Chapter XXXVII: Section D: RELIGIOUS WORK. (Hall 1, September 24, 3 p. m.) (10)

We have reached two conclusions that are vital here: (1) that the metaphysical way of looking at the world involves a transformation of the world of physical science; (2) that it is the same world that lies open to both science and metaphysics. Out of this arises the problem of the _correlation_ of the two views; the two interpretations of the world. If science be right in conceiving the world under such categories as quantity and natural causation; if science be right in seeking a mechanical explanation of phenomena (that is, one that excludes prevision, purpose, and aim); and if metaphysics be right in refusing to accept this explanation as final and in insisting that the principle of ultimate interpretation is teleological, that it falls under the categories of prevision, purpose, and aim; then it is clear that the problem of correlation is on our hands. In dealing with this problem, it will be convenient to separate it into two questions: (1) that of the fact; (2) that of its rationale. The fact of the correlation is a thing of common experience. We have but to consider the way in which this Congress of Science has been brought about in order to have an exhibition of the method of correlation. Originating first in the sphere of thought and purpose, the design has been actualized through the operation of mechanical agencies which it has somehow contributed to liberate. On the scale of individual experience we have the classic instance of the arm moving through space in obedience to a hidden will. There can be no question as to the fact and the great difficulty of metaphysics does not arise in the task of generalizing the fact and conceiving the world as a system of thought-purposes working out into forms of the actual through mechanical agencies. This generalization somehow lies at the foundation of all metaphysical faith, and, this being the case, the real task here, aside from the profounder question of the _rationale_, is that of exhibiting the actual points of correlation; those points in the various stages of the sciences from physics to ethics and religion, at which the last category or result of science is found to hold as its immediate implication some first term of the more ultimate construction of metaphysics. The working out of this task is of the utmost importance, inasmuch as it makes clear to both the man of science and the metaphysician the intrinsic necessity of the correlation. It is a task analogous to the Kantian deduction of the categories.

IV

QUESTIONS OF THE ULTIMATE NATURE OF REALITY

We come, then, to the question of the rationale of this correlation, and it is clear here that we are dealing with a phase of the problem of the ultimate nature of reality. For the question of the correlation now is how it is possible that our thoughts should affect things so that they move in response; how mind influences body or the reverse, how, when we will, the arm moves through space. And without going into details of discussion here, let us say at once, that whatever the situation may be for any science,--and it may be that some form of _dualism_ is a necessary presupposition of science,--for metaphysics it is clear that no dualism of substances or orders can be regarded as final. The life of metaphysics depends on finding the one for the many; the one that when found will also ground the many. If, then, the phenomenon of _mind and body_ presents the appearance of a correspondence of two different and, so far as can be determined, mutually exclusive agencies, the problem of metaphysics is the reduction of these agencies to one species. Here we come upon the issue between materialism and immaterialism. But inasmuch as the notion of metaphysics itself seems to exclude materialism, the vital alternative is that of immaterialism. Again, if psycho-physics presents as its basal category a _parallelism_ between two orders of phenomena, psychic and physical, it is the business of metaphysics to seek the explanation of this dualism in some more ultimate and unitary conception. Now, since the very notion of metaphysics again excludes the physical alternative from the category of finality, we are left with the psychic term as the one that, by virtue of the fact that it embodies a form of _conscious_ activity, promises to be most fruitful for metaphysics. From one point of view, then, we have reduced our world to immaterialism; from another, to some form or analogue of the psychic. Now it is not necessary here to carry the inquiry further in this direction. For what metaphysics is interested in, specially, is the fact that the world must be reduced to one kind of being and one type of agency. If this be done, it is clear that the dualism of _body and mind_ and the _parallel orders_ of psycho-physics cannot be regarded as final, but must take their places as phenomena that are relative and reducible to a more fundamental unity. The metaphysician will say that the arm moves through space in response to the will, and that everywhere the correlation between mechanical and teleological agency takes place because in the last analysis _there is only one type of agency_; an agency that finds its initiative in interest, thought, purpose, design, and thus works out its results in the fields of space and mechanical activities.

Furthermore, on the question to which these considerations lead up; that of the ultimate interpretation we are to put on the reality of the world, the issue is not so indeterminate as it might seem from some points of view. Taking it that the very notion of metaphysics excludes the material and the physical as ultimate types of the real, we are left with the notions of the immaterial and the psychic; and while the former is indefinite, it is a fact that in the psychic and especially in the form of it which man realizes in his own experience, he finds an intelligible type and the only one that is available to him for the definition of the immaterial. He has his choice, then, either to regard the world as _absolutely opaque_, showing nothing but its phenomenal dress which ceases to have any meaning; or to apply to the world's inner nature the intelligible types and analogies of his own form of being. That this is the alternative that is embodied in the existence of metaphysics is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the metaphysical interpretation embodies itself in the categories of _reason_, _design_, _purpose_, and _aim_. Whatever difficulties we may encounter, then, in the _use_ and application of the _psychic analogy_ in determining the nature of the real, it is clear that its employment is inevitable and indispensable. Let us, then, employ the term _rational_ to that characterization of the nature of things which to metaphysics is thus inevitable and indispensable. The world must in the last analysis be _rational_ in its constitution, and its agencies and forms of being must be construed as _rational_ in their type.

