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P61
RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN
PANTHEISM
Its Story and Significance
nce
RELIGIONS : ANCIENT AND MODERN.
Foolscap 8vo. Is. net per volume,
It is intended in this series to present to a large public the SAL-
IENT FEATURES, first of the GREAT RELIGIONS, secondly of the
GREAT PHILOSOPHIES, and thirdly of the GREAT LITERARY
and ARTISTIC REPUTATIONS of the Human Race.
PANTHEISM : ITS STORY AND SIGNIFICANCE.
By J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A. Author of The Religion
of the Universe, etc.
RELIGION OF ANCIENT GREECE.
By Miss JANE HARRISON, Fellow of Newnham College,
Author of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, etc.
ANIMISM.
By EDWARD CLODD, Author of Pioneers of Evolution.
RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA.
By H. A. GILES, M.A., LL.D. (Aberd.), Professor of
Chinese at Cambridge University.
The following Volumes are in preparation :
ISLAM. Mr. T. W. ARNOLD, Assistant Librarian, India
Office,
BUDDHISM. 2 vols. Prof. RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D.
HINDUISM. Mr. T. W. ARNOLD.
FETISHISM AND MAGIC. Prof. ALFRED C. HADDON,
F.R.S.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. Mr.
CHARLES SQUIRE.
CELTIC RELIGION. Prof. ANWYL.
SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION. Mr. W. A. CRAIGIE.
THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. FIIN-
DERS PETRIE. F.R.S.
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.
Dr. THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES,
PANTHEISM
Its Story and Significance
BY JI ALLANSON PICTON
AUTHOR OF THE RELIGION OF THE
UNIVERSE" “ THE MYSTERY OF
MATTER" ETC
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
1905
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS
FROME, AND LONDON.
• Ora ang ay is
CONTENTS
CHAP.
PAGE
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . .
7
I. PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
II. POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
· · · · · 47
MODERN PANTHEISM
.
.
.
.
.
. ...
AFTERWORD
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
194625
PANTHEISM
FOREWORD.
MTT
ian
even
Pantheism PANTHEISM differs from the systems of
not Sectar-h
belief constituting the main religions
Racial of the world in being comparatively
free from any limits of period, climate, or race.
For while what we roughly call the Egyptian
Religion, the Vedic Religion, the Greek Religion,
Buddhism, and others of similar fame have been
necessarily local and temporary, Pantheism has
been, for the most part, a dimly discerned back-
ground, an esoteric significance of many or all
religions, rather than a " denomination” by it-
self. The best illustration of this characteristic
of Pantheism is the catholicity of its great prophet
Spinoza. For he felt so little antagonism to any
Christian sect, that he never urged any member
of a church to leave it, but rather encouraged his
humbler friends, who sought his advice, to make
PANTHEISM
-
-
-
-
-
-
-.
full use of such spiritual privileges as they appre-
ciated most. He could not, indeed, content him-
self with the fragmentary forms of any sectarian
creed. But in the few writings which he made
some effort to adapt to the popular understand-
ing, he seems to think it possible that the faith of
Pantheism might some day leaven all religions
alike. I shall endeavour briefly to sketch the
story of that faith, and to suggest its significance
for the future. But first we must know what it
means.
Meaning of Pantheism, then, being a term de-
Pantheism. rived from two Greek words signifying
“all ” and “God,” suggests to a certain extent
its own meaning. Thus, if Atheism be taken to
mean a denial of the being of God, Pantheism is
its extreme opposite ; because Pantheism declares
that there is nothing but God. This, however,
needs explanation. For no Pantheist has ever
held that everything is God, any more
God is All.
than a teacher of physiology, in en-
forcing on his students the unity of the human
organism, would insist that every toe and finger
is the man. But such a teacher, at least in these
days, would almost certainly warn his pupils
against the notion that the man can be really
RITY
FOREWORD
divided into limbs, or organs, or facul-
But not
Everything ties, or even into soul and body. In-
is God.
Leiter deed, he might without affectation
adopt the language of a much controverted creed,
so far as to pronounce that “the reasonable soul
and flesh is one man ”_“ one alto-
Analogy of 9
the Human gether.” In this view, the man is the
Organism.
unity of all organs and faculties. But
it does not in the least follow that any of these
organs or faculties, or even a selection of them,
is the man.
If I apply this analogy to an expla-
The Analogy
Imperfeet nation of the above definition of Pan-
but Useful.
theism as the theory that there is
nothing but God, it must not be supposed that I
regard the parallelism as perfect. In fact, one
purpose of the following exposition will be to
show why and where all such analogies fail. For
Pantheism does not regard man, or-any organism,
as a true unity. In the view. of Pantheism the
only real unity is God. But without any incon-
sistency I may avail myself of common impres-
sions to correct a common mis-impression. Thus,
those who hold that the reasonable soul and flesh
is one man-one altogether—but at the same time
deny that the toe or the finger, or the stomach or
PANTHEISM
the heart, is the man, are bound in consistency to
recognise that if Pantheism affirms God to be
All in All, it does not follow that Pantheism must
hold a man, or a tree, or a tiger to be God.
Excluding, then, such an apparently plausible,
but really fallacious inversion of the Pantheistic
view of the Universe, I repeat that the latter is
Farther the precise opposite of Atheism. So
Definition. far from tolerating any doubt as to the
being of God, it denies that there is anything else.
For all objects of sense and thought, including
individual consciousness, whether directly ob-
served in ourselves, or inferred as existing in
others, are, according to Pantheism, only facets
of an infinite Unity, which is “ altogether one”
in a sense inapplicable to anything else. Because
that Unity is not merely the aggregate of all the
finite objects which we observe or infer, but is a
living whole, expressing itself in infinite variety.
Of that infinite variety our gleams of conscious-
ness are infinitesimal parts, but not parts in a
sense involving any real division. The questions
raised by such a view of the Universe, many of
them unanswerablemas is also the case with
questions raised by every other view of the Uni-
verse—will be considered further on. All that I
ness
10
FOREWORD
Panth
am trying to secure in these preliminary observa-
tions is a general idea of the Pantheistic view of
the Universe as distinguished from that of Poly-
theism, Monotheism, or Atheism.
Of course, there have been different
Various
Forms of forms of Pantheism, as there have been
Selle also various phases of Monotheism ;
and in the brief historical review which will follow
this introductory explanation of the name, I shall
note at least the most important of those forms.
But any which fail to conform to the general
definition here given, will not be recognised as
Pantheism at all, though they may be worth some
Spurious attention as approximations thereto.
For any view of the Universe, allowing
the existence of anything outside the divine
Unity, denies that God is All in All, and, there-
fore, is obviously not Pantheism. Whether we
should recognise as true Pantheism any theory
involving the evolution of a finite world or worlds
out of the divine substance at some definite epoch
or epochs, may be a debatable question, provided
that the eternity and inviolability of the divine
oneness is absolutely guarded in thought. Yet I
will anticipate so far as to say that, in my view,
the question must be negatived. At any rate,
Forms.
Q
.
II
PANTHEISM
we must exclude all creeds which
Exclusion of tolerate the idea of a creation in the
Creation.
popular sense of the word, or of a final
catastrophe. True, the individual objects, great
or small, from a galaxy to a moth, which have to
us apparently a separate existence, have all been
evolved out of preceding modes of being, by a pro-
cess which seems to us to involve a beginning, and
to ensure an end. But in the view of Pantheism,
properly so-called, the transference of such a pro-
cess to the whole Universe is the result of an
illusion suggested by false analogy. For the pro-
cesses called evolution, though everywhere opera-
tive, affect, each of them, only parts of
Evolution the infinite whole of things; and ex-
and Decay
applicable perience cannot possibly afford any
only to
Parts, not justification for supposing that they
to the
Whole.
affect the Universe itself. Thus, the
matter or energy of which we think we
consist, was in existence, every atom of it, and
every element of force, before we were born, and
will survive our apparent death. And the same
thing, at least on the Pantheistic view, is true of
every other mode of apparently separate or finite
existence. Therefore no birth of a new nebula
ever added a grain of matter or an impulse of new
12
FOREWORD
energy to the Universe. And the final decease of
our solar system, if such an event be in prospect,
cannot make any difference whatever to the in-
finite balance of forces, of which, speaking in
anthropomorphic and inadequate language, we
suppose the Eternal All to consist.
Limitation These observations are not intended
of Scope. to be controversial, but only to make
clear the general sense in which the term Pan-
theism is here used. Not that it would be possible
at the outset to indicate all that is implicit in the
definition. I only wish to premise plainly that I
am not concerned with any view of the world such
as implies or admits that, whether by process of
creation, or emanation, or self-division, or evolu-
tion, the oneness of the Eternal has ever been
marred, or anything other than the being of God
has been or can be produced.
But before passing on to the promised historical
review, it is, perhaps, necessary to refer again to a
Pantheism remark previously made, that Panthe-
either
Philoso- ism may be considered either from the
phical
point of view of philosophy, or from
or both. that of religion. Not that the two
points of view are mutually exclusive. But, as a
matter of fact, Pantheism as a religion is, with
13
PANTHEISM
Pon.
certain exceptions among Indian saints and later
Neoplatonists, almost entirely a modern develop-
ment, of which Spinoza was the first distinct and
devout teacher. For this statement justification
will be given hereafter. Meantime, to deprecate
adverse prejudice, I may suggest that a careful
study of the most ancient forms of Pantheism
seems to show that they were purely philosophi-
cal; an endeavour to reach in thought the ulti-
mate reality which polytheism traves-
as a Reli- tied, and which the senses disguised.
gion almost
Entirely But little or no attempt was made to
Modern.
substitute the contemplation of the
Eternal for the worship of mediator divinities.
Thus, in the same spirit in which Socrates ordered
the sacrifice of a cock to Æsculapius for his re-
covery from the disease of mortal life, philosophi-
cal Pantheists, whether Egyptian or Greek, or
even Indian,' satisfied their religious instincts by
hearty communion" with the popular worship of
traditional gods. Or, if it is thought that the
mediaeval mystics were religious Pantheists, a
ST
1 If Buddha occurs to the reader, it should be remem-
bered that he was not a Pantheist at all. His ultimate
aim was the dissolution of personality in the Nothing.
But that is not Pantheism.
14
FOREWORD
Pan
closer examination of their devout utterances will
show that, though they approximated to Panthe-
ism, and even used language such as, if interpreted
logically, must have implied it, yet they carefully
reserved articles of the ecclesiastical
Mystics not
necessarily creed, entirely inconsistent with the
te fundamental position that there is
nothing but God. Indeed, their favourite com-
parison of creature life to the ray of a candle is not
really a Pantheistic conception ; because to the
true Pantheist the creature is not an emanation
external to God, but a finite mode of infinite
Being. Still the mystics did much to prepare the
devout for an acceptance of Spinoza's teaching,
And although so amazing a transfiguration of
religion rather dazzled than convinced the world
at first ; nay, though it must be acknowledged
that one, and perhaps more of Spinoza's funda-
mental conceptions have increasingly repelled
rather than attracted religious people, yet it can
hardly be disputed that he gave an impulse to
contemplative religion, of which the effect is only
now beginning to be fully realised.
