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POSITIVE RELIGION:
ITS BASIS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
LECTURE II.
BY THE LATE
REV. JAMES CRANBROOK,
EDINBURGH.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, EARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��LECTURE II.
HE term “force” enters very largely into modern
science, and in philosophy seems very much to
occupy the position which “ secondary cause ” once
did. Thus, we are constantly hearing of the mechani
cal forces, chemical forces, electrical forces, vital forces,
the force of gravity, and so on. The word is a very
convenient one, and it would be hard if physicists had
to give it up; yet I sometimes fear that through the
misuse that is already being made of it, they will have
to do so. As the word is used by natural philosophers,
it simply denotes those conditions upon which certain
changes are effected in a substance. But, as the word
is taken up by a certain class of writers and as it is
used by the public it means very much more than
this, viz., a power, energy, or cause, which, by the
possession of certain inherent properties, is able to
compel the substance it acts upon, independently of all
circumstances, to undergo a certain indefinite change.
This metaphysical use of the word arises out of the
same experiences as those which led to the misuse of
the word “ cause.” Men transfer the sensations or
feelings arising within themselves when they perform
an action to external nature, and hence suppose there
are the same effort to produce and the same resistance
to undergo change that they find in relation to them
selves. Hence these forces seem to them energies,
powers, a something constraining the substances they
act upon to undergo change in spite of themselves.
The phenomena of human will gets transferred to the
T
�4
Positive Religion.
physical circumstances which condition every change ;
and hence the notion arises that there is something
corresponding to the human will amongst those con
ditioning physical circumstances.
Formerly men
would have looked for that something in the force
itself, or, as it would then have been called, the cause.
Now, such metaphysical entities are given up, hut it is
supposed to reside in one absolute, efficient cause,
pervading all nature. And out of the supposition an
argument is constructed, intended to prove the divine,
personal existence.
The argument may be stated thus: Everything,
every moment of time, is passing out of one state of
being into another, and all the phenomena by which
we are surrounded, are subject to constant changes.
These changes do not take place at hap-hazard and by
irregular order: constancy and law regulate them all.
The same antecedent is always followed by the same
consequent; the same conditions, without the shadow
of variableness, issue in the same results. Now, in
contemplating these facts, the question arises—Why
does the same consequent always follow the same
antecedent, or the same results the same conditions ?
It would be no answer to refer to some still higher or
more general physical process which explains the
lower, for what is asked for is the reason, cause, or
efficient condition of each step in the process. A stone
falls, e.g., to the earth. Why ? Because of the force
of gravity. What is the force of gravity ? That
which causes all bodies to tend to the centre of the
earth, according to a given law. What is that? We
know not. But although we know not, it is said that
we have a feeling, a conviction that there is a force, a
power, a something which causes or determines that
tendency. And so of every connection between all
phenomena, we ask after something more than physical
antecedents, we have a feeling that there is a some
thing more • we have the feeling or conviction that
�Lecture 11.
5
there is an efficient force, a power, a something which
determines absolutely each special antecedent to be
followed by its special consequent. Now this efficient
force, in virtue of which every event takes place and
every antecedent is followed by its own proper con
sequent, is God. God, the efficient force, the deter
mining power of the universe, are synonymous terms.
And out of the phenomenal, one’s belief in the Divine
existence emerges. I will not detain you by describing
the process through which from these elements his
personality and conscious intelligence are eliminated,
because my objection goes to the base of the argument,
and therefore criticism upon the superstructure would
he superfluous.
My objection, then, is this : it is constructed by a
transference, as I have already intimated, of the sensa
tions we experience in action to the phenomena of
outward nature, and that we are entirely unwarranted
in doing. As I showed you in the course of lectures
I recently delivered,* the idea of efficient force is purely
and simply derived from the sensation of muscular
resistance we experience whenever we act. Hence the
notion of striving, using energy or force, comes to be
associated with all the changes produced by such acts,
and we are apt to suppose the striving or energizing
an essential condition of the change. But we have no
ground whatsoever to transfer our experiences to out
ward nature, and infer there must be an equivalent to
the same striving or energizing in the changes we
witness going on around us. We know nothing but
the phenomena, i.e., the succession of events, the order
and constancy in antecedents and consequents, and all
supposed to exist besides, is due to a pure and gratui
tous assumption, and is the simple creation of our own
fancy.