And here we come upon the last question in this field, that of the _ultimate being of the world_. We have already concluded that the _real_ is in the last analysis rational. But we have not answered the question whether there shall be one rational or many. Now it has become clear that with metaphysics _unity_ is a cardinal interest; that, therefore, the world must be _one_ in _thought_, _purpose_, _aim_. And it is on this insight that the metaphysical doctrine of the _absolute_ rests. There must be _one_ being whose thought and purpose are all-inclusive, in order that the world may be one and that it may have meaning as a whole. But the world presents itself as a plurality of finite _existents_ which our metaphysics requires us to reduce in the last analysis to the psychic type. What of this plurality of psychic existents? It is on this basis that metaphysics constructs its doctrine of _individuality_. Allowing for latitude of opinion here, the trend of metaphysical reflection sets strongly toward a doctrine of reality that grounds the world in an Absolute whose all-comprehending thought and purpose utters or realizes itself in the plurality of finite individuals that constitutes the world; the degree of reality that shall be ascribed to the plurality of individuals being a point in debate, giving rise to the contemporary form of the issue between idealism and realism. Allowing for minor differences, however, there is among metaphysicians a fair degree of assent to the doctrine that in order to be completely rational the world of individual plurality must be regarded as implying an _Absolute_, which, whether it is to be conceived as an individual or not, is the author and bearer of the thought and design of the world as a whole.

V

QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE AND ULTIMATE CRITERIA OF TRUTH

We have only time to speak very briefly, in conclusion, of two vital problems in metaphysics: (1) that of the nature and limits of metaphysical knowledge; (2) that of the ultimate criteria of truth. In regard to the question of knowledge, we may either _identify thought with reality_, or we may regard thought as _wholly inadequate to represent the real_; in one case we will be _gnostic_, in the other _agnostic_. Now whatever may be urged in favor of the gnostic alternative, it remains true that _our_ thought, in order to follow along intelligible lines, must be guided by the categories and analogies of our own experience. This fixes a limit, so that the thought of man is never in a position to grasp the real completely. Again, whatever may be urged in behalf of the agnostic alternative, it is to be borne in mind that our experience does supply us with intelligible types and categories; and that under the impulse of the _infinite_ and _absolute_, or the transcendent, to which our thought responds (to put it no stronger), a dialectical activity arises; on the one hand, the application of the experience-analogies to determine the real; on the other, the incessant removal of limits by the impulse of transcendence (as we may call it). Thus arises a _movement of approximation_ which while it never completely compasses its goal, yet proceeds along intelligent lines; constitutes the mind's effort to know; and results in an _approximating series of intelligible and relatively adequate conceptions_. Metaphysically, we are ever approximating to ultimate knowledge; though it can never be said that we have attained it. The type of metaphysical knowledge cannot be characterized, therefore, as either gnostic or agnostic.

As to the question of ultimate _criteria_, it is clear that we are here touching one of the living issues of our present-day thought. Shall the judgment of truth, on which certitude must found, exclude practical considerations of value, or shall the consideration of value have weight in the balance of certitude? On this issue we have at the opposite extremes (1) the _pure rationalist_ who insists on the rigid exclusion from the epistemological scale of every consideration except that of pure logic. The truth of a thing, he urges, is always a purely logical consideration. On the other hand, we have (2) the _pure pragmatist_, who insists on the "_will to believe_" as a legitimate datum or factor in the determination of certitude. The pragmatic platform has two planks: (1) the _ontological_--we select our world that we call real at the behest of our interests; (2) the _ethical_--in such a world practical interest has the right of way in determining what we are to accept as true as well as what we are to choose as good. It is my purpose in thus outlining the extremes of doctrine to close with a suggestion or two toward less ultra-conclusions. It is a sufficient criticism on the _pure rationalist's_ position to point out the fact that his separation of practical and theoretic interests is a pure fiction that is never realized anywhere. The motives of science and the motives of practice are so blended that interest in the conclusion always enters as a factor in the process. A conclusion reached by the pure rationalist's method would be one that would only interest the pure rationalist in so far as he could divest himself of all motives except the bare love of fact for its own sake. The _pure pragmatist_ is, I think, still more vulnerable. He must, to start with, be a pure subjective idealist, otherwise he would find his world at many points recalcitrant to his ontology. Furthermore, the mere _will to believe_ is arbitrary and involves the suppression of reason. In order that the will to believe may work _real_ conviction, the point believed must at least amount to a postulate of the practical reason; it must become somehow evident that the refusal to believe would create a situation that would be theoretically unsound or irrational; as, for instance, if we assume that the immortality of the soul is a _real postulate_ of practical reason, it must be so because the negative of it would involve the irrationality of our world; and therefore a degree of theoretic imperfection or confusion. Personally I believe the lines here converge in such a way that the ideal of truth will always be found to have practical value; and _conversely_, as to practical ideals, that a sound practical postulate will have weight in the theoretic scales. And it is doubtless true, as Professor Royce urges in his presidential address on _The Eternal and The Practical_, that all judgments must find their final warrant at the Court of the Eternal where, so far as we can see, the theoretical and practical coalesce into one.

