination in former ages, among races necessarily and in some respects very widely different from ourselves; races whose languages have passed away from living speech, whose modes of life and thought we can only imper­ fectly realise, whose ideas of the world in which they lived, in so far as we are able to compare them with our present knowledge, were in almost every point mistaken; it is, I repeat, with the conceptions by which the imagination of these races strove to make comprehensible to themselves the nature of the mysterious power underlying our own consciousness, and all the phenomena made known to us through its means, that we have to deal when we approach the precincts asserted to be the special home of Revela­ tion. Hence arises the difficulty noticed above. Men have set up for these conceptions, or rather for some particular set of them to which they pin their own faith, a claim to be not of human parentage but of superhuman origin : not one of the forms under which the imagination of man has endeavoured to apprehend God, but special divine acts; peculiar * Goethe—Gott Gemuth und Welt. I subjoin a paraphrase for the benefit of those who do not understand the original;— A universe there is within the mind, Hence the praiseworthy custom of mankind; From that which each as noblest can conceive, To frame a God, in whom he may believe—• Supreme o’er all, beneath, around, above—• Object of awe, and, if he can, of love. B �i8 Reason, Religion, manifestations of the being and action of God made by Him to some favoured men, in modes which their intelligence could grasp and transmit to others less favoured than themselves. And if this claim is con- tested, if matters are pointed out in these supposed ■especial revelations inconsistent with the super­ natural origin asserted for them; if the evidence by which the claim is sought to be supported is shown to be of uncertain age or untrustworthy character, and the weakness of the alleged proofs is opposed to the validity of the claim, those who make it raise a cry that the criticism strikes at the root of all faith in a Divine Revelation; and if this faith be lost then farewell, they say, to all the consolations of religious trust, and the surest stay of any morality but that of enlightened self-interest. But if the natural action of the Reason be what I have endeavoured to point out; if the whole series of its operations is really a continuous revealing, and this revelation is made by the free action of the ima­ gination in forming conceptions which the analysing intellect tests, then it must be clear—1st, that the criticism of any particular set of conceptions which are asserted to constitute an especially profound revelation, cannot in any way interfere with the revealing process, since criticism constitutes a very important part of it; 2nd, that the fact of any particular creation of the imagination proving to be erroneous, is not a proof that the imagination is not a true source of revelation on the matters to whioh that conception may relate; for all its revelations are essentially free creations, which acquire their revealing character through the action of the imaginative power in remoulding them to meet the objections of criticising reflection, till they become correct interpretations of the observed phenomena. But, it may be urged, granting the imagination to �and Revelation. *9 have the revealing function ascribed to it, yet since, by your own showing, we cannot rely upon its crea­ tions as true interpretations of the reality of Being unless we can test them, how can we discriminate between the truth or falsehood of the conceptions which it may form about the source of all existence F Set aside, as you apparently ask us to do, those proofs of the authority of the teacher on which the asserters of Revelation have relied in every case where the claim has been made, miracle, and pro­ phecy, the so-called “signs and seals” of revealed truth, and what remains to point out among the diver­ sity of conceptions which the imagination of man­ kind has evolved about God,—a variety not inferior to that of the conceptions by which it has striven to interpret the world of sense,—which are to be rejected and which retained F How are we to apply to them that testing process through which alone the voice of our interpreter can acquire reliable accuracy F I do not undertake to answer this ques­ tion in detail within the limits of the present tract. But I will endeavour to point out the kind of answer which may, I think, be given to it. In the first place, then, I conceive that there is between the imaginative conceptions forming the subjects of reli­ gious faith and the conclusions resulting from scientific research a general consonance, which must increase our trust in the essential conformity of these primitive creations of the imagination to the reality of Being. All the great religions of the earth have the common character of presenting the actual condition of man as one of imperfection, falling short of the ideal law of his nature, for which some have endeavoured to account, by assuming a degeneracy of the race—a fall from a condition of original perfection—-while all, with more or less distinctness, have looked forwards to a time of restoration and general happiness either on the earth itself or, if not here, in some future life �20 Reason, Religion, to succeed and make up for this. Thus, in one shape or other, the conception of a progress of mankind from their actual condition to a higher one has formed an essential element in the imaginative conceptions which have given shape to Religion. But this idea of progress is now beginning, through the scientific study of the earth’s past history, to colour all the conclusions of scientific reasoning. Man, according * to the teachings of geology, has slowly grown to