CHAPTER I
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
Its Origins It has been the customary and perhaps
Doubtful
and Unim- inevitable method of writers on Pan-
portanto theism to trace its main idea back to
the dreams of Vedic poets, the musings of Egyp-
tian priests, and the speculations of the Greeks,
But though it is undeniable that the divine unity
of all Being was an almost necessary issue of
earliest human thought upon the many and the
one, yet the above method of treating Pantheism
is to some extent misleading; and therefore
caution is needed in using it. For the revival of
Pantheism at the present day is much more a
tangible resultant of action and reaction between
Science and Religion than a ghost conjured up by
speculation. Thus, religious belief, driven out
from “ the darkness and the cloud” of Sinai,
takes refuge in the mystery of matter ; and if the
16
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
U
glory passes from the Mount of Transfiguration,
it is because it expands to etherialise the whole
world as the garment of God. Again, the evan-
escence of the atom into galaxies of “electrons"
destroys the only physical theory that ever
threatened us with Atheism ; and the infinites-
imal electrons themselves open up an immeasur-
able perspective into the abyss of an Unknowable
in which all things “ live and move and have
their being." Therefore it matters little to us,
except as a matter of antiquarian interest, to
know what the Vedic singers may have dreamed ;
or what Thales or Xenophanes or Parmenides
may have thought about the first principle of
things, or about the many and the one. For our
spiritual genealogy is not from them, but from a
nearer and double line of begetters, including
seers—in the true sense of the word—and saints,
for both are represented by Kepler and Hooker,
Newton and Jeremy Taylor, Descartes and
Spinoza, Leibnitz and Wesley, Spencer and
Newman. And even these have au-
The Secret of
Pantheism thority not through any divine right
is Within us.
of genius or acquired claim of learning,
but because they illumine and interpret obscure
suggestions of our own thoughts. Indeed, to the
17
PANTHEISM
sacrament of historic communion with the past,
as well as to the chief rite of the Church, the
apostolic injunction is applicable : (“Let a man
examine himself; and so let him eat of that
bread.''
Obeying that injunction, any man possessing
Suggestions ordinary powers of observation and
of Nature. reflection may, in the course of a sum-
mer day's walk, find abundant reason for interest
in the speculations of historic Pantheism. For
the aspect of nature then presented to him is one
both of movement and repose, of variety and
harmony, of multiplicity and unity. Thus the
slight breeze, scarcely stirring the drowsy flowers,
the monotonous cadences of the stony brook, and
the gliding of feathery flecks of cloud across the
blue, create a peace far deeper than absolute still-
ness, and suggest an infinite life in which activity
and repose are one. Besides, there is evident
everywhere an interplay of forces acting and re-
acting so as mutually to help and fulfil one
another. For instance, the falling leaves give
back the carbon they gathered from the air, and
so repay the soil with interest for the subtler
essences derived therefrom and dissolved in the
sap. The bees, again, humming among the
18
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
LU..
flowers, while actuated only by instincts of appe-
tite and thriftí fructify the blooms, and become
a connecting link between one vegetable genera-
tion and another. The heat of the sun draws up
water from ocean and river and lake, while chilly
currents of higher air return it here and there in
rain. So earth, sea, and air are for ever traffick-
ing together; and their interchange of riches and
force is complicated ten thousandfold by the acti-
vities of innumerable living things, all adapting
themselves by some internal energy to the ever
varying balance of heat and cold, moisture and
drought, light and darkness, chemical action and
réaction. And all this has been going on for un-
told millions of years ; nor is there any sign of
weariness now.
In the mood engendered by such
buy familiar experiences of a holiday saun-
awakened, ter, it may well occur to anyone to
with the old
Pantheistic think with interest and sympathy
Aspiration
to find of the poets and seers who, thousands
the One in a
the Many of years ago, first dared to discern in
this maze of existence the varied ex-
pression of one all-embracing and eternal Life,
or Power. Such contemplations and speculations
were entirely uninfluenced by anything which the
thus
11n
TT1
LIIT
II11
19
PANTHEISM
LUI
Christian Church recognises as revelation. Yet
we must not on that account suppose that they
were without religion, or pretended to explain
anything without reference to superhuman beings
called gods and demons. On the contrary, they,
for the most part, shared, subject to such modi-
fications as were imperatively required by culti-
vated common sense, the beliefs of their native
land. But the difference between these men and
their unthinking contemporaries lay in this ; that
the former conceived of one supreme and compre-
hensive divinity beyond the reach of common
thought, an ultimate and eternal Being which in-
cluded gods as well as nature within its unity. So,
for them, Indra, Zeus, or Jove were mere modes
of the one Being also manifest in man and bird
and tree.
Every race possessing even the rudi-
The Vedas
and Related ments of culture has been impelled by
Literature.
*. a happy instinct, which, if we like, we
may call inspiration, to record in more or less
permanent form its experience of nature, of life,
1 Some scholars think they can trace Christian in-
fluences in the exceptionally late Bhagavad Gîtâ, here-
after quoted. But it is a disputed point; and certainly
in the case of the Vedas and pre-Christian literature
arising out of them even Jewish influence was impossible.
JU
20
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
and of what seemed the mysteries of both. To
this inspiration we owe the sacred books of the
Jews. But it is now generally recognised that
an impulse not wholly dissimilar also moved pro-
phetic or poetic minds among other races, such,
for instance, as the Egyptians, the Chaldaeans,
and the Aryan conquerors of India, to inscribe
on papyrus or stone, or brick or palm-leaf, the
results of experience as interpreted by free imagi-
nation, traditional habits of thought, and limited
knowledge. Of this ancient literature a consider-
able part is taken up by the mysteries apparently
involved in life, conduct, and death. Most not-
ably is this the case with the ancient Indian
literature called the Vedas, and such sequels as
the Upanishads, Sutras, and much later—the
Bhagavad Gîtâ. This collection, like our Bible,
forms a library of writings issued at various dates
extending over much more than a thousand years.
The forgotten singers and preachers of this pre-
historic wisdom were as much haunted as we our-
selves are with the harassing questions suggested
by sin and sorrow, by life and death, and by aspi-
rations after a higher state. And many, perhaps
Indian we may say most of them, found com-
Pantheism. fort in the thought that essentially they
21
PANTHEISM
belonged to an all comprehensive and infinite Life,
in which, if they acted purely and nobly, their
seeming personality might be merged and find
peace. Their frame of mind was religious rather
than philosophical. But their philosophy was
naturally conformed to it; and in their contrast
of the bewildering variety of finite visible things
with the unity of the Eternal Being of which all
are phases, those ancients were in close sympathy
with the thoughts of the modern meditative
saunterer by field and river and wood.
Differences But the enormous interval of time
between
Ancient separating us from those early Indian
and Modern thinkers necessarily involves very great
Conditions
of Thought. differences in conditions of thought.
And we should not be surprised if amidst much in
their writings that stirs our sympathy, there is
also a great deal which is to us incongruous and
absurd. Therefore, it may be well before quoting
these writings to note one or two points marking
an almost incommensurable difference between
their mode and ours of regarding the world.
1. Survival 1. First, they were much less re-
y moved than we ame from the influence
istic and of fetishistic and animistic traditions.
Animistie
Ideas. Even in the Greek and Roman classics
22
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
TAY
LL
11
the casual reader is often revolted by the grossly
absurd stories told of gods and heroes. And, in-
deed, it is impossible to conceive of the amours of
Zeus (or Jove), for instance, with Leda, Europa
or Danaë as having been first conceived during
an age marked by the poetic genius and compara-
tive culture evinced in the most ancient epics.
But the most probable solution of the puzzle is
that the earliest civilization inherited a number
of animal stories, such as are characteristic of
savagery in all parts of the world, and that the
first literary generations into whose poetic myths
those stories were transferred, being as much
accustomed to them as to other surroundings of
their childhood, such as bloody sacrifices, mystic
expiations, and fantastic initiations, saw no in-
congruity in anything told them of the gods.
Besides, as these wild myths were associated with
sacred rites, the inveterate conservatism of re-
ligion, which insisted on stone knives in sacrifices
long after bronze and iron came in, was likely
enough to maintain the divine importance of
those fables, just as the historicity of Balaam's
ass and Jonah's whale is in some churches piously
upheld still.
23
PANTHÉISM
2. Ancient 2. In the times from which the first
Ignorance known Pantheistic teaching dates, ideas
of Natural
Order. of nature's order were incongruous and
indeed incommensurable with ours. Not that the
world was then regarded as a chaos. But such
order as existed was considered to be a kind of
“ balance of power” between various unseen
beings, some good, some evil, some indifferent.
True, some Indian prophets projected an idea of
One Eternal Being including all such veiled Prin-
cipalities and Powers. But their Pantheism was
necessarily conditioned by their ignorance of
natural phenomena. In fact, an irreducible in-
consistency marred their view of the world. For
while their Pantheism should have taught them
to think of a universal life or energy as working
within all things, their theological habit of mind
bound them to the incongruous notion of devas
or deities moulding, or at least ruling, matter from
without. And, indeed, the nearest approach they
made to the more genuine Pantheism of modern
times was the conception of a world emanating
from and projected outside Brahmă, to be re-
merged in him after the lapse of ages. Now, if
I am right in my definition of Pantheism
as absolutely identifying God with the Uni-
24
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
verse, so that, in fact, there cannot be
anything but God, the inconsistency here
noted must be regarded as fatal to the
genuineness of the Indian or indeed of any
other ancient Pantheism. For the defect proved
during many centuries to be incurable, and
was not indeed fully removed until Spinoza's
time.
3. Another difference between an-
3. Absence
of Definite cient Pantheists and ourselves was the
Creeds.
* absence in their case of any religious
creed, sanctioned by supernatural authority and
embodied in a definite form, like that of the three
Anglican creeds, or the Westminster Confession
of Faith. Not that those ancients supposed them-
selves to be without a revelation. For the Vedas,
at least, were considered to be of divine authority,
and their words, metres, and grammar were re-
garded with a superstitious awe, such as reminds
us of what has been called the “bibliolatry” of
the Jewish Rabbis. But subject to this verbal
veneration, the Rishis, or learned divines, used
1 As imperious brevity excludes full explanation, I
must content myself with a reference to The Religion
oj the Universe, pp. 152–5. London: Macmillan & Co.
25
PANTHEISM
the utmost freedom in regard to the forced and
fanciful interpretations extorted from the sacred
text, a freedom which again reminds us of the
paradoxical caprice shown by some schools of
Jewish Rabbis in their treatment of the volume
they professed to regard with awe. The various
finite gods, such as Vishnu, Indra, Krishna, Marut,
or Varuna, were not the subjects of any church
creed chanted every day, and carefully stereo-
typed in the tender minds of children. On the
contrary, various rôles were assigned by successive
generations to these divinities. So that, for in-
stance, Varuna was at one time the god of the
ocean, and at another of the sky. But the uni-
form tendency of all poets and Rishis alike was
to seek, beyond all these gods, one unbeginning,
unending, and all comprehensive Being, from
whom these “ devas” emerged, and into whom
they must return. Not only so, but it is clearly
suggested in many passages, of which an instance
will presently be quoted, that the Eternal, called
Brahmă, who was the true Self of all gods, was
also the true Self of man and bird and beast. So
that, in fact, notwithstanding the illogical emana-
tion theory, He was the only real Being, the All
in All.
26
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
Thus, one section of the Khandogya
Illustration
from the Upanishad' consists entirely of in-
maus, structions given by a father, Uddâlaka,
to his son, Svetaketu, who had gone through the
ordinary courses of study in the Vedas, but who,
in the father's view, had failed to reach the true
significance of life. Accordingly, Uddâlaka in-
quires : “Have you ever asked for that instruc-
tion by which we hear what cannot be heard, by
which we perceive what cannot be perceived, by
which we know what cannot be known ? " 2 The
youth, more accustomed than we are to teaching
by paradox, expresses no surprise at this mode of
putting things, but simply asks : “What is that
instruction, sir ?" The father then proceeds to
give an explanation of what in these days is called
Monism. “Monism,” that is, the absolute single-
ness of ultimate Being, and traces all that is, or
seems to be, up to one ultimate Essence. Now,
whether in the form given by Uddâlaka to his
cia
,
1 According to the late Max Müller, with whom Prof.
T. W. Rhys Davids agrees, the word Upanishad is equi-
valent to our word “sitting" or "session ; only that
it is usually confined to a sitting of master and pupil.
2 Sacred Books of the East, vol. i. p. 92. The immedi-
ately following quotations are from the same Upan-
ishad.
27
PANTHEISM
exposition, his theory can properly be called Pan-
theism, according to the definition of it assumed
above, is perhaps questionable. But that it was
intended to be Pantheism there can be no doubt.
