Chapter X (1)

THE RELATION OF THE OBJECTIVE TO THE SUBJECTIVE ELEMENT.

One final postulate has been found to be involved in all religion, namely, that between the human essence spoken of as the subjective element, and the power spoken of as the objective element, "there is held to be a singular correspondence, their relationship finding its concrete expression in religious worship on the one side and theological dogma on the other." Ritual, consecration of things and places, ordination of priests, omens, inspiration of prophets and of books, all of them imply the supposed possibility of such a relation. All of them, however, from their contradictory and variable character, prove that they are but imperfect efforts to find utterance for the emotion which underlies them all. But that this emotion is incapable of an explanation consistent with rational belief is not therefore to be taken for granted.

Consider, first, that in order to be aware of the existence of the ultimate and unknown power, we must possess some faculty in our constitution by which that power is felt. It must, so to speak, come in contact with us at some point in our nature.

Now, no sensible perception can lead us to this conception as a generalization. The whole universe, regarded merely as a series of presentations to the senses, contains not a single object which can possibly suggest it. Nor can any combination of such presentations be shown to include within them any such idea. Neither can the existence of such a power be inferred by the exercise of the reasoning faculty. There is no analogical case from which the inference can be drawn. When we reason we proceed from something known to something unknown, and conclude that the latter, resembling the former in one or more of its qualities, will resemble it also in the quality yet to be established. In exploring, for instance, some deserted spot, we find traces of a building. Now, previous experience has taught us that such buildings are only found where human builders have made them. We conclude, therefore, that we have stumbled upon a work of human hands. Suppose we explore further and find the remains of the building very extensive. We now draw the further inference that it was inhabited by a wealthy man, because we know that only the wealthy can afford to live in magnificent houses. But if prolonged excavation lead to the discovery of long rows of buildings, of various sizes and having streets between them, we confidently assert that we have unearthed a ruined city; for we are aware that no single man, however rich or powerful, is likely to have built so much. Of these three inferences, the first only is, strictly speaking, infallibly true. But the others are rendered by familiar analogies so highly probable as to be practically certain. Now let the thing sought be, not some single cause of a single phenomenon, or the various causes of various phenomena, but the ultimate cause of all phenomena whatever,—where is the corresponding case on which we can proceed to argue? Plainly there is none. There is no _other_ world or system to which we can appeal and say, "Those stars and those planets were made by a God, therefore our own sun and its planets must have been made by a God also." Every single argument we can frame to establish the existence of deity assumes in its major premiss the very thing to be proved. It takes for granted that phenomenal objects require a cause, and were not the idea of this necessity already in the mind it could not take one single step. For if it be contended, say, that the world could not exist without a Creator, we have but to ask, "Why not?" and our adversary can proceed no further with his argument. All he can ever do is to appeal to a sentiment in us corresponding to the sentiment of which he himself is conscious.

Thus it appears that neither direct observation, nor reasoning, which is generalized observation, supplies the material for an induction as to the existence of an Unknowable Cause. Yet this idea is so persistent in the human race as to resist every effort to do without it. In one form or another it invariably creeps in. There is but one possible explanation of such a fact: namely, that it is one of those primary constituents of our nature which are incapable of proof because they are themselves the foundations on which proof must be erected. We cannot demonstrate a single law of nature without supposing a world external to ourselves. And we cannot suppose a world external to ourselves without referring explicitly or implicitly to an unknown entity manifested in that world. The faculty by which this truth is known must be considered as a kind of internal sense. It is a direct perception. And precisely as objects of direct perception by the senses appear widely dissimilar at different distances, to different men, and to the same man at different times, so the object of the religious emotion is variously conceived in different places and ages, by different men, and by the same man at different times. Moreover, as the religious sentiment in the mind of man perceives its object, the Ultimate Being, so that Being is conceived as making itself known to the mind of man through the religious sentiment. A reciprocal relation is thus established; the Unknowable causing a peculiar intuition, the mind of man receiving it. And this is the grain of fact at the foundation of the numerous statements of religious men, that they have felt themselves inspired by God, that he speaks to them and speaks through them, that they enter into communion with him in prayer, and obey his influence during their lives. We need not discard such feelings as idle delusions. In form they are fanciful and erroneous; in substance they are genuine and true. And in a higher sense the adherent of the universal religion may himself admit their title to a place in his nature. To use the words of a great philosopher, "he, like every other man, may consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown Cause;" "he too may feel that when the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief" (Spencer's "First Principles," 2d ed., § 34, p. 123).