the fulness of his present power and the maturity of his present knowledge by a gradual ascent from the com­ mon level of animal life. We can trace him back, in all parts of the earth, to a time when his arts and his knowledge seem to have been summed up in the dis­ covery that it was possible to make tools of flint. We trace back this time to a geological epoch so remote that it forces us to count by tens of thousands of years the interval between it and the formation of the societies whose history constitutes what we call the records of civilisation. The slow advance of this civilisation in its higher forms, the periods of sta­ tionaryness—even of decline and absolute decay— which have marked its course; the partial ebb of the fertilising waters from lands once irrigated by their presence—all this, so full of perplexing doubt when looked at in detail, sinks into insignificance, as a ground for reasonable inference, when compared with the enormous evolution of the race attested by the “ stone book.” Even if we do not accept the con­ clusions of Mr. Darwin and his followers—to which reasonable probability seems to me to attach—as to the gradual development of the human form from some ape-like ancestor, still we have but to compare the men of the age of flint implements with the men of the present day, or with those whose remains we pos­ sess in the monuments of Egypt or Assyria, Greece or Rome, to satisfy ourselves that the principle of progress, which the imagination of our ancestors con- �and Revelation. 21 gecrated as an essential part of their religious trust, does really constitute the governing influence in our earthly existence. The form given by the imagina­ tion to its bright creations may have been far from the truth, but those creations themselves represent a Conception profoundly true. Surely, then, we have, in this coincidence between the results to which the study of the phenomenal world lead under the interpreting light cast upon it by the imagination when subjected to the careful testing of scientific analysis, and the forebodings of this same power when left to follow its own nature freely, a circumstance adapted to increase our con­ fidence in those teachings of this inward guide which from their nature do not admit of the sort of verifica­ tion possible in regard to its interpretation of the sensible universe—namely, the conceptions by means of which mankind have endeavoured to lift the veil that hides the All-sustaining power from the sustained. Now, in all these instinctive creations of the free imagination we find it introducing into its conception of God that notion of intelligent will, of will working for definite purposes and conscious of its own acts, which lies at the root of what we call personality. And to this Divine, conscious, intelligent will we find that the imagination has also uniformly ascribed a sym­ pathy of some sort with the wants and wishes of man­ kind. No doubt the reflective criticism of the Reason has continually cast doubt upon these creations of its imaginative power. It has pointed out the inappro­ priateness of a conception derived from our conscious­ ness of ourselves, as individuals limited by a being which we cannot change and distinguished by it from other beings, to that Being who ex hypotliesi has no limitations but those expressing its own will. It has insisted on the dissimilarity between our conscious action, which can do only one thing at a time but exerts all its faculties to do that one thing perfectly, �22 Reason, Religion, and the Divine action which does a countless mass of things at the same time while it appears utterly in­ different to whether any one of them is or is not done as perfectly as it can be done; and in every action is preparing the way for another distinct action to grow out of it. If it admits the marks of tender sympathy, of provident care disclosed by the world of organized life, it dwells, in opposition to them, upon the un­ sparing, undiscriminating destruction which con­ tinually sweeps this living world away, not only by gradual decay, a process, perhaps, to be accepted as the necessary accompaniment of individual existence, but by overwhelming disasters, arresting the living creature in the very beginnings of its existence, or in mid career, in the full swing of its active energy, and consigning it, without any fault of its own or the pos­ sibility of escape, to irretrievable destruction. It may point out that the personal Deities whom the imagina­ tion has created for itself are but “ magnified men,” and that if the anthropomorphic element is excluded, the conceptions lose all their distinctness. In vain. The imagination is perplexed, but not satisfied. There remains the instinctive conviction that consciousness cannot arise from that which is essentially uncon­ scious, nor sympathy originate in that which is * unsympathetic. And as the analysing reflection, though it may pull the constructions of the imagina­ tion to pieces, cannot show that some future effort * The last conviction is apparently the most deeply rooted —at least, this seems so from the case of the Buddhists, who retain prayer as a mysterious form of motion, it may be of the lips of men in uttering certain consecrated words or it may be of any substance on which these words are written, capable of securing benefit to those who originate it, while they deny to the Deity who sympathetically responds to this movement that conscious perception of the prayer offered, without which, to our European judgment, prayer becomes absurd. Hence the construction of those strange phenomena, abundant in Thibet, Praying machines. �and Revelation. may not be more successful, men are inclined, on the whole, to trust their constructive instincts rather than their critical analyses, and, taking refuge in the possibilities of