Thus from every point of view the doctrine of a quasihuman God appears equally unsatisfactory to the scientific thinker. It rests upon unsupported theories of causation, upon a mistaken conception of law, and upon a teleological hypothesis whose origin renders it suspicious, and whose evidence fails it in the hour of need. The inductive proof alleged in its support is founded upon the correspondence between the organism and the environment, and where the correspondence fails, just there the doctrine is left helpless. The Doctrine of Evolution thus not only accounts for the origin and apparent justification of the anthropomorphic theory, but also reveals its limitations. And when thus closely scrutinized, the hypothesis appears as imperfect morally as it is intellectually. It is shown to be as incompatible with the truest religion as it is with the truest science. Instead of enlightening, it only mystifies us; and, so far from consoling, it tends to drive us to cynical despair. In spite of all the care observed in the wording of the foregoing argument—a care directed toward the bringing out of my entire thought, and not toward the concealing of any portion of it—the views here maintained will doubtless by many be pronounced "covertly atheistical." It must be reserved for the next three chapters to demonstrate that they are precisely the reverse, and that the intelligent acceptance of them must leave us in an attitude toward God more reverential than that which is assumed by those who still cling to the anthropomorphic hypothesis. At present we must be content with noting that our choice is no longer between an intelligent Deity and none at all: it lies between a limited Deity and one that is without limit. For, as the foregoing discussion has plainly shown, and as must appear from every similar discussion of the subject in terms of the Doctrine of Evolution, an anthropomorphic God cannot be conceived as an infinite God. Personality and Infinity are terms expressive of ideas which are mutually incompatible. The pseud As idea "Infinite Person" is neither more nor less unthinkable than the pseud-idea "Circular Triangle." Spinoza somewhere says, Determinatio negatio est,—to define God is to deny Him; and such being the case, what can be more irrational than to insist upon thought and volition, phenomena only known to exist within quite narrow limitations, as the very nature and essence of the infinite Deity? What theory of physical or moral phenomena, built upon such an inadequate basis, can be other than unsound and misleading? What wonder if it continually land us in awkward and conflicting conclusions, painful to us alike as inquiring and as religious beings? As Goethe has profoundly said, "Since the great Being whom we name the Deity manifests himself not only in man, but in a rich and powerful Nature, and in mighty world-events, a representation of Him, framed from human qualities, cannot of course be adequate, and the thoughtful observer will soon come to imperfections and contradictions, which will drive him to doubt-nay, even to despair-unless he be either little enough to let himself be soothed by an artful evasion, or great enough to rise to a higher point of view." To those whom the habits of thought which science nurtures have led to believe in the existence of an all-pervading and all-sustaining Power, eternally and everywhere manifested in the phenomenal activity of the universe, alike the cause of all and the inscrutable essence of all, without whom the world would be as the shadow of a vision, and thought itself would vanish,-to these the conception of a presiding anthropomorphic Will is a gross and painful conception. Even were it the highest phenomenal conception which can be framed, it would still be inadequate to represent the Ineffable Reality. But we do not and cannot know even that it is the highest. Hegel was rash with all the metaphysician's rashness when he said that Humanity 1 1 Eckerniann, vol. ii. p. 357. Our is the most perfect type of existence in the universe. knowledge of the Cosmos has been aptly compared by Carlyle to the knowledge which a minnow in its native creek has of the outlying ocean. Of the innumerable combinations of matter and incarnations of force which are going on within the bounds of space, we know, save a few of the simplest, those only which are confined to the surface of our little planet. And to assert that among them all there may not be forms of existence as far transcending humanity as humanity itself transcends the crystal or the sea-weed, is certainly the height of unwarrantable assumption. "Think you this mould of hopes and fears Until our knowledge becomes coextensive with the entire world of phenomena, questions like these must remain unanswered. Meanwhile we may rest assured that, could we solve them all, the state of the case would not be essentially altered. Our conception might be relatively far loftier, but from the absolute point of view it would be equally beneath the Reality. We are therefore forced to conclude that the process of deanthropomorphization which has from the first characterized the history of philosophic development must still continue to go on; until the Intelligent Will postulated by the modern theologian shall have shared the fate of the earlier and still more imperfect symbols whereby finite man has vainly tried to realize that which must ever transcend his powers of conception. CHAPTER III. COSMIC THEISM. THE conclusions reached in the foregoing chapter were purely negative, and would therefore be very unsatisfactory if we were obliged to rest in them as final. Upon the religious side of philosophy as well as upon its scientific side, the mind needs some fundamental theorem with reference to which it may occupy a positive attitude. According to the theory of life and intelligence expounded in previous chapters, mere scepticism can discharge but a provisional and temporary function. To the frivolously-minded the mere negation of belief may be in no wise distressing; but to the earnest inquirer the state of scepticism is accompanied by pain, which, here as elsewhere, is only subserving its proper function when it stimulates him to renewed search after a positive result. In the present transcendental inquiry it may indeed at first sight seem impossible to arrive at any positive result whatever, without ignoring the relativity of knowledge and proving recreant to the rigorous requirements of the objective method. Nevertheless, as was hinted at the close of the preceding chapter, this is not the case. Although the construction of a theology, or science of Deity, is a task which exceeds the powers of human intelligence, there is nevertheless one supremely important theorem in which science and religion find their permanent reconciliation, and by the assertion of which the mind is brought into a positive attitude of faith with reference to the Inscrutable Power manifested in the universe. The outcome of the present argument is not Atheism or Positivism, but a phase of Theism which is higher and purer, because relatively truer, than the anthropomorphic phase defended by theologians. This all-important theorem in which science and religion are reconciled, is neither more nor less than the theorem which alone gives complete expression to the truth that all knowledge is relative. In the first chapter of this work it was elaborately proved that as soon as we attempt to frame any hypothesis whatever concerning the Absolute, or that which exists out of relation to our consciousness, we are instantly checkmated by alternative impossibilities of thought, and when we seek to learn why this is so, we are taught by a psychologic analysis that, from the very organization of our minds, and by reason of the very process by which. intelligence has been evolved, we can form no cognition into which there do not enter the elements of likeness, difference, and relation, so that the Absolute, as presenting none of these elements, is utterly and for ever unknowable. Translating this conclusion into more familiar language, we found it to mean, first, "that the Deity, in so far as absolute and infinite, is inscrutable by us, and that every hypothesis of ours concerning its nature and attributes can serve only to illustrate our mental impotence,"-and, secondly, "that the Universe in itself is likewise inscrutable; that the vast synthesis of forces without us, which in manifold contact with us is from infancy till the close of life continually arousing us to perceptive activity, can never be known by us as it exists objectively, but only as it affects our consciousness." 1 These are the closely-allied conclusions which were reached 1 See above, vol i. p. 15. |