* * * * *

At the close of the work of this Section and upon the invitation of Dr. Armstrong, a number of distinguished members in attendance joined freely in the discussion, to the great pleasure of the many specialists who were present. Among those participating were Professor Boltzmann of Vienna, Professor Hoeffding of Copenhagen, Professor Calkins of Wellesley, and Professor French of the University of Nebraska, to whom replies were made by the principal speakers, Messrs. Taylor and Ormond.

SHORT PAPERS

A short paper was contributed to the work of the Section by Professor W. P. Montague of Columbia University, on the "Physical Reality of Secondary Qualities." The speaker said that from the beginning of modern philosophy there has existed a strong tendency among all schools of thought--monists of the idealistic or materialistic types, as well as outspoken dualists--to treat the distinction between primary and secondary qualities as coincident, so far as it goes, with the distinction between physical and psychical. Colors, sounds, odors, etc., are regarded as purely subjective or mental in their nature, and as having no true membership in the physical order; while correlatively all special forms and relations have been in their turn extruded from the field of the psychical. Let it be noted that introspection offers little or nothing in support of this view. There is nothing, for example, about the color red that would make it appear more distinctively psychical or subjective than a figure or a motion. The perception of a square or a triangle is not a square or triangular perception; but neither is the perception of red or blue a red or blue perception. Now with the affective or emotional contents of experience the case is quite different.

A feeling of pain is a painful feeling, a consciousness of anger is an angry consciousness. Pains are more and less painful, according as we are more and less aware of them. With feelings and volitions _esse_ is indeed _percipi_. Colors and other secondary qualities, however, do not seem thus to increase or diminish in their reality concomitantly with our perceptions of them. Red is red, neither more nor less, regardless of the amount to which we attend to it. And yet it remains true that, notwithstanding this seeming objectivity, the secondary qualities have long been contrasted with the primary, and classed along with the affective and volitional states as purely subjective facts. It has always seemed curious that a view so important as this in its consequences, and so radically at variance, not only with Pre-Cartesian philosophy, but also with our instinctive beliefs, should have won its way to the position of an accepted dogma; and the purpose of this paper was first to examine the grounds upon which this belief rests, and second to show that the problem of the independent reality of the physical world and the problem of the relation of physical and psychical appear in a clearer and more hopeful light when disentangled from the quite different problem of the relation of primary and secondary qualities.

There were two reasons why the older or Pre-Cartesian view of this question should give place to the modern doctrine. First, because of the rediscovery of the idea of mechanism, without which predictive science had been virtually impossible. The second reason for reducing the secondary qualities to a merely subjective status lay in the fact that they are much more dependent than the primary qualities upon the bodily organism of the one who perceives them. In closing Professor Montague said:--

"I wish in closing to point out two consequences of the view which I have been opposing. First, the present paradoxical status of the eternal world; second, the equally paradoxical status of the relation of that world to the world of mind. Berkeley was the first thinker clearly to perceive the unsubstantial nature of a world made up solely of primary qualities. Indeed, in the last analysis, a world of primary qualities, and nothing else, is a world of relations without terms, a geometrical fiction, the objective (or, for that matter, the subjective) existence of which the idealist would be right in denying. In Biology we have abandoned obscurantist methods, and no longer attribute the distinctive vital functions of growth and reproduction to a vital force or vital substance, but solely to the peculiar configuration of the material elements of a cell. Why may we not in psychology with equal propriety attribute the distinctively psychical functions of subjectivity or consciousness, not to the action of a hyper-psychical soul-substance, nor to the presence of a transcendental ego, but simply to that peculiar configuration of sensory elements which constitutes a what we call psychosis?"

SECTION B--PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

SECTION B

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

(_Hall 1, September 21, 3 p. m._)

CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR THOMAS C. HALL, Union Theological Seminary, N. Y.
SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER, University of Berlin.
PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH, University of Heidelberg.
SECRETARY: DR. W. P. MONTAGUE, Columbia University.

THE RELATION OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION TO THE OTHER SCIENCES

BY PROFESSOR OTTO PFLEIDERER

[D. Otto Pfleiderer, Professor of Theology, University of
Berlin since 1875. b. September 1, 1839, Stetten,
Würtemberg. Grad. Tübingen, 1857-61. Post-grad. _ibid._
1864-68. City Professor, Heilbronn, 1868-69; Superintendent,
Jena, 1869-70; Professor of Theology, Jena, 1870-75. Author
of _Religion and its Essential Characteristics_; _Religious
Philosophy upon Historical Foundation_; and many other works
and papers on Theology.]