But we may go still deeper in our examination of the nature of the relation between the Ultimate Being and the mind of man. To do so we must briefly recur to the philosophical questions touched upon in the eighth chapter of this Book. We there discussed four possible modes of viewing the great problem presented by the existence of sensible objects: Common and Metaphysical Realism, Moderate and Complete Idealism. Let us briefly reconsider these several systems to discover whether any of them affords a satisfactory solution.

Common Realism is excluded by the consideration that it treats the qualities of external objects as existing in those objects and not in the percipient subject. It requires but little reflection to prove that such qualities are modes of consciousness, not modes of absolute being. This defect is surmounted in Metaphysical Realism, which, however, is liable to the fatal objection, that it takes for granted an abstract substance in material things, which substance is like the Unknowable, utterly inconceivable, yet is not the Unknowable, and is incapable of accounting for any of the manifestations belonging to the mental order. So that we should have a superfluous entity brought in to form the substance of matter, of which entity neither our senses, nor our reason, nor our emotions, give us any information. For matter, in the abstract, is not the matter perceived by the senses; nor is it the object of the religious sentiment; nor is its existence capable of any kind of proof save that which consists in establishing the necessity of some kind of Permanent Reality below phenomena. And this Reality is not only the substratum of material, but of all phenomena whatsoever. Moderate Idealism is in no better case. For in denying all true existence except to living creatures it fails utterly to give any rational account of that order of events which is universally and instinctively referred to external causes, nor can it find any possible origin for the living creatures in whose reality it believes. Extreme Idealism recognizes no problem to be dealt with, and can therefore offer no solution.

Each of these systems, however, while false as a whole, contains a partial truth. Extreme Idealism is the outcome of the ordinary, unreflecting Realism; for if the Common Realist be convinced that appearances do not imply existence, and if he believe in no existence but appearances, the ground is cut from under his feet, and he remains standing upon nothing. He knows only phenomena, and the phenomena are mere ideas of his own mind. The truth common to these two extremes is that so emphatically asserted by Berkeley, that the _esse_ of material objects is _percipi_; that we exhaust the physical phenomenon when we describe its apparent qualities, and need not introduce besides these a material substance to which those qualities are related as its accidents. They are not the accidents, but the actual thing, in so far as it is material. Metaphysical Realism and moderate Idealism are united in the recognition of the truth that the phenomena are not the ultimate realities, and that the qualities of bodies, when analyzed, are subjective, not objective; forms of the human mind, and not independent, external existences.

Hence these various philosophies, like the various religions of which they are in some sort metaphysical parallels, must be considered as preparing the way for the admission of that all-embracing truth which is the common ground of metaphysics and religion.

Examine a simple objective phenomenon. Then you find that you can separate it into all its component qualities: its color, taste, smell, extension, and so forth; and that after all these qualities have been taken into account nothing of the object remains save the vague feeling of an unknown cause by which the whole phenomenon is produced. All the apparent qualities, without exception, are resolvable into modes of consciousness, but the whole object is not so resolvable. For the question still remains, How did we come to have those modes of consciousness? Thus the analysis of the commonest material object leads us straight to an unknowable origin of known manifestations. And each particular phenomenon brings us to the same result. But are we to assume a special Unknowable for each special object? A little consideration will show that the division and subdivision we make of the objects of sensible perception resembles their apparent qualities in being purely subjective, and indeed more than subjective, arbitrary. For I consider an object as one or many, according to the point of view from which I regard it. The glass which I hold in my hand is at this moment one; but the next moment it is shivered into a thousand atoms, and each of these atoms is of complex character, and resolvable into still simpler parts. The planet we inhabit is, for the astronomer, one object; for the geologist a number of distinct rocks; for the botanist it is composed of mineral and vegetable constituents, and of these, the latter, which alone engage his attention, are numerous and various; for the chemist it consists of an infinite multitude of elementary atoms variously combined. Hence unity and multiplicity are mere modes of subjective reflection; not ultimate modes of objective being. And the Unknowable cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as either one or many, since each alike implies limitation and separation from something else. Rather is it all-comprehending; the Universal Foundation upon which unity and multiplicity alike are built.

Material things, then, are analyzable into modes of consciousness with an unknown cause to which these modes are due. But what is consciousness itself? Like matter, it has its subjective and its objective aspect. The subjective aspect consists of its various phenomenal conditions; the sensations which we ascribe to outward objects as their producing causes, and the emotions, passions, thoughts, and feelings which we conceive as of internal origin. The objective aspect consists of the unknown essence itself which experiences these various states; of the very self which is supposed to persist through all its changes of form; of the actual being which is the ultimate Reality of our mental lives. The existence of this ultimate Ego is known as an immediate fact of consciousness, and cannot be called in question without impugning the direct assurance which every one feels of his own being as apart from his particular and transient feelings. Nobody believes that he is the several sensations and emotions which he experiences in life; he believes that he _has_ them. And if the existence of the Unknowable underlying material manifestations is perceived by a direct, indubitable inference, the existence of the Unknowable underlying mental manifestations is perceived without an inference at all by an intuition from which there is no appeal. For no one can even attempt to reason with me about this conviction without resting his argument upon facts, and inferences from facts, which are in themselves less certain than this primary certainty which he is seeking to overthrow.

