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GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN
EXPERIENCE
GOD AND FREEDOM IN
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
CONTAINING
THE DONNELLAN LECTURES FOR
THE YEAR 1913-14
DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
BY:
CHARLES FI D'ARCY, D.D.
BISHOP OF DOWN
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1915 :
All rights reserved
Striche
PREFACE
PHILOSOPHY is intensely alive at the present moment.
Never at any time in the history of thought were the
materials so abundant, the interest so widely spread,
the concentration of mind upon the noblest of themes
so great. Nor can it be said that any one nation can
claim pre-eminence France, indeed, can point to the
most original intellect; but none of the other great
peoples is behind her in vigour of thought and patience
of research.
The aim of these lectures is to show that the new
investigations which the world owes in the main to
M. Bergson supply the means of a further advance
along the path which had been marked out by the great
succession of the immortals. The Idealism which the
modern world owes to Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, and T. H.
Green, has been subjected to a very thoroughgoing
criticism, but its fundamental principles have not been
destroyed. We have learned that the closed system
which it seemed to create is not the perfect thing that
many of us imagined in the young enthusiasm which
possessed us thirty years ago. At the feet of Lotze,
Bradley, Ward, James, and others, we have learned its
defects, but we have not ceased to discern its intrinsic
value. And we have discovered that its failure to
answer many questions is one of the best things about it.
M. Bergson is, in some respects, the greatest and
most penetrating critic of Idealism. But for that very
reason he is the most valuable. He has taught us to
think of philosophy as, like other branches of know-
292078
PREFACE
ledge, a study with a great future before it, not a
system created by one great mind and to be taken or
left, as it stands, by all who come after.
Every philosophy is implicitly a theology, positive or
negative; and theology is always the interpretation of
on in the terms of some philosophy. To think
about theology is to philosophize. Things would go
better than they do if some of our theologians realized
this more perfectly.
It is the conviction of the writer that we are on the
eve of a new statement in theology, with the help of
that transfiguration of Idealism which, he believes, will
take place when the principles set free by M. Bergson
have had their due influence upon philosophic thought.
These lectures are a humble endeavour to express this
conviction and to show how it is reached. The ideas
which they contain were to some degree foreshadowed,
seventeen years ago, in a former series of Donnellan
Lectures, delivered by the writer and published under
the name of Idealism and Theology.
How dare a man enjoy the sweet and secret blisses
of philosophy while this most hideous of wars is rending
the fairest garments of our civilization, and strewing
earth and ocean with the bodies of our sons and
daughters! Yet it is a good thing to be reminded that,
in every soul, there is a sanctuary where something of
peace can be maintained even in the most awful con-
flict. How else could man live through such a time?
The lectures were delivered before the war broke
out, but in preparing them for the press the writer
found that his subject involved the treatment of themes
which acquired a new and poignant interest from the
events which were taking place as he wrote.
I
August, 1915.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EXPERIENCE -
.
.
. PACE
CHAPTER I
.
CHAPTER II
. .
DEGREES OF REALITY
.
.
.
33
CHAPTER III
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
CHAPTER IV
-
GOD AND THE WORLD
-
-
-
88
CHAPTER V
- -
FREEDOM
-
-
-
-
- 116
CHAPTER VI
-
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
-
-
- 140
CHAPTER VII
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
CHAPTER VIIL
- -
EVIL -
EVIL -
-
-
-
-
- 174
CHAPTER IX
- -
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
-
-
- 198
vii
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
PAGE
FUTURE LIFE
FUTURE LIFE
-
-
-
-
-
- 221
CHAPTER XI
- -
MYSTICISM
-
-
-
-
- 234
2.34
CHAPTER XII
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
- 273
INDEX
-
-
-
-
-
-
- 309
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN
EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER I
EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE in the widest sense is the sum total of all
that human beings have apprehended, and continue to
apprehend, by means of all their faculties. It is
gained by them by all their senses, by their intellectual
powers, and by their active energies of body and mind.
While thus various in the ways by which it is appre-
hended, it is yet always presented as a unity. The
colours and forms which come to us by the eye, the
sounds which gain access by the ear, the resistances,
odours, tastes, which are known through muscular
effort, touch, and the organs of smell and of taste, the
sensations of heat and cold, the feelings of pleasure
and pain, the thoughts which we have about all these
things, our perceptions of the material world, our en-
joyment of beauty, and of the meanings that we
discern in the world of men and things, our social
relationships, our affections, our hopes, our fears, our
memories and anticipations, our beliefs and disbeliefs :
all these, somehow or other, unite to form a whole
which we call our experience.
Further, all partial human experiences unite in a
universal human experience which grows from age to
ME
2
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
age, linking together all individuals, all generations,
all races and communities, all events of which man-
kind has ever been aware, all creeds, policies, under-
takings, sufferings, and attainments.
Experience is the widest, the most comprehensive,
term expressive of all human things, and of the unity
which enables us to think or speak of them as human.
In this widest unity there is, however, a more
limited unity which is characteristic of the human
individual. Every mind which is able to enter into
the universal experience has its own point of view.
For it, all human experience, so far as it is grasped at
all, is involved in a stream of apprehensions which are
its own. My experience is, no doubt, an element in
the universal experience, but the universal experience
can only be shared by me in so far as it enters into
the stream of my experience. My experience includes
all that I sense, feel, think, know, remember, antici-
pate, hope, fear, enjoy, do.
When I consider Experience, and try to understand
it, I must begin with my experience and endeavour to
detect its conditions, its meaning, its implications. This
is, in the main, the task which philosophy has set itself.
The famous question, How is experience possible ? still
stands as the most important expression of the central
problem of philosophy. Yet this question is not con-
cerned only with the experience of the individual.
Beginning inevitably from that starting point, it must
also take account of the wider experience of the human
race, and endeavour to bring all within the scope of its
purview.
It is a very difficult thing to grasp even the ex-
perience of the individual as a whole. The effort to
do so leaves the mind baffled and perplexed. The
EXPERIENCE
reason is that the ordinary processes of knowledge have
not supplied the necessary training. When I set to
work to learn any special science—botany, for example
-I select a portion of my experience and immediately
begin to break it up. I proceed by continual division
and distinction. Here are two ferns. My teacher
tells me they are different species. To my uneducated
eye they look the same. But as I examine them I
begin to perceive minute points in which they differ :
the forms of the pinnæ, the colour of the scales, the
grouping of the spore-cases. After a time, as my eye
becomes more educated, I grasp these distinctions in a
moment, and can tell each species at a glance. Then
I become so bold that I say I know these ferns. As
my study goes on and I get, in the same way, to know
many other species, I begin to understand why it is
that they are grouped together as forming distinct
genera. But in all this grasping of facts, my method is
abstraction that is, the marking off of certain selected
portions of the things that come under my observation
and neglecting the rest. What I attend to is a very
small part indeed of the whole. And this process of
abstraction is employed in all my ordinary efforts to
grasp and understand the world of things which is
presented to me. When I form a general notion, I do
so by dropping out of consideration nearly all the
characteristics of the things I examine. If I desire to
teach a child the nature of a circle, I point to the top
of my inkpot, or the button of my coat, but in my
explanation I must omit all that makes the inkpot to
be an inkpot and all that makes a button to be a button.
The concrete things which yield the abstract idea are
indefinitely more than the idea I gather from them.
Similarly, in arriving at a law of Nature, the man
4
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
nev
of science must attend only to certain selected attri-
butes of the things which that law affects. No law
can take account of the whole being of a physical thing.
Again, the artist can never hope to represent upon his
canvas the infinite complexity of the landscape which
his eyes behold. A great part of his skill is exercised
upon the delicate task of omission. He produces his
wonderful result by seizing the characteristic lines and
colours, and so reproducing them, in relation to one
another, that the total effect creates the impression
of the natural scene.
There is clearly a correspondence between this uni-
versal method of selection or abstraction and the nature
of that faculty of attention which is the mind's way of
grasping all that it knows. When I attend to a thing
I exercise a power which enables me to select it for
observation out of an indefinite number of other things
upon which I could have directed my mind. So
selected, it stands out vividly against a hazy back-
ground of which I am vaguely conscious. It is like one
of those portraits which are shown up against a field
of faintly varied colour which may represent clouds, or
curtains, or indefinite distance, for all the spectator can
tell. Yet the background of attention differs from that
of the portrait in this respect, that I can at will change
the focus of my attention and call up out of the haze
any other of the many objects which are there. But
when I do so, the first object slips back into the haze
more or less completely, in accordance with my purpose
at the moment.
The method of selection or abstraction is, then, a
natural and inevitable outcome of the nature of my
knowing faculties. Only thus could man, being what
he is, gain knowledge of the world about him.
EXPERIENCE
How then can experience as a whole be grasped ?
It seems to be certain that, as a concrete whole, it is
quite beyond our apprehension. All we can do is to
grasp it piecemeal and judge of it as a whole from the
nature of the parts as we grasp them, and from the
nature of the relations in which they stand to each
other.
Yet surely it is clear that this process may be very
misleading. How can a method which always omits
more of present fact than it grasps attain to a real
comprehension of the whole ? Our faculty of attention
is clearly uncertain in its operation, varying continually
in the degree of its concentration and in its power of
apprehension. We are always dimly conscious of a
great deal more than we succeed in grasping distinctly.
There are undercurrents of feeling and of thought
which continue unchecked while we are busily engaged
upon things which seem to occupy all our attention.
Our senses receive far more of the external world than
we are capable of attending to. Colours, sounds,
scents, etc., come to us in infinite variety. They
somehow enter our experience with a fulness which
far surpasses our clear consciousness of them. So it is
that we can turn back upon an experience which is
just past and call up from it particulars which had
escaped at the moment. A sentence spoken to a man
who is absorbed in some occupation fails to carry its
meaning to him, but the sound of the voice recalls
him, and turning back upon it in memory he finds the
words and the meaning he had missed. In certain
abnormal states of mind scenes and sounds come back
with a wealth of detail which was not made clear when
the actual experience took place.
The phenomena of subconsciousness, which have
6
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
been so much considered in recent years, form the
clearest and fullest proof that the whole of experience
is not included in that succession of distinct apprehen-
sions which we gain by the efforts of concentrated
attention. From those undercurrents of thought and
feeling of which we become aware when the strain of
attention is relaxed to those deeper elements which
are revealed by experiment upon hypnotized subjects,
and which, in normal cases, never seem to come to the
surface, there is an immense volume of contents in our
experience which is not revealed by superficial exam-
ination.
We are apt to think of our conscious experience as
consisting of a multitude of separate sensations and
ideas connected together. We have seen how this
impression is created. It is due to the efforts of
concentrated attention by which certain parts of our
total experience are isolated and considered separ-
ately. And it has been confirmed by the language
and modes of thought of many philosophers. Locke,
for example, based his whole system on his doctrine
of Ideas. These ideas are, he says, “The immediate
objects of our minds in thinking.” Starting from this
mode of describing the elements of our conscious
experience, Locke proceeded to a careful analysis of
the contents of our consciousness. There can be no
doubt of the importance of this “new way of ideas,"
as Locke's most distinguished critic in his own day
called it. It was the introduction to all modern
psychology and metaphysics. Yet out of it grew a
view of the nature of experience which is certainly
false. The ideas, whether of sensation or reflection,
to use Locke's own distinction, came to be regarded as
distinct and separate existences present in the mind
MU
EXPERIENCE
and entering into relationship with one another in an
external manner, as books are associated on the shelf
of a library, or as beads are strung together into a
necklace or rosary.
As against such a view as this modern psychology
has exhibited the continuity of consciousness. Our
conscious experience is not a collection of separate
elements. It is a stream, or continuum. The distinct
“ideas ” of which we are aware when, by an effort of
attention, we grasp them, are but points of brighter
illumination. They are sunlit mountain-peaks rising
out of a cloud-covered country.
Imagery of this kind helps to make clear the fact
that the "ideas” are parts of a continuous whole, not
isolated and self-sufficing units. Yet it must be used
with caution. The image of the stream is misleading,
because it suggests a succession of elements related to
one another by mechanical juxtaposition and moving
past a fixed point. We shall see that this conception
is a peculiarly dangerous one. The image of the sun-
lit mountain-peaks is misleading, because it omits the
life and movement which are essential characteristics
of human experience. But the most serious vice of all
such illustrations is that they translate the psychical
into the language of the physical, and thus give it
a factitious clearness which it does not possess. In
the effort to make psychology bright and interesting,
by describing its facts in pictorial language, psycholo-
gists have made themselves responsible for endless
misunderstanding. When the consciousness of the
individual is described as the illuminated portion of a
great ocean of psychical fact, or when the “threshold"
of consciousness is spoken of, the relation of the sub-
conscious to the conscious seems to become exceedingly
Conso
СОe eXC
8
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
11
clear. This clearness is, however, entirely due to the
fact that the psychical elements are represented as
things in space side by side with one another. But
feelings, thoughts, and wishes are not to be reasoned
about as if they were material things. Their nature
is quite different. Instead of making psychology easy
by applying to it the images and conceptions which
belong to the material world, we are really introducing
a fatal confusion. If we desire to get at the truth, we
must make a very resolute effort to free our minds
from the illusions created by the tendency to use
the language of physics. We must consider those
characteristics which are peculiar to the psychical
world, and distinguish it from the physical. When,
therefore, we allow ourselves to speak of the stream of
consciousness, we do well to remind ourselves that it is
not a stream in the physical sense of the term. What
we are endeavouring to express is the fact that the
elements of which we are conscious are not rigid, self-
sufficing mutually exclusive things, but that they form
together a continuous, ever-flowing experience.
At this point we find ourselves presented with a
difficulty of a very fundamental kind. When the
thoughtful man begins to look into his experience as
a whole and endeavour to grasp its nature, he finds
himself in two worlds at the same time. His body
dwells in the external world of material things : the
world which his hands handle and his eyes behold.
And of this world he knows that he can truly say that
he lives in it and belongs to it. To common sense it
is the most real of all things.
On the other hand, when he looks within, he finds
himself in a world of a very different kind. Here are
feelings, thoughts, memories, wishes, determinations,
common sens
EXPERIENCE
re
ens
hopes, fears. These are not material things. The
recollection of the touch of a vanished hand, or of the
sound of a voice that is stilled, is clearly a wholly
different thing from the hand or the voice itself. It
belongs to another order, to the inner world as con-
trasted with the outer.