Nor can I allow the plea which is sometimes put in,
* See “The Founders of Christianity,’’ p. 77- Triibner & Co.,
London.
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Positive Religion.
viz., that although the existence of an efficient force
cannot he logically proved yet that the feeling or con
viction of its existence almost universally springs up
when we look upon the processes of nature. For, in
the first place, the explanation I have given accounts
for the feeling and shews it arises out of a illicit pro
cess ; and secondly the feeling disappears as soon as
you begin to analyse what are the actual phenomena
presented by nature, for then you can discover nothing
but base facts, and their relations of co-existence and
succession.
I do not think therefore this argument from an
efficient force any more valuable than those from
design and intuition; not one of the three is logically
tenable. Belief in the divine existence cannot ration
ally come through them, and unless we can find some
other basis for it religion becomes impossible. Having
cleared the ground for our inquiries let us now proceed
to ascertain what of real, rational basis there is.
And I must begin by drawing your attention to
some facts of experience, which although they are
probably familiar to you I must, because of their
importance to the subject, dwell upon with some
detail.
Amongst the first of these I wish you to
notice, because they will enable you to understand
some of the rest better, are the feelings which arise
when one is in the midst of grand and sublime scenery.
I presume you and I are alike in that respect; besides
the sense of grandeur and sublimity a feeling of wonder
springs up, a wonder at the grandeur and sublimity, a
wonder at its power of affecting us as it does, a wonder
at its origin and what we do not understand about it.
And this wonder is not the less although we may have
a theory about the sublime which seems to explain
the other feelings excited; but the more full the
explanation the deeper the wonder grows. There is
so much the theory does not explain, so much which
lies beyond all explanation, nature as thus presenting
�Lecture II.
7
herself to us stands out so far beyond and above us
that we cannot but wonder and feel awed.
The same feeling arises when we gaze upon very
beautiful scenery. Beyond that sense of the beautiful
and the unspeakable happiness and joy it creates there
is also this feeling of wonder and mystery about it.
I have a theory of my own about the physical con
ditions (causes) of the sense of the beautiful which
would be regarded as of a very materialistic character
if I were now to explain it to you, but this theory
does not in the least degree prevent that feeling of
wonder at the surpassing beauty nature sometimes
reveals to me—nay it deepens it when I think of it
at the same time, for then I wonder at the existence of
those conditions there and at the peculiar effect they
are able to produce.
The same effect takes place when I look up at the
stars or upon the ocean in a contemplative mood, and
allow them to make what impression they can upon
my feelings. And the teachings of astronomy and of
physical geography when they expound to me the
order and constancy, the motions, and the causes of
the motions, the immense spaces and times and such
like things, make them seem more wonderful still and
have sometimes made me thrill with awe, at the
sense of the mystery lying all round about them.
But the object need not be upon a grand scale to
excite this feeling, or these feelings rather; what is
little and minute has the same effect. The other day
I was looking at the tiny flower of a small sprig of
heath. The exquisite beauty of its petals filled me
with an inexpressible sense of enjoyment. I began to
think of the process of its formation and the laws
which had determined its existence there in such
loveliness. But over all these thoughts and all those
feelings spread my sense of wonder—a wonder
intensified greatly by the recollection of the physio
logical laws and processes, and as I gazed upon the
�8
Positive Religion.
flower it became to me full of the deepest mystery.
And I suppose every one of you would have felt the
same.
Nor, as I have intimated, is it the pure objects of
nature alone which excite these feelings, but more
deeply still the expositions and revelations of science.
