George John Romanes - Thoughts on Religion
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George John Romanes >> Thoughts on Religion
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11 _Thoughts on Religion_
BY THE LATE
GEORGE JOHN ROMANES
M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
EDITED BY
CHARLES GORE, D.D.
BISHOP OF WORCESTER
Twelfth Impression
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND BOMBAY
1904
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITOR'S PREFACE 5
PART I.
THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE UPON RELIGION.
ESSAY I 37
ESSAY II 56
PART II.
NOTES FOR A WORK ON A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR 91
Sec. 1. INTRODUCTORY 98
Sec. 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND PURPOSE OF THIS TREATISE 104
Sec. 3. CAUSALITY 116
Sec. 4. FAITH 131
Sec. 5. FAITH IN CHRISTIANITY 154
CONCLUDING NOTE BY THE EDITOR 184
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The present edition of Romanes' _Thoughts on Religion_ is issued in
response to a request which has been made with some frequency of late
for very cheap reprints of standard religious and theological works.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON,
_January, 1904._
EDITOR'S PREFACE
The late Mr. George John Romanes--the author within the last few years
of _Darwin and After Darwin_, and of the _Examination of
Weismannism_--occupied a distinguished place in contemporary biology.
But his mind was also continuously and increasingly active on the
problems of metaphysics and theology. And at his death in the early
summer of this year (1894), he left among his papers some notes, made
mostly in the previous winter, for a work which he was intending to
write on the fundamental questions of religion. He had desired that
these notes should be given to me and that I should do with them as I
thought best. His literary executors accordingly handed them over to me,
in company with some unpublished essays, two of which form the first
part of the present volume.
After reading the notes myself, and obtaining the judgement of others in
whom I feel confidence upon them, I have no hesitation either in
publishing by far the greater part of them, or in publishing them with
the author's name in spite of the fact that the book as originally
projected was to have been anonymous. From the few words which George
Romanes said to me on the subject, I have no doubt that he realized that
the notes if published after his death must be published with his name.
I have said that after reading these notes I feel no doubt that they
ought to be published. They claim it both by their intrinsic value and
by the light they throw on the religious thought of a scientific man who
was not only remarkably able and clear-headed, but also many-sided, as
few men are, in his capacities, and singularly candid and open-hearted.
To all these qualities the notes which are now offered to the public
will bear unmistakeable witness.
With more hesitation it has been decided to print also the unpublished
essays already referred to. These, as representing an earlier stage of
thought than is represented in the notes, naturally appear first.
Both Essays and Notes however represent the same tendency of a mind from
a position of unbelief in the Christian Revelation toward one of belief
in it. They represent, I say, a tendency of one 'seeking after God if
haply he might feel after Him and find Him,' and not a position of
settled orthodoxy. Even the Notes contain in fact many things which
could not come from a settled believer. This being so it is natural that
I should say a word as to the way in which I have understood my function
as an editor. I have decided the question of publishing each Note solely
by the consideration whether or no it was sufficiently finished to be
intelligible. I have rigidly excluded any question of my own agreement
or disagreement with it. In the case of one Note in particular, I doubt
whether I should have published it, had it not been that my decided
disagreement with its contents made me fear that I might be prejudiced
in withholding it.
The Notes, with the papers which precede them, will, I think, be better
understood if I give some preliminary account of their antecedents, that
is of Romanes' previous publications on the subject of religion.
In 1873 an essay of George Romanes gained the Burney Prize at Cambridge,
the subject being _Christian Prayer considered in relation to the belief
that the Almighty governs the world by general laws_. This was published
in 1874, with an appendix on _The Physical Efficacy of Prayer_. In this
essay, written when he was twenty-five years old, Romanes shows the
characteristic qualities of his mind and style already developed. The
sympathy with the scientific point of view is there, as might be
expected perhaps in a Cambridge 'Scholar in Natural Science': the
logical acumen and love of exact distinctions is there: there too the
natural piety and spiritual appreciation of the nature of Christian
prayer--a piety and appreciation which later intellectual habits of
thought could never eradicate. The essay, as judged by the standard of
prize compositions, is of remarkable ability, and strictly proceeds
within the limits of the thesis. On the one side, for the purpose of the
argument, the existence of a Personal God is assumed[1], and also the
reality of the Christian Revelation which assures us that we have reason
to expect real answers, even though conditionally and within restricted
limits, to prayers for _physical_ goods[2]. On the other side, there is
taken for granted the belief that general laws pervade the observable
domain of physical nature. Then the question is considered--how is the
physical efficacy of prayer which the Christian accepts on the authority
of revelation compatible with the scientifically known fact that God
governs the world by general laws? The answer is mainly found in
emphasizing the limited sphere within which scientific inquiry can be
conducted and scientific knowledge can obtain. Special divine acts of
response to prayer, even in the physical sphere, _may_ occur--force
_may_ be even originated in response to prayer--and still not produce
any phenomenon such as science must take cognizance of and regard as
miraculous or contrary to the known order.