At first view this inner world seems a very insub-
stantial thing as compared with the outer. The forms
of existence which belong to it are fleeting, evanescent.
They come and go. They are clear or vague. They
are like dissolving views, which flash out distinctly,
then become blurred, and suddenly vanish, to give
place to something else. The things of the external
world are always “there.” The things of the inner
world become more and more difficult to grasp and to
define the more they are examined. It is impossible
to fix them. They elude our pursuit. We follow
them in thought, and in the moment when we seem
em
u
into something else. It is no wonder, therefore, that
the inner world should seem unreal, phantasmal, when
compared with the outer. In the latter, the eyes and
ears and hands of men work with certainty and pre-
cision. In the former, eyes and ears and hands are
useless. We are dependent upon some inner mode of
apprehension which is as difficult to grasp as the things
with which it deals. Here it may be truly said that
the less we think about our faculties the better they
work ; while, in the external world, the exact opposite
is the rule.
Thus, the distinction between the inner and the outer
seems to be absolutely clear. Yet the progress of
thought has revealed a deeper analysis. Is the ex-
ternal world as distinct from the inner as it seems to
10 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
an
en
common sense ? When we examine, to the best of our
ability, the ways in which we grasp material things,
d reasons for doubt. Here is a rose. It has
colour, scent, form, beauty. I grasp the colour by my
sense of sight, the scent by my sense of smell. But
what is colour ? Is it in the rose or in my seeing of
the rose ? Does it not seem that if all eyes were
destroyed there would be no more colour in the rose or
anywhere else? What is the perfume? Here, even
more clearly, it appears that apart from the existence
of creatures able to smell there would be no perfume.
These things—colour and perfume—are surely sensa-
tions, and can exist only in a being capable of sensations.
They are in me rather than in the rose. But the form,
it will be said, is in the rose. It is manifest to two
senses—to sight and touch. And there are other
qualities which seem to be in the thing and not in the
perceiving of the thing—hardness and impenetrability,
for example. Qualities of this kind Locke called pri-
mary, and regarded them as really belonging to the
thing itself apart from the perception of it. But further
examination has shown that these primary qualities are
all constituted by relations. The form of a rose-leaf
is essentially the group of relations among the points
which define the shape of the leaf. The hardness of a
thing is a relation between that thing and my hand or
some other thing which may be pushed against it. But
relation is, as Locke admitted, essentially mental.
Further, we ask, What is the beauty of the rose ? Is
it in the rose itself, or is it in the mind which perceives
the rose? It is surely quite clear that beauty has no
existence apart from a scale of values which is not
material but spiritual. Beauty is classed among what
are now often called the Tertiary qualities of things.
EXPERIENCE
11
inner
Of them it is quite clear that they belong to the inner
world of mind rather than to the outer world of matter.
It is also interesting to consider how this thing
which I perceive, the rose, gets the high degree of
unity which belongs to it. How are the form, colour,
texture, scent, beauty, put together so as to form, or
belong to, one thing, the rose ? I see the form, colour,
and texture with my eyes, I feel the form and texture
with my sense of touch, I apprehend the scent by
means of my sense of smell, I discern the beauty by
the instinctive application of a scale of spiritual values
of which I am somehow aware. But how are all these
elements united as the attributes of one thing within
my knowledge? It may be said that this unification
takes place because the rose, a thing of a certain form
and colour, occupies a definite position in space and
in relation to other objects in space, and all the
attributes are referred to this same position. No one
will deny this. Spatial things must be defined in
relation to one another. But how is the space known
through the eye identified with the space known by
means of the hand and with the space through which
the perfume of the rose is carried to me by the breeze?
There is nothing in the rose which can co-ordinate all
these elements. The co-ordinating principle can only
be found in the self which apprehends all and unites
these manifold experiences in one experience, the rose.
These are the familiar arguments upon which Ideal-
ism bases its proof that the world of material things is
really constituted by the knowing mind in its activity
of perception. We are not now concerned with the
sufficiency of this proof. Our present purpose is
merely to show that the hard-and-fast line which we
draw between the inner world of feelings, thoughts,
12 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
wishes, etc., and the outer world of material things, is
illusory. When we examine the outer world from the
point of view of our apprehension of it-we are not
now inquiring into its real nature, or its nature apart
from our knowing—we find that every element of it,
as we grasp it, is also an element in that stream of
conscious experience which we have been considering:
All that we apprehend of the outer world belongs to,
and is part of, the continuum of our mental life.
The distinction between the outer and the inner
seems to be most accurately defined in the following
way: Some of our apprehensions carry with them, as
part of themselves, the apprehension of space, others
do not. Those which involve space, or spatial rela-
tions, belong to the outer world: those which do not in-
volve spatial relations belong to the inner world. Or
perhaps it would be more accurate to express it thus :
Those apprehensions which must be referred to a definite
position in space belong to the outer world; those which
are not so referred, to the inner. The memory of a past
scene involves spatial apprehension, but it is not, here
and now, referred to a definite position in space. Hence
we think of it as belonging to the inner world.
From all this it follows that the whole of our experi-
ence, including all that we apprehend of the outer
world, as well as the inner world of thoughts, feelings,
wishes, etc., constitutes a continuous mental life, con-
scious, subconscious, and perhaps superconscious.
It is a commonplace of popular thought all the
world over that metaphysical study is a delusive and
utterly hopeless pursuit. Some of the greatest minds,
it is urged, have been grappling with the problems of
metaphysics since the beginning of human thought,
and have achieved nothing certain or permanent.
EXPERIENCE
13
Witness the endless disagreements of the philosophers,
and their unceasing disputes. After thousands of
years of discussion we find the mind of the twentieth
century, so clear in matters of science, in utter confu-
sion on these questions. Is there a single position, it
may be asked, in regard to which all schools of thought
are in practical agreement? Is there a single meta-
physical proposition which will be even widely assented
to ? Is there any ground which all modern philoso-
phers hold in common?
With but little hesitation I venture to give an
affirmative answer to these questions. Underlying all
modern reasonings on metaphysics will be found the
assumption that there is one fact which must be
accepted as the foundation of all constructive thought
—the living, moving continuum of experience. This we
have and hold. Here is a realm which is certainly in
our possession. The varying philosophies are efforts to
explain and understand it. They may all be false.
But the fact itself is undeniable. Here it is. If it be
not real, there can be no such thing as reality. If it
be an illusion, then all is illusion : there is no reality
anywhere.
In a sense, this truth has always been admitted.
Since Kant's time, it has been more clearly seen and
more consciously regarded as the basis of metaphysical
inquiry. The question, How is experience possible ? is
the recognized starting-point of modern philosophy.
But philosophers have failed to realize the importance
of the continuity of experience. Almost always they
have begun their investigations by breaking it up.
They have torn up the living thing and examined the
fragments in the hope of finding that life which they
had, with their own hands, destroyed. The result is
Y
14 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
that metaphysics has become a wrangling about a
multitude of artificially-created difficulties. The philo-
sophers contrive snares, and are themselves caught.
We have to realize, then, that experience is a living
whole : concrete, continuous, organic, and ever-chang-
ing. The word “organic” is perhaps misleading, for,
as the living organism is higher in the scale of being
than a lump of unorganized matter, so is the ex-
perience of a conscious person higher than a living
organism. None of the descriptive terms that we
apply to experience can be good enough, for all such
terms are products of that abstracting process which
we have considered, and that process can never grasp
experience as a whole.
Here, then, is the fact from which we start: expe-
rience as a concrete whole. We possess it, we experi-
ence it; we know, feel, desire, will it. All these modes
of expression, it may be admitted, tend to break up its
totality. Yet it is clear that in experience we detect
all these things and much more. The point for us to
realize is that all are united in our living concrete
experience in a whole which is for us a certain reality.
And not only is it a certain reality : it is also the
fundamental given reality on which all our considera-
tion of reality must be based. If this experience of
ours be a dream, then it is the dream which makes all
other dreams possible.
We have referred to the question with which modern
philosophy begins : How is experience possible? It
is worth considering whether it might not be even
better to begin by asking the question : Experience,
as a concrete continuous reality, being given, how is
anything else possible ?
Bergson, in a remarkable passage, criticizes Herbert
EXPERIENCE
15
Spencer's method of working out a doctrine of evolu-
tion. “The usual device,” he writes, “of the Spencerian
method consists in reconstructing evolution with frag-
ments of the evolved. If I paste a picture on a card
and then cut up the card into bits, I can reproduce the
picture by rightly grouping again the small pieces.”
Such is Spencer's method. “He takes reality in its
present form; he breaks it to pieces ; he scatters it in
fragments which he throws to the winds; then he
'integrates' these fragments and dissipates their
movement. Having imitated the whole by a work of
mosaic, he imagines he has retraced the design of it,
and made the genesis." *
The profound truth of this criticism will be apparent
CU
might be said of the method of most metaphysicians
in their treatment of experience. Having to explain
how experience is possible, they tear out of the con-
crete living continuum certain elements, and then pro-
ceed to reconstruct the whole, in all the wonder of its
life and movement, by putting together these dead
fragments. If they are by predilection materialists,
they take our perceptions of the material world, work
back from them to certain supposed elements, and then
are surprised to find that the world constructed out of
these elements has no place for the living perception
which was the beginning of all their efforts : conscious
experience has to be described as an epiphenomenon.
they take certain abstract ideas or concepts, and with
them endeavour to reconstruct the world as known to
us in experience. No wonder that the living reality
* Bergson, Creative Evolution, English translation by Mitchell,
chap. iv., p. 385.
16 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
has disappeared, and that the final result is, to repeat
a historic phrase, “a ballet of bloodless categories.”
It must always be true that if any one element or
group of elements is taken from the whole of experience
and the attempt made to build up a universe with the
materials so obtained, the result is inevitably poorer,
less real, than experience itself.
I have ventured to describe our conscious experience
as concrete. It is necessary to point out that this term
indicates the permanent and essential nature of our
conscious experience. It does not mean that a number
of elements have been brought together and compacted
so as to form a concrete result. While it is true that
experience is constantly growing by the incorporation
of new elements, it is also true that, in relation to any
element new or old, experience is the concrete whole.
This ought to be quite clear from the mere fact that
any distinct particular object of knowledge is gained
by that isolating and abstracting operation of attention
which has been already described. Every such object
is grasped by being defined as a distinct particular
thing in relation to an enveloping whole of which I am
not so clearly conscious, but which is yet within my
experience. I am aware of a vague something. I con-
centrate attention upon it. It is, for example, a tree,
a Scotch fir, with its red stem and glaucous foliage,
clearly visible and apprehended as what it is, in con-
trast to a vaguely defined whole which I call a wood,
and which is itself part of a still more vaguely appre-
hended landscape. Only by shifting the focus of atten-
tion do I grasp the scene as a whole. Yet when so
grasped a further examination will show that the whole
landscape is itself involved in the vaster whole of my
total experience. This is an easy illustration.
EXPERIENCE
17
nuel
Let us take an example of a different kind. I look
within, as we say, and am aware of a wish, a desire.
It is an impulse towards some object or activity. If,
in a practical way, I simply direct attention towards
this object or activity, I gain something of the clear-
ness of definition which belongs to the Scotch fir, though
still in relation to a larger whole of experience. But
if I try to define the wish as a particular element in
my mental life I find myself involved in great diffi-
culties. To make the wish stand out clearly as a dis-
tinct object for examination is impossible. Is it in
itself, as an inner mental possession, a feeling or an
idea or a thought? The psychologist will say it is
none of these. Conation is a distinct department of
the inner life. A wish is essentially an impulse towards
an object or activity. But I can truly say of it, I feel
a strong wish to go to such a place, or to visit such a
friend. If I feel it, surely it is a feeling. Or I can
rightly say, I think my wish, I reflect upon it, and
therefore must regard it as a thought.
The more we try to disentangle the contents of our
inner mental life, the more difficult it becomes to isolate
any one element and regard it as having a separate
identity of its own. This truth can be exhibited in a
multitude of ways. In fact, however we approach the
analysis of our mental possessions, we find ourselves
confronted with the same difficulty. It is only the
delusive definiteness of names and the seeming clear-
ness of spatial illustrations which have disguised the
truth and made psychical distinctions appear to be well
defined and permanent.
We are accustomed, for example, to think of our-
selves as possessing many distinct faculties. Psychology
occupies itself a good deal with the description of these.
2
18 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
The three principal are said to be feeling, knowledge,
will or conation. Such classification is no doubt neces-
sary, and the form now adopted is probably the best,
as it has resulted from long and patient study. Yet,
when these departments of mental activity are named
and described, we tend to regard them as separate
agencies which are somehow tied up together. Certain
old - fashioned psychologists surrendered themselves
completely to this tendency, and the divisions so
created cut down deep into the heart of great phil-
osophies. But, in truth, these faculties cannot be thus
separated. They are really varying aspects of an active
life which is essentially one. They cannot be dis-
entangled.
Consider those principal faculties which have just
been named — feeling, knowledge, will. In every
exercise of conscious activity these three are involved,
and each presupposes the others. Will is always
directed towards some object. Hence it must involve
an idea of the object, which is an exercise of knowledge,
and that idea must excite feeling, or the object could
not be regarded as desirable. Again, in an act of know-
ledge there is always attention, and attention, as is now
universally admitted by psychologists, is an act of will.
Also the thing attended to must, to some degree, appeal
to feeling, or it could not excite attention. Further,
feeling, in the form in which it enters into conscious
experience, demands attention, and attention includes
both knowledge and will. The truth is that the activity
of the conscious subject of experience is one, and the
division of this unitary activity into various faculties,
however inevitable and necessary, is a dismemberment
of the living reality, and, for the purposes of philosophy,
perplexing and misleading.
I
EXPERIENCE
19
If we turn from the activity of conscious experience
to its contents in the specific sense of the term—that
is, to the psychical materials with which it deals—we
find an exactly similar unity of elements apparently
diverse. Kant separated sensibility from understand-
ing in a very definite way. But, as a matter of fact,
they are inseparable as they occur in our conscious
experience. A sensation altogether out of relation to
other elements of experience would be an impossible
object of consciousness. And a relation is for us, as
we grasp it, essentially thought. In the unity of our
mental life, all the things which we distinguish as
various elements, sensations, perceptions of the ex-
ternal world, feelings pleasurable and painful, relations,
thoughts, reflections, memories, meanings, are blended
in a concrete whole, and only by a process of isolation
and abstraction can any element be torn out of its
context and presented to the mind as a distinct object.