“ In the beginning,” says Uddâlaka, “ there was
that only which is (T) Öv); one only, without a
second. Others say, in the beginning there was
that only which is not (rò un Öv); one only, with-
out a second ; and from that which is not, that
which is was born.” But Uddâlaka rejects this
latter doctrine as unthinkable—which, indeed,
many explorers of Hegel have found with pain
and anguish of mind. And then the father traces
all the multiformity of the Universe to the desire
Evolution or will of the original One, “ that which
One through 18.
his.” “It thought, "may I be many ;
Desire. may I grow forth.' It sent forth fire."
My limits do not allow me to quote further the
fantastic account given of the farther process by
which water and earth, plants, animals, and men
sprang out of that desire of the One : “May I
become many; may I grow forth.” For our pur-
pose it is more important to show that in the view
of Uddâlaka-however inconsistently he may ex-
press himself—the original One was never really
divided, but remains the true Self of every finite
fror
28
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
yyy
2
being, however apparently separate. Thus, con-
sider the following dialogue, the first words being
a direction of the father, Uddâlaka :-
“Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nya-
grodha tree.” “Here is one, sir.” “Break it.”
“ It is broken, sir.” “What do you see there ?"
“ These seeds, almost infinitesimal.” “Break
one of them.” “It is broken, sir.” “What do
you see there?” “Not anything, sir." The
father said : “My son, that subtile essence which
you do not perceive there, of that very essence
this great Nyagrodha tree exists. Believe it, my
son. That which is the subtile essence, in it all
that exists has itself. It is the True. It is the
Self; and thou, O Svetaketu, art it."
Here we are clearly taught that the “self," or
inmost reality of every person and thing is the
Eternal One, or Brahmă, or God.
The same doctrine is taught in a
Illustration
from the
more advanced form by the poem
Bhagavad
called the “ Bhagavad Gîtâ,” the date
Gita.
of which is probably more than a
thousand years later than that of the Upanishad
just quoted. In this poem, Krishna, incarnate
for the nonce as Arjuna's charioteer, reveals for
a special purpose his identity with Brahmă, the
29
PANTHEISM
Eternal All; and Arjuna, when sufficiently in-
structed adores him thus :-
“O infinite Lord of Gods! the world's abode,
Thou undivided art, o'er all supreme.
Thou art the first of Gods, the ancient Sire,
The-treasure-house supreme of all the worlds.
The Knowing and the Known, the highest seat.
From Thee the All has sprung, O boundless Form !
Varuna, Vazu, Agni, Yama thou, 1
The Moon; the Sire and Grandsire too of men.
The Infinite in power, of boundless force,
The All thou dost embrace ; the Thou art All.” 2
Omicci
of These illustrations must suffice for
Buddhism. Indian Pantheism. Because, with Bud-
dhism we have nothing to do. For, accord-
ing to its ablest European exponent (Professor
T. W. Rhys Davids), that system of religion
simply ignored the conception of an All in All.
And this not at all on philosophical grounds, but
because its aims were entirely practical. For the
aim of its founder was to show men how by a
virtuous life, or lives, they might at last attain
annihilation-or, at any rate, the extinction of
1 “The gods of ocean, air and fire, and the judge of
the lower regions respectively ” (Rev. John Davies).
2 The “ Bhagavad Gîtâ,” translated by the Rev. J.
Davies, M.A.
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
the individual self, the apparent separateness of
which was, in his view, the source of all misery.
And if he could teach his followers to attain that
salvation, he was entirely indifferent as to the
opinions they might hold about the ultimate
nature of the world, provided only that they did
not fall into any heresy which proclaimed an
immortal soul."
The accounts given to us by the best
Persian authorities on Zoroaster and Parseeism
scarcely justify us in thinking the
not strictly BCCLCCI
Pantheistic. religion of the Zendavesta to be Pan-
theistic in our sense of the term. For
though it would appear that Ormuzd (or Ahura-
mazda), the God of light and goodness, originated
in, or was born from and one with a nameless
impersonal Unity, such as may answer to Herbert
Spencer's “Unknowable,” it cannot be accurately
said that, according to the Persian view of the
world, there is nothing but God. For, to say
LUI
1 The Karma was not a soul. What it was is, accord-
ing to our authorities, very difficult for the Western mind
to conceive. But its practical effect was, that on the
death of the imperfect man, another finite existence of
some sort necessarily took his place. But this new finite
existence was not the former man. It is only on the
death of him who has attained Nirvana that Karma
ceases to act, and no now finite existence takes his place.
31
PANTHEISM
inc
nothing of the apparently independent existence
of the principle of darkness and evil called Ahri-
man, the relation of the Amshaspands, or supreme
spirits, and of the Izeds, or secondary spirits, as
well as of the Fereurs, or divine ideas to the im-
personal Unity, seems to be rather that of emana-
tions, than parts of a Whole. Again, if it be true
that, according to the Zend Avesta, the conflict
of light and darkness will ultimately cease, and
Ahriman with his demons be annihilated, it is
obvious that this implies a beginning and an end,
with a process originating in the one, and con-
summated in the other. But such a
A World
process, though most actual on the
Drama or
Process is finite scale, and joyfully or painfully
a Human,
not a Divine real to us, contemplating, as we do
Aspect of
only infinitesimal parts of the Universe,
and always under the forms of time
and space, is yet incongruous and incommensurate
with the thought of one All in All, unlimited by
time or space, and whose lifetime is an Eternal
Now. / Thus true Pantheism takes the Universe,
as it is, in its infinity ; regards it as without be-
ginning or end; and worships it.) Not that
Pantheism denies the existence of evil or is un-
moved by the struggle between evil and good,
32
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
or is uninspired by faith in the reiterated triumph
of good wherever the local conflict arises. But
it insists that evil is relative to the finite parts of
the Universe in their supposed isolation, and
cannot possibly affect the Eternal All. . It allows
of no creation or emanation which would put any
part of the “wondrous Whole" in opposition to,
or separation from, the Eternal. But from its
point of view all change, evolution, progress
retrogression, sin, pain, or any other good or evil
is local, finite, partial; while the infinite co-
ordination of such infinitesimal movements make
one eternal peace.
Egyptian Religion need not detain
Pantheism
in Ancient us. For though there are clear traces
of Pantheistic speculation among the
Priests, it can scarcely be contended that such
speculations had the same influence on the cul-
tured laity as the teaching of the Rishis had in
ancient India. But the truth seems to be that
the oldest popular theology of Egypt was only a
Permanent variety of Negro animism and fetish-
Effects of
ism. Yet these grovelling supersti-
Prehistoric
Animism. tions, as is often the case, evolved in
1 See Prof. W. Max Muller, on" Egypt," in the Encyc.
Biblica.
33
©
·
PANTHEISM
to
unbroken continuity a higher faith. For, in the
attempt made to adapt this savage cult to the
religious needs of various districts, all alike grad-
ually advancing in culture, the number and variety
of divinities became so bewildering to the priests,
that the latter almost inevitably adopted the
device of recognising in parochial gods only so
many hints of one all-comprehensive divine
energy. Not that they ever embraced mono-
theism-or the belief in one personal God distinct
Isis. from the Universe. But if Plutarch
according be accurate-as there seems no reason
Plutarch. to doubt, in his record of an inscription
in a temple of Isis--they, or at least the most
spiritual of them, found refuge in Pantheism.
For the transfigured and glorified goddess was
not regarded as the maker of the Universe, but
as identical with it, and therefore unknowable.
“I am all that hath been, is, or shall be ; and no
mortal has lifted my veil.” The prevalence of
such Pantheism, at least among the learned and
spiritual of ancient Egypt, is, to a considerable
extent, confirmed by other Greek writers besides
Plutarch. But the inscription noted by Plutarch
gives the sum and substance of what they tell
DI
us.
34
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
0
Before considering the classical and
Greek
Pantheism Neo-platonic Greek speculations com-
monly regarded as Pantheistic, we may do well
to recall to mind the immense difference between
the established habit of theological thought in
our day, and the vague, or at best, poetically
vivid ideas of the ancients. For the long tradi-
tion of nearly two thousand years, which has
made monotheism to us almost as fixed an assump-
tion as that of our own individuality, was en-
tirely wanting in this case. Not that the idea of
one supreme God had never been sug-
Evolved
from gested. But it was not the Hebrew
Polytheism.
ile or Christian idea that was occasionally
propounded; for in the ethnic mind it was rarely,
if ever, regarded as inconsistent with polytheism ;
and consequently it verged on Pantheism. “ Con-
sequently," I say, because such monotheism as
existed had necessarily to explain the innumer-
able minor deities as emanations from, or mani-
festations of the supreme God. And though such
conscious attempts at reconciliation of beliefs in
many gods and in one Supreme were confined to
a small minority of meditative priests and specu-
lative philosophers, yet really, the combination
was implicit in the sort of polytheistic religion
35
PANTHEISM
which possessed the family affections and patri-
otic associations of the early Greek world.
For though we may find a difficulty
Not the
in ridding ourselves of a prejudice
Material
.Figure
wrought into the tissue of our early
but the
Divinity faith by the nursery lessons of child-
Suggested
was the
hood, it was not the graven or molten
Object of
image which was really worshipped by
Worship.
the devout, but that form of super-
human power which, by local accident, had been
identified with the “idol.” If, indeed, we sup-
posed every" idolator” to have received definite
religious teaching, analogous to that with which
we ourselves were imbued in youth, we might
well find his attitude inconceivable. But he had
nothing of the kind. He only knew that in war,
in hunting, in fishing, in farming, he was con-
fronted with powers which passed his compre-
hension; and tradition permeated him with the
expectation that such powers would be propitiated
by his worship of the images set up in their names.
There was therefore no reasoned creed, such as
those of the Catholic and Reformed Churches,
but only a vague sentiment brought to a focus
by the associations of the shrine. From such a
view of polytheism it is easy to understand
36
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
how most, if not all, of the old speculative
philosophers could allow the existence of the
traditional gods, even while in reasoned
contemplation they saw that all deities were
subordinate to and merged in one universal
God.
Possible
How far this unstable religious posi-
of Oriental tion was subject to the influence of the
Pantheism. oriental mysticism at which we have
glanced already, is, at any rate, so far as concerns
the classical age of Greek philosophy, a matter
of conjecture. But the resurrection of a pre-
historic and almost forgotten civilization from
the buried cities of Crete has brought to light
many evidences of frequent intercourse, two or
three thousand years before the Christian era,
between European and Egyptian, or Asiatic,
centres of life. Therefore, we may well believe
that during the earliest stages of the evolution of
thought in East and West, it was as impossible
as at the present time for any local school of
thinkers to be absolutely original or independent.
Thus, later Greek philosophers, whether them-
selves within sound of the echoes of Hindoo teach-
ing or not, may very well have grown up in an
atmosphere impregnated with mythic germs,
37
PANTHEISM
whose origin they did not know. But however
that may be, Greek Pantheism, while it had many
points of contact with Eastern speculation, was
more purely intellectual and less essentially reli-
gious than the Pantheism of the Vedas, or the
solemn dream that haunted Egyptian temples.
For while the aspiration of Hindoo Pantheists
was to find and assume the right attitude toward
“ the glory of the sum of things,” the Greeks, as
St. Paul long afterward said, “sought after
wisdom,” and were fascinated by the idea of
tracing all the bewildering variety of Nature up
to some one “principle” (apxý), beginning, origin.
Thus Thales of Miletus, during the late
Thales,
abuot seventh and early sixth century B.C.,
640 B.C.
is said to have been satisfied when he
found in water-or moisture-the ultimate prin-
ciple out of which all things and all life, including
gods and men, were evolved. With such a specu-
lation of infant philosophy we are here not con-
cerned, except to say that it was not Pantheism
as understood in modern times. For while his
ablest exponents admit that no sufficient evidence
is left to show very clearly what he meant, there
seems no reason for supposing that to him the
Universe was a Living God.
38
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
L
It would be fruitless to relate how
Successors
of Thales. successors of Thales varied his theory
of an ultimate “ principle," by substituting air
or fire for water. But it is worth while to note
that another citizen of Miletus, Anaximander,
after an interval of some forty years, pronounced
that the beginning, the first principle, the origin
of all things, was neither water, nor air, nor fire,
but the Infinite (T) ŠTE!! Or). And though the
best authorities confess that they cannot be sure
of his meaning, this may very well be because he
anticipated Herbert Spencer by two and a half
millenniums, in acknowledging that all things
merge in one and the same Unknowable. But,
so far as our evidence goes, he made no such
attempt as the modern philosopher did, to per-
suade the religious instinct that this Unknowable
could supply the place of all the gods.
