Chapter XVII: Beyond Science

_Metaphysics--Early Attitude to Religion--Increased Sympathy with
Religion_

Spencer was always clear that "life is not for work and learning, but work and learning are for life." Thus he valued science because it is "_fructiferous_," to use Bacon's word, making for the amelioration of life; but he valued it still more because it is "_luciferous_," "for the light it throws on our own nature and the nature of the Universe." He spoke with regret of "the ordinary scientific specialist, who, deeply interested in his speciality, and often displaying comparatively little interest in other departments of science, is rarely much interested in the relations between Science at large and the great questions which lie beyond Science." He ranked himself with those who, "while seeking scientific knowledge for its proximate value, have an ever-increasing consciousness of its ultimate value as a transfiguration of things, which, marvellous enough within the limits of the knowable, suggests a profounder marvel than can be known." Thus it is not surprising to find that he had a metaphysical system of his own, and if he had not a religion he had at least "a humility in presence of the inscrutable," and a reverence for Nature deeper than many religious minds exhibit.

_Metaphysics._--"Metaphysician" was with Spencer a term of reproach, "employed (as Prof. Sidgwick says) exclusively to designate a class of thinkers who have followed an erroneous method to untenable conclusions," yet he himself had a metaphysical system--which Sidgwick defines as "a systematic view of the nature and relations of finite minds to the material world, and to the Primal Being or ultimate ground of Being." A critical discussion of Spencer's metaphysical and epistemological doctrines will be found in Sidgwick's "Philosophy of Kant and other Lectures," 1905.

In his doctrine of "the Unknowable," in which experts discover the influence of Kant through Hamilton and Mansel, Spencer reached the conclusion that "no tenable hypothesis can be formed as to the origin or nature of the Universe regarded as a whole." He offered for the reconciliation of Religion and Science the "Supreme Verity," that "the reality underlying appearances is totally and for ever inconceivable to us... but we are obliged to regard every phenomenon as the manifestation of an incomprehensible power, called Omnipresent from inability to assign its limits, though Omnipresence is unthinkable." Similarly when we try to understand Time, Space, Matter, Force, Consciousness, we have to confess that the "reality underlying appearances is and must be totally and for ever inconceivable by us." At the same time Spencer was able to attain to some knowledge of his Unknowable, concluding, for instance, in spite of the antithesis between subject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness lasts, that "it is one and the same Ultimate Reality that is manifested to us subjectively and objectively"; that while "the manifestations, as occurring either in ourselves or outside of us, do not persist: that which persists is the Unknown Cause of these manifestations"--"an unconditioned Reality without beginning or end."

_Early attitude to Religion._--Spencer came of a religious stock, but the traditional beliefs took no grip of him. Even as a boy he had what may be called a cosmic outlook, but he tells us of no religious tendrils, and if there were any they found no support in the faith of his fathers. Though surrounded in early life by a religious atmosphere, he never seems to have moved or even drawn breath in it. He passed by theological beliefs as if he were immune; he developed into an agnostic without passing through any crisis or perplexity; he had not even what Prof. James has called "the religion of healthy-mindedness."

The explanation of this may be looked for partly in the self-sufficiency of his strong intellect, partly in the limitations of the emotional side of his nature, and partly in his fine heritage of natural goodness. When the religious mood does not arise naturally as an almost spontaneous expression of inherited disposition and nurture-influences, it is usually reached by one of three paths, or by more than one of these at once. These paths to religion, which apply to the racial as well as to the individual history, may be called the practical, the emotional, and the intellectual approaches to faith. When men reach the limits of their practical endeavours and find themselves baffled, when they feel the impotence of their utmost strength, when they are filled with fear of the past, the present, and the future, then they sometimes become religious. When men reach the limits of their emotional strength, and the tension of joy or of sorrow, of delight in nature or love of kin becomes almost an oppression, then they sometimes become religious. When men reach the limit of their intellectual endeavours after clearness and unity and are baffled, they sometimes become religious.