These considerations lead to another. We have
distinguished the activity of the mind from the con-
tents with which that activity deals. The former we
have seen to be a unitary activity, which may be
analyzed into certain elements, feeling, thought, will ;
but which, in its living reality, is not a combination of
three separable faculties, but one undivided life. The
latter, the contents of the mind, we have also found to
be a living concrete whole which can only be broken
up into elements by a process which destroys its
reality.
We must now go a step further and point out that
the distinction between the mental activity and the
mental contents is itself a breaking up of the one life.
It is impossible to draw any definite and permanent
distinction between sensing and sensation, between
20 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
feeling and felt, between thinking and thought, or
even between the act of willing and the thing willed.
Consider the last, as it is that which is most open to
question. A watchmaker wills to make a watch. It
may appear that the watch, as a permanent result in
the material world, is quite distinct from his act of
will. But a deeper examination will show that what
he wills is, not the watch, but the making of the
watch. And the making of the watch is, on its men-
tal side, the whole mental activity of the man directed
to a certain end. That end, on the material side, has
indeed a permanent material result; but that material
result itself has no existence for the man except as it
enters into that material order which is part of the
man's experience.
Kant, indeed, distinguished the form given by the
mind from the matter given to the mind. Thus, for
him, space is a form of sensibility, which the mind in
the act of sensing gives to the matter, the sensation,
which the mind receives. But it was this very dis-
tinction which led to his doctrine of the thing-in-itself,
which proved the weakest point in his system. He
involved himself in difficulty just because he en-
deavoured to divide the living whole of experience
into separate elements.
We have endeavoured to exhibit the concreteness
of experience by showing that the application to it of
the method of abstraction, however necessary it may
be for other purposes, always involves the letting slip
of the living reality. In this respect, experience is
like a living organism : cut it up and the life vanishes.
We cannot get at the nature of the whole by examina-
tion of any of the dismembered parts. It is clear that
the word “concreteness” does not quite express this
1
12m
EXPERIENCE
truth. How could it, for it is a word derived from
the nature of certain material things ? What we
have now attained is the truth that what we call our
experience, the reality which our minds certify to us
as the one indisputable fact, is a whole of such a kind
that the effort to break it up by abstraction takes us
further away from its true nature rather than nearer
to it. All the parts and elements so obtained are
indeed contained in it. It includes them all; yet it is,
in some way, more than their combination. In its full
being it is sui generis.
It is possible to strike out another, and, as it seems,
a more brightly illuminated path towards the appre-
hension of this truth. The sign-post which directs us
will be found in certain investigations by M. Bergson.
Things in space stand apart from one another
They are mutually exclusive. Impenetrability is an
essential quality of material things. “Two bodies
cannot occupy the same space at the same time.” It
find it necessary to suppose spaces intervening between
the particles of the latter which can be occupied by
the particles of the former. If a sword penetrates a
human body, it must thrust aside the particles of the
flesh to make a space for itself. But this characteris-
tic does not apply to mental elements coexisting in
the conscious experience. They interpenetrate one
another. Those who desire to see this truth worked
out at length should consult M. Bergson's Essai sur
les Données, which has been translated under the title
of Time and Free Will. Here it is sufficient to exhibit
the fact with the help of one or two illustrations. A
musical harmony is not merely a number of notes in
relation to one another. It is more. In it, the
22 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
various elements of sound permeate one another so as
to produce a whole which has a character of its own.
A great orchestra moving in perfect time gives a result
which is one, and at the same time contains within it
a multitude of perfectly blended elements. They all
interpenetrate, and so create a new thing*
An illustration of another sort will, I think, make
the fact clearer. The musical illustration is open to
misunderstanding because the elements are all of the
а
remarkable way the persistence of a definitely con-
ceived purpose which has taken shape in an act of
will. When a man has deliberately set himself in a
given direction, that act of determination will, often
without further conscious consideration, carry him
through an immense variety of experiences not directly
connected with it, and will shape his action whenever
suitable circumstances arise. A simple instance of the
commonest kind will explain. A man decides to walk
to a certain place. He sets out on his journey with
such preparations as his purpose and habits may
demand. He looks at the sky, speculates as to the
weather, thinks of a hundred topics which happen to
interest him at the time or are suggested by things he
observes, meets a friend, talks of whatever that friend's
presence suggests, notices something which puzzles
him, guesses at its meaning ; but never for one moment
D
Every step of the way is controlled by it. It cannot
be even described as subconscious, for all the way,
and in every change of experience, the man is aware
of it, though he may never deliberately present it to
* Dean Ovenden, in the Hibbert Journal of April, 1912, gave some
fine illustrations of this from the organ.
1
LULU
EXPERIENCE
himself for consideration. The truth is that this
guiding purpose permeates all the other myriad ele-
ments in his consciousness without either losing its
identity or altering theirs.
of consciousness,” and as " a series of feelings." * It
is impossible to exaggerate the greatness of the mis-
conception represented by such expressions. The
contents of our conscious experience do not form a
thread or series. They are not linked together, one
after another, in a succession of separate elements.
They are not even to be compared to a continuous
line running through a surrounding space. These
spatial images are all misleading, because they describe
psychical things by means of that very quality of
the material world which is specially alien to them.
They are like efforts to describe white as a sort of
black, or the colour blue as a particular variety of
smell. They are, indeed, as will appear later on, much
more impossible than such efforts as these ; for colours
and smells all belong to the same sort or degree of
reality. The very use of the word “contents" is mis-
leading. It suggests that mental stores are capable of
being packed away in cellars, like wines ; that spiritual
wealth is like material wealth, capable of accumulation
by mere addition of units or items. Physiology has
given a superficial plausibility to this way of thinking
by its descriptions of the nature and complication of
the brain. We have acquired a tendency to identify
every mental element with some cell or part of the
grey matter of that organic structure. Yet, whatever
be the relation of mind to brain, it is surely clear that
feelings, thoughts, desires, in their own intrinsic nature,
* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. xii.
24
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Se
cannot be identified with nervous matter. It was the
obviousness of this truth that led to the description
of consciousness as an epiphenomenon. It is for this
reason that "psycho-physical parallelism,” as it is
termed, has been so widely accepted. It seems the
clearest and simplest solution of the complication of
material structure on the one hand, and of psychical
elements on the other, to suppose that between
psychics and physics there is a perfect parallelism or
correspondence, as there is between the convex and
concave sides of a curve. But here, again, I think it
will be found that spatial images mislead. That,
corresponding to the extraordinary complication of
physical elements in the brain, there must be a multi-
tude of psychical elements at least equally complex,
seems to be probable ; but the manner of the latter
complication is such that it cannot be said to be
parallel to the former. The physical complex is one
of juxtaposition in space, the psychical complex is one
of interpenetration of elements. The latter is certainly
diverse in kind from the former-so diverse that the
word “parallel” seems wholly inapplicable to the re-
lation between them. As will appear, that relation is
more truly described as that between a higher and
lower reality.
It is not within the scope of our present endeavour
to investigate the relation of mind and brain. That is
à subject which demands much knowledge of physi-
ology, as well as of psychology. It is highly technical,
and is being dealt with by authorities who possess the
requisite equipment. It does not seem, however, that
their labours have so far led to any very certain
results. On the whole, the conception of some kind of
parallelism between the physical and the psychical,
EXPERIENCE
25
between brain and mind, seems to prevail most widely.
Yet it must be admitted that this conception is not a
scientific doctrine deduced in scientific fashion from the
data on both sides. It is rather a metaphysical pis
aller attained by a final venture of faith, and rendered
attractive by its apparent simplicity. Readers of
Professor McDougall's Body and Mind will be aware
how much there is to be said against it on scientific
grounds, and how signally it fails, when considered in
relation to whole regions of psychical fact, to bring the
two realms of mind and brain into harmonious corre-
spondence.
When the principle of the interpenetration of
psychical elements is admitted, a very clear distinction
is drawn between the two realms. We have indeed
attained a definition of no small importance. The
world of matter is a world in which the elements are
side by side in space : the world of mind is a world in
which the elements interpenetrate.
The sweep of this distinction is so wide that it can
hardly be grasped at first. It alters inevitably our
consideration of all the facts revealed by psychology.
Its effect upon our understanding of the subconscious,
for example, is specially interesting. In the endeavour
to describe this part of our mental possessions, material
imagery has been very freely employed. The mind
has been compared to layers, or strata, of varying
material ; to a bottle; to a cellar containing stores of
many kinds; to an iceberg with the larger portion of
its mass submerged, and liable to sudden overturnings
as its equilibrium is altered. The image of the thresh-
old has become part of the recognized terminology of
psychology. That part of our mentality of which we
are fully conscious, or can be fully conscious at will,
711
26
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
is said to be above the threshold: that part which
comes to our knowledge only in unusual or abnormal
conditions, or which is detected by others by means of
experiment, is said to be below the threshold. It is
undoubtedly a very effective mode of description, but
it has always been a cause of serious difficulty, and
was often felt to be hardly distinguishable from a
materialistic view of the nature of mind.
What is to be thought of the mode of existence of
these psychic “stores”? The spiritual or mental is
given to us as that which exists for consciousness. In
the language of the metaphysics of a former period, it
exists as “idea," as contrasted with that which exists
as matter. But it is the peculiarity of the sub-
conscious that it does not, or need not, attain to
consciousness at all; and yet it exists as a real and
effective part of our mentality. Psychology has never
faced this difficulty with any seriousness or resolution.
Yet it is a question of peculiar urgency, if there is to
be any consistency in our thoughts. Let us consider the
principle of interpenetration in relation to this problem.
Here it would seem to be specially illuminating.
We have seen that a purpose which has been con-
sciously formed has the power to permeate a long and
varied experience. It would be equally easy to show
that a consciously formed purpose may become sub-
conscious and still permeate experience. The fact that
it does so permeate experience appears from the fact
that when circumstances to which it is relative occur,
it controls conduct. Skill and dexterity of every kind
depend upon this fact. The speaker, the writer, the
pianist, or the motorist, sets out to do a piece of work.
One large conscious purpose dominates the whole : but
almost all the subordinate details are accomplished by
EXPERIENCE
YIT
means of habits involving purposes which were con-
sciously conceived when the man learned his skill, but
which have, with practice, become subconscious and
nearly automatic. Yet, if any hitch occurs, if any
unusual event or circumstance breaks the even flow of
habitual action, the subconscious purpose at once be-
comes conscious, in order to bring about some special
adjustment. Here is clear proof that a purpose, when
it ceases to be consciously conceived, does not neces-
sarily cease to permeate the whole experience of the
subject.
This conclusion is verified by the results of experi-
ments on hypnotized subjects. In the hypnotic trance
purposes can be received by suggestion and become
incorporated in the mental life, and, while never rising
into the normal consciousness, can, in appropriate cir-
cumstances, control conduct. One of the most familiar
illustrations of this truth is that in which the subject
is commanded to perform some action at a given time.
It may be some such action as going to a particular
bookshelf and taking down a particular. volume. Before
the time comes, the subject is restored to his normal
condition. Wholly unconscious of what has happened
during his trance, when the time comes, the subject
goes to the shelf and takes down the volume as com-
manded. Questioned as to why he does so, he gives
some reason which has no connection with his actual
ney
1
him, while operating decisively in his conduct, has
never attained to waking consciousness. Such illustra-
tions could be multiplied indefinitely.
It is surely clear from all these considerations that
the psychical continuum which constitutes our experi-
ence, and which is characterized by the interpenetration
28 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
/
/
of a great variety of elements which are, or can be,
present to consciousness, is also permeated by multi-
tudes of other elements which are not consciously pre-
sented, and perhaps cannot be disentangled by any
effort of will. And these latter are just as really in-
corporated in the total mental life as the former.
We must gather from these considerations that the
subconscious is a name for those psychical elements
which, permeating the whole, are yet not consciously
presented, and are in many cases incapable of being
presented to consciousness at the summons of the
normal will.
When these facts are grasped, the amazing concrete-
ness of the psychical continuum of experience becomes
evident. The concreteness of the physical world is as
nothing in comparison. It cannot be, because there
the various elements stand apart, impenetrable. In
the psychical world they enter into one another in a
manner which finds no parallel elsewhere. This is, in-.
deed, their peculiar characteristic. The result must be
a complexity of the most extraordinary kind. It is a
complexity which cannot be described as a structure,
for it is not mechanical in its nature. It is said that
the smallest living organism is a more elaborate struc-
ture than a great Atlantic liner, an Olympic or Titanic.
But in the psychical experience we have a combination
of elements far more wonderful, and probably far more
multiplex in the number and variety of the elements
which go to form the living whole. Here is a unity of
a far higher and more complete nature; for it is clear
that combination by interpenetration must create a
higher degree of concreteness than combination by
arrangement of parts in space.
It is important to consider the effect upon our con-
e
V
EXPERIENCE
29
TWIN
n
scious life of this blending of the various elements.
Somehow or other our consciousness must contain or.
express this infinite variety. So far as we can see,
each element, when it attains distinctness, must do so
in consciousness. It may be, indeed, that there are forms
of consciousness—or shall we say psychosis ?—which are
not, perhaps cannot be, presented by means of the full
effort of conscious attention. But, even if this be so, all
the facts of which we are aware unite to prove that in
our consciousness we find the nature and essential char-
acteristics of psychic reality.
If what has been said above be correct, we must
conclude that our consciousness, in addition to those
elements of which we are distinctly aware, contains an
indefinite multitude of other elements which are either
latent or not obviously part of the experience of which
we are conscious, but which yet have some share in it
or influence upon it. How can such hidden elements
be detected, or how can we, in our actual conscious
experience, find evidence of their existence ?
This is a very interesting question. It opens up a
multitude of avenues for reflection. It suggests the
explanation of many facts in our commonest experi-
ences. We are all aware of unknown and unplumbed
depths to use a spatial metaphor-lying below our
immediate consciousness. We have the feeling that
there is an indefinite "more" always somehow present.
It is not apprehended by us, nevertheless it is in some
close relation to that which is apprehended. We feel
and talk of “the mysterious depths of personality.”