In order to answer this question, we need to consider a preliminary question, namely, whether religion can be regarded as the object of scientific knowledge in the same manner as other processes of the intellectual life of the race, such as law, history, and art. It is well known that this question has not always received an affirmative answer, and indeed it can never be answered in the affirmative so long as the position is maintained that the only religion is that of the Christian Church, whose doctrines and teachings rest upon an immediate divine revelation, and that these must be accepted by men in blind belief. Under the position of an authoritative ecclesiastical faith there can indeed exist a theoretical consideration of the doctrines of faith, as it was the case with the scholastic theology of the Middle Ages, which with great earnestness sought to harmonize faith and knowledge; nevertheless, no one of the present day would give to the scholastic theology the name of science with the modern meaning of the term science. The scholastic theology used great formal acuteness and skill in the work of defining and defending ecclesiastical traditions, still there was lacking that which for us is the essential condition of scientific knowledge, the free examination of tradition according to the laws of human thought and the analogy of the general experience of humanity. The great hindrance to the progress of the knowledge of religion was the accepted position that the truth of the ecclesiastical doctrines was beyond human reason and outside of human examination, since their truth rested upon an immediate divine revelation. Whether this supernatural authority was ascribed to the Church or the Bible makes very little difference, for in either case the assumption of such an authority is a hindrance to the free examination of that which claims to be the divine revealed truth.

But is this assumption really justifiable in the nature of the case? Do the doctrines of the Church rest upon a supernatural divine revelation? So soon as this question was really earnestly considered, and the thinking mind could not always avoid the consideration, then there was revealed the inadequacy of the assumption. Two ways of examination led to a common critical result, the philosophical analysis of the religious consciousness and the historical comparison of various religions. The first to enter upon these ways and at the same time to become the founder of the modern science of religion was the keen Scotch thinker David Hume. Truly the thought of Hume was still a one-sided, disorganizing skepticism; even as his theory of knowledge disturbed the truth of all our previous commonsense opinions and conceptions, so also his philosophy of religion sought to demonstrate that all religion cannot be proved and is full of doubt, and that the origin of religion was neither to be found in divine revelation nor in the reason of man, but in the passions of the heart and in the illusions of imagination. As unsatisfactory as this result was, nevertheless it gave an important advance to the rational study of religion in two directions, in that of religion being an experience of the inner life of the soul and in that of religion being a fact of human history.

Kant added the positive criticism of reason to the negative skepticism of Hume; that is, Kant showed that the human intellect moved independently in the formation of theoretical and practical judgments, and that the various materials of thought, desire, and feelings were regulated by the intellect according to innate original ideas of the true and good and beautiful. Thus as a natural result there came the conception that the doctrines of belief arose not as complete truths, given by divine revelation, but, like every other form of conscious knowledge, these came to us through the activity of our own mind, and that therefore these doctrines cannot be regarded as of absolute authority for all time, but that we are to seek to understand their origin in historical and psychical motives. So far as one looked at the ceremonial forms of positive religion, these motives indeed were found according to Kant in irrational conceptions, but as far as the essence of religion was concerned they were rather found to be rooted in the moral nature of man. This is the consciousness of obligation of the practical reason or of the conscience, which raises man to a faith in the moral government of the world, in immortality and God. With the reduction of religion from all external forms, doctrines, and ceremonies and the finding of the real essence of religion in the human mind and spirit, the way was opened to a knowledge of religion free from all external authority. Those philosophers who came after Kant followed essentially this course, though here and there they may separate in their opinions according to their thought of the psychological function of religion. When Kant had emphasized the close connection between religion and the moral obligation, then came Schleiermacher, who emphasized the feeling of our dependence upon the Eternal, and who sought to find the explanation of all religious thoughts and conceptions in the many relations of the feeling to religious experience. Hegel on the other hand sought the truth of religion in the thought of the absolute spirit as found in the finite spirit. Thus Hegel made religion a sort of popular philosophy.

At present all agree that all sides of the soul-life have part in religion; now one side may be the more prominent, now another, according to the peculiarity of certain religions or the individual temperaments. The philosophy of religion has, in common with scientific psychology, the question of the relation of feeling to the intellect and the will, and as yet there may be many views of this question. Altogether the philosophy of religion is looking for important solutions to many of its problems from the realm of the present scientific psychology. Experiences, such as religious conversions, appear under this point of view as ethical changes in which the aim of a personal life is changed from a carnal and selfish end to that of a spiritual and altruistic purpose. These are extraordinary and seemingly supernatural processes; nevertheless in them there can still be found a certain development of the soul-life according to law. Modern psychology especially has thrown light upon the abnormal conditions of consciousness which have so often been made manifest in the religious experience of all times. That which religious history records concerning inspiration, visions, ecstasy, and revelation, we now classify with the well-known appearances of hypnotism, the induction of conceptions and motives of the will through foreign suggestion or through self-suggestion, of the division of consciousness in different egos, and in the union of several consciousnesses into one common mediumistic fusion of thought and will. The explanation of these experiences may not yet be satisfactory, but nevertheless we do not doubt the possibility of a future explanation from the general laws controlling the life of the soul. The fact that we can through psychological experiments produce such abnormal conditions of consciousness justifies us in taking the position, that certain psychical laws are at the foundation of these conditions which in their kind are as natural and regular in their functions as the physical laws which we observe in physical experiments. These solutions which modern psychology so far has given, and hopes still further to give, are of great importance to the philosophy of religion. They are an indorsement of the general principle which one hundred years ago had been advanced by critical speculation, namely, that in all experiences of the religious life the same principles which control the human mind in all other intellectual and emotional fields shall hold sway. Nothing therefore should hinder us in scientific research from following the well-defined maxims of thought, and unreservedly applying the same methods of scientific analysis in theology as is done generally in the other sciences.