the unknown, prop up by faith what they cannot sustain by demonstration. Is this tendency justifiable ? Is it possible to satisfy the analysing faculty of the Reason that there are matters on which it ought not to exercise itself ? I do not think it is possible. But, on the other hand, is it possible to induce the constructive imaginative faculty of this same Reason to sit down contented with treating its own conscious, intelligent action as a sort of accident in existence ; an inexplicable and. occasional offshoot or outcome of a power which, except in these partial manifestations of conscious­ ness and intelligence, is unconscious and unintelli­ gent — to rest satisfied with assuming that its inherent desire to trace a principle of unity in all that it perceives is a delusion; and to substitute for the belief in an ever-present conscious Power which eternally gives rise to the unconscious by processes as yet unimagined, a belief in an ever present uncon­ scious power which, by processes as yet unimagined, occasionally gives rise to the conscious ? * Equally do I think that it is not possible. Are we, then, shut up to a perpetual irreconcilable antagonism between these two constituents of our Reason, its constructive Imagination and its analys­ ing Reflection. Can no test be found sufficient to decide our judgments on the one side or the other ? * A belief well described in the following vigorous lines of a song called the “Fine Old Atom Molecule,” in Punch, for the 12th December, 1874, that—Design sprang up by accident, Law’s rule from hazard blind, The soulless soul-evolving, against not after kind, As the lifeless life developed, and the mindless ripened mind, In the fine old atom molecule Of the young world’s protoprime. �24 Reason, Religion, I think such a test does exist, and that its application justifies the claim made by me for the imagination to be the true revealer of the mysteries of Being. The test of which we are in search appears to me to be furnished by the ascertainable facts of human progress. Whatever judgment we may pass on the trustworthiness of the conceptions about the universe and its author formed by the imagination, it is clear that the nature of man is itself a part of the great whole, and must be assumed to participate in that harmony and mutual suitableness, which we find to prevail generally between the constituent parts of this universe; at least until we have some overwhelming proof that it is an exception, out of harmony with all around it. And certainly if we accept the hypothesis of the gradual evolution of man out of the races inferior to him in mental and moral power, by the continuation of a process common to the whole series of living beings, the idea of such a want of harmony between his nature and the general constitution of things is absurd. Assuming, then, that man’s nature is in harmony with the universe, it follows that if the history of human development shows clearly a tendency to favour the growth of any particular’ character, the conceptions about the universe which accord best with this character, and so account for the develop­ ment of man having taken this line, must derive from the known history of mankind strong evidence of their truth. Now I think it must be admitted, by any one at all conversant with human history, that the principle of sympathy has been continually advancing in its influence over mankind. We have but to think •of the general abolition of slavery, in the nations of Europe and their off-shoots, and the earnest efforts made by these nations to suppress, at least the trade in slaves, even where the existence of slavery cannot be as yet touched, compared with its universal prac- �and Revelation. tice in the ancient world, and its approval even by the noblest spirits and deepest thinkers ; or to name the word hospital; or to consider how different is the position occupied by women among ourselves from that generally recognised in Greece or Rome, at a stage of civilisation comparable with our present life, in order to satisfy ourselves on this point. Probably no one will contest that there is a marked difference in this respect between the civilisation which has grown up since the Christian era, and the civilisation in the midst of which Christianity appeared. And the change thus manifested is upon so vast a scale, it affects so deeply the life and character of those nations whom the course of events unmistakably designates to be the leaders of the human race, that it cannot be set aside as not a legitimate growth from the constitution of the universe, without contraven­ ing those conclusions about the unity of all Being, to which as we have seen scientific research conducts us. But the principle of sympathetic tenderness, which thus vindicates its right to be recognised as a true manifestation of the all-sustaining source of existence, requires for its satisfaction the faith in a Divine sympathy responsive to its movements. It is not content to rest upon itself, and leave the question whether there is any sympathetic being except that manifested on the earth unsettled, as the self-deter­ mining ego of Fichte’s earliest philosophy might have been. It needs to feel that it is leaning on the eternal. It demands a God with whom the spirit of man can hold communion ; because it cannot find in the beings around it that perfect response which it requires for its entire satisfaction. “ Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits range and dwell apart.” “ Nor can the tenderest heart and next our own, Know half the reasons why we smile or sigh,” says Keble, in one of those passages where he writes �<16 Reason, Religion, with the insight of the true poet, undimmed by the theologic dust which he was apt to throw into his eyes. Doubtless true sympathy must not confine itself to such