Science seems to me to extend and deepen the mystery
and the feeling of wonder, nature calls forth, instead
of diminishing it. The simplicity of the processes,
the unity of the methods, the constancy and order are
more mysterious, more wonderful to me than the bare
phenomena, however grand and imposing these latter
may be ; and that very phenomenal philosophy which
forbids an attempt to penetrate to the noumenon and
the infinite conducts me to the confines which separate
them where I find myself overwhelmed with awe as I
gaze into the darkness. Thus, e.g., science tells me
that the revolution of the planets around the sun is
produced by the two forces termed the centripetal and
the centrifugal. I ask an explanation and am informed
that it is found that when a body upon earth revolves
around another it has two tendencies, one to rush in a
straight line towards the centre of that around which
it revolves, and the other to go off each moment of
time in a straight line from the point of the circle it
occupies into a direction which would be away from
that centre. Now by the supposition of these same
tendencies or directions of motion acting in the planets
the form of their orbit is explained. Well, although
this supposition is established by most unquestionable
facts, and we all believe it to be true, the explanation
it gives is more wonderful than the motion of the
planets themselves. How wonderful, how mysterious
it is that a planet as well as a stone set in motion
should tend towards the centre of some other body
with a definite momentum. How strange, how won
derful that it should tend to move on in the same
straight line for ever ! How unspeakably strange and
�Lecture II.
9
wonderful that the course of the planets in their orbits
should be determined by the combination of two such
simple laws. Surely you cannot but feel as I do that
science makes this wondrous, mysterious universe more
wondrous and mysterious still!
Here, too, come in the various fitnesses, harmonies
and organizations, upon which has been built the
argument from design. Science points out to us how
all the great results in nature are obtained by the
combination of a few simple principles or processes.
The eye by means of a lens, a few muscles, and a nerve
or two, becomes capable of vision. The ear by con
struction upon the same principle as a musical
instrument for the reception and propagation of sound
becomes capable of hearing. Each organ of the body
is exactly fitted to perform its special function.
Wherever we turn, indeed, we find these fitnesses,
congruities, what some call adaptations and marks of
design. Now, we have seen that they afford no
argument by which we can prove the existence of an
intelligent, designing creator; but on that very account
they become the more wonderful and mysterious.
There they are, patent to every observer but unac
counted for, unexplained: suggesting ten thousand
speculations about their origin and determining
causes, but for ever by their silence mocking our
curiosity. How little, ignorant, and blind, they make
us feel ourselves to be ! How mysterious, great, and
supreme, they make us feel nature is ! With all our
advancing knowledge we can do nothing before such
final facts, but wonder and bow down in reverence.
Hitherto, I have principally referred to external
nature as the source of these feelings; but man himself
under some conditions, excites them equally within us.
Great and heroic actions, extraordinary virtue and
excellency, or indeed, the manifestation of great
individual power, and especially of great individual
mental power, will frequently call them forth. Extra
�io
Positive Religion.
ordinary beauty in a woman, which of course, as
opposed to mere prettiness depends upon intellectual,
aesthetical and moral qualities, and extraordinary
nobleness in a man will do it. Such persons excite
great wonder, reverence and a sense of mysteriousness
in us.
I must confess, however, that I do not
attribute so much influence to objects of this kind as
some writers are disposed to do. The habit of analys
ing every thing which one acquires in the present day
leads to the perception of too many imperfections even
in the highest and best, to allow of the possibility of
unrestrained hero worship.
On the other hand,
however, the more rigidly the formation of character is
brought under the operation of law, the more deeply
wonder at the powers of nature is excited, and the
more marvellous one feels her to be.
But it is when human beings are contemplated in
their history that these feelings of mystery, wonder,
and awe, are the most powerfully called into activity.
For it is then that we see that human life is not merely
an aggregation of individual existences thrown together
at haphazard upon this earth, but that it is a con
nected, organized whole, each part of which affects the
destiny of the rest Take any of the great epochs in
history and you will find illustrations of this fact.