We often endeavour to explore these depths. We look
“ within” and question ourselves. We ask, Why did
I act in such a way? An immediate and clearly dis-
tinguishable motive is perhaps at once apparent. But
30 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
we soon become aware that this motive is not the full
explanation. There is much more involved. As we
try to examine this “more,” we are astonished at what
we describe as our “mixed motives.” When we en-
deavour to dissolve the mixture into its component
elements we become more and more puzzled. To vary
the image, we are like a man trying to disentangle a
complicated knot. Everywhere we come upon strands
which pass away into convolutions that are past our
power to unravel.
But, indeed, the facts are not as clear as these
material images lead us to imagine. We have no
language to describe the mystery of facts partially
revealed and partially concealed which our inner con-
sciousness contains. While attention is directed upon
the outer world, some action to be performed or some-
rev
on-
easy. But the psychic world involved in our conscious-
ness possesses a complication which we feel but cannot
express. As Bergson is fond of pointing out, the con-
cepts of our understanding were framed for the work
of the outer world : they are not fitted for the uses of
the inner.
We have taken the motive as an illustration ; but
any other element would serve equally well. There is
innumerable links with multitudes of elements which
ultimately pass away into the inapprehensible under-
world of psychical fact. The most remarkable illustra-
tion of all is perhaps to be found when an effort is made
to grasp a concrete material thing in its relation to the
whole of experience. In relation to the material world
about it such a thing stands out clearly defined. Here
physical science can deal with it in a marvellously pre-
lence car
la ma
EXPERIENCE
31
cise way. But when we endeavour to define it as an
element in our conscious experience as a whole, all this
preciseness vanishes. It becomes a synthesis of sensa-
tions, thoughts, memories, and even of purposes. To
pursue this investigation now would lead us too far. It
is sufficient to say that here we approach the problem
with which all idealist philosophies deal. The whole
history of philosophy might be regarded as a demon-
stration of its supreme difficulty.
According to the usual classification, the main ele-
ments of our conscious experience are, as we have seen,
three : feeling, thought, and will. It may be useful to
point out that, in connection with all three, we can
show that there is a hidden world of mental reality
which, though not distinct, colours every element in
consciousness. Psychologists now lay stress on what
is termed feeling-tone as distinct from definite feelings,
whether pleasurable or painful. It is a common ex-
perience that an undertone of feeling affects all experi-
ences, no matter how varied and changeful. In extreme
cases this fact becomes exceedingly obvious, as when
there is an undertone of sadness beneath a superficial
gaiety, or an undertone of gladness beneath a super-
ficial solemnity. It is always true that a feeling-tone
of some quality exists as a pervasive influence. Now,
surely it is reasonable to suppose that this feeling-tone
is the joint manifestation of all the subconscious feel-
ings. Similarly there are intellectual tendencies which
arise from our subconscious thoughts, and there is
character, which is the net result of all our dispositions
and acts of will. And just as feeling, thought, and will
are but different sides of one reality, so feeling-tone,
intellectual tendency, and character are but various
aspects of the main undercurrent of our mental life. If
Q11
32 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
this be true, these so-called subconscious elements have
certainly their place in our conscious experience, though
as distinct elements they are not apprehended.
The more fully these various considerations are
examined, the more clearly will it be seen that our
conscious experience is a reality which possesses a com-
plexity of the most subtle and extraordinary kind.
As compared with physical structures, or even living
organisms, its combination of the many in the one is
of an essentially higher type. The unity which be-
longs to it must be of a far more complete character,
for a unity characterized by interpenetration of parts
must be far more intimate in its nature than a unity
which depends upon the arrangements of parts in
space.
CHAPTER II
DEGREES OF REALITY
La
Ce
WE have made an effort to gain some knowledge of
the nature of the conscious experience of an individual
human being. We have tried to grasp this experience
as a whole, and have found that, though such an
apprehension is beyond our powers, on account of the
abstracting character of the faculty by which we gain
our knowledge, yet it is possible to arrive at certain
results. These may be summed up in the statement
that the unity of experience is constituted by the
interpenetration of the great multitude of elements
which belong to it, and is therefore a unity of higher
type, more complex and more concrete, and also more
complete, than any other unity of which we are aware.
Let us now turn round and consider the things that
we know and deal with, and which we grasp as things
within our experience.
It is commonly said that there are in experience
always two opposing and contrasted elements—the
subject and the object. I, the thinker, am the subject,
and present to my consciousness is some object of
which I am conscious. Whatever be the full meaning
of this distinction, its necessity and inevitableness
cannot be denied.
Yet it is difficult to draw a definite line and say,
33
34 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Here the subject ends, and there the object begins.
We can indeed point to some elements and say they
appear to be distinctively subjective, and to others and
say they are objective. My feelings, for example,
seem to belong to myself. That tree is an object apart
from me. The former are subjective, the latter is
objective. Yet I can consider my feelings, so making
see
tree as a group of sensations and relations, thus re
e set
1
truly said that there is no element of my subjective
life of which I am aware which cannot be turned into
an object, and there is no part of the objective world,
so far as I apprehend it, which cannot be reduced to
subjective elements. It is on this latter truth that
the unanswerable arguments of Berkeleyan idealism
depend.
It would therefore seem to be wiser to say that the
distinction between subject and object is really a dis-
tinction of points of view. We shall see reason to
believe that this statement is not quite adequate. For
the present it must serve.
When we direct our attention to those elements in
our experience which are, or seem to be, distinctively
objective, abstracting from our feelings and intro-
spective reflections, we find ourselves face to face with
the world of things in space. Thus envisaged, it is a
world vast and wonderful in the size and variety of its
contents. It is also an intensely interesting world, for
we are closely connected with it by means of our
bodily senses and other organs of apprehension. We
have to deal with it continually. So attractive is
it that to the mind unaccustomed to the difficult
and painful attitude of introspection it appears the
DEGREES OF REALITY
one certain reality. And all the various forms of
mechanical skill by which our bodily organs learn to
adjust themselves to the things of the physical world,
and the sciences which have arisen out of these
mechanical adjustments, conspire together to confirm
this impression. While attention is fastened upon
these things the subjective side of experience drops
out of consideration, and the physical world in all its
splendour, and with its marvellous resources, assumes
the guise of the universe. It seems to be the all-
inclusive totality. Infinite in space and time, endless
in variety of form and contents, containing as a part of
itself the bodily organism by which we deal with it,
its overwhelming greatness seems to justify its claim
to be incontestably the Whole.
Yet this it cannot be, because we get to it, and
grasp it as a whole, by a process of abstraction. That
is, the physical world assumes in our experience its
aspect of independent reality only when we leave out
certain elements of experience. Experience as we
possess it is a fuller, richer thing than the material
world, as we grasp it.
This agrees perfectly with the result of our investi-
gation of the nature of experience as a whole. We
saw that it possessed a unity higher in kind than the
unity of any material or organic body. We now see
that we get at the material world by an abstraction
which drops out one side of the reality given in ex-
perience. By that abstraction we fall from a realm of
higher unity to a realm of lower unity.
In the higher realm all elements interpenetrate one
another and so form the unity which belongs to that
realm. In the lower realm the elements are side by side
in space, impenetrable in relation to one another, yet
30. In
ex.
36 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
aus.
ILU
as related spatially forming one universe. This world
of things in space is certainly concrete, but the mode
of its concreteness is essentially lower in kind than
that which belongs to the world of experience regarded
in its fulness.
Here, then, are two quite distinct and strongly con-
contrasted degrees of reality. The higher is that
which characterizes our experience in its fulness, in-
cluding all elements subjective and objective. The
lower, attained by abstraction from the subjective, and
distinguished by the fact that in it the various
elements stand in spatial relations to one another, is
that which characterizes a certain partial apprehension
of our experience.
The former and higher degree of reality is that in
which we live and move and have our being. The
latter and lower degree corresponds to what we
describe as the material side of life.
Further, let it be noted that it is the nature of the
higher degree to take up wholly into itself the lower
and all that it contains. For, as we have seen, there
is no element in the lower which is not, from the sub-
jective point of view, an element in the totality of our
conscious experience. But the process cannot be
reversed. The subjective side cannot be absorbed in
the material world. By no possibility can a feeling,
or thought, or wish be regarded as a thing occupying
a definite position in space, and connected by spatial
relations with tables and chairs.
While thus exhibiting the relation between the
higher reality of conscious experience and the lower
reality of the material world, it is important to note
that we are not making any statement as to the way
in which the material world comes into being. It is
ve
CO
DEGREES OF REALITY
not intended that we should regard the abstraction
by which we are enabled to grasp the material world
as the process by which that world is created. Nor is
it intended to preclude other processes which are pos-
sibly at work in our apprehension of the material
world.
There are idealist philosophers who regard the
objects which we apprehend as shaped by the syn-
thetic activity of the mind. On this doctrine we
desire to pronounce no judgment here. The abstract-
ing process, which drops out the subjective element,
may very well be combined with a synthetic process
by which the manifold of sense is formed into an
intelligible world. If there is any truth in what was
said above, it is characteristic of our conscious experi-
ence that it contains a multitude of interpenetrating
elements and processes. Let that be ever borne in
mind. The abstracting process is certainly at work.
It is characteristic and universal in all mental opera-
tions by which we attain to definite apprehensions. It
is involved, as we have seen, in the very nature of
attention. But it does not follow from this that it is
the only process in operation. To regard it as such
would be the height of absurdity. It would, as we
have just seen, be contrary to what we know of the
essential nature of all mental process. We have
fastened attention on the abstracting process because
thus we gain insight into the truth that within our
conscious experience there may be detected degrees of
reality.
In our investigation of this subject we do not stop
here. We speak of physical science as dealing with
the material world. But, when we reflect upon the
nature of science, we shall see that the material world
38 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
with which it deals is not that world of lower reality
which we have just considered. It is something lower
still.
I
The material world of things in space, though much
simpler and less concrete than the world of conscious
experience, is yet a world rich in colour, sound, and
scent, and rioting in most prodigal variety. It is far
too complex for scientific investigation. The simple
mind of the child of Nature can revel in it as a mere
experience. The artist and the poet can enjoy its
wealth of detail and its appeal to the imagination.
But the scientific mind, which seeks to understand, is
helpless before it. It is too full for human intelligence
to grasp it. Hence a further simplification is necessary.
We referred above to the distinction between the
primary and secondary qualities of matter. The
former, in Locke's words, are those which “the mind
finds inseparable from every particle of matter," such
qualities as “solidity, extension, figure, mobility.” The
latter are those which, according to Locke, are “nothing
in the bodies themselves but powers to produce various
sensations in us.” Such are colours, sounds, smells,
tastes, etc. There is good reason to dispute Locke's
account of this distinction. But we cannot now pause
to consider it. It is sufficient to point out that, if
Locke's account is correct, then the world of material
things, apart from our knowing of it, is that most
unimaginable thing, a world possessing solidity and
extension, but utterly devoid of colour, sound, and all
other sensible elements.
The true meaning of the distinction is that here we
have a further abstraction. The scientific intelligence
abstracts from the sensational elements in our experi-
ence of the spatial universe. It leaves the secondary
ence
seco
DEGREES OF REALITY
39
qualities out of account. It is one of the common-
places of modern thought that physics reduces the
whole world to vibrations. Perhaps a better statement
would be that physics endeavours to explain the world
in terms of measurable quantities. The fact might be
thrown into several other forms. But, however ex-
pressed, the meaning is that physics abstracts from
the secondary qualities—that is, from the sensational
element in experience—and expresses its processes and
results in terms which belong only to the primary
qualities of matter. The tendency of physics is to
reduce everything to mechanism, and mechanism is
essentially an affair of the primary qualities.
Perhaps it ought to be noted here, in passing, that
certain modern sciences seem to be passing beyond this
mechanical stage. Biology is the most remarkable
instance. Here arises the problem of Life, its place
and meaning in relation to matter on one side and
to conscious experience on the other a vast subject
which cannot now be considered. Let it be observed,
however, that, amongst biologists, there are two ten-
dencies of opposite kinds. One school regards Life as
a principle which cannot be defined in the terms of
physical science, the other is ever striving to reduce
Life to mechanism ; for thus only, it conceives, can
there be hope of embracing physics and biology in one
scheme of thought and explanation.
This illustration emphasizes the fact, indicated
above, that physical science deals only with a world
of abstract primary qualities. Here, then, is a second
grade of abstraction. It reveals a material world much
less concrete than the world of our ordinary experience
and common sense.
But the process of abstraction does not stop here.
V
40 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
A further stage is attained in the world of geometrical
forms. Here the solidity, or impenetrability, of matter
is left out, and there remains only position in space.
There results a world which is, in essence, completely
knowable.
A lower stage still, the last and most abstract of
all, is to be found in number.
We have now before us a regular series of stages
which may be traced when we examine our experience
and the efforts we have made to grasp and under-
stand it.
First, there is the full concrete reality of our con-
scious experience.
Secondly, the world of material things in space,
rich with its endless variety of sensible content.
Thirdly, the colourless, soundless world of physical
science, the world of mechanism.
Fourthly, the world of geometry.
Fifthly, the world of number.
It would be possible, no doubt, to find many inter-
mediate stages more or less definite, because the process
of abstraction is capable of indefinite application in
accordance with the needs of the occasion. But these ·
stages are indicated, both by our general experience
and by the history of human thought, as marking the
main outline of the process of our dealing with the
problem which is presented to us.
The first conclusion which we draw is, that here is
a demonstration of the fact that there are Degrees of
Reality. The conscious experience from which we
started, and which is now admitted on all hands to
be, for us, the most certain of realities, was shown to
possess a concreteness all its own. This concreteness
is, relatively to the other stages in the series, the
DEGREES OF REALITY
measure of its reality. Next to it, but lower in the
order of concreteness, and therefore of reality, stands
the material world of our common sense. Next, and
still lower, the world of mechanism known to physics.
Lower again, the worlds of geometry and number.
It seems perfectly clear that, unless the factof abstrac-
tion is denied, there is no escaping this conclusion.
Here, also, we discern the reason why it is so difficult
to grasp with our intelligence the problerns of philo-
sophy. Philosophy aims at understanding the nature
and meaning of the highest reality. But our intelligence
has been mainly employed annongst the lower realities.