Xenophanes The position of Xenophanes, who,
of Elea, toward the latter part of the sixth
about
570 to 480 century B.C. migrated, apparently for
B.C.
political reasons, in fear of Persian
imperialism, from Colophon in Asia Minor to Elea
in Italy, was a little different, and, for our pur-
pose, more interesting. For the few fragments
which are unfortunately all that is left to us of
39
PANTHEISM
A
his philosophical poetry, are strongly suggestive
of Pantheism, and the interpretation put upon
them by later classical and sub-classical writers,
who had his works before them, would appear
decisive. True, the distinguished and enlight-
ened scholar, Simon Karsten, who, in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, found a labour
of love in collecting and editing the remains of
early Greek philosophers, deprecated such a judg-
ment. Yet, while the motives for his special
pleading were honourable, seeing the odious
misrepresentations of Pantheism still prevalent
in the Dutch scholar's native land,—misrepre-
His
sentations undissipated even by the
Pantheism splendour of Spinoza,-his protest
Disputed
but well remains special pleading still. And
Established. 1
he himself candidly quotes at large
from an alleged work of Aristotle--possibly, only
a student's notes of the latter's lectures--and also
from Simplicius, as reported by Theophrastus in
a comment on Aristotle's Physics, sentences
which describe the system of Xenophanes as un-
questionably Pantheistic. From which descrip-
tion I gather that the devout philosopher regarded
His God as the only real Being, including
ion. all that in human language has been,
40
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
is, and will be, without beginning or end, living
and perceiving equally everywhere throughout
His infinite essence. And if that essence is com-
pared by Xenophanes to a sphere, neither bounded
nor boundless, neither moving nor immovable,
this is only because few, if any, in that age of the
world, could content themselves with loyally
accepting the limits imposed on man by the very
nature of things, limits which now compel us to
own that, while the Eternal is more real than our-
selves, yet, in the strict sense of knowing, He is,
from an intellectual standpoint, the Unknowable.
Extent This Pantheism did not generate in
of his
Sympathy
Xenophanes any arrogant disdain for
with the religion of his time. For, though
Popular
Religion. he condemned, in words often quoted,
the folly which supposed the gods to have the
human form, senses, passions and appetites, he
was yet glad to worship the divine All as partially
manifested in finite beings-perhaps personfied
A Pan- powers of nature. Thus among the
theistic
Communion fragments of his poetry fortunately
Feast. preserved, is one exquisite gem, a
description of a festive repast in the open air.
There purity comes first, symbolised by clear
floor, clean hands, and spotless dishes. Upon
41
PANTHEISM
purity waits beauty, not in the forms desired by
sensuous passion, but in garlands of flowers and
in delicate scents. The wine is unstinted, yet
tempered with sparkling water. But, lest the
plentifulness of bread and honey and cheese upon
the lordly table should eclipse the highest sanc-
tions of human joy, an altar prominent in the
festive scene is heaped with offerings of flowers.
Then the first note of music is the praise of
God, a praise taking form in blameless poetic
myths and holy thoughts. In such a feast the
minds of the guests are kindled with a desire
to be capable of doing right. * There is no
harm in drinking with reasonable moderation ?; }
and we may honour the guest who, warmed
by wine, talks of such noble deeds and in-
stances of virtue as his memory may suggest.
But let him not tell of Titan battles, or those
of the giants or centaurs, the fictions of by-
gone days, nor yet of factious quarrels, nor
gossip, that can serve no good end. Rather
I“ Capability of walking home without help,” is the
limit quaintly fixed by the poet. To our modern feeling
it seems rather wide. Yet, practically, it is the limit
professedly observed by our publicans in serving“ their
customers.
42
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
seei
let us ever keep a good conscience towards the
gods." 1
Having given so much space to an ancient who
seems to me specially interesting as a prophet of
the ultimate apotheosis of earthly religions, I
must be content to indicate, in a very few lines,
the course of the Pantheistic tradition among the
Greeks after his day. The arithmetical mysticism
of Pythagoras has no bearing upon our subject.
Empedocles, Empedocles of Agrigentum, living about
of
Fifth
the middle of the fifth century B.C.,
Century B.C. and thus, perhaps, in the second genera-
tion after Xenophanes, was, in many respects, a
much more imposing figure-clothed in purple,
wielding political power, possessing medical skill,
and even working miraculous cures, such as are
apparently easy to men of personal impressive-
ness, sympathy, and “magnetism." But he does
not appear to have so nearly anticipated modern
Pantheism as did his humbler predecessor. For
though the fragments of Empedocles, much
larger in volume than those of Xenophanes,
1 Karsten, Xenophanis Reliquiae, p. 68 (Amsterdam,
1830). Both the paraphrase and occasional transla-
tions which I give are of course free ; but I think the
spirit and meaning are preserved.
43
PANTHEISM
certainly hint at some kind of everlasting oneness
in things, and expressly tell us that there is no
creation nor annihilation, but only perpetual
changes of arrangement, yet they present other
phases of thought, apparently irreconcileable
with the doctrine that there is nothing other than
God. Thus he teaches that there are four ele-
ments-earth, air, water and fire-out of which
all things are generated. He also anticipates
Lucretius in his pessimistic view of humanity's
lot; and insists on the apparently independent
existence of a principle of discord or strife in the
Universe. It would be a forced interpretation
to suppose him to have set forth precociously the
Darwinian theory of the struggle for life. For
his notion seems much more akin to the Zoro-
astrian imagination of Ahriman. Again, he sings
melodiously, but most unphilosophically, of a
former golden age, in which the lion and the lamb
would seem to have lain down together in peace ;
and trees yielded fruit all the year round. At
that time the only deity was Venus, who was
worshipped with bloodless offerings alone. Still,
it must be remembered that, whether consistently
or not, Empedocles produced an elaborate work
on the Nature of Things, to which Lucretius makes
44
PRE-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
eloquent and earnest acknowledgments. But
that very approval of Lucretius forbids
Not
Properly a us to regard the older poet as a Pan-
Pantheist.
ale theist in our sense of the term. For
certainly to him the Universe cannot have been
a living God.
Genesis of Between this philosophical idea of a
Oneness, not thought of as God, and
Religious
Pantheism. the spiritual contemplation of a uni-
versal Life of which all things are modes, the
highest thoughts of men hovered during the pro-
cess by which, in some measure under extraneous
influences, Greek speculation finally produced
Neo-platonism—or, as we might say in the cur-
rent phraseology of our time--a restatement of
Plato's teaching. Of this school, arising in the
early Christian centuries, some leaders were un-
doubtedly Pantheists. But we cannot say this
of Plato himself, nor of his master Socrates. For
though these great men were more profoundly
interested in the moral order of the world than in
any questions of physical nature, or even of meta-
physical subtleties, they were never given to the
kind of contemplation suggested above in extracts
from the Classical Books of the East, the contem-
plation which educes the moral ideal from unre-
45
PANTHEISM
served subordination of self to the Universe as of
the part to the Whole. . Doubtless the inspiration
imparted by Socrates to a disciple in mere intel-
lect his superior, and the resulting moral and
religious suggestions abounding in the Dialogues,
did much to impel the current of religious evolu-
tion toward that spiritual aspect of the Infinite
All which fascinated some of the Neo-Platonists,
and received its most splendid exposition from
Spinoza. But the conditions imposed by neces-
sary brevity compel me to pass by those classic
names with this acknowledgment, and to hasten
toward the fuller revelation of Pantheism as a
religion.
ICU
46
CHAPTER II
POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM.
In speaking of Neo-Platonism I incidentally men-
tioned its apparent subjection to “extraneous in-
fluences.” These, of course, included the rising
power of Christianity and its Jewish traditions.
The Hebrew Even before the advent of the new
radition. revelation, the Jewish settlements ex-
isting in all great cities of the Graeco-Roman
world excited interest at any rate among senti-
mentalists touched by the fascination at that
time beginning to be exerted by oriental religions.
And this influence of Jewish traditions was much
facilitated by the existence of a Greek translation
of the Hebrew scriptures.
Now, what the Hebrew tradition did for Greek
Its
philosophy was, of course, not to
niluence favour its Pantheistic trend, where
on Greek
Philosophy. that existed, but much more to con-
vert such semi-Pantheism from a mere intel-
47
PANTHEISM
L
.
lectual speculation to contemplative devotion.
For Hebrasim itself had become almost as in-
tensely monotheistic as the later Islam. And,
To Inspire though monotheism may be a stage in
Devotion,
Not Solve the progress of religion from Animism
oblems. to Pantheism, it may, also, by the
peculiar intensity of the personal devotion it
sometimes inspires, cause the very idea of any
farther expansion of faith to be counted a sin.
Perhaps the influence of Hebraism on Hellenism
Philo,
may be illustrated by the Alexandrian
the Jew of Philo's pathetic endeavour not only to
Alexandria.
trace the wisdom of the Greeks to
Moses, but to show that this derived lore is much
mightier for good when re-invested with the
spiritual power and ardent devotion of the Jewish
faith.
“If any one will speak plainly,” he writes,
“ he might say that the intelligible world is
nothing other than the word (sc. Nóryos, reason)
of the world-making God. For neither is the
intelligible city anything other than the thought
(norylouós) of the architect already intending to
1 De Mundi Opificio, p. 5B. I take him to mean by
koduós vontós—the world as apperceived-realised in
our consciousness.
48
POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
a
build the city. This is the teaching of Moses,
not mine. At any rate in what follows, when he
records the origin of man, he declares outright
that man was made in the image of God. But
if a part (of creation) reflects the type, so also
must the entire manifestation, this intelligible
ordered world, which is a reproduction of the
divine image on a larger scale than that of man.” 1
How Philo managed to extort this out of the
Pentateuch is a question of interest, but one on
which I cannot delay. Suffice it, that while he
thus showed his reverence for the traditions of
his race, his whole aim is to fire philo-
Motives
Underlying sophy with religious devotion. But he
his Dis-
tortion of was not, in any strict sense of the word,
a Pantheist, though he regarded the
Logos as an emanation from the Eternal, and the
kosmos, the ordered world, as in some way ema-
nating from the Logos. Perhaps, indeed, if we
could exclude from emanation the idea of time,
Hong
O
1 It should be noted that Philo, who was contem-
porary with Jesus, often uses the title “ the Father"
(ó Ilatýp) as a sufficient designation of the Eternal.
It was not very usual, and is suggestive of certain spiri-
tual sympathies amidst enormous intellectual diver-
gencies between the Alexandrian philosopher and the
Galilean prophet.
49
PANTHEISM
as Christians are supposed to do when
Not
Pantheistic. they speak of the “eternal generation”
of the Divine Son or the “procession ” of the
Holy Ghost, we might regard Philo, with the
succeeding Neo-Platonists and some of the
Gnostics, as approximately Pantheistic. But his
vagueness and uncertainty about matter forbid
such a conclusion. For whether he regarded
matter as eternally existing apart from the divine
substance, or whether he looked upon it as the
opposite of Being, as a sort of positive nothing,
in either case, it cannot be said that for him the
whole Universe was God, and nothing but God.
If I have given more space to the great Alex-
andrian Jew than my narrow limits ought to
afford, it is because I think I may thus avoid the
necessity of saying much about the philosophic
Neo-
schemes of the Neo-Platonists, the
Platonism. phantasies of the Gnostics, or the occa-
sionally daring speculations of the Christian
Fathers. For whether the works of Philo were
much studied by the Greeks or not, they certainly
ot described the spiritual resultant-so to
Resultant a
of Contact speak-emerging from the mutual im-
between
East and pact of Western and Oriental, especi-
West.
ally Jewish, ideas. Which resultant
50
POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
was “in the air ” from the first century of the
Christian age ; and the later epistles ascribed to
St. Paul, as well as the Fourth Gospel, show clear
traces of it.