On one occasion the Notes refer back to this essay[3], and more
frequently, as we shall have occasion to notice, they reproduce thoughts
which had already been expressed in the earlier work but had been
obscured or repudiated in the interval. I have no grounds for knowing
whether in the main Romanes remained satisfied with the reasoning and
conclusion of his earliest essay, granted the theistic hypothesis on
which it rests[4]. But this hypothesis itself, very shortly after
publishing this essay, he was led to repudiate. In other words, his mind
moved rapidly and sharply into a position of reasoned scepticism about
the existence of God at all. The Burney Essay was published in 1874.
Already in 1876 at least he had written an anonymous work with a wholly
sceptical conclusion, entitled 'A Candid Examination of Theism' by
_Physicus_[5]. As the Notes were written with direct reference to this
work, some detailed account of its argument seems necessary; and this is
to be found in the last chapter of the work itself, where the author
summarizes his arguments and draws his conclusions. I venture therefore
to reproduce this chapter at length[6].
'Sec. 1. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very few words will here
suffice to convey an epitomized recollection of the numerous facts and
conclusions which we have found it necessary to contemplate. We first
disposed of the conspicuously absurd supposition that the origin of
things, or the mystery of existence [i.e. the fact that anything exists
at all], admits of being explained by the theory of Theism in any
further degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it was shown that the
argument "Our heart requires a God" is invalid, seeing that such a
subjective necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient to
prove--or even to render probable--an objective existence. And with
regard to the further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations
points to God as to their explanatory cause, it became necessary to
observe that the argument could only be admissible after the possibility
of the operation of natural causes [in the production of our theistic
aspirations] had been excluded. Similarly the argument from the supposed
intuitive necessity of individual thought [i.e. the alleged fact that
men find it impossible to rid themselves of the persuasion that God
exists] was found to be untenable, first, because, even if the supposed
necessity were a real one, it would only possess an individual
applicability; and second, that, as a matter of fact, it is extremely
improbable that the supposed necessity is a real necessity even for the
individual who asserts it, while it is absolutely certain that it is not
such to the vast majority of the race. The argument from the general
consent of mankind, being so obviously fallacious both as to facts and
principles, was passed over without comment; while the argument from a
first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument
that, as human volition is a cause in nature, therefore all causation is
probably volitional in character, was shown to consist in a stretch of
inference so outrageous that the argument had to be pronounced
worthless.
'Sec. 2. Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in
favour of Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known minds
are caused by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind; therefore our
mind is caused by an unknown mind,--is a syllogism that is inadmissible
for two reasons. In the first place, it does not account for mind (in
the abstract) to refer it to a prior mind for its origin; and therefore,
although the hypothesis, if admitted, would be _an_ explanation of
_known_ mind, it is useless as an argument for the existence of the
unknown mind, the assumption of which forms the basis of that
explanation. Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind is so far
an entity _sui generis_ that it must be either self-existing or caused
by another mind, there is no assignable warrant for the assertion. And
this is the second objection to the above syllogism; for anything within
the whole range of the possible may, for aught that we can tell, be
competent to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector to
the above syllogism need not hold any theory of things at all; but even
as opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above syllogism
has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. We know that what
we call matter and force are to all appearance eternal, while we have no
corresponding evidence of a mind that is even apparently eternal.