Existence, then, is known to us immediately in our own case; mediately in every other—consequently, the only conception we can frame of existence is derived from ourselves. Hence when we say that anything exists, we can only mean one of two things: either that it exists as a mode of human consciousness, as in the case of material things; or that it exists _per se_, and is the very substance of consciousness itself. And the former of these modes of existence is altogether dependent upon a conscious subject. A material object is a congeries of material qualities, none of which can be conceived at all except in relation to some percipient subject. Take away the subject, and color, extension, solidity, sound, smell, and every other quality, vanish into nothing. The existence of these qualities, and hence the existence of matter itself in its phenomenal character, is relative and secondary. There remains therefore only the second of these two modes of existence as absolute and primary. The substance of consciousness, then, is the one reality which is known to exist; and in no other form is existence in its purity conceivable by us. For if we attempt to conceive a something as existent which is neither object nor subject, neither that which is felt nor that which feels, neither that which is thought nor that which thinks, we must inevitably fail. There is no _tertium quid_ which is neither mind nor matter of which we can frame the most remote conception. We may, if we please, imagine the existence of such a _tertium quid_, but the hypothesis is altogether fanciful, and would have nothing in science, nothing in the construction of the human mind, to render it even plausible. Indeed, it would be making an illegitimate use of the word "existence" to apply it in such a sense. Existence to us _means_ consciousness, and never can mean anything else. We cannot by any effort conceive a universe previous to the origin of life in which there was no consciousness; for the moment we attempt to conceive it, we import our own consciousness into it. We think of ourselves as seeing or feeling it. The effort, therefore, to frame an idea of any existing thing without including consciousness in the idea is self-defeating, and when we predicate Existence of the Unknown Cause, we predicate its kinship to that ultimate substance of the mind from which alone our conception of absolute existence is derived.

Here, then, we have a second and more intimate relationship between the objective and the subjective elements in the religious emotion. They are found to be of kindred nature; or, to speak with stricter caution, it is found that we cannot think of them but as thus akin to one another. We must ever bear in mind, however, that our thoughts upon such a subject as this can be no more than partial approximations to the truth; tentative explorations in a dark region of the mind rather than accurate measurements of the ground. Thus, in the present instance, we have spoken of the Unknowable as more or less akin to the mind of man; yet we cannot think of the Unknowable as resembling the fleeting states which are all that we know by direct observation of the constitution of the mind. It is not the passing and variable modes, but the fixed and unchangeable substratum on which these modes are conceived to be impressed, which the Unknowable must be held to resemble. And this substratum itself is an absolute mystery. We can in no way picture it to ourselves without its modes, which nevertheless we cannot regard as appertaining to its ultimate being. One further consideration will establish a yet closer relationship than that of likeness. The Unknown Reality, which is the source of all phenomena whatsoever, mental and physical, must of necessity _include_ within itself that mode of existence which is manifested in consciousness; for otherwise, we must imagine yet another power as the originator of conscious life, and we should then have two unknown entities, still requiring a higher entity behind them both, to effect that entire harmony which actually subsists between them. The Unknowable is, therefore, the hidden source from which both the great streams of being, internal and external, take their rise. Since, then, our minds themselves originate in that Universal Source, since it comprehends every form of existence within itself, we stand to it in the relation of parts to a whole, in which and by which those parts subsist. There is thus not only likeness but identity of nature between ourselves and our unknown Origin. And it is literally true that in it "we live, and move, and have our being."