The claim of the Church to infallibility and divine inspiration of its dogmas is weakened under this view of the work of the philosophy of religion. Prophetical inspiration and ecstasy, which usually were thought to be supernatural revelations, are now declared by the present psychology to come under the category of other analogous experiences, such as the action of mental powers which, under definite conditions of individual gifts and on historical occasions, have manifested themselves in extraordinary forms of consciousness. However, these enthusiastic forms of prophetical consciousness cannot be accepted for a higher form of knowledge or even as of divine origin and as an infallible proclamation of the truth; on the contrary, these forms are to be judged as pathological appearances, which may be more harmful than beneficent for the ethical value of the prophetical intuition. At least, it has come to pass that all forms of revelation must come under the examination of a psychological analysis and of an analogical judgment. Hence their traditional nimbus of unique, supernatural, and absolute authority is for all time destroyed.

We are carried to the same result by the comparative study of the history of religions. The study shows us that the Christian Church, with its dogma of the divine inspiration of the Bible, does not stand alone; that before and after Christianity other religions made exactly the same claims for their sacred scriptures. By the pious Brahman the Veda is regarded as infallible and eternal; he believes the hymns of the old seers were not composed by the seers themselves, but were taken from an original copy in heaven. The Buddhist sees in the sayings of his sacred book "Dhammapadam" the exact inheritance of the infallible words of his omniscient teacher Buddha. For the confessor of Ahuramazda the Zendavesta contains the scriptural revelation of the good spirit unto the prophet Zarathustra; according to the rabbis the laws revealed unto Moses on Mount Sinai were even before the creation of the world the object of the observation of God; for the faithful Mohammedan the Koran is the copy of an ever-present original in heaven, the contents of which were dictated word for word to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. Whoever ponders the similar claims of all these religions for the infallibility of their sacred books, to him it becomes difficult to hold the dogma of the Christian Church concerning the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible as alone true and the similar dogmas of other religions as being false. Rather he will accept the view that in all these examples there are found the same motives of the religious mind, that here is given an expression to the same need common to all seeking for an absolute and abiding basis for their faith.

The study of the comparison of religions has discovered in religions other than that of Christianity many very striking parallels to many narratives and teachings of the Bible. It may be well to recall very briefly some of the important points. Owing to the fact that the Assyrian cuneiform writings have now been deciphered, there has been found a story of the creation which has many characteristics in common with those of the Bible. There is found a story of a flood, which in its very details can be regarded as the forerunner of the story of the flood in the Bible. There have been found Assyrian penitential psalms, which, in consciousness of guilt and in earnestness of prayer for forgiveness, can well be compared with many psalms of the Bible. Recently the Code of the Assyrian King Hammurabi, who reigned two thousand three hundred years before Christ, has been discovered. The similarity of this Code with many of the early Mosaic Laws has called general attention to this fact. In the Persian religion there are found teachings of the Kingdom of God, of the good spirits who surround the throne of God, of the Spirit hostile to God and of an army of his demons, of the judgment of each soul after death, of a heaven with eternal light and of the dark abyss of hell, of the future struggle of the multitudes of good and bad spirits and the victory over the bad through a divine hero and saviour, of the general resurrection of the dead, of the awful destruction of the world and the creation of a new and better world,--teachings which are also found in the later Jewish theology and apocalypse, so that the acceptance of a dependence of Jewish upon corresponding Persian teaching can hardly be avoided. Also Grecian influence is observed in later Jewish literature, in proverbs, in the wisdom of Solomon and the Son of Sirach; especially in the Alexandrian Jewish theology are found Platonic thoughts of an eternal, ideal world, of the heavenly home of the soul, and the Stoic conception of a world-ruling divine Logos.