mysterious responses from an inward power, but is bound to go forth, and labour in the world around us for the good of others. But it needs to refresh itself in its work, by the sense of a universal Presence sympathetic with its efforts, which the idea of Humanity substituted by A. Comte is inadequate to replace; as Comte himself felt when, in his later life, he came under the influence of the sentiment of love, and was driven to supple­ ment the worship of Humanity by the concrete adora­ tion of a deceased woman, who in truth became for him God; much as the Chinese supplement their formal respect for the Gods whom, according to the advice of Confucius, they “ honour and keep far from them,” by their reverence for the spirits of their an­ cestors. What can we say, then, but that here, as in the idea of progress, the imagination has anticipated the slow progress of inference ? God, argues Ludwig Feuerbach, is only a name for our own desires, which we set over against ourselves as a Being en­ dowed with the power and the will to gratify them. The reproach is not undeserved by the purposes for which men often raise their prayers. But history justifies the act. The imagination, forestalling the course of human progress, at a time when the spirit of sympathy had very little influence over human action, placed the universe under its care, and thus consti­ tuted it into a home fit for that spirit which was to be, and was to be the great source of blessings to man­ kind. The voice of history, which is entirely beyond the control of the will of man, has justified the crea­ tions originating in his imaginative will; and thus furnishes a test of the general truth of his religious conceptions, which reduces the part of the criticising reflection in this matter to a protest against investing �and Revelation. the details of these conceptions with that degree of reasonable assurance, to be claimed, on this historical ground for the common basis of all religious trust— the assumption, which is what men really mean by speaking of the personality of God, that the universe * arises from the action of a conscious, wise, and loving Being, who sympathises with men. It may be objected, perhaps, to this argument that, if it were true, men ought to have become more pro­ foundly religious as the ages rolled on, w’hile, in fact, an opposite tendency has manifested itself, both in the world of ancient Greece and Rome, where the original, warm, popular faith gradually died away under the criticism of philosophy, and in our modern world, since the Reformation. But strong as this objection appears at first sight, it loses its force when closely examined. What happened in the ancient world is just what happens under our eyes. The adherents of the traditionary religious faith failed to distinguish the fundamental principle of religion from the conceptions about the Divinity, in which their Scriptures had embodied their consciousness of a Divine presence, and the latter was in danger of perishing before the criticism directed against the former. But the reign of ancient scepticism was ter­ minated by the instrumentality which produced it. * In support of the claim here advocated for the emotions, I may refer to an interesting article by Mr. James Hinton, in the Contemporary Review for December, 1874. I would espe­ cially call attention to a suggestion, which 1 do not remember to have ever met with before, that the principle of self-sacri­ fice—that is, the voluntary giving-up of itself by one existence to another—if presented as a phenomenal action, would assume the scientific aspect of cause and effect—that is to say, of one thing merging itself in another ; so that the unvarying succes­ sion of cause and effect, which above all, things appears to “banish spirituality from nature,” assumes the character of an embodiment of this spirituality, taking the form of ‘ ‘ meet­ ing every fresh demand with a new sacrifice.” �28 Reason, Religion, Philosophy, as time advanced, became religious. To Plutarch the Divine is as real as the moral. The Jupiter of Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus differs from the Jupiter of Cleanthes by being invested with that element of personal sympathy with man, which is the characteristic assumption of religious faith. And with the rise of Neoplatonism the philosophic thinker gradually merged into the religious mystic. No doubt the growth of Christianity deprived these later phases of philosophic thought in the Roman world from passing down into the beliefs of the people, who in the mean time had become Christians. But no one, I think, familiar with these philosophies, can doubt that they constitute a genuine, spontaneous development of the speculative imagination entirely independent of the new religious creed destined to undermine their labours; and thus are an evidence of the truth that criticism cannot permanently destroy Religion, but only change its form. The free thought of modern times has been nur­ tured under influences giving to it a direct antagonism to the contemporary religious conceptions unknown to ancient philosophy, which, in its opposition to the ancient creeds, had but to “ come, be seen, and con­ quer” in the minds of any who would attend to its voice at all, and found itself confronted by no organised bodies of religious teachers, no wide-spread system of 'popular instruction, no catechisms or Sunday Schools, no Church or Bible invested by the uncriticizing ima­ gination of the faithful with infallibility, whence the opposition directed against its criticisms might derive strength. All this, modern criticism has had to en­ counter. And, but for the aid afforded it by the enor­ mous growth of physical knowledge, the unexpected revelations made by its means, and the habits of accurate investigation thus fostered, we may well question whether the criticisms of the Reason would not have been always turned aside by the combined �and Revelation. 