As Spencer was never at his wit's end practically, and was born too good to be troubled by a sense of sin, and as he had a somewhat lukewarm emotional nature, and was singularly devoid of any poetical or mystical sense, he was not likely to approach religion by either the practical or the emotional path. The third path, reached by baffled intelligence, was more or less closed by Spencer's postulate of the Unknowable, though there was even in this some tinge of religious feeling.

He had been brought up among those who held almost as an axiom to the belief that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," but this never seems to have meant anything practically or emotionally to him, while as a cosmological statement it seemed quite unverifiable. Most thinkers have tried by searching to find out God, to find some way of thinking of the ultimate origin, nature, and purpose of things, but at an early age Herbert Spencer foreclosed this quest, and was quite comfortable in so doing, chiefly, it must be suspected, because it never appealed to him save as a purely intellectual puzzle. "_Nur was du fuehlst, das ist dein Eigenthum._"

Thus when he was twenty-six (1848) he wrote to his father, "As
regards 'the ultimate nature of things or origin of them,' my
position is simply that I know nothing about it, and never can know
anything about it, and must be content in my ignorance. I deny
nothing, and I affirm nothing, and to any one who says that the
current theory _is not_ true, I say just as I say to those who
assert its truth--you have no evidence. Either alternative leaves
us in inextricable difficulties. An _uncaused_ Deity is just as
inconceivable as an uncaused Universe. If the existence of matter
from all eternity is incomprehensible, the creation of matter out
of nothing is equally incomprehensible. Thus finding that either
attempt to conceive the origin of things is futile, I am content to
leave the question unsettled as _the insoluble mystery_"...
(_Autobiography_, i. p. 346).

This was written in 1848, twelve years before _First Principles_, in which he afterwards sought more fully to justify the position which Huxley called "agnostic."

Just because his emotions were so little engaged, the agnostic position seemed to him a very simple and satisfactory one, and we find no evidence that he ever tried to get below the surface of theistic or Christian doctrine. He was so much repelled by particular anthropomorphic and superstitious expressions or formulae of religious belief that he never appreciated their true inwardness or value. Otherwise, he would never have spoken of "the radical incongruity between the Bible and the order of Nature." Otherwise he would never have written the following passage, "The creed of Christendom is evidently alien to my nature, both emotional and intellectual. To many, and apparently to most, religious worship yields a species of pleasure. To me it never did so; unless, indeed, I count as such the emotion produced by sacred music.... But the expressions of adoration of a personal being, the utterance of laudations, and the humble professions of obedience, never found in me any echoes."

_Later Attitude to Religion._--But while it seems to us preposterous to speak of "the religion of Herbert Spencer," beyond a reverence for the mysteries beyond science, it is important to note that in his later years he became more appreciative of the important role that religion has filled, and continues to fill in human life. The 'Reflections' at the close of the _Autobiography_ illustrate this change of outlook.

In his earlier days Spencer was an uncompromising critic of many of the established governmental forms, such as the monarchy; in later years, while he did not change his views, he became more acquiescent, feeling that institutions must be judged by their relative fitness to the average characters and conditions of the citizens at any given time. He saw, moreover, that mere morphological changes matter little since the temper of a people alters so slowly. There is a rhythm of change in external forms, but the actual constitution of the social organism varies very little.

"We have been living in the midst of a social exuviation, and the
old coercive shell having been cast off, a new coercive shell is in
course of development; for in our day, as in past days, there
co-exist the readiness to coerce and the readiness to submit to
coercion. Here, then, I see a change in my political views which
has become increasingly marked with increasing years. Whereas, in
the days of early enthusiasm, I thought that all would go well if
governmental arrangements were transformed, I now think that
transformations in governmental arrangements can be of use only in
so far as they express the transformed natures of citizens" (1893).