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From the summit to which we have at length attained, we may survey the ground we have already traversed, and comprehend, now that they lie below us, a few of the intricacies which we met with on our way. The apparent puzzle of automatism, for example, may be resolved into a more comprehensive law. It was shown, at the conclusion of the preceding chapter, that a train of physical events could in no way impinge upon, or pass over into, a train of mental events, nor a state of consciousness be converted into physical movements. But it was hinted that, while the distinction between the two great series of manifestations, those of mind and those of matter, was ultimate in the order of thought, it need not be ultimate in the order of things. Of this suggested possibility we have now found the confirmation; for we have seen that material phenomena, analyzed to their lowest terms, resolve themselves into forms of consciousness, and forms of consciousness, analyzed in their turn, prove to be the varied modes of an unknown subject; and this unknown subject has its roots in the ultimate Being in which both these great divisions of the phenomenal universe find their foundation and their origin. The distinction, therefore, between the mental and the material train belongs to these trains in their character of phenomena alone. They are distinguished in the human mind, not in the order of nature. Thus, if we recur to the illustration used in explaining automatism, we pointed out that in the circumstance of hearing a call and going to the window, two series might be thus distinguished: 1. The material series, consisting of atmospheric undulations, affections of the nerves and matter of the brain, movements of the body; 2. The mental series, consisting of the sensations of sitting still, and hearing of the thought of a person, of the sensations of motion, and seeing the person. Now, if we take the trouble to observe the terms of which the first series is composed, we shall see that they also express states of consciousness, though states of a different kind from those contained in the terms of the second series. Undulations, nervous affections, movements, and so forth, are only intelligible by us as modifications of our consciousness. To conceive in any degree the atmospheric perturbations which are the physical correlatives of sound, we must imagine them as somehow felt or perceived—for instance, as a faint breeze. To conceive the cerebral changes implied in hearing, we must imagine ourselves as dissecting and examining the interior of the brain. In other words, the external train of events to which consciousness runs over parallel can only be represented in thought by translating it into terms of consciousness; and the absolute harmony of both these trains, the fact that while states of consciousness do not originate the movements of our bodies, they yet bear so unvarying a relation to them as to be mistaken for their causes, finds its solution in the reflection that, when we look below the appearances to the reality pervading both, it is the same Universal Being which is manifested in each alike.

Hence, too, the sense of independent power to produce physical effects in accordance with mental conceptions, which forms the great obstacle to the general admission of the doctrine of human automatism. Reason as we may, we still feel that we are reservoirs of force which we give out in the shape of material movement whenever we please and as we please. And if the doctrine of the Persistence of Force appears, by showing that every physical consequent has a purely physical antecedent, to contradict this feeling, we naturally give the preference to the feeling over the doctrine. But since the Persistence of Force is itself no less firmly seated in consciousness than the sense of independent power—since all nature would be a chaos without the Persistence of Force—it is the part of true philosophy to give its due to each. And this may be done by admitting the particle of truth contained in the belief that the human will influences the external world. We are indeed reservoirs of force. But it is not our own peculiar force that is exerted through us; it is the Universal Force, which is evinced no less in the actions of men than in the movements of inanimate nature. And since those actions are in constant unison with their wishes, there is not, and cannot be, the sense of constraint which is usually opposed to voluntary performance. Thus, to take a simple illustration, the necessities of our physical constitution absolutely compel us to support ourselves by food; yet no man feels that in eating his meals he is acting under external compulsion.

It would be a strange except ion indeed to the universal prevalence of unvarying law, if human beings were permitted to exert independent influence upon the order of events. Not in so slovenly a manner has the work of nature been performed. We are no more free to disturb the harmony and beauty of the universe than are the stars in their courses or the planets in their orbits. Our courses and orbits are no less fixed than theirs, and it is but the imperfection of our knowledge, if they have not been, and cannot yet be discovered. But it would be a lamentable blot upon a universe, where all things are fixed by a Power "in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning," were there permitted to exist a race of creatures who were a law unto themselves.

Again, the relation now established between the human mind and the ultimate Source both of mind and matter, serves to throw light upon that dark spot in the hypothesis of evolution—the origin of consciousness. For while in this hypothesis there is a continual progression, of which each step is the natural consequence of another, from the gaseous to the solid condition of our system, from inorganic to organic substances, from the humblest organization to the most complex, there is absolutely no traceable gradation from the absence to the presence of conscious life. No cunning contrivance of science can derive sensation from non-sentient materials, for the difference between the two is not a difference in degree of development, but in kind. There is a radical unlikeness between the two, and it is unphilosophic, as well as unscientific, to disguise the fact that a mere process of material evolution can never lead from the one to the other. "The moment of arising of consciousness," says Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, "is the most important break in the world of phenomena or nature taken as a whole; the phenomena above and the phenomena below it can never be reduced completely into each other; there is a certain heterogeneity between them. But this is not the only instance of such a heterogeneity" (Hodgson's "Theory of Practice," vol. i. p. 340). I venture to say that it is the only instance, and that there is nothing else in nature which can properly be compared with it. The instances of similar heterogeneity which Mr. Hodgson gives appear to me less carefully considered than might have been expected from so careful a writer. That between Time and Space, which is his first case, is involved in that between mind and matter, and is only another expression of it (see _supra_, p. 447); while "curves and straight lines," and "physical and vital forces," are not truly heterogeneous at all, unless under "vital forces" we include mental effort, and so again illustrate the primary unlikeness by a case included under it. But the last example is remarkable. "Until Mr. Darwin propounded his law of natural selection, it was supposed also [that there was heterogeneity] between species of living organisms in physiology." Now it is the great triumph of the evolutional system to have rid us of this unintelligible break, and to have shown that the whole of the material universe, inorganic and organic, is the result of the unchangeable operation of laws which are no less active now than they have ever been. In other words, evolution dispenses with the necessity of supposing the existence, at some point in the history of the planet, of a special law for the production of species brought into operation _ad hoc_.