29 influences leagued in support of the traditionary con­ ceptions consecrated by religious faith. As it is, though the old intrenchments are now pierced with a thousand breaches by the powerful artillery of scientific and critical research, the criticising Reason has still to sustain a constant fight with a fresh host of defenders, who press on to guard the shattered bulwarks by their personal trust. It is, therefore, of necessity so much occupied in effectually pulling down what is thus perpetually attempted to be again set up, that it can scarcely be expected to make progress in reconstructing a religious ideal of its own. And yet indications, by no means obscure, seem to me to be showing themselves that modern philosophy is advancing in the same direction as that taken by an­ cient philosophy in the ages between Augustus and Justinian—that is, towards the transformation into new religious ideals of the ideals destroyed by criti­ cism in their original shape. How unlike, for in­ stance, is the treatment of religious faiths by Emile Burnouf to their treatment by Voltaire ! How dif­ ferent the tone of the life of Jesus by Renan from the writings of Tom Paine ! And yet, so long as the critical analysis of religious conceptions, or of the writings on which they are founded, is regarded as a religious crime, those only will commonly deal with the criticism of religious beliefs whose inclina­ tions dispose them to criticise rather than to con­ struct ; while, obviously, it is to the latter class—• those who are not satisfied with destroying, but desire to build what will bear examination, in order to dwell there in peace—that we must look for conceptions capable of replacing the conceptions which criticism has swept away. Is it possible at all to forecast what form such imaginations are likely to take ; by what road they can carry us beyond that general trust in the basis of religious conception, for which, as I have endea­ �30 Reason^ Religion, voured to show, a sufficient positive foundation is laid in the accordance between the historical develop­ ment of man and the qualities ascribed by the ima­ gination to God at a time long anterior to this de­ velopment. One principle, I think, we may lay down with confidence. Whatever permanent work of this nature can be done must be done scientifically. That is to say, it must rest, not on any supposed intuitions into the Divine nature, but on the revealed facts relating to Religion ; that is, upon the concep­ tions by which men have attempted to embody their consciousness of the Divine. The effort of such a theology will be to account satisfactorily for the different modes in which the great interpreter has endeavoured to solve the problem of the Divine essence, by gathering them up under some uniting conception, by which they may be shown to represent divers sides of the Divine reality, and thus receive a satisfactory explanation as being essentially all parts of one revealing action. It may appear a very hope­ less task to construct anything like such a consistent system of theology out of the manifold imaginations, for each of which a fit place should be found in it. But I do not despair of its accomplishment if it be un­ dertaken in that spirit of patient inquiry, and the acceptance of those conceptions which most completely explain the whole body of known facts as presumably true, on which scientific certainty rests. I am per­ suaded that, in the case of these phenomena, as in that of other natural phenomena, apparent confusion will resolve itself into an intelligible order ; because I am satisfied that the freedom of the human imagina­ tion is no more devoid of law than the necessity of the physical world. Each mode of Being, the interpreting imagination, and the nature which it has to interpret, including the nature of man, is to me the expression of the same Eternal Reason. And of Reason, we must affirm, from our own experience of its action, �and Revelation. 3i that it is the property to harmonise freedom with order. Of this harmony the religious conceptions of mankind have, I conceive, partaken, in their instinc­ tive attempts to apprehend the Divine under the in­ fluence of the providential course of circumstances. It is the office of a true Science of Religion, in my judgment, to appreciate justly these attempts, and combine their characteristic ideas, purified and trans­ formed by the refining fire of criticism, into one con­ nected whole, by the constructive action of the Imagination, which would thus reveal in its great outlines the deepest mystery of existence; and, I believe, will make this Revelation by a conception approaching the fundamental ideas of the Catholic Faith much more nearly than those commonly sup­ pose who now dwell only on the opposition apparent at present between the Catholic dogmas and scientific thought. C. W. EEYNELL, PRINTER, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET. � 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 &amp; 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 An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available 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 A name given to the resource Reason, religion and revelation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Neale, Edward Vansittart [1810-1892] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Thomas Scott Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1875 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CT146 Subject The topic of the resource Religion Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Reason, religion and revelation), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Conway Tracts Faith and Reason Philosophy and Religion