In doing this work it has developed its methods and
forms. When it turns to the higher realities, it finds
itself insensibly using the ideas and imagery which it
has gained from its exercises in number, or geometry,
or mechanism, or in our common-sense handling of the
material world known to our sensible experience.
Bergson is right when he says that “our thought, in
its purely logical form, is incapable of presenting the
true nature of life, the full meaning of the evolutionary
movement."
Is there, then, no hope for philosophy? It may
seem so, if we are to conclude that our logical forms
are incapable of grasping reality in its fulness. Such
is the staple argument of Agnosticism. But it is, in
fact, a stupid argument. It is a very old puzzle that,
on purely logical grounds, walking is an impossibility,
for nobody can be in two places at the same time.
Solvitur ambulando is the ancient and unanswerable
reply. Are life and logic, then, incompatible ? Surely
not; but logic assumes, on every stage of reality, the
forms which correspond to that stage. The old puzzle
arises simply from the application of the principles of
UUU
JU
a
)
42 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
a lower order to the facts of life and action. Many of
the puzzles of philosophy have arisen in the same way.
There is only one way in which this difficulty can
be overcome, and that is by continual trying, by never
submitting to defeat. Just as intelligence, working
in the abstract worlds of geometry and mechanics,
formed for itself methods which proved themselves
effective, so may we hope that, working in the higher
region, it may ultimately succeed in shaping forms
which will be adapted to the work which has to be
done. Meanwhile, it must be remembered that the
existing forms are not valueless. Though imperfect,
they must have sufficient connection with the higher
reality to be capable of symbolic application to its
problems. The one supreme rule for us, in thus using
them, must be this: never trust your logical imple-
ments very far. Only by keeping very close to actual
experience of fact can we be sure that we are not being
misled. It is a profoundly true instinct in the average
man which makes him distrust philosophical arguments
which consist of purely logical processes. In philosophy,
the observation of facts is as important as in any
science. It would not be wrong to say that it is, if
possible, even more important. For philosophy deals
with the most concrete of all things-conscious experi-
ence in its full reality. Only when moving in pure
abstractions can logic be allowed to work itself out
independently.
We have now attained to a position which enables
us to understand something of our own relation to the
world of knowable things. The conscious experience
with which we have dealt is, for each one of us, “my
experience." The one thing of which we are absolutely
certain is our own existence as spiritual beings. When
DEGREES W
43
OF REALITY
L
we examine the living, moving continuum of our ex-
perience we find that it is a unitary whole in which
feelings, thoughts, purposes, decisions, permeate one
another. To possess such an experience is to be a
spirit. It is because our experience is of this character
that, in distinction from the material things which we
discern in our contemplation of the more abstract
MOL
material world and to the other realms of abstract being
has been grasped, we are able at once to discern more
adequately the insufficiency of many theories of the
universe which have been held from time to time and
are still more or less in vogue.
First, Materialism and its more respectable relative
Naturalism are swept away. Matter cannot be the
explanatory principle of the universe, because the
material world, attained by abstraction, is less real
than the world of our conscious experience. Naturalism
holds that the universe is a continuous natural de-
velopment of which the description is to be found
in the physical and biological sciences, that it is all
of one piece, and essentially mechanical throughout.
With this doctrine is usually connected the belief that
consciousness is an epiphenomenon, a by-product of the
mechanism of the brain, a fitful phosphorescence play-
ing over the surface of a series of purely physical
A doctrine of the same general type, but which is a
still further advance in the direction of a spiritual
philosophy, has been already mentioned : I refer to the
doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. According to
it there is a psychical parallel to every physical event.
These are, indeed, two sides of the same reality, ad-
44 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
vancing in complexity together, on account of their
inseparable relation. As nervous structure develops,
it is accompanied by a corresponding development in
the conscious life of the organism on its psychical side.
Thus, the highly organized human brain corresponds to
the highly developed human mind. This doctrine,
which has relations with pantheism, and especially
with the philosophy of Spinoza, is in its modern form
to be traced to the psychological investigations of
Fechner. It is certainly a very attractive doctrine,
and commends itself to that reasonable tendency to be
found in most modern minds, which inclines a man to
believe that there is truth on both sides of every con-
troversy. Further, this doctrine attracts many who
inherit the Hegelian tradition, for if the universe be
a completely articulated intellectual system, perfectly
logical throughout, why should we not identify that
system with that universal development throughout
the whole material world to which physical and bio-
logical sciences seem to point. Philosophy supplies
the logic, science traces its working out in time. In
this way Naturalism and Idealism become identified.
They are but two ways of expressing the same view of
the universe.
It is no wonder that a doctrine which is capable of
being presented in such a way carries with it the
assent of great numbers of well-informed and thought-
ful minds. But the objections to it are very many.
Those who desire to examine them with care should
consult Professor James Ward's Naturalism and Agnos-
ticism and Mr. Arthur J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief.
Also, for the psychological discussion of psycho-physical
parallelism, Professor McDougall’s Body and Mind is
important. It contains a masterly survey of all recent
DEGREES OF REALITY
45
A1
psychological investigation bearing on the question, and
proves conclusively that all the available evidence goes
to show that the synthetic activity of the mind has no
immediate correlative in the physical order. He shows
this especially in the psychology of meaning and of
memory. There is in the brain no dominating unitary
agency. The brain, in fact, is an instrument which,
like a piano or an organ, is dependent for its proper use
upon an operating and unifying agency other than
science, Mr. McDougall builds up a powerful argument
for the human soul.
All this is of great value. But surely, if we approach
the physical order of things in the manner attempted
above, from the side of the facts of our own conscious
certainty, it becomes evident that the spiritual and the
physical are not parallel. They are not on the same
level of reality. The physical order of things is essen-
tially lower in the scale of reality than the spiritual
We arrive at it by abstracting from the fulness of that
rich experience which is for us the supremely real thing.
We get it, in fact, by leaving out that element, our
own subjectivity, which certifies to us the reality of
our experience. Thus, whatever may be the final result
of the controversy about the relation between mind
and brain, the inferior reality of the physical order as
compared with the spiritual order is indubitable.
In the philosophy of T. H. Green, and also in that
of Lotze, the ultimate reality of the self-conscious sub-
ject, or ego, is a cardinal doctrine. With Green this
doctrine is arrived at by showing that the self-con-
scious subject is presupposed in every act of knowledge.
46 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
--which makes relation possible. As all knowledge is
of relations, or of things in relation, the unity of the
self which holds together the various related elements,
and so makes knowledge possible, is the underlying
presupposition of all that we call experience. Or, as
Lotze puts it, “ Our belief in the soul's unity rests
not on our appearing to ourselves such a unity, but on
our being able to appear to ourselves at all.” If a
being “ can appear anyhow to itself, or other things to
it, it must be capable of unifying manifold phenomena
in an absolute indivisibility of its nature."*
This argument has been often evaded. It has been
seldom really disputed. The most famous and effective
effort to show that the self is not to be regarded as,
for us, the ultimate principle of unity, is Mr. F. H.
Bradley's endeavour, in his great work Appearance and
Reality, † to show that the self is a contradictory con-
ception, and is therefore mere appearance, and not
reality. In order to reach this conclusion, Mr. Bradley
examines the various uses of the term Self and the
experiences with which we connect it, and finds serious
inconsistencies. His whole argument is based on a
psychological analysis. He shows that neither in
mere feeling, nor in any intellectual principle, is it
possible to find a basis for a doctrine which can define
consistently the mode in which the self comprehends
in unity the diversity of experience. He admits that
the self is as the highest form of experience which we
have,” but asserts that "for all that it is not a true
form. It does not give us the facts as they are in
reality; and, as it gives them, they are appearance,
appearance and error.”
* Lotze, Metaphysics, bk. iii., chap. i.
+ See chaps. ix. and x.
mei
or
DEGREES OF REALITY
It is surely an obvious criticism of arguments such
as this that every step which they take assumes the
truth which they are designed to destroy. In order to
criticize the self, you must assume the self. When
Mr. Bradley sets to work to analyze the self, he omits
to consider that it is the self which is conducting the
work of analysis. You cannot identify the self with
feeling, or any particular mode of feeling, because that
feeling or mode of feeling is, the moment you begin to
consider it, included along with a multitude of other
not identify it with any intellectual form, because the
moment you begin to consider that form the self in
your person has already transcended it.
In fact, it is generally true that no psychological
analysis, nor any effort of abstraction, can enable you
to grasp the self, because the self is already presup-
posed as the agent in the process of analysis or abstrac-
YT
shows that to explain the self by means of any element
or group of elements in experience is impossible, for
every element or group of elements, in order to be
used for purposes of explanation, must be isolated
from the whole of experience by a process of abstrac-
tion; and, as in this process the self is already presup-
posed, the explanation is from the beginning doomed
to failure. The self, as the agent in every process of
therefore concrete.
The importance of this conclusion cannot be over-
rated. The weak point in all the current systems of
Absolute Idealism which trace their origin to Hegel
and which are most notably represented in English
thought by T. H. Green and his disciples, is that they
o
48 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
U
CON
turn the concrete unity of the self into an abstract
principle. The foundation on which they build is just
that unifying agency of the self-conscious subject
which we have discussed above. Here they are on a
basis which cannot be shaken. But when, on this
basis, they have to construct a doctrine which shall
include the universe both material and spiritual, they
unwittingly treat this unifying self-conscious agency
as an abstract intellectual system which unfolds itself
in a series of categories and so comes to be the explana-
tory principle of everything. But very soon it is dis-
covered that this intellectual framework is not able to
support the superstructure which is built upon it, that
it is not explanatory of anything, and the whole pile
comes tumbling down.
The self is not an abstraction of any sort, whether
of feeling or of intellect. It is a concrete living ex-
perience. The self in each thinking being is, in fact,
his conscious experience in its whole concrete reality.
The unity of the self is, as all modern philosophical
discussions have proved to demonstration, the ultimate
unity which lies behind all our thinking and all our
living. It is the unity to which every element in our
conscious life is referred. It is presupposed in every
mental process. How, then, can we fail to identify it
with that concrete unity which we have found to
belong to our conscious experience as a whole? This
concrete unity is characterized by the interpenetration
of all the elements involved in our experience. In
contrast with it, every other unity is lower in kind,
being determined by abstraction from the fulness of
the whole concrete experience. By the isolating agency
of attention, every object of which we become aware
is placed in antithesis to the whole of experience, and
US
DEGREES OF REALITY
49
TE
V
by this antithesis it is determined. What is this
antithesis but the fundamental relation of subject and
object which is the universally accepted condition of
all conscious life? Thus it appears that the conscious
concrete experience of the individual is his self, or ego.
We have arrived at this identification by two distinct
lines of thought. First, we started from the given
facts of conscious experience as revealed by modern
psychology. We found it to possess a concreteness to
which no other realm of being of which we have know-
ledge can approach, and we found that these other less
concrete realms of being are reached by abstraction
from its fulness of reality.
In the second case, we worked upwards from all
particular instances of mental apprehension, finding
that in them is always presupposed a concrete uniting
and integrating agency which is known to us as the
conscious self. And, as in all such apprehension,
abstraction, which is the work of the self, has been in
operation, this self must be concrete-certainly more
concrete than anything which it knows.
That the conscious experience of the first line of
argument is the same reality as the self of the second
is therefore clear.
If this be so, how are we to understand self-
consciousness?
It is a common argument with metaphysicians of
some schools that, as in experience subject and object
are found in inseparable relation, the subject pre-
supposes the object as much as the object presupposes
the subject. From this it is concluded that the spiritual
is as dependent on the material as the material on the
spiritual. The two are, in fact, correlatives, or, to express
it in another way, opposite sides of the same reality.
1
SO
50 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
We are now in a position to see that, however
convincing this argument may sound as a piece of
logic, it is not in agreement with the facts of the case.
Subject and object are not correlatives in the ordinary
sense. The subject is the concrete whole of experience,
the object is an element isolated by abstraction. The
former is a concrete reality of a higher order than the
latter. It is of the essence of the higher reality to
include every possible element of the lower. This must
be so, from the very nature of abstraction. Nothing
can be, to us, an object of experience which is not,
either as feeling, or as sensation, or as concept, or in
some other form, an element, or group of elements, in
experience. Such are set by themselves, but still
within experience, and so become objects of knowledge.
All the time, while being known, the concrete reality
of experience that is, of the self-completely enfolds
them. Like a crystal sphere--if the spatial image be
permitted—the conscious experience—that is, the self
—includes all that it knows.
How, then, is self-consciousness possible ? Our diffi-
culty in answering this question seems to be entirely
due to the material and spatial imagery which we
employ so readily. It is certainly true that the entire
concrete experience cannot be grasped in a single act
of knowledge. In this sense, the self cannot be con-
scious of itself. Here would appear to be the difficulty
which underlies such problems as those discussed by
Mr. F. H. Bradley, and which are mentioned above.
But, though the whole self cannot be presented to itself
as an object, every element in experience can be grasped
as in relation to the whole. The self can always relate
itself to any element and identify that element as its
own. We can say, “my feeling,” “my sensation,” “my
DEGREES OF REALITY
51
rem
thought,” “ the things that I see, or feel, or do." It is
true that some groups of elements seem more identified
with the self than others. Feelings of pleasure or pain
seem to belong to the self more perfectly than sensa-
tions of colour or sound. Reflections upon such feelings,
to take another example, seem more intimately related
to the self than thoughts which apply the concepts of
substance or causality to objects in the material world.
But it is doubtful whether this distinction is as im-
portant as some psychologists have imagined. Its
essence surely is simply this, that we abstract from
these subjective feelings when we present to our minds
the material world or any other of those lower degrees
of reality which we have considered. But we have to
remember, on the other hand, that we can abstract
from the external world, and so present to our minds
these so-called subjective feelings. And surely we have
no reason to suppose, when this abstraction has been
made, that the mental states so defined are nearer to
the totality of conscious experience than those which
are obtained by other abstractions. Here again an
illusion is caused by the presence of spatial apprehen-
sions in one case and their absence in the other. The
distinction between internal sense and external sense,
and between internal sensations and external sensa-
tions, as made by Locke and many others after him,
is altogether a distinction depending on the absence or
presence of spatial elements. When we abstract from
spatial relations we get the internal, when we abstract
from the non-spatial we get the external; so that in
neither case have we grasped the fulness of our con-
crete experience. Our apprehensions of the external
world on the one hand, and our apprehensions of the
internal on the other, distinguishing them, as we are
no
du
IN
52 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
bound to do, by the presence or absence of spatial rela-
tions, are both of them elements in the totality of our
conscious experience.