Thus, e.g. in modern times, movements in Central Asia
led to the ascendency of the Saracens in the Moslem
empire, and the oppression of Christian pilgrims to the
Holy Land. The oppression aroused the romantic,
superstitious spirit of Europe, and organised the
crusades. The crusades brought the ignorant barbar
ous people of the west into contact with Arabian, and
other oriental scholars, and reintroduced the study of
Aristotle into the west.
The study of Aristotle
reawakened the scientific spirit, and gave rise to the
controversies between the realists and the nomenalists.
The spirit of free inquiry thus revived, became
greatly intensified by the taking of Constantinople by
�Lecture II.
11
the Turks in the 15th century, and the dispersion of
its classical scholars over Europe.* This spirit of free
inquiry of nomalism and of science influenced the
theological thinking, especially of the Teutonic nations,
and gave origin to the Reformation in the beginning
of the 16th century. Now, here is a strange combina
tion of independent events, determined by most remote
causes and yet leading to definite results affecting the
condition of the whole civilized world. No explanation
seems to offer itself but that of an overruling intelligent
power; and yet when you come to examine such an
explanation, you are not only encountered by the
logical difficulties, but the real mystery remains un
touched and the feelings of wonder and awe keep
possession of the mind.
Here then is the basis upon which I rest my religion.
I have enumerated a number of cases in which the
feelings of wonder, awe, and mystery are originated by
the objects presented in nature.
The enumerated
cases are not exhaustive of the whole, but only
specimens of the rest. Whenever or under whatever
aspects nature is gazed upon in a contemplative mood,
these feelings are awakened. Pick up a common stone
off the road, look at it, examine it, ask about its con
struction, the conditions or laws under which it came
to exist as you have found it, and the same feelings of
marvellousness, mystery, and awe, will be forced upon
you. If all nature do not encompass us with a sense
of its mystery and bow us down with feelings of
profoundest wonder, it is because we have not thought
sufficiently upon the facts it presents.
I have said, it is upon these feelings I base my
religion; I may add, it is upon the feelings thus
* The same original movements in Asia too, had led to the
establishment of the Moors in Spain, and through them to an
introduction of the study of Aristotle and of various sciences
from a different quarter, but all tending to augment the
same influences which came directly from the East.
�12
Positive Religion.
excited, all the theologies of the world have been con
structed. When men have been moved by nature in this
way, they have been aroused to ask for the explanation
of the mystery. Not content with knowing that
phenomena are as they are, they want to know the
cause of their being so, and to convert the feeling of
wonder they excite into the complacency which arises
from competent knowledge. Never doubting of their
power to transcend the phenomenal and ascertain the
noumenal cause, they have boldly speculated upon the
questions the feelings have aroused and arrived at
answers determined in all cases by the character of
their culture.
Accordingly we find them passing
through all the grades of fetishism, polytheism,
monotheism, pantheism, and atheism—projecting the
shadow of their own thoughts and feelings upon the
object they superinduced to explain the mysteries of
nature.
Amongst these various methods of explanation, the
monotheistic seems the only one which in any measure
meets the demands of the case. Pantheism only puts
the mystery and the questions one step further back;
or rather, I should say, Pantheism, in its usually
accepted sense, does so, for a force which only becomes
conscious and intelligent in such manifestations and
embodiments as man, seems itself to require to be
accounted for, and leaves the mystery of existence as
dark as ever. On the other hand, the Monotheistic
theory will account for the facts, if one be capable of
forming the conceptions the theory requires. But
there is the difficulty—a difficulty, if I mistake not,
becoming greater every day. And the principal,
although not the only cause of this increasing difficulty,
must be attributed to the progress of biological science.