It is from this source that the Logos to which Philo had already ascribed the meaning of the Son of God and the Bringer of a divine revelation crossed over into Christian theology and became the foundation of the dogma of the Church concerning the person of Christ. Of still greater importance than even all this was the opening of the Indian and especially the Buddhistic religious writings. In these we have, five hundred years before Christianity, the revelation of redemptive religion, resting upon the ethical foundation of the abnegation of self and the withdrawal from the world. In the centre of this religion is Gautama Buddha, the ideal teacher of redeeming truth, whose human life was adorned by the faith of his followers with a crown of wonderful legends; from an abode in heaven, out of mercy to the world, he descended into the world, conceived and born of a virgin mother, greeted and entertained by heavenly spirits, recognized beforehand by a pious seer as the future redeemer of the world; as a youth he manifested a wisdom beyond that of his teachers. Then after the reception of an illuminating revelation, he victoriously overcomes the temptation of the devil, who would cause him to become faithless to his call to redemption. Then he begins to preach of the coming of the Kingdom of Justice, and sends forth his disciples, two by two, as messengers of his gospel to all people. Although he declares that it is not his calling to perform miracles, nevertheless the legends indeed tell how many sick were healed, how with the contents of a small basket hundreds were fed, how possessed of all knowledge he reveals hidden things; how overcoming the limitations of space and time, swaying in the air, being transfigured in a heavenly light, he reveals himself to his disciples just before his death. And at last, in the faith of his followers, having passed from the position of a human teacher to that of an eternal heavenly spirit and lord of the world, he is exalted as the object of prayer and reverence, to many millions of the human race in Southern and Eastern Asia.

It is hardly possible that the knowledge of this parallel from India to the New Testament, and of the Babylonian and Persian parallel to the Old Testament, can be without influence upon the religious thought of Christian people. Although we may be ever so much convinced concerning the essential superiority of our religion over all other religions, nevertheless the dogmatic contrast between absolute truth on the one side and complete falsity on the other can no more be maintained. In place of this view there must enter the view of a relative grade of differences between the higher and lower stages of development. No longer can we see in other religions only mistakes and fiction, but under the husk of their legends many precious kernels of truth must be seen, expressions of inner religious feelings and of noble ethical sentiments. One should therefore accept the position not to object to the same discrimination between husk and kernel in the matter of one's own religion, and to recognize in its inherited traditions and dogmas legendary elements, the explanation of which is to be found in psychical motives and in historical surroundings, even as they are found in the corresponding parts of religions other than the Christian religion. Therefore the historical comparison of religions takes us away from an absolute dogmatic positivism to a relative evolutionary manner of study, placing all religions without exception under the laws of time progression and under the causal connection of the law of cause and effect. The isolation of religion therefore is no more. It is regarded as being a part of other human historical affairs, and must yield to the test of a thorough unhindered research. The value of the Christian religion can never suffer in the view of a reasonable man, when it is not accepted in blind faith, but as the result of discriminating comparison.

As the evolutionary philosophy of religion uses the method of science without exception in the case of all historical religions, so also it does not shrink from taking up the question of the beginning of religion, but believes that here also is found the key in the analytical, critical, and comparative method. And here is found the assistance of the comparative study of languages, ethnology, and paleontology.

The celebrated Sanscrit scholar, Max Müller, sought in the comparative study of mythology to prove the etymological relation of many of the Grecian gods and heroes with those of the mythology of India and to trace the common origin of all these mythical beings and legends in the personification of the movements of the heavenly bodies, the thunder and lightning, the tempest and the rain. All mythical belief in gods of the Indo-Germanic peoples seems to have arisen out of a poetical view and dramatic personification of the powers of nature. Suggestive as this hypothesis is, it is not by any means sufficient to give us a complete explanation of the subject. In fact, others have shown that primitive religion does not altogether consist in mythical conceptions, but mainly in reverential actions, sacrifices, sacraments, vows, and other similar cults, which have very little to do with the atmospherical powers of nature, but rather with the social life of primitive people. And when once the sight was clearly directed to the social meaning of the religious rites, it was then observed that even the earliest legends concerning the gods were connected far more closely with the habits and customs of early society than with the facts of nature. Tyler's celebrated book concerning "Primitive Civilization" is written from this standpoint, an epoch-making book, showing the original close connection of religion with the entire civilization of humanity, with the views of life and death, the social customs, the forms of law, their strivings in art and science; a book with a large amount of information, brought together from observation on all sides. In this channel are found all the researches which to-day are classified under the name of Folklore; seeking to gather the still existing characteristic customs and forms, legends, stories, and sayings, in order to compose these and to discover the survivals of earliest religion, poetry, and civilization of humanity. The gain of this study pursued with so great diligence is not to be underrated. These studies show that all that, which at one time existed as faith in the spirit of humanity, possessed within its very nature the strongest power of continuance, so that in new and strange conditions and in other forms it continued to remain. Under all changes and progress of history there is still found an unbroken connection of constant development.