But the inspiration of the time-spirit was not
confined to the Christian Church. For the city
of Alexandria, where that spirit seems to have
been peculiarly potent as shown in the trans-
figured Judaism of Philo, was the birthplace of
Its the Neo-Platonic school already men-
Religious
Inspiration. tioned above. And among its greatest
members, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus,
the religious influence of the East was distinctly
apparent. True, they followed Socrates and
Plato in reverence for knowledge as the unfailing
begetter of virtue. But their speculations about
the divine Being were touched by Oriental emo-
tion. And we may with some confidence believe
that their development of the Platonic Trinity
owed a good deal to the rapid spread of Chris-
tianity. Thus the sentiment, the fervour, the
yearning for “salvation,” the worship and devo-
tion taught by the best of the Neo-Platonists
1 See Col. i. 15–17 and refs. John i. 1-3 ; jii. 13 ;
viii, 58.
51
PANTHEISM
of
were not so much from Athens as from Sinai and
Galilee. Yet, though there were in their world-
conception many anticipations of the gospel of
Suggestive the “God-intoxicated man,” whom
the counsels of the Eternal reserved
Pantheism, º
but not for the fulness of times, it would
such in
Spinoza's scarcely be accurate to describe the
Sense.
system of any of them as strictly Pan-
theistic. For they were always troubled
about “matter” as an anomalous thing in
à divine universe, and in treating of it they
hesitated between the notion of an eternal nui-
sance which the Demiurgus, or acting God, could
only modify, not destroy, and, on the other hand,
a strained theory of an evil nothing, which is
yet something. Again, so far from realising
Spinoza's faith in God as so literally All in All
that there is nothing else but He, they would not
tolerate the contact of the Infinite with the finite,
of God with the world. Consistently with such
prepossessions, they held obstinately to the notion
of some beginning, and therefore some ending
of the ordered world. And this beginning was
effected by emanations such as the Logos, or, as
others had it, the world-soul and other divine
energies, between the Eternal and creation; a
52
POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
phantasy which, however poetically wrought out,
is not really consistent with Pantheism.
Such ideas of a hierarchy of subordinate ema-
nations to fill the supposed abyss between the
Infinite and the Finite were eagerly adopted and
The developed by the pseudo-philosophers
Gnostics. called Gnostics, on both sides of the
boundary between the Church and the World.
Suffice it that, like most, though by no means all
of their predecessors, they regarded the world of
earth, sun, planet, stars, and animated nature
with man at its head, as the whole Universe ;
and, assuming that it must have had a beginning,
they vexed their souls with futile attempts to
frame some gradual transition from the uncreated
to the created, from the eternal to the mortal.
The grotesque chimaeras engendered thus are re-
membered now only as illustrations of the facile
transition from the sublime to the ridiculous and
from philosophy to folly.
The orthodox Christian fathers were not less
conscious than the Neo-Platonists or Gnostics of
the perennial problem of the Many and the One.
he Church But they were restrained, perhaps, by
Fathers. the “ faith that comes of self-control,”
perhaps by mere common sense, from indulging
Th
53
PANTHEISM
in attempts to connect the Infinite with the Finite
by “vain genealogies.” Indeed, for the most
part they confessed that whatever light the Gospel
might shed on moral issues, it left untouched the
ultimate question of the relation of the Infinite
to the Finite. And the only aspect of their most
venturesome speculations which I need recall is
their insistence, even when apparently verging
toward Pantheism, on a transcendent as well as
an immanent God, that is on a Creator existing,
so to speak, outside the Universe and apart from
it as well as permeating every part. Thus, for ex-
ample, Augustine would seem to deny
Augustine.
to the world any separate creature ex-
istence when he says, that but for the divinity
everywhere in it, creation would cease to be.
But in his insistence on the creation of the world
from nothing, he directly contradicts Pantheism,
because he must necessarily be taken to mean
that there is now something other than God.
That there have been devout Christians whose
mystic speculations on the relations of the soul
to the Eternal logically involved Pantheism-if
logic in such a case had any function—there can
be no doubt. But for most of them “God's
word written " seemed to confirm God's word in
54
POST-CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM
heaven and earth as known to them, proclaiming
that there had been a beginning and there must
be an end. Therefore, whatever might be the
immanence of the Creator in His works, God
could not, in their minds, be identified with “ the
fashion of this world” which “passeth away."
Yet the time was coming when the Divine word
both in Scripture and in Nature was to be other-
wise read. For men began to learn that the
Bible was other than they had supposed and the
Universe immeasurably greater than they had
conceived.
CHAPTER III
MODERN PANTHEISM.
MODERN Pantheism as a religion be-
Spinoza.
gins with Spinoza. Whether it ended
with him is a question which the future will
have to decide. But the signs of the times are,
at least in my view, very clearly against such
a conclusion. And amongst the omens which
portend immortality, not necessarily for the
philosophical scheme, but for the “God-intoxi-
cated ” devoutness of his Pantheism, is the desire,
or rather the imperious need increasingly realized,
for a religion emancipated from theories of crea-
tion or teleology, intolerant of any miracle, save
indeed the wonders of the spiritual life,
Pantheistic and satisfying the heart with an ever
Prophet.
one present God. For it is to be remem-
bered that Spinoza was the first Pantheist who
56
MODERN PANTHEISM
was also a prophet, in the sense of speaking out
the divine voice of the infinite Universe to its
human constituent parts. Not that I would
minimize the religious fervour of the Neo-Platon-
ists: it is their Pantheism that seems to have
been imperfect. But in Spinoza we have a man
who, inheriting by birth the tradition-I might
even say the apostolic succession--of the Jewish
prophets, and gifted with an insight into the
consummation of that tradition in Jesus Christ,
was driven by a commanding intellect to divorce
the spiritual life he prized from creeds that had
The Main become to him impossible, and to en-
Subject
is shrine it in the worthier temple of an
Religion eternal Universe identical with God.
and not his
Philosophy. It is not, then, with his philosophy
that I am so much concerned as with his religion.'
MTK
1 It is not within the scope of the present essay to
givo a life of Baruch (or Benedict) de Spinoza. But for
the sako of those to whom the work of Sir Frederick
Pollock is not easily accessible, the following particulars
may be given. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam,
November, 1632, of a fairly prosperous Jewish family,
originally from Portugal. He received thorough instruc-
tion in the language and literature of the Hebrews, and
in addition became a good Latin scholar, so far as to
write and correspond in that language. He was early
interested in philosophy, and especially attracted for a
57
PANTHEISM
It is given to no man to be absolutely original
in the sense of creating ideas of which no germs
existed before his day. But short of such an
His impossible independence of the past,
Originality. Benedict de Spinoza had perhaps as
much originality as any man who ever lived.
Yet with a modesty ever characteristic of moral
greatness, he himself was disposed, at any rate
during his earlier philosophical development, to
time by the writings of Descartes. By the time he was
twenty-three years old he was suspected of heresy, and
in his twenty-fourth year (1655) was cut off from the
Synagogue with a frightful curse. His family disowned
him, and for his maintenance he turned to the polishing
of lenses, a trade already learned in accordance with the
Jewish custom that every boy must have a handicraft.
What he earned would hardly be considered a " living
wage” in these days. But according to Colerus, his
first biographer, who enquired of the householders with
whom Spinoza lodged, his day's maintenance often cost
no more than 4jd. Various incidents proved his total
indifference to money, except as far as needed to “pro-
vide things honest in the sight of all men.” Though of
an amiable and sociable disposition he lived a solitary
life, while not indisposed to kindly talk with his humbler
neighbours. He had some of the greatest scholars of
the day among his correspondents. He published but
little during his life, leaving his greatest work as a legacy
to the world on his early death, at the Hague, from
consumption, in 1677.
58
MODERN PANTHEISM
to
Des
Diri
ncas
exaggerate his indebtedness to the
Relation
philosopher Descartes, whose system
artes. he laboriously abridged in the inap-
propriate form of a series of propositions supposed
to be demonstrated after the fashion of Euclid.
But whatever may have been the esoteric belief
of Descartes about creation out of nothing and
the theological dogmas connected therewith, he
attached too much importance to the
Funda-
mental social and political functions of estab-
**. lished ecclesiastical institutions to de-
clare himself independent of them. And though
his submission, signalised on his death-bed, did
not interfere with the freest working of his bril-
liant intellect within limits permitted to the for-
mer ecclesiastical “schoolmen," it did prevent
his frank realization of the eternal oneness of all
being. For it compelled him to retain belief in
a Creator distinct in essence from Creation. Such
Spinoza a belief Spinoza entirely rejected. For
Discards
nd though his “Natura Naturans," or
Creation, Nature Active, may in a manner be
called the Creator of his “Natura Naturata,” or
Nature Passive, these are consubstantial and co-
Beginning eternal, neither being before or after
and End. the other. Thus for him there was no
Creator and vous
en
woude
and
was no
08
59
PANTHEISM
beginning of the Universe and there could be no
end. There was no creation out of nothing, nor
any omen of weariness, decay, or death in the
eternal order. He teaches us in effect to take
the Universe as it is, and to pry into no supposed
secrets of origin or end, an entirely gratuitous
labour, imposed by illusions arising out of the
continuous redistribution of parts of
Takes the
Universe the Whole. Instead of thus spending
as it is.
our mental energy for nought, he would
have us regard the whole of Being as one Sub-
stance characterized by innumerable attributes,
of which Extension and Thought alone come with-
in our human cognizance; while each Attribute is
subject to infinite Modes or modifications, which,
in their effect on the two attributes known to us
-extension and thought-constitute the universe
of our experience. That infinite and eternal Sub-
stance revealed by Attributes and their
And
Worships Modes is God, absolute in His perfec-
the Static
Whole as tions if He could be fully conceived and
God.
known in all His activities. And even
to our ignorance He is entrancing in His gradual
self-revelation, as with our inadequate ideas
we pursue the unattainable from glory to
glory.
60
MODERN PANTHEISM
11
This View
This, then, is the first note we make
of the of the gospel of Spinoza. But if any
Universe
applied to one thinks that the sacred word
Psalm civ. oo
“gospel ” is here misused, and that
such teaching is fatal to piety, let him turn to
the 104th Psalm and read, from Spinoza's point
of view, the cosmic vision of the Hebrew seer.
True, we can think no longer of the supernatural
carpenter who works on “the beams of his
chambers ” above, or of the mythical engineer
who digs deep in the darkness to “lay the founda-
tions of the earth.” For that is poetry, appeal-
ing by concrete images to the emotions. But it
does not bind the intellect to a literal interpreta-
tion; and we are no longer tormented by vain
efforts to reconcile with infinite impossibilities
the half-human personality presented in poetic
guise. So that the vision of the seer is now the
suggestion to us of an infinite and eternal Being,
whose attributes by modification take the in-
numerable shapes of sun, moon, and stars, and
mountains and river, and tree and flower, and
bird and beast, and man. And the winds that
sweep and the floods that roll, and the rocky
barriers that stand fast, and the rivers that wind
among the hills, and the trees that flourish and
61
PANTHEISM
the living societies that gather in fruitful places,
the labourer in his vineyard, the sailor in his ship,
all are in and of the one Eternal Being. Yet we
echo not with less, but perhaps with more rever-
ence, than the believers in a divine artisan, the
words of the Psalmist : “ O Lord, how manifold.
are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them
all : the earth is full of Thy riches.” But if the
thunder and the flaming fire and the sweeping
flood seem discordant, they existed for the Psalm-
ist as well as for us, and they do not seem to have
troubled him. At this point, therefore, we need
only say that Spinoza's religion of one divine Sub-
stance, whose unity in variety is holy, ought to
stir within us with not less fervour, at least the
spirit of the Psalmist's concluding prayer : “ Let
the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let
the wicked be no more.”