Further, within experience mind is invariably associated with highly
differentiated collocations of matter and distributions of force, and
many facts go to prove, and none to negative, the conclusion that the
grade of intelligence invariably depends upon, or at least is associated
with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development. There is thus both
a qualitative and a quantitative relation between intelligence and
cerebral organisation. And if it is said that matter and motion cannot
produce consciousness because it is inconceivable that they should, we
have seen at some length that this is no conclusive consideration as
applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental nature, and that in
the present case it is particularly inconclusive, because, as it is
speculatively certain that the substance of mind must be unknowable, it
seems _a priori_ probable that, whatever is the cause of the unknowable
reality, this cause should be more difficult to render into thought in
that relation than would some other hypothetical substance which is
imagined as more akin to mind. And if it is said that the _more_
conceivable cause is the _more_ probable cause, we have seen that it is
in this case impossible to estimate the validity of the remark. Lastly,
the statement that the cause must contain actually all that its effects
can contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and contradicted by
everyday experience; while the argument from the supposed freedom of the
will and the existence of the moral sense was negatived both deductively
by the theory of evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of
utilitarianism.' The theory of the freedom of the will is indeed at this
stage of thought utterly untenable[7]; the evidence is overwhelming that
the moral sense is the result of a purely natural evolution[8], and this
result, arrived at on general grounds, is confirmed with irresistible
force by the account of our human conscience which is supplied by the
theory of utilitarianism, a theory based on the widest and most
unexceptionable of inductions[9]. 'On the whole, then, with regard to
the argument from the existence of the human mind, we were compelled to
decide that it is destitute of any assignable weight, there being
nothing more to lead to the conclusion that our mind has been caused by
another mind, than to the conclusion that it has been caused by anything
else whatsoever.
'Sec. 3. With regard to the argument from Design, it was observed that
Mill's presentation of it [in his _Essay on Theism_] is merely a
resuscitation of the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers.
And indeed we saw that the first-named writer treated this whole subject
with a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in him; for while he
has failed to assign anything like due weight to the inductive evidence
of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a supernatural
explanation of biological phenomena. Moreover, he has failed signally in
his _analysis_ of the Design argument, seeing that, in common with all
previous writers, he failed to observe that it is utterly impossible for
us to know the relations in which the supposed Designer stands to the
Designed,--much less to argue from the fact that the Supreme Mind, even
supposing it to exist, caused the observable products by any particular
intellectual _process_. In other words, all advocates of the Design
argument have failed to perceive that, even if we grant nature to be due
to a creating Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to conclude that
this Mind can only have exerted its creative power by means of such and
such cogitative operations. How absurd, therefore, must it be to raise
the supposed evidence of such cogitative operations into evidences of
the existence of a creating Mind! If a theist retorts that it is, after
all, of very little importance whether or not we are able to divine the
_methods_ of creation, so long as the _facts_ are there to attest that,
_in some way or other_, the observable phenomena of nature must be due
to Intelligence of some kind as their ultimate cause, then I am the
first to endorse this remark. It has always appeared to me one of the
most unaccountable things in the history of speculation that so many
competent writers can have insisted upon _Design_ as an argument for
Theism, when they must all have known perfectly well that they have no
means of ascertaining the subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind
whose existence the argument is adduced to demonstrate. The truth is,
that the argument from teleology must, and can only, rest upon the
observable _facts_ of nature, without reference to the intellectual
_processes_ by which these facts may be supposed to have been
accomplished. But, looking to the "present state of our knowledge," this
is merely to change the teleological argument in its gross Paleyian
form, into the argument from the ubiquitous operation of general laws.'
'Sec. 4. This argument was thus[10] stated in contrast with the argument
from design. 'The argument from design says, there must be a God,
because such and such an organic structure must have been due to such
and such an intellectual _process_. The argument from general laws says,
There must be a God, because such and such an organic structure must _in
some way or other have been ultimately due to_ intelligence.' Every
structure exhibits with more or less of complexity the principle of
order; it is related to all other things in a universal order. This
universality of order renders irrational the hypothesis of chance in
accounting for the universe. 'Let us think of the supreme causality as
we may, the fact remains that from it there emanates a directive
influence of uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous
magnitude and exact precision worthy of our highest conceptions of
deity[11].' The argument was developed in the words of Professor Baden
Powell. 'That which requires reason and thought to understand must be
itself thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or
express must be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is
but partial, then the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind
and reason of the student. If the more it is studied the more vast and
complex is the necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more
evident is the vast extent and compass of the reason thus partially
manifested and its reality _as existing in the immutably connected order
of objects examined_, independently of the mind of the investigator.'
This argument from the universal _Kosmos_ has the advantage of being
wholly independent of the method by which things came to be what they
are. It is unaffected by the acceptance of evolution. Till quite
recently it seemed irrefutable[12].
'But nevertheless we are constrained to acknowledge that its apparent
power dwindles to nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if
force and matter have been eternal, all and every natural law must have
resulted by way of necessary consequence.... It does not admit of one
moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the exquisite
beauty and melodious harmony of nature follows necessarily as inevitably
from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter as it
is certainly true that force is persistent or that matter is extended or
impenetrable[13].... It will be remembered that I dwelt at considerable
length and with much earnestness upon this truth, not only because of
its enormous importance in its bearing upon our subject, but also
because no one has hitherto considered it in that relation.' It was also
pointed out that the coherence and correspondence of the macrocosm of
the universe with the microcosm of the human mind can be accounted for
by the fact that the human mind is only one of the products of general
evolution, its subjective relations necessarily reflecting those
external relations of which they themselves are the product[14].