But the general principles which apply to the origin of organic products must apply also to the origin of conscious life. This also must be figured as an evolution. This also must take place without the aid of a special law brought into operation _ad hoc_. Like the evolution of material products, it can only be conceived as taking place from a preëxisting fund, containing potentially the whole of the effects which are afterwards found in actual existence.

Let us test this by trying to conceive the process in other ways. Consciousness might be supposed to arise in two ways: by special creation, and by uncaused origin, from nothing. Both possibilities are in absolute contradiction to the fundamental principles of evolution. Creation by a superior power is a hypothesis standing on a level with that of the creation of man out of the dust of the earth. To realize it in thought at all we must suppose the very thing intended to be denied, namely, the material of mind already existing in the universe, as that of body existed—in the earth. Otherwise, we should be obliged to admit the unthinkable hypothesis of the origin of something from nothing. This latter difficulty presses with its full force upon the second supposition. Mind would thereby be represented as suddenly springing into being without any imaginable antecedent. For no material antecedent can produce it without an exception to the Persistence of Force, which requires a material consequent. And it cannot arise without any antecedent but by a similar exception.

Neither creation nor destruction can in fact be represented as occurring in nature. We cannot conceive a new being arising out of nothing, or passing into nothing. As the development of the physical universe takes place by the change, composition, decomposition, and re-composition of preëxisting constituents, so it must be with the development of mind. We cannot suppose the origin of sensation, its advance to more varied and complex kinds, through emotions, passions, and reasonings to the most subtle feelings and the profoundest thoughts, without believing that all of these have their source in the Ultimate Reality of nature, which comprehends not these only, but every further perfection of which we may yet be capable in ages to come.

Here, then, is the solution of the difficulty which was shown (p. 690) to beset the theory of abiogenesis; a theory which, if ultimately accepted by science, as I believe it will be, will for the first time bring perfect unity into our conceptions of the development of the world we live in. While science will thus show that there is no impassable break between inorganic and organic forms of matter, philosophy will confirm it by showing, that there is no real distinction between the universal life which is manifested in the (so-called) inanimate forces and constituents of our system and the fragmentary life which comes to light in animated creatures. There is heterogeneity nowhere. There are no breaks in nature. There are no unimaginable leaps in her unbroken course.

From the point of view now reached we can understand also—so far as understanding is possible in such a case—the apparent riddle of our knowledge of the existence of the Unknowable. We can explain the universal sentiment of religious minds that there is some direct relation between them and the object of their worship. The sense of an intuitional perception of that object, the sense of undefinable similarity thereto, the sense of inspiration and of guidance thereby, are included under and rendered intelligible by the actual identity in their ultimate natures of the subject and the object of religious feeling. And the incomprehensibility of the latter is shown to have an obvious reason. For the part cannot comprehend the whole of which it is a part. It can but feel that there is a whole, in some mysterious way related to itself. But what that whole is, the conditions of its existence render it impossible that it should even guess.

Imagine the whole of the atmosphere divided into two great currents: a hot current continually ascending, and a cold current continually descending. And let the hot current represent the stream of conscious life, the cold current the stream of material things. To complete the simile, conceive that there is a sharp boundary between the two currents, so that atoms of air can never cross to and fro; while yet the conscious atoms in the hot current are aware of the existence of the unconscious atoms in the cold one. Now if the atoms or particles in the conscious current should be gifted with senses in proportion to their size, they will see and feel an infinitely minute portion both of the ascending current in which they they themselves are placed, and of the descending current they are passing by. But of the whole of the atmosphere of which they are themselves fragmentary portions they will be able to form no conception whatever. Its existence they will be aware of, for it will be needed to explain their own. But of its nature they will have no idea, except that in some undefinable way it is like themselves. Nor will they be able to form any picture of the cause which is continually carrying them upwards, and forcing their homologues in the opposite current downwards. While, if we suppose these opposite movements to represent the elements of Time and Space, they will be conscious of themselves only in terms of movement upwards, and of the unconscious particles in terms of movement downwards. They will suppose these two movements to be of the very essence of hot and cold particles, and will be able to conceive them only under these terms. Suppose, lastly, that at a certain point in their progress the hot particles become cold and pass into the opposing current, losing their individual, particular life, then their fellow-particles in the hot current will lose sight of them at that point, and they will be merged in the general stream of being to emerge again in their turn into the stream of conscious being.