Spinoza's maintenance of extension
Spinoza
as one of the two infinite divine attri-
Materialist,
butes cognizable by us has, with a cer-
tain amount of plausibility, been urged as a note
of materialism. And this reproach has been
supported by reference to his insistence that
in man the body and the soul are only two
different aspects of the same thing; for to him
no
62
MODERN PANTHEISM
Notwith- the body is a finite Mode of God's in-
standing
his Attribu- finite attribute of extension and the
tion of "., EX- soul a finite Mode of God's infinite
tension”
to God. attribute of thought, while both are
manifestations of the one eternal divine Sub-
stance. Still, if in any way we are to regard
God as extended, it seems impossible to avoid
the inference that we regard Him as identified
with matter, or at least the possibility of matter.
Sir Frederick Pollock has admitted that
Criticism
by Sir F. this is a weak point in Spinoza's philo-
Pollock.
sophy,' and mars its symmetry. But,
being more concerned with his religion, I am con-
tent to point out that such an objection was much
Changes in more effective in Spinoza's time than
s of it is to-day. For the whole trend of
Matter
since
philosophy during the nineteenth cen-
Spinoza's
time. tury was towards a view of Extension
itself as a mode of Thought, and therefore toward
the absorption of one of Spinoza's theoretical
divine attributes in the other.
o
1 “ It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute
is defined by reference to intellect, and Thought itself
is an attribute, Thought appears to be in a manner,
counted twice over.”—Spinoza : His Life and Philo-
sophy, by Sir Frederick Pollock. Second edition, 1899,
p. 153.
63
PANTHEISM
Their Now if this should prove to be the
Effect
permanent tendency of the most in-
on his
fluential thinkers--as indeed seems
most likely—it will probably he held that Spinoza
was wrong in attributing extension to the Eternal
as one of the qualities of His substance, except in
so far as extension is, if not a necessary, at any
rate an actual, and so far as we know, a universal
mode of thought. But though, as Sir Frederick
Pollock has pointed out, Spinoza has in a manner
“counted thought twice over " while treating
of the only two infinite attributes cognizable to
· us, we need not, on that account, surrender his
luminous idea of God as a Being absolutely
. infinite, that is, “ Substance consisting of in-
finite Attributes, whereof each one expresses
eternal and infinite being.” Nor need we
abandon his supplementary but essential idea of
“Modes” or “ modifications” which mould
the attributes into the varieties of finite worlds,
known and unknown. Thus it may be that, in
Spinoza's sense of the word "Attribute," we shall
have to confess that only one comes within our
human ken, that of Thought in a sense which
includes feeling. But if the late Herbert
Spencer, apart from his synthetic philosophy of
64
- MODERN PANTHEISM
phenomena, has left any permanent mark on the
religious consciousness, it has been by a con-
secration of the mystery of the ultimate Un-
knowable. And in the spirit of reverence thus
taught by him we may still hold with Spinoza
that the Eternal has an infinity of other attri-
butes with their infinite modifications not within
our cognizance. This would only be an enlarged
application of Hamlet's words :
“ There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Or, to put it in another way, the Universe
perceptible to us is only one of an infinity of
Universes. By which is not meant an infinite
1 It is of course true that Spinoza considered himself
to have a clear and adequate conception of God. But
by this he meant only that, as a philosopher, he had an
intuitive certainty of eternal and infinite. Being. So
have all of us humbler mortals, though we should not
have been able to express it for ourselves. No one
supposes that for an indefinite space of time or eternity
there was nothing, and then suddenly there was some-
thing. But, if not, then everyone recognises with
Spinoza the fact of eternal Being, though, of course, he
saw what this recognition meant, as the many do not.
But when it comes to the facts of mortal imperfections
and ignorance, Spinoza, with his theory of “ inadequate
ideas,” is as ready as Spencer to acknowledge the Un-
knowable.
65
PANTHEISM
extension of galaxies in space, but the co-exist-
ence and, so to speak, interpenetration of an in-
finity of modes of existence imperceptible to us.
To Spinoza, then, God is the totality
God is
Identical of Being. But it is not to be inferred
with the
Whole of that he identified God with the visible,
Being.
or with any conceivable Universe.
For either of these must fall far short of infinity,
and the Being of God is infinite. All I mean,
when I say that. Spinoza identifies God with the
totality of existence, is that he regards the deity
as that Perfect Being without beginning or end,
whose essence it is to be, and of whom all that
exists, whether known to us or not, is separately a
partial, and comprehensively a perfect expression.
Of more practical interest to us
His
Doctrine of perhaps is Spinoza's doctrine of man,
Man.
though it would have been impossible
to explain that without first indicating his idea
of God. In his view, then, man is a finite mode
of the two divine attributes, extension and
thought. Thus both the extended body and
the conscious mind have their substance and
reality in God." But the essence of man does
? I do not think it necessary in an essay of this kind
to discuss Spinoza's theory of the body as object of the
66
MODERN PANTHEISM
not necessarily involve his separate existence as
the essence of God implies Being. Of course
the substance of man is imperishable because
it is of God's substance. Nay, there is a sense
in which each man, being an eternal thought of
God, has an aspect towards eternity or exists
“sub specie eternitatis.” But that is a truth
transcending the finite practical world with
which we have to do.
According to Spinoza, what constitutes the
real essence of the human mind is the divine)
idea of a certain individual creature actually
existing. Here, perhaps, modern speculations
mind, and the mind as “idea ” of the body, both being
different aspects of the same thing.
6 Rei alicujus singularis actu existentis." The
word " divine” does not occur in Prop. xi. Ethices II.,
from which I quote. But it is implied ; because the mind
is only a mode or modification of the infinite attribute
of thought, which again expresses the eternal Substance
in God. I venture a doubt whether “ actually existing,”
though adopted by such authorities as Sir F. Pollock
gives, with any distinctness, Spinoza's meaning. I may
be wrong, but I suspect that one of the later uses of
“actus," as quoted in Ducange, affected Spinoza's
Latinity. Thus several ecclesiastical writers are quoted
as using the word in the sense of office, or function.
Surely this would suit Spinoza's definition of the mind.
For ho treats it as a centre of phenomenal activity amidst
67
PANTHEISM
LCO
about the constitution of matter may help us-
if we use them with due reserve to grasp
Spinoza's notion of a “res singularis in actu ”-
or as it might be rendered freely, “a creature
Illustration of individual functions,” for what is
by the
called the “ vortex theory,” though
Vortex
Theory. as old as Cartesian philosophy, has
recently flashed into sudden prominence. And
whether or no the speculation be only a passing
phase of human thought about the Unknowable,
it equally answers the purpose of illustration.
Thus the so-called “ether" is supposed to fill all
space; and within it there are imagined or in-
ferred innumerable “ tourbillons” or “ vortices,"
which, though parts of the indefinitely extended
ether, form by their self-contained motion little
worlds in themselves. These little worlds are by
some regarded as the atoms which, by com- .
position and differentiation, build up our pal-
pable universe. With the possibilities of such
a theory I have nothing to do. But the notion of
11
11
the infinite modes of the divine attribute. Its apparent
individuality is a consequence of its spontaneity as a
centre of action-always understood that the spon-
taneity is consistent with the absolute eternal order
assumed throughout the work.
68
MODERN PANTHEISM
the vortex in the ether may perhaps help us to a
glimpse of Spinoza's notion when he speaks of
a “res singularis in actu” a creature of individual
functions. For to him man was, as it were, an
infinitesimal vortex in a phase or attribute of
the divine Substance. The analogy, like all
other analogies, would not bear being pressed.
But it does suggest to us a picture of finite in-
dividuality in action or function, subordinated to
unity with infinite Substance. If it be said that
Distinction such an explanation would necessarily
between
include the conscious life of beasts and
Beast. birds, the answer would seem to be,
that admitting this to be the case, yet in man
the divine idea of individuality is more fully ex-
pressed and has more of reality than in any lower
creature.
Moral
Man, then, according to Spinoza,
Difficulties. is in. God and of God. But what are
we to say of bad men, the vile, the base, the liar,
the murderer? Are they also in God and of
God ? Spinoza does not blench. Yes, they are.
But here comes in his doctrine of “ adequate "
and “inadequate ideas." Thus, if you see
the colour red it completely expresses itself.
It cannot be defined and needs no explana-
Mar
69
PANTHEISM
tion. As it is in the Infinite Thought so it is in
ours. We have an “adequate idea ” of it. But
now if you see on an artist's canvas a splotch of red
and blue and yellow, part of a work only begun,
it gives you no adequate idea. True, you have
an adequate idea of each several colour, but not
of their relations to the work conceived. To get
that you would have to enter into the mind of
the artist and see as he sees. Then the splotch
of colour would take its place as part of a har-
monious whole ; and would give you an adequate
idea just as it does to the artist.
Now, according to Spinoza,. when we see
things as they appear in Infinite Thought we
have an adequate idea. But if we see only a
component element in an idea-let us say-of
the divine Artist, then our idea is inadequate.
.
1 Of course the professor of optics can tell us how
many vibrations in a second go to produce tho parti-
cular shade of colour. But these cannot by any means
be identified with conscious perception; and it is with
this only that we are concerned.
2 Ethices Pars II., Prop. xi. Corollarium. “Hence it
follows that the human mind is part of the infinite in-
tellcct (thought) of Cod; and accordingly, when we say
that the human mind perceives this or that, we only say
that God-not in His infinity, but so far as He is expressed
by the nature of the human mind, or, so far as He con-
70
MODERN PANTHEISM
Hence we misjudge things. And of the part
played by bad men in the divine Whole we cer-
tainly have no adequate idea. But here again we
must be on our guard against the abuse of illus-
trations. For) it is not to be inferred that
But the Spinoza regards the Universe as an
Universe unfinished picture, of which the com-
is Not an
Unfinished pletion will justify the beginning. On
Pieture.
use the contrary, the Universe is to him
eternal, the necessary expression of the infinite
attributes of eternal Being. Still the analogy
may help us. For the concentration of attention
on a single part of an ordered whole may, quite
as certainly as a glance at an unfinished work,
stitutes the essence of the human mind-has this or
that idea. And when we say that God has this or that
idea, not only so far as He constitutes the nature of the
human mind, but so far as He has the idea also of some
other thing together with the human mind, then we say
that the human mind perceives the thing in part, or
inadequately.” E.G. all races have naturally supposed
earthquakes and storm, battle, murder and sudden
death to present ideas identical in the minds of their
gods and of themselves. But Spinoza's suggestion, as
I interpret it, is that the true God has the idea of such
things, not only so far as He constitutes the human
mind, but as He includes the ideas of some correlated
things to us inconceivable. Our idea is therefore “in-
adequate."
71
PANTHEISM
fito
be the occasion of an inadequate idea. In effect,
the suggestion is that if we, like God, could
contemplate the infinite Universe all at once,
and have an adequate idea thereof, in other
words if we could ascend to the self
It is an
contemplation of the Eternal, we should
Whole, of how
have the bliss associated by long
the bliss asso
which a
Partial habit with the words of the Psalmist :
Considera-
tion is “I shall be satisfied when I awake,
Misleading.
us with thy likeness.” Such bliss, how-
ever, is only approximately attainable in moments
of mystic transport. And when, as in so many
experiences, we see only in part, and have in-
adequate ideas, faith in the Eternal Whole is
needed to keep us from blasphemy.'
With such necessarily brief hints
Doctrine
of Man as to Spinoza's attitude towards evil,
olo I resume his doctrine of man-the
individual creature as a centre of action. Of
final causes Spinoza will not hear.
Cause
But if instead of asking “what is the
Replaced by
Idea. chief end of man,” we ask what is
the idea of man, Spinoza answers that it is the
realization of a mode of the divine attributes,
extension and thought. And if this should seem
unsatisfying, let it be remembered that to this
Resumed
72
MODERN PANTHEISM
00
non
s,
devout Pantheist the divine attributes and their
modes were the expression of the very substance
and life of God. Now with “ extension," for
reasons already given, we need not trouble our-
selves except to say that at least Spinoza's teach-
ing would suggest the idea of mens sana in
· corpore sano. Because to him the mind was
the “idea” of the body, and the body the
“ object”-not quite in the modern sense
of the mind. But as regards the human mode
of the divine attribute of thought, Spinoza makes
its ideal to be a life absorbed in such
Freedom,
Purity, contemplation of “the Blessed God,"
Love.
the infinite Whole, as shall react on
the creature in inspirations of freedom, purity
and love.