'Sec. 5. The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the
conclusion that was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless
collapse of all the possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully
demonstrated that there is no shadow of a positive argument in support
of the theistic theory, there arose the danger that some persons might
erroneously conclude that for this reason the theistic theory must be
untrue. It therefore became necessary to point out, that although, as
far as we can see, nature does not require an Intelligent Cause to
account for any of her phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could
see farther, we should see that nature could not be what she is unless
she had owed her existence to an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words,
the probability there is that an Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to
explain any of the phenomena of nature, is only equal to the probability
there is that the doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere and
eternally true.
'As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether quitted the
region of experience, and ignoring even the very foundations of science,
and so all the most certain of relative truths, we carried the
discussion into the transcendental region of purely formal
considerations. And here we laid down the canon, "that the value of any
probability, in its last analysis, is determined by the number, the
importance, and the definiteness of the relations known, as compared
with those of the relations unknown;" and, consequently, that in cases
where the unknown relations are more numerous, more important, or more
indefinite than are the known relations, the value of our inference
varies inversely as the difference in these respects between the
relations compared. From which canon it followed, that as the problem of
Theism is the most ultimate of all problems, and so contains in its
unknown relations all that is to man unknown and unknowable, these
relations must be pronounced the most indefinite of all relations that
it is possible for man to contemplate; and, consequently, that although
we have here the entire range of experience from which to argue, we are
unable to estimate the real value of any argument whatsoever. The
unknown relations in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite,
both in respect of their number and importance, as compared with the
known relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite
probability either for or against the being of a God. Therefore,
although it is true that, so far as human science can penetrate or human
thought infer, we can perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no right
on this account to conclude that there is no God. The probability,
therefore, that nature is devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest
kind if regarded scientifically--amounting, in fact, to a scientific
demonstration,--is nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically.
Although it is as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of
all experience that, if there is a God, His existence, considered as a
cause of the universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that,
if there had never been a God, the universe could never have existed.
'Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter
how great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative
sense, we have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute
sense. From which position there emerged the possibility of another
argument in favour of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of
the teleological argument in another form. For it may be said, seeing
that these formal considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for
or against Deity in an absolute sense, while they do not exclude such
reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet remain any theistic
deductions which may properly be drawn from experience, these may now be
adduced to balance the atheistic deductions from the persistence of
force. For although the latter deductions have clearly shown the
existence of Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the formal
considerations in question have no less clearly opened up beyond the
sphere of science a possible _locus_ for the existence of Deity; so that
if there are any facts supplied by experience for which the atheistic
deductions appear insufficient to account, we are still free to account
for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it may be
urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation of
general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It signifies nothing,
the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the methods whereby
the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor does it
signify that its operation must now be relegated to a super-scientific
province. What does signify is that, taking a general view of nature,
we find it impossible to conceive of the extent and variety of her
harmonious processes as other than products of intelligent causation.
Now this sublimated form of the teleological argument, it will be
remembered, I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order sharply to
distinguish it from all previous forms of that argument, which, in
contradistinction I denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinction,
it will be remembered, consisted in this--that while all previous forms
of teleology, by resting on a basis which was not beyond the possible
reach of science, laid themselves open to the possibility of scientific
refutation, the metaphysical system of teleology, by resting on a basis
which is clearly beyond the possible reach of science, can never be
susceptible of scientific refutation. And that this metaphysical system
of teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable; for while it
accepts the most ultimate truths of which science can ever be
cognizant--viz. the persistence of force and the consequently necessary
genesis of natural law,--it nevertheless maintains that the necessity of
regarding Mind as the ultimate cause of things is not on this account
removed; and, therefore, that if science now requires the operation of a
Supreme Mind to be posited in a super-scientific sphere, then in a
super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited. No doubt this hypothesis
at first sight seems gratuitous, seeing that, so far as science can
penetrate, there is no need of any such hypothesis at all--cosmic
harmony resulting as a physically necessary consequence from the
combined action of natural laws, which in turn result as a physically
necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the primary
qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably true that
metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered
scientifically, it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if
considered psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable
that Mind should be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the
persistence of force should be so, then it is not irrational to accept
the more conceivable hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable
one, provided that the choice is made with the diffidence which is
required by the considerations adduced in Chapter V [especially the
_Canon of probability_ laid down in the second paragraph of this
section, Sec. 5].
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