Imperfect as this simile is, and as all such similes must be, it serves in some faint measure to express the relation of the mind of man to its mysterious Source. And it serves also to illustrate the leading characteristics of Religion and Theology, or Faith and Belief, the function of the first having ever been to conceive the existence of that relation, and the function of the second to misconceive its character. Thus there runs through the whole course of religious history a pervading error and a general truth. In all its special manifestations these two have been mingled confusedly together, and the manifold forms of error have generally obscured from sight the single form of truth.

The relation held by Faith to Belief, by the true elements to the false, in special creeds, may be thus expressed: That the creeds have sought to individualize, and thus to limit that which is essentially general and unlimited. Thus worship, in its purest character a mere communing of the mind with its unknown Source, has been narrowed to the presentation of petitions to a personal deity. Particular places and peculiar objects have been selected as evincing, in some exceptional manner, the presence of the infinite Being which pervades all places and things alike. Certain men have been regarded as the exclusive organs of the ultimate Truth; certain books, as its authorized expressions; whereas the several races of men in their different modes of life, and in the diverse products of their art and their culture, are all in their variety, and even in their conflict, inspired workers in the hands of that Truth which is manifested completely in none, partially in all.

And as it has been with the special objects upon which Theology has fixed its gaze, so it has been with the general object which underlies them all. This, too, has been individualized, limited and defined. It has been forgotten that we are but forms of that which we are seeking to bring within the grasp of our reason, and cannot therefore see around it, above it, and below it. But this truth, which Theology is ever forgetting, Religion must ever proclaim. The proclamation of this truth is the title-deed of its acceptance by mankind. Without this, it would sink into the dishonored subject of incessant wranglings and profitless dispute. When it begins to define the Infinite, it ceases, in the purer sense of the word, to be Religion, and can only command the assent of reasonable beings in so far as its assertions comply with the rigorous methods of logical demonstration. But this condition is in fact impossible of fulfillment, for the nature of the object concerning which we reason, renders the exact terms of logical propositions misleading and inadequate. The Unknowable Reality does not admit of definition, comprehension, or description. How should we, mere fragments of that Reality, define, comprehend, or describe the Infinite Being wherein we have taken our rise, and whereto we must return?

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Thus is Religion analyzed, explained and justified. Its varied forms have been shown to be unessential and temporary; its uniform substance to be essential and permanent. Belief has melted away under the comparative method; Faith has remained behind. From two sides, however, objections may be raised to the results of this analysis. Those who admit no ultimate residuum of truth in the religious sentiment at all, may hold that I have done it too much honor in conceding so much; while those who adhere to some more positive theology than is admitted here, will think that I have left scarcely anything worth the having in conceding so little.

To the first class of objectors I may perhaps be permitted to point out the extreme improbability of the presence in human nature of a universally-felt emotion without a corresponding object. Even if they themselves do not realize in their own minds the force of that emotion they will at least not deny its historical manifestations. They will scarcely question that it has been in all ages known to history as an inspiring force, and often an overmastering passion. They will believe the evidence of those who affirm that they are conscious of that emotion now, and cannot attribute it to anything but the kind of Cause which religion postulates. The actual presence of the emotion they will not deny, though the explanation attempted of its origin they will. But those who make the rather startling assertion that a deep-seated and wide-spread emotion is absolutely without any object resembling that which it imagines to be its source, are bound to give some tenable account of the genesis of that emotion. How did it come into being at all? How having come into being, did it continue and extend? How did it come to mistake a subjective illusion for an objective reality?

These are questions pressing for an answer from those who ask us to believe that one of our strongest feelings exists merely to deceive. But it will be found, I believe, that all explanations tending to show that this emotion is illusory in its nature assume the very unreality they seek to prove. Should it, for example, be contended that human beings, conscious of a force in their own bodies, extend the conception of this force to a superhuman being, which extension is illegitimate, it is assumed, not proved, in such an argument as this, that the force manifested in the universe at large is not in some way akin to that manifested in human beings. Again, should it be urged that man, being aware of design in his own works, fancies a like design in the works of nature, it is a mere assumption that this attribution of the ideas of his own mind to a mind greater than his is an unwarrantable process. The argument from design may be, and in my opinion is, open to other grave objections; but its mere presence cannot be used as explaining the manner in which the religious emotion has come to exist. Rather is it the religious emotion which has found expression in the argument from design. The same criticism applies to all accounts of this sentiment which aim at finding an origin for it sufficient to explain its presence without admitting its truth. They all of them assume the very point at issue.