That science daily more and more conclusively proves
that the phenomena of thought and feeling, as known
to us, arise entirely out of the processes of our nervous
organization ■ so that those who, are thoroughly
�Lecture II.
l3
abreast of the science find it no more possible to con
ceive of thought and feeling apart from such organiza
tion than an electrician could conceive of electricity in
a homogeneous substance of equal structure and tem
perature, or than a natural philosopher could conceive
of the existence of the prismatic colours apart from
rays of light. There is therefore no fact out of
which one can construct the Monotheistic theory, no
basis of any kind upon which one could form the con
ception of a Being possessing thought, feeling, and will
independent of organization; the conception is the
product of a fancy as wild and as worthless as ever
was created in our dreams.
But some will say, The formation of a hypothesis to
account for facts is perfectly legitimate; and if it
account for all the facts, it may be held as presumably
true until it is disproved. Thus, e.g., the hypothesis
that Nature abhors a vacuum to account for the rising
of water in a well, and the compression of the sides of
a cavern, &c., was as legitimate, until it was disproved,
as Newton’s theory of gravitation—the only difference
being, that in the latter case increased knowledge con
firmed it, and in the former case increased knowledge
proved it to be untrue. So in like manner we may
form and hold the hypothesis upon which Monotheism
is built until it is disproved. The illustration, how
ever, is founded upon a mistake. That Nature abhors
a vacuum was never a legitimate hypothesis, for there
never was any evidence that Nature possesses that
class of feelings of which abhorrence is one. To
assume it as a method of accounting for certain facts,
was therefore a wanton act of fancy, altogether un
known to the scientific method. When Newton
applied his theory of gravitation to account for the
movements of the heavenly bodies, he was merely
using known facts as the probable explanation of
other facts. He had found bodies upon earth moving
according to certain laws. He said, “Suppose the
�14.
Positive Religion.
same laws to regulate the heavenly bodies, it will
account for their movements.” “ Ah, but then,” said
some objectors, “such and such things would also
happen, and that is absurd.” “ Would they ? ” said
Newton’s disciples; “let us see then if they do.”
They examined, and found that they did. And every
discovery since has proved the truth of Newton’s
supposition.
Now, that is the only way of forming hypothesis
science can allow. It does not suffer you to weave
fancies at will, and then suppose their actual existence.
Your hypothesis must consist of some acknowledged
fact or law, which, when applied to the subject, accounts
also for its facts. But the theologians have no such
known and accepted facts to form the Monotheistic
hypothesis upon. They have nothing but a fancy as
wild as that of Nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum.
Whether it account for all the facts or not, therefore,
it can never be allowed to do more than amuse the
idle hours of the intellect.
It seems to me, then, that none of the theological
methods of accounting for the facts I have referred to,
and answering the questions they suggest, are tenable;
they are all founded on erroneous conceptions and
mere fancies. We cannot accept of what does not rest
upon certain knowledge.
And equally, I think, you will see that the religious
system of A. Comte fails to meet the wants of the
case. It ignores the greater part of the facts alto
gether, and only offers to satisfy the feelings which
arise from the contemplation of man under a few
special aspects. It has nothing to say to that wonder
and deep sense of mystery all nature calls forth ;
nothing to say even to those feelings as called forth by
the contemplation of the history of man; it merely
encourages reverence and worship for humanity, as
ennobled in some few of the elect of its children ; for
although it is professedly humanity as a whole, the
�Lecture II.
15
great, the sublime Existence which it worships, it is
to special forms of it, men and women who have
done great and loving deeds to whom the homage is
paid. But religion must be wider, truer, more com
plete than that. It must take up into itself all the
mystery around us, all the wonder and awe in our
selves from whatever source they spring. It must
allow our feelings free play, whilst it satisfies every
demand of the intellect.
What form it must take to do this I next proceed
to show ; but I will not do tlie injustice to myself or
system of giving you a part of my doctrine to-night
and the rest next Sunday. You must have the whole
before you before you can judge of the parts. I there
fore shall delay until next Sunday the exposition of
the form I consider religion must adopt in the present
day.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
��
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Positive religion : its basis and characteristics. Lecture II
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Cranbrook, James
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
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Positivism
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Conway Tracts
Positivism