There is, however, one element which certainly seems
to correspond more perfectly to the fulness of the life
of the spirit. Penetrating every presentation, whether
of the internal or of the external worlds, is that com-
LIO
scribed as feeling-tone, from the side of intellect was
termed intellectual tendency, from the side of will was
called character. Perhaps we may sum up these
various aspects of the one reality by means of the
term experience-tone. Here we have that which marks
the relationship of each new apprehension to the whole
conscious experience. Yet, even by means of this more
concrete element, we have not grasped in its entirety
the full reality of the self. For when we present this
to our thought, the self is still more than it, being the
subject of the presentation.
What, then, is self-consciousness? It is simply our
consciousness of the fact that, in relation to all experi-
ences, we possess capacity. Spirit as knowing subject
is capacity. By this it is not meant to exclude activity.
Activity is certainly of the essence of our conscious life.
Capacity and activity are not mutually exclusive. The
capacity of the conscious self is blended with active
powers. But the essence of self-consciousness would
seem to be the ability of the self to contain, and in
containing to unite in one concrete whole, an indefinite
variety of experiences.
The common conception of the soul, or spirit, or
self, as an inner core in the centre of our psychical
states, a psychical ganglion, is therefore altogether
misleading. It is an idea carried over from our ex-
re
Se
DEGREES OF REALITY
53
perience of the material world-another instance of
the confusion caused by thinking of spiritual things in
terms of spatial things. The fact that such conceptions
seem to make things easy for us is really a reason why
regard them with suspicion. For the further
we carry the process of abstraction—the more, that
is, we leave out of consideration the puzzling com-
plexities of the psychical world—the simpler and clearer
everything becomes. Thus it is that physics is clearer
than psychology, geometry clearer than physics, and
numerical processes clearest of all. But spirit, possess-
ing the capacity which enables it to grasp in one con-
crete life all the infinite variety of experience, cannot,
as a whole, become clear to our minds. Being greater
than all its own thoughts, we should not be surprised
that none of them can contain it.
Yet the conscious life of the self is, for itself, pos-
sessed of an absolute simplicity. Its simplicity is
essential and inherent. This must be so, because of
that peculiar unity which we have seen to belong to it.
In our active life we are aware of this truth ; or, rather,
we assume it as an implicit principle of our whole
nu
Se
to take an illustration of Bergson's, is, in practice, an
indivisible whole. As the performance of a living
function, it is perfectly simple. As will carried into
act, it possesses an indivisible unity as long as the
analytical intellect is restrained. That this estimate
consideration that a determination of will which is
thwarted by some physical difficulty, or by some dis-
organization of organic function, is a much more
complicated thing than a determination which is
completed in action.
54 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
re
The meaning of these facts is just this : While we
are living in the full possession of our spiritual nature,
we enjoy, as a practical thing, the unity of our experi-
ence on that level of reality which belongs to it. But
when the abstracting intelligence is aroused, and we
begin to analyze our experience, we find ourselves
involved in processes which are without limit; we
discover the infinite complications of our psychical
possessions, of our organic functions, of the chemistry
of the body and of the physical world of which the
body is a part, of the structure of matter, and so on,
without end. Descending the scale of reality involves
an analysis of the simple into the infinitely complex.
As our concrete experience as a whole is broken up by
abstraction into realm after realm of lower realities,
each with its own characteristic forms of existence
and its own laws and principles, so it is with each
single action of our spiritual life. In the simplest
movement of that life-in the act of vision, for example,
or the raising of the hand-will be found, when the
living action has been arrested, an endless complication
of psychical, physiological, dynamical, geometrical, and
numerical processes and principles. All these are
involved in it, and each of them, in its own sphere,
may be regarded as a condition of it, or an element in
it. But none of them, nor even all of them, can be
regarded as providing a complete account of it. It
includes them all, and is, at the same time, more than
them all. It is the concrete reality; they are but
abstractions. It is the living fact; they are but dead
fragments.
When considering the nature of our experience, we
were able to show that, in that experience, the elements
interpenetrate one another and so form a unity higher
DEGREES OF REALITY
55
in kind than the unity of the material world. We are
now able to see that even this statement involves a
reversal of the true mode of regarding the nature of
our concrete experience. It is true that all psychical
elements interpenetrate; they permeate one another.
But the unity which is thus characterized is not to be
regarded as a whole formed by the coming together of
diverse elements in this manner. On the contrary,
the unity of experience is the primary truth. The
living experience is, in its true nature, a simple indi-
visible whole. The disentangling of interpenetrating
elements, or the isolation of any one of these elements,
is a work of abstraction. Hence the unending com-
plication of psychological analysis, and the difficulties
of introspection. While we are living our practical
life all is simple, but the moment we endeavour to
understand that life, we find ourselves involved in
infinite complexities.
CHAPTER III
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
WE saw that when, in our dealing with our experience,
we abstract from those elements which we call subjec-
tive, we find ourselves face to face with the great
world of things in space—a world infinite and splendid,
glowing with colour and filled with an endless variety.
But we did not venture to say that this world is called
into being by that movement of attention which enables
us to confront it. Such a contention would be contrary
to all the impressions which the external world pro-
duces upon us. Perhaps the most striking feature of
this great world is its apparent independence of our
feelings and desires. Its giant forces resist and thwart
us. Only a small part of it is accessible to us. Our
bodily organisms which are part of it, and, at the same
time, our means of communication with it, are fragile
and transitory. To suppose that it is called into being
by the operation of our minds and wills is indeed pre-
posterous.
Yet when we approach the consideration of it from
the point of view of our conscious experience, we find
that every element in the material world, as we know
it, is such that it exists, and can exist, only for a con-
scious subject. For the material world, as we know
it, is a complex of sensations, the secondary qualities
me
56
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
57
colours, sounds, etc.--and of relations which group these
sensations in certain orders—i.e., the primary qualities ;
and both sensations and relations are essentially of
such a kind that they can exist only for a knowing
subject. It is an old familiar argument, and is the
basis of all forms of modern idealistic philosophy.
Many very determined efforts have been made to
overthrow this reasoning, but with failure so signal
that they have but succeeded in throwing into relief
its unassailable character. When, for example, some
of our modern Realists urge that the argument simply
amounts to this, that, because the material world is
known to us only in so far as it is known, we contend
that it cannot exist out of our knowledge, they forget
that the real point is that every element of the
material world when examined is found to be essenti-
ally such that it can have no existence except for the
consciousness of a knowing mind.
Upon some minds, the effect of this argument may
be described as positively terrifying. It seems to
reduce everything to illusion. The whole universe
seems to become a panorama which exists for me alone
-a panorama which vanishes into nothingness when I
cease to be conscious. This is the doctrine which has
been termed Solipsism. It does not appear that any
reputable thinker has committed himself to this
doctrine, but many dread it so much, it has become
to them so oppressive a philosophical nightmare, that
they escape from it only by a leap in the dark.
It is certainly interesting to find a writer so com-
petent and well informed as Mr. McDougall, the author
of Body and Mind, writing thus: “We affirm that
each of us can escape from solipsism only by an act of
faith or will that posits a real world of which he is a
7
58 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
member. This real world appears to each of us in the
form of the phenomena of sense perception ; but, if
he is not to remain a solipsist, he must affirm and
believe that these appearances are not created by him-
self, but are rather due to influences or existences, not
himself, yet affecting him. Or, in other words, he
must believe in the validity of the category of causa-
tion ; for only by believing that his perceptions are
caused by some influence, some real being other than
himself, can he escape from solipsism."* Mr. McDougall
justly and wisely adds : “ Let him conceive these
influences or existences how he will, the psychological
problem still confronts him and clamours for an
answer."*
But is it not strange to find this appeal to the cate-
gory of causation repeated nowadays, after all that
Kant said about the thing-in-itself, and after Hegel's
crushing criticism of that part of Kant's doctrine ?
The category of causation is but one of the links in
the network of relational forms which exist and are
valid only within the mind's conscious experience.
How can it be used to get us outside that experience ?
To Bishop Berkeley belongs the supreme honour of
setting to the modern world the central problem with
which its philosophy has to grapple. That honour is
generally given to Hume. But, in truth and justice,
it belongs to Berkeley. The utter negation which
characterized Hume's scepticism may have had the
effect of stimulating the constructive faculties of his
successors, but Berkeley's doctrine exhibited more per-
and modern psychology, with its demonstration of the
synthetic activity of conscious experience, has finally
* Op. cit., p. 180.
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
59
cut away the basis of Hume's arguments ; but Berke-
ley remains, and no metaphysical or psychological
criticism has succeeded in overthrowing his main thesis.
Not only is this so, but it is true, and has been too
little realized, that recent psychology has supplied
much additional material for the support of Berkeley's
doctrine. Let me give an illustration. There are
many people who suppose that the study of the physi-
ology of the brain is leading to a purely materialistic
view of our conscious life. But the researches dealing
with the nervous mechanism of the organs of sensation
point in the opposite direction. So far as the evidence
goes, the character of a sensation seems to depend on
the nature of the organ that receives it, rather than on
that of the object which excites it. To quote Binet,
the eminent French psychologist, " Excitants wholly
different, but affecting the same nerve, give similar
sensations. Whether a ray of light is projected into
the eye, or the eyeball is excited by the pressure of a
finger ; whether an electric current is directed into the
eye, or, by a surgical operation, the optic nerve is
severed ... the effect is always the same, in the
SE
light. . . . In addition to the natural excitant of
our sensory nerves, there are two which can produce
the same sensory effects-that is to say, the mechani-
cal and the electrical excitants. Whence it has been
concluded that the peculiar nature of the sensation
felt depends much less on the nature of the excitant
producing it than on that of the sensory organ which
collects it, the nerve which propagates it, or the centre
be found that this contains a very great mystery, for
this power of distinction of our nerves is not connected
60 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
e.
1
with any detail observable in their structure. It is
very probably the receiving centres which are specific.
It is owing to them and to their mechanism that we
ought to feel from the same excitant a sensation of
sound, or one of colour--that is to say, impressions
which appear, when compared, as the most different
in the world. Now, so far as we can make out, the
histological structure of our auditory centre is the
same as that of our visual centre. ... When (there-
fore) we attempt to understand the inmost nature of
the outer world, we stand before it as before absolute
darkness. There probably exists in Nature, outside of
ourselves, neither colour, odour, force, resistance, space,
nor anything that we know as sensation. Light is
produced by the excitement of the optic nerve, and it
shines only in our brain; as to the excitement itself,
there is nothing to prove that it is luminous; outside
of us is profound darkness, or even worse, since dark-
ness is the correlative of light. In the same way, all
the sonorous excitements which assail us . . . are
produced by excitements of our acoustic nerve : it is
in our brain that noise is produced, outside there
reigns a dead silence. The same may be said of all
our other senses. Not one of our senses, absolutely
none, is the revealer of external reality. ... In
short, our nervous system, which enables us to com-
municate with objects, prevents us, on the other hand,
from knowing their nature. It is an organ of relation
with the outer world; it is also, for us, à cause of
isolation. We never go outside ourselves. We are
walled in."*
It is certainly profoundly interesting to the student
of philosophy to find that physiology, the science
* Binet, The Mind and the Brain (L'Âme et le Corps), chap. ii.
YOU
are
cause
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
61
Дет
which was supposed, in its earlier days, to be the
most effective handmaid of materialism, should thus
open the shortest way to the central fact on which
Idealism is based. It brings us back again to the
old problem, and shows that Berkeley still holds the
central position in philosophy.
May I venture to express the wonder that I have
often felt that, here in Berkeley's own University, his
supreme greatness has been so little realized, and so
little has been done to honour him? With the excep-
tion, perhaps, of John Scotus Erigena, Berkeley is the
only Irishman whose teaching takes its place as a
necessary element in the main stream of human
thought. He belongs to the great succession of the
Immortals. He takes rank with Plato, Aristotle,
Descartes, and Kant. This fact has received some
degree of recognition in every country but Ireland. I
speak what I know when I say that teachers of great
eminence, in other Universities, now present Berkeley's
doctrine as the true introduction to the study of
modern philosophy. And it is certainly the fact
that no one knows where he is in philosophy until
he has grasped the central thought of Berkeley's
teaching.
And how delightful it is to contemplate the man
himself in relation to his spiritual philosophy! The
charm of his personality, the purity of his character,
the noble self-sacrifice which made him resign high
office and emolument here for an uncertain missionary
venture in the Far West, the union of sweetness of dis-
position with the greatest moral and intellectual daring,
the beauty of his literary style—all these conspire with
his supreme greatness as a thinker to give Berkeley a
position which is all his own. He is certainly the
62 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ne
brightest ornament of this University and the greatest
philosopher that Ireland has produced.
When the thought which finds its expression in
Berkeley's philosophy has been grasped, it becomes
evident how urgent is the question which we ventured
to substitute for that which is usually regarded as the
fundamental question of philosophical inquiry. Instead
of the question, How is experience possible ? we sug-
gested this : Conscious experience being given, how is
anything else possible? How is an independent world
of material things possible? And, further, how is a
multitude of spiritual beings, each possessing its own
conscious experience, possible? These two seem to me
to be the leading questions of modern philosophy.
Since the conscious experience of the individual thinker,
when it is examined—whether by simple introspection
or with the help of physiology and psychology-shows
that there is no single element in the material world,
or in those material manifestations which are to us the
evidences of the activity of other minds, which is not
essentially of such a nature that its existence is depen-
dent on its being known by the conscious subject, how
can either the material world or other subjects exist at
all ? Sensations exist only when we feel them ; rela-
tions exist only when we think them : how can a world
which is made up of sensations and relations exist apart
from a mind which feels and thinks it? That is the
question round which all modern philosophy has re-
volved. On the present occasion we shall consider it
exclusively with reference to the material world, re-
serving for a later stage the problem of the multitude
of conscious subjects.
Modern philosophy has attempted many answers to
this question. First, there is the answer which was
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
63
given by some of the old school of Scottish thinkers, and
which, as already noted, is relied on by Mr. McDougall.
We must apply, it is said, the principle of causation.