But the real difficulty that is felt about religion lies deeper than in the mere belief that a given emotion may be deceptive. It lies in the doubt whether a mere emotion can be taken in evidence of the presence in nature of any object at all. Emotions are by their very nature vague, and this is of all perhaps the vaguest. Nor are emotions vague only; they are inexpressible in precise language, and even when we express them as clearly as we can, they remain unintelligible to those who have not felt them. Now this general and unspecific character of emotions renders it hard for those who are wanting in any given emotion to understand its intensity in others, and even fully to believe in their statements about it. Were religion a case of sensible perception they would have no such doubt. Color-blind persons do not question the faculty of distinguishing colors in others. But while the sharp definitions of these senses compel us to believe in the existence of their objects, the comparatively hazy outlines drawn by the emotions leave us at least a physical possibility of disputing the existence of theirs.

Yet the cases are in their natures identical. We see a table, and because we see it we infer the existence of a real thing external to ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause. Precisely in the same way, we feel the Unknowable Being, and because we feel it we infer the existence of a real object both external to ourselves and within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of its cause. Undoubtedly, the supposed object of the sensations and the supposed object of the emotion _might_ be both of them illusory. This is conceivable in logic, though not in fact. But there can be no reason for maintaining the unreality of the emotional, and the reality of the sensible object. Existence is believed in both instances on the strength of an immediate, intuitional inference. The mental processes are exactly parallel. And if it be contended that sensible perception carries with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the existence of its objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this contention must be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it; otherwise, it will again turn out to be a pure assumption, constituting, not a reason for the rejection of religion by those who now accept it, but a mere explanation of the conduct of those who do not.

In fact, however, the denial of the truth of religion is no less emotional than its affirmation. It is not denied because those who disbelieve in it have anything to produce against it, but because the inner sense which results in religion is either absent in them, or too faint to produce its usual consequences. For this of course they are not to blame, and nothing can be more irrational than to charge them with moral delinquency or culpable blindness. If the Unknown Cause is not perceptible to them, that surely is not a deficiency to be laid to their charge. But when they quit the emotional stronghold wherein they are safe to speak of those to whom that Unknown Cause is perceptible as the victims of delusion, these latter may confidently meet them on the field which they themselves have chosen.

First, then, it is at least a rather startling supposition that their fellow creatures have always been, and are still, the victims of a universal delusion, from which they alone enjoy the privilege of exemption. Presumption, at all events, is against a man who asserts that everybody but himself sees wrongly. He may be the only person whose eyes have not deceived him, but we should require him to give the strongest proof of so extraordinary an assertion. And in all cases which are in the least degree similar, this condition is complied with without the smallest hesitation. There are, so far as I am aware, no instances of proved universal delusions, save those arising from the misleading suggestions of the senses. That the earth is a flat surface, that the sun moves round it, that the sun and moon are larger than the stars, that the blue sky begins at a fixed place, are inferences which the uninstructed observer cannot fail to draw from the most obvious appearances. But those who have combated these errors have not done so by merely telling the world at large that it was mistaken; they have pointed out the phenomena from which the erroneous inferences were drawn, and have shown at the same time that other phenomena, no less evident to the senses than these, were inconsistent with the explanation given. They have then substituted an explanation which accounted for all the phenomena alike, both the more obvious phenomena and the less so. Precisely similar is the method of procedure in history and philosophy, though the methods of proof in these sciences are not equally rigorous. Great historical delusions—such as the Popish plot—are put to rest by showing the misinterpreted facts out of which they have grown, exposing the misinterpretation, and substituting true interpretation. Imperfect psychological analysis, say of an emotion, is superseded by showing from what facts this analysis has been obtained, and what other facts it fails to account for.

Observe, then, that in all these cases the appeal is made from the first impressions of the mistaken person to his own impressions on further examination; not to those of another. Considerations are laid before him which it is supposed will cause him to change his mind, and in all that class of cases where strict demonstration is possible actually do so. To a man who believes the earth to be a flat extended surface we point out the fact that the top of a ship's mast is the first part of it to appear, and that this and other kindred phenomena imply sphericity. Our appeal is from the senses to the senses better informed; not from another man's senses to our own. And we justly assume that were all the world in possession of the facts we have before us, all the world would be of our opinion.