Idea of
And first as to freedom, Spinoza
Freedom. means by this not caprice, nor the
monstrous miracle of causeless action, but in-
dependence of external force or of any dispro-
portionate and illegitimate passion. The free-
dom to which he aspires is the freedom of God,
who eternally acts in accordance with the mutual
harmony of the whole attributes of His nature,
not one of which clashes with another. So
Spinoza's free man is one in whom all aspirations
73
PANTHEISM
and energies, converging in one resultant, the
expression of the divine idea, move him in
harmony with the Universe. From such a
point of view the quibbles about “free will."
in the sense of causeless action, cease to have
any meaning. For if the good man says “I
could have done otherwise if I had liked,” the
obvious reply is,“ Yes, but you would not have
liked.” Because the will is not a separate
faculty, but the expression of the whole nature,
as that exists at the moment of “ willing.” And
the only real freedom is the unimpeded con-
glomerate impulse to do right. But should it
be asked what if the resultant impulse of the
whole nature is toward wrong? the answer is, in
that case there is no freedom, but a slavery
to some external influence or to a disturbed
balance of the passions. Or if it be asked what
is right ? that is a far reaching question to the
solution of which Spinoza bends all his splendid
powers. But limits of space preclude me from
saying more than that his ideal of right will be
found conformable to the highest standards of
the most spiritual religions.
This ideal I ventured to symbolize.
Purity.
rather than define as “purity.” For
74
*MODERN PANTHEISM
after all the philosophic reasoning with which
it is no less lucidly than laboriously worked
out in the final book of his Ethica, “ Concern-
ing Human Freedom ”[the moral result of
'all this intellectual effort is that same cleansing
of the soul from vain desire and that subordina-
tion of the earthly self to its divine idea which
we are taught in the Sermon on the Mount. And
while surely every one but a fanatical anti-
Christian must allow the greater prophetic
worth of the Galilean, who could teach these sub-
lime lessons so that “ the common people heard
him gladly,” it seems difficult to deny to the
heretic Jew of the Hague the second rank among
the teachers given to the world by that strangely
gifted race. For though he could not speak to
“the common people," he left as his legacy to
mankind, not so much a system of philosophy,
as an impregnable foundation for morals and
religion, available for the time now coming upon
us--such a time as that suggested by the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he spoke of
c the removing of those things that are shaken,
as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain.”/ No doubt
Sir Frederic Pollock is quite right in declaring
75
PANTHEISM
that Spinoza would have been the very last man
to desire any one to become a Spinozist. But
that is quite consistent with the inspired Pan-
theist's linfinite longing to see all men blessed
by that inward peace which he proved, by his
own heroic experience, to be identical with the
self-control conferred and maintained by devout
contemplation of God's all-comprehensive Being
and our place therein. If, then, I regard purity
as the best symbol of such a moral ideal, it is
because the word connotes, together with free-
dom from discordant passion, a frankly uncon-
strained recognition of the simplicity of our
relation to God. For surely when once the
self has made the great surrender, and becomes
content to be nothing, that in St. Paul's words,
“ God may be all in all,” the whole problem of
life is infinitely simplified, in the sense that no
farther degree of simplification is possible.
Because all contradictions of pain and evil and
sorrow are dissolved in that act of surrender.
We must, indeed, recognize that to our “in-
adequate ideas " the time often seems “out of
joint." But we need not, with Hamlet, cry out
on an impossible “spite.” For when once it
is heartily and loyally realized that not our
76
MODERN PANTHEISM
partial likings, but the eternal harmony of the
Whole, is the glory of God, we already anticipate
the peace of absorption in the Infinite.
Nor is this moral ideal without a
I Love. a
sacred passion ; at least to ordinary
men; though it must be confessed that Spinoza,
in the stillness of his sacred peace, ignored the
word. But he still held that the larger our
view of the Universe and of our communion there-
with, the more we have of God in us and the
more do we realize an “intellectual love" to-
wards Him. That this in his case was no barren
sentiment, but a genuine moral inspiration, was
proved by his life ; for truly (he endured as
seeing Him who is invisible. And it was not
by faculties wholly wanting to smaller men that
he did this. For though his intellect was in
some respects almost beyond compare, it was
rather by his self-subordinating contemplation
that he was kept at peace. Indeed, he knew
far less of the extended universe than our men
of science do, and his doctrines of mind and
thought are, by indisputable authorities, regarded
as imperfect. But imagining what God must
be, could we have an adequate idea not only of
His Being—which Spinoza thought he had—but
77
PANTHEISM
Camere
of His infinite attributes and their modes-
which Spinoza recognized that he had not-Lhe
declared that love toward God was the very
highest good. And it was supremely blessed
in this, that it could engender no jealousy nor
selfishness, nor sectarian zeal, but rather a large-
hearted charity which would gather all mankind
into the present heaven of that love.
78.
AFTERWORD.
em
I
Failure.
tron
.
Poy
NOTWITHSTANDING the admiration, and
Spinoza's
Apparent even reverence, with which Spinoza
was regarded by a few scholars during
his life-time, it cannot be said that during the
century following his death, in 1677, there was
any wide acceptance of his ideas. The times
were not favourable. For the political and social
e power of ecclesiasticism, whether estab-
Ecclesias- lished, or unestablished, compelled men
ticism.
of science and philosophers to treat
dominant creeds as consecrated ground, on which
ordinary methods of research, reasoning or critic-
ism could not be pursued. In saying this, I am
far from accusing those illustrious men of insin-
cerity. Some few of them, indeed, used a sort of
cryptic satire to excuse to themselves an unwill-
79
PANTHEISM
with
Con
al
'
Identifica- ing conformity. But, for the most
tion of
Moral part, the moral pressure of tradition
Interests
and education compelled enlightened
ntion- men to identify the doctrines of a
Beliefs. personal God, Creation, Fall, Redemp-
tion and Immortality with moral interests
vitally essential to human welfare. Under
such circumstances a prudent conservatism was
inevitable.
Gradual Yet, notwithstanding these restrain-
Spread of ince in Aurances that
ing influences, the thoughts breathed
Influence. forth by the lonely thinker were as
living seed wafted abroad, and falling here and
there on good ground, germinated and brought
forth fruit. Sometimes his influence was acknow-
ledged, sometimes it was repudiated ; but it was
there, nevertheless. It is doubtful
Fichte.
whether Fichte's idealism could have
taken the form it did had not Spinoza preceded
him. Hegel, setting out on his great
Hegel.
intellectual career with a resolve to
defend the faith once delivered to the saints, yet
traces its roots to a philosophy of Being which,
at any rate, looks very like Pantheism. This is
perhaps delicate ground to tread. For if one is
asked whether one understands Hegel, one is
80
AFTERWORD
tempted to answer, like the pious Scotch lady
when her friends enquired whether she had under-
stood the minister's sermon, “Hech, sirs, d'ye
think I'd presume ?" Still, not my own reading
of him only, but Mr. Haldane's profoundly inter-
esting interpretations given in his Gifford Lectures,
make the impression that Hegel's eternal process
is always a projection of subject as object and red-
integration of the two. And this goes on, not
only on the infinite, but on the finite scale, amidst
the infinite number of processes which constitute
the Whole of Being. But this seems to leave no
room for creation out of nothing, and it is to that
extent pantheistic. There are doubtless saving
interpretations, but it is difficult to follow them ;
and they cannot cancel the initial postulate of
one eternal process, consisting in the relations
of infinite subject, object and reunion. On
such a system I do not see how there can
be anything but God, and, therefore, notwith-
standing his aversion to the name, count Hegel
a Pantheist.
and Goethe and Wordsworth, in many
Wordsworth. inspired passages of their poetry, echo
the faith of Spinoza. Wordsworth, of course, in
the reaction from his first expectations of the
81 .
PANTHEISM
new order that he hoped to see arise out of the
French Revolution, was inclined to magnify the
importance of established religious ceremonies
and creeds. But we cannot suppose that he ever
repented of his reverence for Nature as a divine
revelation. And we may believe that he con-
tinued to regard his practically pantheistic visions
as an insight into the eternal reality from which
the detailed schemes of orthodox theology were
projected.
na That Schleiermacher was much in-
macher. debted to Spinoza is abundantly evident
from his own words. He spoke of “the holy
repudiated Spinoza." He declared that “the
high world-spirit penetrated him ; the Infinite
was his beginning and his end ; the universe his
only and eternal love. In holy innocence and
lowliness, he mirrored himself in the eternal world,
and saw himself as its most love-worthy image.
He was full of religion and of the Holy Spirit ; and
therefore he stands alone and unreachable, master
in his art above the profane multitude, without
disciples and without citizenship.” 1
1 Quoted by Dr. J. Hunt, in his Essay on Pantheism,
p. 312.
82
AFTERWORD
Coming down to Anglican Broad
Anglican
Broad Churchmen, it would scarcely be fair
Churchmen.
to quote isolated utterances as proofs
of their Pantheism. And yet when Frederick
Robertson asked, “What is this world itself but
the form of Deity whereby the manifoldness and
beauty of His mind manifests itself ?” and still
farther, when he quotes with approval Channing's
word, that is perhaps matter is but a mode of
thought,” the most earnest Pantheist would
hardly desire more. For the conception of the
Universe involved must surely exclude the real
being, or even the real existence, of anything but
Cod. Matthew Arnold never committed himself
to Pantheism, nor, indeed, to any other theory of
the Universe. For his delicate humour and lam-
bent satire always had in view simply the prac-
tical object of clearing a plain way for the good
life through the “ Aberglaube” of theology. His
description of God as “the Power not ourselves
which makes for righteousness," might seem, in
fact, the negation of Pantheism, because, if God
is not ourselves, there is something other than
God. But the man who deliberately justified
the loose phraseology of the Bible about infinite
Being, by the plea that it was language " thrown
83
PANTHEISM
out” at an object infinitely transcending lin-
guistic expression, ought not himself to be pinned
to the implications logically deducible from his
own words “thrown out” at the same transcen-
dant object. And, though Matthew Arnold was
too literary to be a Pantheist, that is, though he
thought more of forms of expression than of ulti-
mate reality, his satirical disintegration of the
creeds, wherever it is effective, makes Pantheism
the only religious alternative. So-called “ secu-
lar" and godless alternatives may be offered ; but
their incongruity with the whole evolution of
humanity from prehistoric animism to the higher
Pantheism will make their doom short and sure.
Why
In the earlier part of this essay I
Pantheism
made the remark that Pantheism as a
Religion, religion is almost entirely modern.
was called
Modern. The context, however, clearly showed
what was meant; for several pages have been
occupied with indications of the ideas and teach-
ing of individual Pantheists from Xenophanes to
Spinoza. But we do not usually take much note
of a religion that is confined to one or two men
in an age. If it dies out we treat it merely as a
curiosity, or an intellectual puzzle, like the dreams
of Jacob Boehme, or the atheistic ecclesiasticism
as a
84
AFTERWORD
of
of Comte. But, if it afterwards shows symptoms
of unexpected adaptation to the mental and moral
conditions of a newer world, and if, on account of
this adaptation, it gains a hold on men who are
neither philosophers nor metaphysicians, but only
religious, it demands our consideration on far
other grounds than those of intellectual curiosity.
Pantheistic Now it has only been during the second
Tendencies
half of the last century that Pantheism
Con has been able to claim attention as a
temporary
Thought. religion in such a sense as this. As to
the fact there can hardly be any dispute. For
not only has it become ever a more prominent
motive in the music of the poets, and not only are
all rationalizations of Christianity more or less
transparent disguises of Pantheism, but I may
safely appeal to those ordinary members of in-
telligent society who are neither poets, nor divines,
nor philosophers, whether the freest and most
confidential interchange of religious thought does
not continually verge on a faith which merges
everything in God.