We attribute the sensations which are produced in us to
the agency of things outside ourselves. Colours, sounds,
and other sense impressions are the effects of external
causes. The inference is justified by the law that
every effect must have a cause.
People who argue in this way forget that modern
intellectual idealism, in its examination of the condi-
tions of knowledge, has supplemented Berkeley's argu-
ment by showing that the things which produce these
effects in us—i.l., the things which excite our senses
through eyes, ears, etc. ----are themselves, in every
element of their being, constructed by thought. They
quite as much as the sensations, exist only as known
by the conscious subject.
If, like Kant, we insist on going a step further and
demand a thing-in-itself outside thought, we gain
nothing. For this thing-in-itself is not a cause.
Causation is essentially an idea, a category of thought,
and cannot exist outside thought.
But I know some people are not convinced by an
argument of this last kind. It sounds like a logical
catch. For such, there is an easy substitute. These
things outside experience are made up entirely of the
primary qualities of matter. They have no colour, no
sound. They dwell in eternal darkness and silence.
Colours and sounds are only effects they produce in us.
A world of such things surely is not a real world.
Secondly, there is the means of escape adopted by
the Hegelian school. Professor Maguire put it briefly
and admirably in the following words: “Kant, in
answering Hume, brought into prominence what he
64 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
called the à priori element in human experience. That
element Hegel cut loose from its subjective fastenings,
and the universe
"Self-balanced, on its centre hung.'”*
In less pictorial language this means that the cate-
gories of thought, being essentially universal in char-
acter, are not to be regarded as belonging to the
conscious experience of the individual, but must be
accepted as the scheme of the whole universe.
We have here the essential idea of Hegelianism. It
seems eminently reasonable, because it is the accept-
ance of reason, as we possess it, as the absolute order
of things. Moreover, this noble doctrine can trace its
pedigree back to Plato, the inspired philosopher of the
ancient world.
It has, however, one great defect: it reduces the
universe to an abstraction. Concrete reality is to
be found only in the experience of the individual.
It is as true of Hegel as of Locke that he gives us a
world of primary qualities, a world devoid of colour,
sound, and all that gives fulness of reality to our
experience. Indeed, he gives us less than Locke gave
us, for his world is essentially a system of abstract
ideas. It has not even the solidity of Locke's world.
As Pringle-Pattison shows in his Hegelianism and
Personality, the sensible variety of the world of our
experience, the infinite detail of things as they are,
troubled Hegel not a little. It annoyed him that the
actual world refused to fit itself into his scheme of
thought.
A very thoroughgoing criticism of the philosophy of
abstract ideas is to be found in the work of Bergson.
* Maguire, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 188.
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
65
We have seen that the various schools of thought are
now in practical agreement that our conscious experi-
ence as a living, moving continuum must be accepted
as the given reality. The movement of this continuum
is of its essence. Now, as Bergson points out, “the
forms which the mind isolates and stores up in con-
cepts are only snapshots of the changing reality. They
are moments gathered along the course of time; and,
just because we have cut the thread which binds them
to time, they no longer endure.” “They enter into
eternity if you will, but what is eternal in them is just
what is unreal.” Reality is not a collection of snap-
shots. It is more like a cinematograph which blends
a multitude of snapshots into an apparently continuous
movement. But reality is more : it is a genuine con-
tinuum. Elements, whether they be intellectual forms
or not, cut out of the living reality, must always be
less real than the concrete moving continuum itself.*
A third endeavour to solve the great problem we are
now considering has been made by a school of writers
which includes many names of great distinction in
modern philosophy. They are usually described as
Pluralists. The rise of Pluralism is to be traced to
the failure of Hegelianism.
Hegelianism, with its doctrine of the universal as a
system of categories logically evolving, failed to answer
both of the two great fundamental questions. It could
account neither for the existence of an independent
material universe rich with colour and infinitely various
in its contents, nor for the multitude of self-conscious
beings. Neither the one nor the other of these two
realities can be made to fit within the scheme of the
Hegelian logic.
* See Bergson, Creative Evolution, chap. iv.
OY
66 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Thinkers of the idealistic schools therefore began
to fall back upon that central truth which forms the
starting point of all idealisms: the conscious experience
of the individual as a given reality, and the self-con-
scious subject or self as the fundamental unity which
that experience presupposes.
Pluralism regards the universe as a great community
of conscious selves. The self with its experience is the
fundamental fact behind which we cannot go. That
selves exist in great multitudes we also know. Here,
then, is the final constitution of things. Again, selves
are not necessarily all at that level of development
which we are aware of in our civilized human con-
sciousness. They may be at all stages, and in all
possible degrees, of conscious completeness. They
may sleep in rudimentary forms, awaken in animal
life, reach self-consciousness in educated man. These
with their interrelations and interactions form the
universe.
Every student of the history of philosophy will recog-
nize the likeness of this doctrine to Leibnitz' doctrine
of monads. It is also a striking fact that in later
times it can, with some qualification, claim such names
as Fichte and Lotze. In our own generation there is
a host of thinkers, differing widely in many respects,
who must be classed as Pluralists. Most of these
have rebelled strongly against the Hegelian tradition.
Others, and especially Dr. McTaggart, hold that their
particular form of the doctrine contains the true inter-
pretation of Hegel.
Pluralism inevitably regards the material world as
due to the action and reaction upon one another of
the whole multitude of spiritual beings—of conscious
selves. The world has come into being as the medium
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
67
CO
of their intercourse, and has been created by that
intercourse.
Those who desire to see this view worked out will
find it in the writings of Professor James Ward, of
Cambridge. Though not himself a Pluralist, he has
affinity with that school. In two great series of lec-
tures, Naturalism and Agnosticism, and The Realm of
Ends, he has given to the world a most powerful refuta-
tion of Naturalism, a sympathetic criticism of Plural-
ism, and a statement of his own doctrine of spiritualistic
Monism.
Professor Ward shows that we attain to our know-
ledge of the material world by “intersubjective inter-
course," and that as this objective knowledge develops
there takes place, at the same time, and in perfect
correspondence with it, a development or realization
of self-consciousness. As a social being man grasps
the world, and at the same time learns to know him-
self. There can, I think, be no doubt that this is a
true account of the process. But Professor Ward, and
those who agree with him, go further. They regard
this process as not merely the learning of a truth, but
as the actual determination, or making, of it. For the
older idealistic conception of the individual mind mak-
ing its experience, is substituted the conception of the
general mind, the social mind (or, more properly, all
minds in interaction with one another), making that
universal experience which, on the objective side, is
the world.
It cannot be denied that this doctrine is a great
advance on the older and more individualistic doctrines
of the same school. Yet it must be admitted that it is
really a form of solipsism. Professor Ward acknow-
ledges that “it does not carry us beyond the wider
68 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
solipsism of Kant's consciousness in general.” It comes
simply to this, that the physical world, the immense
order of things in space, the stars whose light takes
thousands of years to reach our globe, the generations
of living organisms which passed away ages before
man appeared on the earth, the flaming atmosphere of
the sun, the central masses of the earth, the minute
structures which are hidden from our measurements in
all the living tissues of animate creation : all these
things—as well as those which our hands handle and
our eyes behold—are brought into being by the con-
verse of the conscious minds which form the only truly
existing reality. Perhaps it is going a little too far
when Mr. McDougall declares that this doctrine
implies that "the whole series of geological formations
came into being when it was discovered, or perhaps at
the moment when it was officially recognized by the
Royal Society."*
It is impossible, I think, to escape the conclusion
that doctrines of this nature reduce the physical
universe to a phantom. The only distinction from
ordinary solipsism is that, in this case, while there is
a distinct illusion for each distinct self, all these
illusions, having been developed by co-operation, har-
monize so as to present the appearance of being
various aspects of an independent world. The mystifi-
cation is on a vaster scale, but it is a mystification
none the less. +
Before we leave the criticism of the various schools
of thought which have tried and, in our belief, have
failed to solve the problem of the material world, it is
* Body and Mind, pp. 185, 186.
+ A valuable treatment of this doctrine will be found in Professor
Bosanquet's work, The Principles of Individuality and Value.
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
69
necessary to notice the remarkable revival of Realism
which has taken place in some quarters in recent
years. The most influential teacher of this new school
is, perhaps, Professor S. Alexander, of Manchester
University. His statement may justly be regarded
as the most important which has as yet been made. *
Its brevity and clearness leave nothing to be desired,
and the philosophical world may well feel grateful to
Professor Alexander for putting it in possession of a
document so fully representative of the school to which
he belongs.
The essence of his doctrine is contained in the fol-
lowing passages. The “mind and its object are two
separate existences connected together by the relation
of togetherness or compresence, where the word 'com-
presence' is not taken to imply coexistence in the
same moment of time, but only the fact of belonging
to one experienced world. The mental partner is the
act of mind which apprehends the object, an act con-
tinuous with the whole tissue of mental processes
which, considered as a whole, is the mind. The object
is what it declares itself to be, square, table, colour, or
the like.” “This statement does not mean the mere
distinction of the act of mind from its object, or so-
called content.” It means that “the object of the
mental act is a distinct existence from the mental act.”
“But the intent of the proposition is not merely to
assert the independent existence of the object, which
is therefore non-mental, but even more to assert that
the mind is also a thing existent side by side with it,
itself one of the things which make up the universe,
and one of a number.” The mind "does not experi-
* The Basis of Realism, by S. Alexander. Proceedings of the
British Academy, vol. vi., 1914. Oxford University Press.
70 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
se
awaren
ence itself in the same way as it experiences objects.
Common speech says, indeed, the mind is aware of
itself as well as of objects. But while the objects of
which it is aware are distinct from its awareness, the
self of which it is aware consists in its awareness.”
This awareness Professor Alexander calls - enjoy-
ment." The mind “enjoys but does not contemplate
itself.”
From this analysis two results follow: First, “ there
is in ourselves no other self than that which we know
in enjoyment, whether as enjoyment immediately at
the moment, or as supplemented by remembered and
expected enjoyment; or mediately as supplemented
by inferred enjoyment; or by reflective synthesis of
all these data.” “Secondly, our compresence with
physical things, in virtue of which we are conscious
of them, is a situation of the same sort as the com-
presence of two physical things with one another.”
In order to make these results clearer, Professor
Alexander supposes a mind and its object to be con-
templated by a superior being. “For such a superior
being (say, God) they would be separate things, and
if A (the mind) is perceiving B (the object), he would
see in this nothing but a state of things in which B
stirs A to a conscious action and A becomes conscious
of B, but B does not owe its character as B to its
being perceived by A.”
“Hence,” according to Professor Alexander, “it
follows that the distinction of enjoyment and objects
contemplated is more fundamental than that of act of
mind and its object (of experiencing and being ex-
perienced)."*
This is surely an extraordinary piece of argumenta-
* Op. cit., p. 4.1.
sor
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
71
tion. By introducing the words “compresence” and
"enjoyment," and claiming that they represent some-
thing more fundamental than the relation of subject
and object, an effort is made to find a basis for the
assertion and it is nothing but an assertion that
the mind and its object are “separate things” existing
“side by side.” This is indeed mediæval logic with a
vengeance. First you lay down your definition, and
then you deduce à priori your facts, and woe to Nature
if she does not correspond! Mr. Alexander's whole
philosophy is summed up in the word "compresence."
But his use of this word seems to me to be a begging
of the whole question. To find out what we mean
when we speak of the object being present to the
subject or the subject present to the object, or, if
Mr. Alexander prefers, what is meant by the “com-
presence ” of the subject and object, the only safe
method surely is to interrogate Nature, to examine
experience, and observe in what way subject and
object come together. When we do so we find that
the subject is always the knower-or shall we say the
experiencer ?—and the object is always the known, or
the experienced. I defy Mr. Alexander to catch them
together in any other relationship. He admits this
too implicitly, though he struggles to evade it, when
he seizes on the word “enjoyment.” It comes exactly
to the same thing, for the simple reason that the sub-
ject is always the enjoyer, and the object is always
the enjoyed, and you can never catch them apart.
It is strange, also, how easily Mr. Alexander admits
the description of the mind and its object as "separate
things." The one fundamental and universal charac-
teristic of the mind and its object is that they are
never separate in experience, nor can the wit of man
by any exertion reduce them, even in imagination, to
a condition of separateness. Of course, if A is the
11
them, it is easy to consider A and B separately. But
these symbols are mere algebra, and in using them of
mind and its object we are employing them in relation
to realities which are not susceptible of algebraic
treatment. This seems to reveal very clearly the
vice of the whole procedure. It is an application of
physical and quantitative methods to realities which
are not quantitative.
Apart altogether from logical considerations, Mr.
Alexander's doctrine of Realism fails to take the
simplest facts of experience as they stand. How far
this goes appears when he comes to consider the
nature of the object. He holds “ that not minds only
know, but in an extended sense a physical thing
knows other things to the extent of its receptivity.
This follows at once from the analysis of knowing
proper, the knowing which consciousness has; and is,
when considered carefully, only another way of stating
that analysis. The cognitive relation proper is the
compresence between the physical object and another
thing when that thing has the property of conscious-
ness. The peculiarity of cognition arises not from the
relation, but from the empirical character of the sub-
ject. In this case the universal relation of com-
presence between finites is named cognitive after its
term. We may extend the sense of cognition, and,
calling compresence “knowing,' may ascribe' mind' to
all things alike, in various degrees."*
Here is the admission that the relation of subject
to object is always a relation of the knower to the
* Op. cit., pp. 31, 32.
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
73
IC
known, that “compresence" as it exists between mind
and its object is always of this special character.
But instead of arguing from this that we have no
right to give it any other character, Mr. Alexander,
obsessed by his idea of compresence, concludes that
there is a sense in which the object knows the subject.
If I know the tree, it follows, according to him, that
the tree knows me. If I see the blueness of the sky,
the blueness of the sky sees me. If I have a recollec-
tion of last summer, my recollection of last summer,
in some sense, recognizes me. These may be logical
conclusions, but it cannot be said that there is a
particle of evidence for them in experience.
The truth is, surely, that the whole idea of com-
presence is delusive. The subject is not present to the
object in the sense in which the object is present to
the subject. The relation of subject to object is not
comparable with the relation between two material
things in space. Mr. Alexander argues all through
as if it were. But there is no foundation for this but
his own arbitrary use of the idea of compresence.