What, then, is the conclusion from these analogies? It surely is, that those who would deny the reality of the object of religious emotion must show from what appearances, misunderstood, the belief in that object has arisen, and must point out other appearances leading to other emotions which are in conflict with it. As the astronomer appeals from sensible perception to sensible perception, so they must appeal from emotion to emotion. But it must not be their own emotions to which they go as forming a standard for ours. They can demand no hearing at all until they attempt to influence the emotions of those whom they address.

Generality of belief need not, for the purposes of this argument, be taken as even a presumption of truth. We can grant our adversaries this advantage which, in the parallel cases of the illusions of the senses, was neither asked nor given. But we must ask them in return to concede to us that, if the generality of a belief entitles it to no weight in philosophic estimation, the singularity of a belief entitles it to none either. All mankind may be deluded: well and good: _a fortiori_ a few individuals among mankind may be deluded too. Grant that the human faculties at large are subject to error and deception, it follows from this that the faculties of individuals lie under the same disability. No word can be said as to the general liability to false beliefs, which does not carry with it the liability to false beliefs of the very persons who are seeking to convince us.

By whom, in fact, are we asked to admit, in the interests of their peculiar theory, the prevalence of a universal deception, and a deception embracing in its grasp not only the ignorant multitude, but men of science, thinkers and philosophers of the very highest altitude of culture? By whom is it that the great mass of humankind is charged with baseless thoughts, illusory emotions, and untenable ideas? By those who, in thus denying the capacity of the whole human race to perceive the truth, nevertheless maintain their own capacity to see over the heads of their fellow men so far as to assert that they are all the victims of an error. By those who, while bidding us distrust the strongest feelings, nevertheless require us to trust them so far as to banish, at their bidding, those feelings from our hearts. Not from our reason to our more instructed reason do they appeal, only from our reason to their own. But I deny the competence of the tribunal; and I maintain that until not merely disbelief, but disproof, of the position of Religion can be offered, Religion must remain in possession of the field.

Yet there is one mistake which, as it may tend to obscure the issue, it will be desirable to clear away. It is often contended, oftener perhaps tacitly assumed, that the burden of proof must rest on those who in any case maintain the affirmative side of a belief, while the negative on its side requires no proof, but can simply claim reception until the affirmative is established. Now this principle is true, where the negative is simply a suspension of judgment; the mere non-acceptance of a fact asserted, without a counter-assertion of its opposite. To understand the true application of the rule we must distinguish between what I will term substantial affirmations or negations, and affirmations or negations in form. Thus, to assert that A. B. is six feet tall, is a substantial affirmation. Out of many possible alternatives it selects one, and postulates that one as true, while all the rest it discards as false. Since, however, there are numerous possibilities besides this one with regard to A. B.'s height—since he may be either taller or shorter by various degrees—the negative, in the absence of all knowledge on the subject, is inherently more probable, for it covers a larger ground. It is a substantial negation. That is, it affirms nothing at all, but simply questions the fact affirmed, leaving the field open to countless other substantial affirmations. So, in law, it is the prosecution which is required to prove its case; for the prosecution affirms that this man was at a given place at a given time and did the criminal action. The opposite hypothesis of this covers innumerable alternatives: not this man but another, may have been at that place, or he may have been there and not done the action charged, or some other man may have done it, or the crime may have not been committed at all, and so forth. These are cases of substantial affirmations; asserting one alone out of many conceivable possibilities, and therefore needing proof. And their opposites are substantial negations; questioning only the one fact affirmed, and even with reference to that merely maintaining that in the absence of proof there is an inherent probability in favor of the negative side.

Widely different is the case before us. Here the affirmation and negation are affirmative and negative in form alone. The assertions, "An Unknowable Being exists," and "An Unknowable Being does not exist," are not opposed to one another as the affirmative and the negative sides were opposed in the previous cases. The latter proposition does not cover a number of possible alternatives whereof the former selects and affirms a single one. Both propositions are true and substantial affirmations. Both assert a supposed actual fact. And the latter does not, as the previous negative propositions did, leave the judgment in simple suspense. It requires assent to a given doctrine. That the one cast is in a negative form is the mere accident of expression, and without in any way affecting their substance, their positions in this respect may be reversed. Thus, we may say for the first, "The universe cannot exist without an Unknowable Being;" and for the second, "The universe can exist without an Unknowable Being." There are not here a multitude of alternatives, but two only, and of these each side affirms one. Each proposition is equally the assertion of a positive belief. Thus, the reason which, in general, causes the greater antecedent probability of a denial as against a positive assertion, in no way applies to the denial of the fundamental postulate of Religion. The statement that there is nobody in a certain room is not in itself more probable than the statement that there is somebody. And the proposition: "all men are not mortal," though negative in form, is truly as affirmative as the counter-proposition: "all men are mortal."