Nor are the reasons of this tendency
Caused by
the Mutual far to seek. Indeed, they are palpable
Pressure of
nd and conspicuous in the mutual pressure
Faith.
of science and faith. For, on the one
Sciene
85
PANTHEISM
hand science has made unthinkable the old-
world conception of a three-storeyed Universe,
constructed by an artificer God, who suddenly
awoke from an eternity of idleness to make
Heaven, Earth, and Hell—a conception involving
a King of kings, enthroned like an eastern mon-
arch, and sending forth His ministering spirits, or
appointing His angel deputies to direct and govern
at His beck. Or if it be said that never, except
in the ages of primeval simplicity, or amongst
later generations living under primeval conditions,
has such a conception been entertained, it would
be difficult for the “ broadest ” Churchman to say
what has been put in its place. It is vain to
remind us how later Christianity has patronised
hular nebular hypotheses and the doctrine of
Hypothesis evolution. For these give no definite
taken alone
Involves substitute whatever for the old story,
anty. that Elohim “spoke, and it was done-
he commanded, and it stood fast.” Whence the
fiery mists by the rotation and cooling of which
the worlds were slowly evolved? We are told
that the same process is going on now within the
ken of astronomers. But does any one suppose
that in those realms of space God is evoking some-
thing out of nothing, or saying “ be,” and “there
Abs
IC-
86
AFTERWORD
TTU
IT
is ” ? No; we are assured that these fiery mists
are formed by the collision of misguided orbs ;
and we are even asked-or, at least we were asked
-to believe that this process must go on until all
systems are agglomerated in one orb, to be ulti-
mately congealed into stone. What, then, is the
office of the Creator according to this scheme, as
repulsive as it is absurd ? It would appear that,
at some moment in a vacuous eternity, He calls
matter out of nothing, whirls it into fiery vortices,
and then lets it cool down to the absolute zero
wherein death reigns for ever.
The Protest But, after all, “there is a spirit in
of Faith, man,” and “the inspiration of the
Almighty," of the Eternal, of the glorious Whole
to which we belong, stirs in us a protest
against this blasphemy of ignorance. Ignorance,
I say, for it was not the knowledge of our wise
men that whispered such things, but their sense
of the vacuity beyond their knowledge. Up to
certain bounds, their grasp of facts, their insight
into physical order, their mathematical skill, were
beyond all praise. But beyond that bound, aye,
and within it, in every inconceivable mode of the
action of force, as, for example, in gravitation,
brooded the Unknowable. And it was not their
mt
87
PANTHEISM
by
Sustained
knowledge, but their ignorance that
entailed absurd issues. Already there
Latest
Science. are signs that even celestial physics
and mathematics will refuse to endorse as final
so revolting a scheme of material evolution
and devolution, ending only in universal death.1
And when once the re-birth of new order out of
the old is seen to be everywhere and eternally
taking place, then all the hints given us by
science of the ultimate oneness of all things,
converge in the faith that All is God, and God
is All. For certainly, the latest observations on
Matter suggest that all forms of it are varia-
tions of one ultimate Substance. And the
convertibility of forces, as well as the
Suggests... conservation of force, point to one
Unity. eternal energy. Nor is the duality
thus suggested any final conclusion. For
few, I imagine, would now contend that, in
the last result Matter and Force are fundament-
ally different things. In fact, Monism holds the
field ; and though the evolution of human opinion
is very slow, it appears safe to predict that the
triumph of that world theory is assured.
1 See The Religion of the Universe, pp. 128–30.
88
AFTERWORD
Idea of This result is additionally secured by
Creation In- u.
congruous
Su the increasing incongruity felt between
with
on the immeasurable vastness of the
Modern
Knowledge. Universe, even as known, and the idea
of creation out of nothing. When the Almighty
could be seriously pictured as constructing
chambers for Himself and His heavenly host
above, the middle floor of earth for the children
of men, and the abyss for ghosts and devils, the
notion that His word evoked that puny structure
from nothing might be invested by poets and
prophets with a certain grandeur. Each part of
the work had an object as conceivable as that of
each floor in a house ; and, according to petty
human notions of utility, nothing was wasted.
But now, when our astronomers confront us with
countless millions of orbs, to whose extension in
space no bound can be proved, while some of
them tell us that the whole immensity is a desert
of alternate fire and darkness, with no spark of
finite intellect except in our tiny earth, some of
us, at least, cannot help feeling that the notion of
a personal divine worker calling this huge enigma
out of blank eternal nothing, is enormously and
utterly incongruous both with reverence and
common sense.
.
89
PANTHEISM
And if the Pantheist in these days be asked,
“What interpretation then do you propose ? "
his answer is, “ I propose none. I take things as
they are. In their totality they are unknowable,
as, indeed, even science finds they are in their
infinitesimal parts." But we need not on this
account lose " the divinity that shapes our ends."
Pantheistie For, between the infinite and the infini-
Morality. tesimal the human experience realizes
itself in surroundings which, when observed and
reflected on, make the impression of ordered rela-
tions of parts. By a necessity of our finite and
individual existence as centres of action-a neces-
sity of which we can give no account-we present :
those relations to ourselves in forms of time and
space. Then, when our experience is large enough
and ripe enough, being enriched and stimulated
by the stored-up experience of humanity, as
recorded in tradition, custom, Bibles, and Epics,
we attain to the moral sense, and realize that we
are bound to be loyal to something
The Law
of the greater than self. That “greater"
Whole.
may be the tribe, the nation, humanity
or God. But in far the larger number of cases in
which this sense of willing loyalty is aroused, its
cause is the appeal to us of some whole of which
90
AFTERWORD
we form a part. Certainly this is so with the
patriot and the philanthropist. Indeed, it would
be difficult, or impossible, to find any human
relationship, from the family upwards, through
the wider circles of school, club, municipality,
nationality, in which this sense of loyalty or devo-
tion to the law of the whole is not the best in-
centive to devotion.
Yet, when we come to contemplate the final
and supreme object of devotion, the Eternal
Himself, it has been almost the universal custom
to make a surprising exception, and to regard
religicn as maintainable only by recognition of a
tremendous outward authority, to which only
such loyalty is possible as in barbarous times was
fostered towards a personal chieftain, or feudal
king. Now Pantheism holds this to be an error,
and regards obedience and devotion to
God as the ultimate and most inspiring
the Whole application of that principle of the
Loyalty to
God in the loyalty of the part to the whole which
Supreme
Application. runs through all morality.
Why should we be supposed to be
usion. without God because we acknowledge
Him to be superpersonal, and “past finding out”' ?
Or why should we be suspected of denying the
11
Of that
Law of
Con
เสก
91
PANTHEISM
divinity of evolution because we do not believe
the Eternal All to be subject to it? This instinct
of loyalty, in the sense of self-subordination to
any greater Whole of which we are part, the
distinction of right and wrong thence arising, and
the aspiration after a moral ideal, are not of man's
invention. Speaking, as we cannot help doing,
in terms of time, I hold that the germs of this
higher creature-life were always in the divine
unity out of which man is evolved. And in pur-
suing the inspirations of that higher life, as exper-
ience suggests them, humanity has always had a
guide and a saviour in the Living God, of whom
the race life-time of man is an infinitesimal phase.
In such an interpretation of man's relations to
God there is nothing necessarily hostile to any
form of genuine religion. True, there are in the
creeds many statements which we cannot accept
in the letter. But there are few which have not
some spiritual suggestion for us. And if we can
attain to that intellectual love of God in which
Spinoza was absorbed, we have no quarrel with
any mode of sincere devotion. Pious Catholic,
1 Limitations of space must be my apology for refer-
enco to an enlargement of this topic in “A Pantheistic
Sermon” at the end of The Religion of the Universe.
92
AFTERWORD
* Protestant, Vedantist, Mohammedan-all, by the
implicit, though unrecognised necessities of their
faith, worship the same God as ourselves. But
the wrangles of sectarian zeal no longer concern
us : for we have passed
“ To where beyond these voices there is peace.”
Chronological Syllabus
Relation of Pantheism
to Religious Evolution
Primæval Period.
Admittedly conjectural, but almost nocessarily
assumed. When man first emerged, he must have
been like the baby described by Tennyson, and mixed
himself with the world. In fact it was a pre-animistic
stage. Life was everywhere, but it had not taken the
form of ghosts or portents.
Fetishism, Animism.
Prehistoric; former, the notion of souls able
to detach themselves from bodies, and therefore to sur-
vive death (ancestor worship); latter, a fascination by
strange-looking, weird, or imposing objects enshrining
some sacred potency for good or evil, mostly the latter;
both survive all over the world in various modified forms ;
and are traceable even in the doctrines and ritual of
advanced theological and ceremonial religions.
Polytheism.
The bolief in many personal gods, among whom,
however, one may be a “primus inter pares ” ; a higher
development of Animism ; prevalent in Europe down to
the fourth and even fifth century A.D., and in India down
to the present time.
Henotheism.
The local or national worship of one god to tho
neglect of others, while the existence and local power of
the gods of other tribes is not denied. This seems to
have been the religion of Israel from the beginning of the
94
kingdom as distinguished from the loose federation of
tribes, until the time of the Deuteronomist, i.e. according
to Carpenter and Battersby and the general tendency
of recent authoritative opinion, some time in the seventh
century B.C. Henotheism was also favoured by local
populations in ancient Egypt.
Monotheism.
The worship of one personal God as the only
deity, all others being treated either as devils or as
“nothing in the world” (1 Cor. viii. 4; x. 20). This
began to be the religion of Israel about the time of the
Deuteronomist, and was much promoted by the greater
prophets, the Isaiahs, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But it
does not appear to have been quite definitely and finally
established until after the captivity and the consecration
of the Second Temple. The Monotheism of Mahommed
owed a good deal to Jewish tradition ; but it was and
is even more intensely “unitarian " than the religion of
Israel. Under Christianity the doctrines of the Trinity
and the Incarnation have prepared the way for a larger
conception of Deity and a wider tolerance.
Pantheism.
The idea of the Universe as one living Being, of.
which all creatures and things are "parts and propor-
tions," and therefore in themselves nothing. This re-
ligion of the Universe was really implicit in Fetishism and
Animism, much as a tree is implicit in the seed. In that
sense it is prehistoric and almost coeval with the first
emergence of man. But perhaps the first conscious and
express realization of what was implicit in Animism is to
be found in the Vedic literature, where all gods and men
and animals and things are regarded as modifications of
Brahmă's being. The successive steps in the develop-
ment of Pantheism, parallel with or under the guise of
more partial religions, are traced in the preceding pages.
95
Epochs in the Progress toward Pantheism.
The Upanishads–From about 1000 B.O. and onward, p. 27
ante.
Xenophanes of Elea–570 to 480 B.O., p. 39.
Philo of Alexandria-Contemporary with Christ, p. 48.
Bhagavad GitaDate disputed, but certainly after the Chris-
tian era, p. 29.
Appearance of the Fourth Gospel (called St. John's)-About
125 A.D.
Neoplatonism-Early Christian centuries, p. 50.
The Mysties-Middle Ages, p. 54
Spinoza_1632-1677 A.D., p. 56, etc.
Selected Works bearing on. Pantheism.
Essay on Pantheism, by the Rev. JOHN HUNT, D.D. Isbister
& Co. 1884.
Sacred Books of the East, translated by various Oriental
Scholars and edited by F. Max MÜLLER. (Especially
Vol. I.) Clarendon Press.
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by JOHN DAVIES, M.A. Kegan
Paul & Co. 1893.
Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy, by Sir FREDERICK POLLOOK,
Bart. Second edition. Duckworth & Co. 1899.
Ethic of Benedict de Spinoza, translated by W. HALE WHITE
and AMELIA H. STIRLING. Third edition. Duckworth
& Co.. 1899.
Christian Pantheism (in “ The Mystery of Matter "), by J.
ALLANSON PIOTON. Macmillan & Co. 1873.
The Religion of the Universe, by J. ALLANSON PIOTON. Mac-
millan & Co. 1904.
Ethisch Pantheisme, by P. H. HUGENHOLZ, junr. Amsterdam,
Van Holkema en Warendorf. 1903. (Not translated).
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
96

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