As important, however, as the possession of a general knowledge of historical forms of development is to the philosophy of religion, nevertheless the possession of this knowledge is not wholly a fulfillment of the purpose of the philosophy of religion. To understand a development means not merely to know how one thing follows as the result of the other, but also to understand the law which lies at the foundation of all empirical changes and at the same time controls the end of the development. If this principle holds good in the understanding of the development in the processes of nature, much more does the principle hold good in understanding the processes of intellectual development of humanity, which have for us not only a theoretical, but at the same time an eminently practical interest. The philosopher of religion sees in religious history not merely the coming together of similar forms, but an advance from the lowest stage of childlike ignorance to an ever purer and richer realization of the idea of religion, a divinely ordained progress for the education of humanity from the slavery of nature to the freedom of the spirit. The question now arises: where do we find the principle and law of this ever-rising development? Where do we find the measure of judgment for the relative value of religious appearances? It is clear that the general principle of the complete development cannot be found in a single fact which is only one of the many manifestations of the general principle, and it is just as clear that the absolute norm of judgment is not found in a single fact always relative, presenting to us the object of judgment and therefore being impossible to stand as the norm of judgment. Therefore the principle of religious development and the norm of its judgment can only be found in the inner being of the spirit of humanity, namely, in the necessary striving of the mind into an harmonious arrangement of all our conceptions, or the idea of the truth, and into the complete order of all our purposes, or the idea of the good. These ideas unite in the highest unity, in the Idea of God. Therefore the consciousness of God is the revelation of the original innate longing of reason after complete unity as a principle of universal harmony and consistence in all our thinking and willing. Hence, in the first place, arises the result that the development of the consciousness of God in the history of religion is always dependent upon the existing conditions of the two united sides, the theoretical perception of the truth and the moral standard of life. In the second place the result arises that the judgment of the value of all appearances in the history of religion depends as to whether and how far these appearances agree with the idea of the true and the good, and correspond with the demands of reason and conscience. That science which is engaged with the idea of the good we name Ethics; that which is engaged with the last principles of the perception of truth, using the expression of Aristotle, we may name Metaphysics, or following Plato--Dialectic. Recognizing then in the idea of God the synthesis of the idea of the true and the good, the philosophy of religion is closely related with both, Ethics and Metaphysics.

At present the relation of religion to morality is an object of much controversy. There are many who hold that morality without religion is not only possible but also very desirable; since they are of the opinion that moral strength is weakened, the will is without freedom, and its motives corrupted on account of religious conceptions. On the other hand, the Church, considering the experience of history, finds that religion has ever proved itself to be the strongest and most necessary aid to morality. In this contest the philosophy of religion occupies the position of a judge who is called upon to adjust the relative rights of the parties. The philosophy of religion brings to light the historical fact that from the very beginnings of human civilization, social life and morality were closely connected with religious conceptions and usages, and indeed always so interchangeable in their influence that the position of social civilization on the one side corresponded with the position of religious civilization on the other, just as the water-level in two communicating pipes. Therefore it follows that it is unjust and not historical to blame religion on account of the defects of a national and temporal morality; for these defects of morality, with the corresponding errors of religion, find a common ground in a low stage of development of the entire civilization of the people of the time and age. Further, it becomes the task of the philosophy of religion to examine whether this correspondence of religion and morality, recognized in history, is also found in the very nature of morality and religion. This question in the main is answered without doubt in the affirmative, for it is clear that the religious feeling of dependence upon one all-ruling power is well adapted not only to make keen the moral consciousness of obligation and to deepen the feeling of responsibility, but also to endow moral courage with power and to strengthen the hope of the solution of moral purposes. The clearer religious faith comprehends the relation of man to God, so much the more will that faith prove itself as a strong motive and a great incentive of the moral life. Such a conception will not make the moral will unfree but truly free, not in the sense of a selfish choice, but in the sense of a love that serves, knowing itself as an instrument of the divine will, who binds us all into a social organism, the kingdom of God. And, on the other hand, the more ideal the moral view of life, the higher and greater its aims, the more it recognizes its great task to care for the welfare not only of the individual but of all, to coöperate in the welfare and development of all forms of society, the more earnestly the moral mind will need a sincere faith that this is God's world, that above all the changes of time an eternal will is on the throne, whose all-wise guidance causes everything to be for the best unto those who love him.

A like middle position of arbitration falls to the philosophy of religion in the matter of the relation of religion to science. The first demand of science is freedom of thought, according to its own logical laws, and its fundamental assumption is the possibility of the knowledge of the world on the basis of the unchangeable laws of all existence and events. With this fundamental demand science places itself in opposition to the formal character of ecclesiastical doctrine so far as the doctrine claims infallible authority resting upon a divine revelation. And the fundamental assumption of the regular law of the course of the world is in opposition to the contents of ecclesiastical doctrine concerning the miraculous interposition in the course of nature and of history. To the superficial observer there appears therefore to exist an irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Here is the work of the philosophy of religion, to take away the appearance of an irreconcilable opposition between science and religion, in that the philosophy of religion teaches first of all to distinguish between the essence of religion and the ecclesiastical doctrines of a certain religion, and to comprehend the historical origin of these doctrines in the forms of thought of past times. To this purpose the method of psychological analysis and of historical comparison mentioned above is of service. When, then, by this critical process religion is traced to its real essence in the emotional consciousness of God, to which the dogmatic doctrines stand as secondary products and varied symbols, then it remains to show that between the essence of religion and that which science demands and presupposes, there exists not conflict but harmony. When the idea of God is recognized as the synthesis of the ideas of the true and the good, so then must all truth as sought by science, even as the highest good, which the system of ethics places as the purpose of all action--these must be recognized as the revelation of God in his eternal reason and goodness. The laws of our rational thinking then cannot be in conflict with divine revelation in history, and the laws of the natural order of the world can no more stand in conflict with the world-governing Omnipotence; but both, the laws of our thinking and those of the real world, reveal themselves as the harmonious revelations of the creative reason of God, which, according to Plato's fitting word, is the efficient ground of being as well as of knowing. It is therefore not merely a demand of religious belief that there is real truth in our God-consciousness, that there should be an activity and revelation of God himself in the human mind; it is also in the same manner a demand of science considering its last principles, that the world, in order to be known by us as a rational, regulated order, must have for its principle an eternal creative reason. Long ago the old master of thinking, Aristotle, recognized this fact clearly, when he said that order in the world without a principle of order could be as little thinkable as the order of an army without a commanding general.