A similar change marks his ideas about religious institutions. In early days he was an uncompromising critic of particular theological doctrines and religious customs, but a wider knowledge convinced him almost against his will that some sort of religious cult has been an indispensable factor in social progress. Quite aware of the great changes in theological thought which had taken place during his life-time, he looked forward to a stage in which, "recognising the mystery of things as insoluble, religious organisations will be devoted to ethical culture." As Prof. Henry Sidgwick puts it, "Spencer contemplates complacently the reduction of religious thought and sentiment to a perfectly indefinite consciousness of the Unknowable and the emotion that accompanies this peculiar intellectual exercise."

"Thus I have come more and more to look calmly on forms of
religious belief to which I had, in earlier days, a pronounced
aversion. Holding that they are in the main naturally adapted to
their respective peoples and times, it now seems to me well that
they should severally live and work as long as the conditions
permit, and, further, that sudden changes of religious
institutions, as of political institutions, are certain to be
followed by reactions.

"If it be asked why, thinking thus, I have persevered in setting
forth views at variance with current creeds, my reply is the one
elsewhere made: It is for each to utter that which he sincerely
believes to be true, and, adding his unit of influence to all other
units, leave the results to work themselves out."

Largely, however, Spencer's change of mood in regard to religious creeds and institutions resulted from "a deepening conviction that the sphere occupied by them can never become an unfilled sphere, but that there must continue to arise afresh the great questions concerning ourselves and surrounding things; and that, if not positive answers, then modes of consciousness standing in place of positive answers must ever remain."

"An unreflective mood, he said, is general among both cultured and
uncultured, characterised by indifference to everything beyond
material interests and the superficial aspects of things."... "But
in both cultured and uncultured there occur lucid intervals. Some,
at least, either fill the vacuum by stereotyped answers, or become
conscious of unanswered questions of transcendent moment. By those
who know much, more than by those who know little, is there felt
the need for explanation. Whence this process, inconceivable
however symbolised, by which alike the monad and the man build
themselves up into their respective structures? What must we say of
the life, minute, multitudinous, degraded, which, covering the
ocean-floor, occupies by far the larger part of the Earth's area;
and which yet, growing and decaying in utter darkness, presents
hundreds of species of a single type? Or, when we think of the
myriads of years of the Earth's past, during which have arisen and
passed away low forms of creatures, small and great, which,
murdering and being murdered, have gradually evolved, how shall we
answer the question--To what end? Ascending to wider problems, in
which way are we to interpret the lifelessness of the greater
celestial masses--the giant planets and the Sun; in proportion to
which the habitable planets are mere nothings? If we pass from
these relatively near bodies to the thirty millions of remote suns
and solar systems, where shall we find a reason for all this
apparently unconscious existence, infinite in amount compared with
the existence which is conscious--a waste Universe as it seems?
Then behind these mysteries lies the all-embracing mystery--whence
this universal transformation which has gone on unceasingly
throughout a past eternity and will go on unceasingly throughout a
future eternity? And along with this rises the paralysing
thought--what if, of all that is thus incomprehensible to us, there
exists no comprehension anywhere? No wonder that men take refuge in
authoritative dogma!"

"So is it, too, with our own natures. No less inscrutable is this
complex consciousness which has slowly evolved out of infantine
vacuity--consciousness which, during the development of every
creature, makes its appearance out of what seems unconscious
matter; suggesting the thought that consciousness in some
rudimentary form is omnipresent. Lastly come the insoluble
questions concerning our own fate: the evidence seeming so strong
that the relations of mind and nervous structure are such that
cessation of the one accompanies dissolution of the other, while,
simultaneously, comes the thought, so strange and so difficult to
realise, that with death there lapses both the consciousness of
existence and the consciousness of having existed."

"Thus religious creeds, which in one way or other occupy the sphere that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the more the more it seeks, I have come to regard with a sympathy based on community of need: feeling that dissent from them results from inability to accept the solutions offered, joined with the wish that solutions could be found" (1893).