But while it is true that science, as the ground of the possibility of its knowledge of the truth, must presuppose the same general principle of intellectual knowledge which religion has as the object of its practical belief, then by principle the apprehension is excluded that any possible progress on the part of science in its knowledge of the world can ever destroy religion. We are rather the more justified in the hope that all true knowledge of science will be a help to religion, and will serve as the means of purifying religion from the dross of superstition.

Truly it can easily be shown that a divine government of the world breaking through, and now and then suspending the regular order of nature through miraculous intervention, would not be more majestic, but far more limited and human, than such a government which reveals itself as everywhere and always the same in and through its own ordained laws in the world. And again, that a revelation prescribing secret and incomprehensible doctrines and rites, demanding from humanity a blind faith, would far less be in harmony with the guiding wisdom and love of God, and far less could work for the intellectual liberty and perfection of humanity, than such a revelation which is working in and through the reason and conscience of humanity, and is realizing its purpose in the progressive development of our intellectual and moral capacities and powers. When therefore science raises critical misgivings against the supernatural and irrational doctrines of positive religion, then the real and rightly understood interests of religion are not harmed but rather advanced; for this criticism serves religion in helping it to become free from the unintellectual inheritance of its early days, in helping religion to consider its true intellectual and moral essence, and to bring to a full display all the blessed powers which are concealed within its nature, to press through the narrow walls of an ecclesiasticism out into the full life of humanity, and to work as leaven for the ennoblement of humanity. Not in conflict with science and moral culture, but only in harmony with these, can religion come nearer to the attainment of its ideal, which consists in the worship of God in spirit and in truth. Even though they may not be conscious of their purpose, but nevertheless in fact all honest work of science and all the endeavors of social and ethical humanity have part in the attainment of this ideal.

It is the work of the philosophy of religion to make clear that all work of the thinking and striving spirit of humanity, in its deepest meaning, is a work in the kingdom of God, as service to God, who is truth and goodness. It is the work of the philosophy of religion to explain various misunderstandings, to bring together opposing sides, and so to prepare the way for a more harmonious coöperation of all, and for an always hopeful progress of all on the road to the high aims of a humanity fraternally united in the divine spirit.

MAIN PROBLEMS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: PSYCHOLOGY AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

BY PROFESSOR ERNST TROELTSCH

(_Translated from the German by Dr. J. H. Woods, Harvard University._)

[Ernst Troeltsch, Professor of Systematic Theology,
University of Heidelberg, since 1894. b. February 17 1865,
Augsburg, Bavaria. Doctor of Theology. Professor University
of Bonn, 1892-94. Author of _John Gerhard and Melanchthon_;
_Richard Rubbe_; _The Scientific Attitude and its Demands on
Theology_; _The Absoluteness of Christianity, and of the
History of Religion_; _Political Ethics and Christianity_;
_The Historic Element in Kant's Religious Philosophy_.]

The philosophy of religion of to-day is philosophy of religion so far only, and in such a sense, as this word means science of religion or philosophy with reference to religion. The science of religion of former days was first dogmatic theology, deriving its dogmas from the Bible and from Church tradition, expounding them apologetically with the metaphysical speculation of the later period of antiquity, and regarding the non-Christian religions as sinful derangements and obscure fragments of the primitive revelation. This lasted sixteen centuries, and is confined to-day to strictly ecclesiastical circles. Next, science of religion became natural theology, which proved the existence of God by the nature of thought and by the constitution of reality, and also the immortality of the soul by the concept of the soul and by moral demands, thus constructing natural or rational dogmas and putting these dogmas into more or less friendly relations with traditional Christianity. This lasted about two centuries, and is to-day of the not strictly ecclesiastical or pietistic circles, which still wish to hold fast to religion. Both kinds of science of religion exist no longer for the strict science. The first was, in reality, supernaturalistic dogmatics, the second was, in reality, a substitution of philosophy for religion. The first was demolished by the criticism of miracles in the eighteenth century, the second by the criticism of knowledge in the nineteenth century, which, in its turn, rests upon Hume and Kant.