Another very remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Alex-
ander's doctrine is that he accepts the view that mind
is nothing more than the total of mental acts, or
processes, and yet he regards mind as a “thing” in
the same sense in which he calls a physical object a
“thing.” He holds that “while the objects of which
it (the mind) is aware are distinct from its awareness,
the self of which it is aware consists in its awareness.
“There is in ourselves no other mind than that which
we know in enjoyment.” Put generally, this doctrine
is that the very being of mind is its experiencing.
If this be so, how can the mind and its object be
“separate things”? There can be no experiencing
74 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
re
without a thing experienced. The experiencing and
the experienced are inseparable. Take the case of
feeling: the feeling and the felt cannot be parted.
The very word “feeling," standing as it does both for
the mental “enjoyment” and the object enjoyed,
absolutely dependent upon one another for their very
existence. Mr. Alexander's doctrine of "mind” involves
the denial of his whole philosophy. *
It seems, then, that none of the means which have
been devised by recent philosophy to solve the problem
which Berkeley presented to the world have proved
satisfactory. Berkeley's own solution remains; and it
may be truly said that it is to his thought that most
devout and spiritual minds now turn when they find
themselves confronted with the vast problem which
we are considering. While Berkeley has been mis-
understood or neglected, and often derided, his central
principle stands, and those who cling to it have a firm
hold upon reality. The world does not realize the
greatness of its indebtedness to Berkeley. Many even
of those who have profited most have least recognized
the source of the benefit.
The essence of Berkeleianism is just this: the prin-
ciple which gives us a real world, independently of the
individual human thinker, is to be found, not in the
constitution of matter, nor even in the human mind,
but in God.
The most influential of the forms which this doctrine
has assumed in recent times is that presented by the
* A striking illustration of the entanglement of unnecessary
entities in which the modern Realist is apt to be involved will be
found in Mr. Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy, published in
the “Home University Library."
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
75
late T. H. Green, of Oxford. High spiritual enthusiasm
and personal influence combined with a firm grasp of
philosophical principle to give his exposition great
power and persuasiveness. Green counted himself a
disciple of Hegel, but he was far nearer to Berkeley,
both in spirit and in doctrine. It was strange that he
did not discern this fact. It is to be feared that philo-
sophers, however religious in spirit and tendency, have
a horror of orthodoxy. It is the surprising orthodoxy
of Berkeley that has spoiled his reputation.
It must be admitted that Berkeley's mode of pre-
senting the work of God in human experience laid
him open to the charge of regarding the world as an
illusion specially created for man's benefit by Divine
agency, a mystification practised upon us by the
Almighty. This was mainly due to his inevitable use
of the word “idea" in the manner of Locke, together
with the fact that, for him, this term stood especially
for sense-impression. To say that material things are
only ideas seems to reduce them to mere illusion; and
this appearance was confirmed by the doctrine that
ideas (i.e., sense-impressions) are produced in us by
the will of God. To use a modern illustration, the
mind of man seemed to be regarded as a sheet upon
which a Divine magic-lantern operator throws various
images for purposes of edification.
In Berkeley's thought this seeming was corrected
by the doctrine that the images which God produces
in us are not produced arbitrarily, but in accordance
with certain archetypes which are in the Divine mind.
They represent, that is, a great objective order, and
are the means by which that order, which is the
essential reality of things, is conveyed to us. This is,
indeed, a very noble doctrine, and, when fully grasped,
76 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
it will be found to bring Berkeley's teaching into a
supremely important position in relation to the subse-
quent development of spiritual philosophy.
Compare Green's doctrine. According to him, the
conscious experience of every man is the reproduction,
in a gradual and partial way, of the eternal conscious-
ness. Man's knowledge is the outshining, under the
conditions imposed by our limited and imperfect life, of
the Divine and perfect knowledge. When thus stated,
it is hard to distinguish the two doctrines. Green
was in advance of Berkeley only in so far as he was
able to take advantage of the great discussion of the
intellectual side of knowledge due to Kant and his
successors. This appears in his emphasis upon the
self-conscious subject of knowledge—the self, or ego.
It is the corner-stone of his doctrine that the self is
implied in every act of knowledge, and is the unifying
principle of experience. This self, with its experiences,
is the manifestation, in a limited and intermittent way,
of the universal consciousness. Thus, all experiences
are unified, and the individual takes his place in the
life of the Absolute. Every human experience is a
partial incarnation of the Divine. The universal con-
sciousness which gives being to the whole universe
thinks in me, and so I have a share in the universal
experience.
This great doctrine is open, however, to very serious
criticism. What about the multitude of self-conscious
subjects? As the late William James put it, “How
can many consciousnesses be at the same time one con-
sciousness ?'* How can the identity of the self be pre-
served, if the self that thinks in every experience be
the one absolute self? The fact is that Green's doc-
* James, A Pluralistic Universe, lect. v.
T
!
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
77
trine annihilates the individual, and thus destroys the
whole foundation on which his philosophy rests. If
the universal consciousness merely meant an abstract
system of forms of thought which are found to be one
and the same in every individual experience, then, no
doubt, the doctrine would be perfectly correct. But it
would be also perfectly valueless; because an Absolute
which is a mere abstraction is, as we have seen, too
poor a thing to be the ultimate reality. On the other
hand, if the Absolute which reproduces itself in every
man is a concrete conscious experience, then the man
loses his own proper personal identity, the self in him
is the Divine self, all his thoughts and actions are the
thoughts and actions of God working in him, he has
no distinct mind or will of his own-a conclusion which
contradicts the very experience on which the whole
philosophy is founded.
We here touch a discussion which belongs to another
part of our subject. It is relative to our present pur-
pose, because it contains one of the attempted answers
to the question already mentioned. If the world as
known to us consists of sensations and relations, things
which have no being except for a conscious mind, how
can there be any world at all except the world of the
individual conscious experience? The answer now is :
There is no world but such as exists for conscious ex-
perience; but there is a universal conscious experience
which includes all other such experiences, and therefore
there is a world which is more than your thought or
mine.
In spite of the criticisms, which I have just ventured
to make, of the form of this doctrine which is most
commonly accepted by idealists of the school of Green,
I am convinced that here is to be found an indication
S
CO Iyi
78 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
of the only safe path. Here we get nearer to the truth
than in any other of the several types of thought on
this question which we have examined hitherto.
Let us consider what it is that we are seeking. Con-
scious experience being given, how can there be a world
of material things? We have seen that this world of
material things is actually got at by a process which
on the negative side is a process of abstraction. So it
is in the experience of every individual. Withdrawing
attention from the subjective element and fastening
attention on the objective, we find the external world
—the world in space. This is true in the most ele-
mentary experiences as well as in the most complex per-
ceptions. A sudden glare of light affects the eye. At
first the subjective feeling of pain holds the attention.
Then attention turns away from this subjective experi-
ence to the objective element which it involves. At
once a brightly coloured surface is revealed ; and that
glowing surface is, in its own limited way, a world in
space : it is essentially spatial.
Dealing thus with our larger and more complex ex-
periences we get knowledge of an infinitely varied
world of things in space that is, of things external
to one another—a world glowing with colour, rich with
all those qualities which are apprehended by our senses,
a world which is certainly in its own degree concrete and
which is apparently self-sufficing. And the more our
knowledge of this world grows, the greater and more
complex is it found to be, and the more do we become
conscious of it as containing powers which are inde-
pendent of us, powers which resist and thwart us, powers
which can only be dealt with by obedience to rules which
we have to discover by long and painful experience.
To suppose that such a world as this is illusion, an
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
unreality, a vision belonging to our own subjectivity, is
certainly the height of absurdity. Or to suppose that
it is a vision which has been brought about by actions
and reactions between ourselves and other beings like
us is equally absurd.
Yet when we examine all the elements of this great
world as we grasp them in our subjective capacity, we
such that they could have no existence except as so
grasped.
And here comes in the compromise suggested by
common sense and turned into a philosophical doctrine
by Locke, the Scotch Realists, Mr. McDougall, and
many another. Some of the qualities which we attrib-
ute to the material world are only effects excited in
us. Such are colours, sounds, tastes, smells, sensations
of heat and cold, etc. Others are in the things them-
selves and exist independently. But what an unreal
thing is this world of primary qualities which thus
results—a world of colourless extension, of soundless
collisions, a world which is, in truth, wholly unimagin-
tions. As a matter of fact, a world of primary qualities
is only the ghost of a world, an unreality which is
obtained by leaving out all that constitutes the fulness
of the material world that we know.
There is only one way by which the independent
existence of the world can be secured : By assuming
the existence of a Universal Conscious Experience
elements and qualities both primary and secondary.
In some way or other, we conscious beings must share
in the life and experience of this Supreme Being. “In
Him we live and move and have our being. There-
80 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
fore we, too, are self-conscious and other-conscious.
Therefore we enjoy the vision of the world in all its
splendour and variety.
In bringing before you this great doctrine, which
must in some form be familiar to most of you, my pur-
pose is not, of course, to set it forth as anything fresh
or unusual, but simply to show that recent philosophy
has neither invalidated it nor found any more probable
or reasonable way of justifying our belief in the material
certain subjectivity.
The argument which leads to this conclusion seems
to be a signal instance of that method of proof which
we owe to the genius of Kant—the argument from a
fact to its only possible interpretation. Conscious ex-
perience is possible only as the experience of a self-
BCO
you and me and every finite self, is possible only as
involved in the experience of a universal self-conscious
subject in whose life we have a share. However diffi-
cult it may be to reconcile these two assertions, I can
find no way of escaping either of them. They seem
to me to be the most certain conclusions of which
thought is capable. The conclusions of mathematics
and of physics belong only to certain limited abstract
spheres. These conclusions belong to the full concrete
reality as given in experience, and are based upon the
one principle which has universal validity in the sphere
of that concrete reality.
It is most important that we should see clearly that
this doctrine secures to us the full reality of the
physical world as known to us in our ordinary experi-
ence, and that it is the only doctrine which does secure
that full reality. We look out upon the world with all
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
81
its wealth of colour as well as of form, we rejoice in its
brightness, its beauty, its infinite variety. It is this
world—the world that we see with our eyes, and hear
with our ears, and touch with our hands—that we must
believe to exist apart from us in the fulness of its
nature. This is the world whose reality must be
secured against the attacks of sceptical thought. Meta-
physics may seek to substitute for it a world of un-
knowable things-in-themselves, or a world of abstract
primary qualities ; or science may tell us that what we
see and hear and touch is mere appearance, that the
only true reality is a complicated arrangement of
whirling electrons. But all such theories fail to
satisfy the demands of our minds and hearts. Such
metaphysical and scientific teachings endeavour to
explain the concrete reality of our experience by
means of thin abstractions or vague unrealities. It is
an effort to do the impossible.
Only when we see in the physical world about us a
living concrete experience, universal and infinite, glow-
ing with vivid colour and instinct with movement, an
experience in which each one of us has his share, can
the reality of the world be assured to us.
Perfectly justifiable on philosophical grounds as I
believe this doctrine to be, it is also true that the real-
ization of it comes to many minds as a veritable revela-
tion from above. It is a vision of all things in God,
and is often attained by sudden insight. Thus has the
vision been described by one who experienced it: “I
remember very distinctly the time, many years ago,
when the vision of all things in God came to me first.
ir
moorland, amid all the beauty and splendour of a
bright summer morning, every blade of grass glittering
82 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
|-
with dew, the air filled with the throb of awakening
life, the whole infinite variety of form, colour, sound,
movement, blended by some all-uniting influence into
one experience, overpowering, immense, beautiful—there
came to me, in one swift intuition, the meaning of it
all : this limited experience of mine is a share in the
great universal experience in which I live and move
and have my being. The colours that I see, the sounds
that I hear, the forms and relations of things, the whole
interrelated world of Nature, cannot in reality be
other than I discern them to be for me as I apprehend
them. Rather must it be true that this experience
of mine, which I now apprehend as the experience
of a spiritual being, is part of a vaster spiritual ex-
perience--an experience which enfolds me and my
experience within itself, and makes me a partaker in
its universal life. Nor have careful reflection in the
years that have passed since then, nor the reading
and pondering of many philosophies, at all dimmed
the brightness of that vision or impaired the revelation
it conveyed.”
It is certainly true that the doctrine which we have
thus arrived at is open to criticism in the sense that it
raises many questions which demand consideration.
The most important of these will come up for investi-
gation in the following chapters. Those which are
most pressing will occur immediately to every thought-
ful mind. Does not this doctrine make man to be a
part of God? Does it not, therefore, implicitly deny
man's real personality and freedom? Is it not essen-
tially a form of Pantheism and subject to all the
objections which make Pantheism untenable ? By
what legitimate means can we pass from the individual
experience to the universal experience? Is not this
III
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
83
the very difficulty which destroys the value of Green's
doctrine ? These questions are very urgent, and must
be considered. We shall, I think, find that we have
already gained principles which provide a sufficient
answer to them. But, even if they were not susceptible
of reasonable treatment, they do not invalidate the
conclusion that the only possible way of justifying our
belief in the physical world, as a reality independent
of the experience of every finite mind, is to postulate
a great world-mind whose conscious experience gives
being to the whole physical universe. For, as we have
seen, the argument by which we attain to this con-
clusion is an argument from a fact to its only possible
explanation. To expect that such a conclusion should
at once dissipate all doubts and answer all questions
is to demand too much. Though many problems
should remain unsolved, it would still be true that no
otherwise can the existence of an independent physical
world, including within its sphere all our partial
experiences of it, be justified.
It is but seldom realized how vast is the sweep of
this great conclusion. In every department of thought
and life we need a standard-an absolute—if we are
to be saved from utter confusion. Is truth anything
more than opinion ? Is morality anything more than
tribal custom ? Is beauty anything more than fashion
and convention ? Such questions open up endless
controversies. But surely it is clear that, apart from
any discussion of the various doctrines which have
been held on these great subjects, it makes all the
difference in the world if we believe in a universal
mind which, in giving being to the whole universe,
sets also standards for all the great values which we
recognize in the universe.
n
84 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Mr. Balfour, in his recent Gifford Lectures, appealed
very powerfully to this argument from the necessity
of a standard in truth, ästhetics, and morals. It is
strange that he does not perceive that the true founda-
tion for this appeal is to be found in the idealist
argument for the being of God. If we share in a
universal experience, then we share also in the standards
of truth, beauty, and goodness which belong to that
experience. Our modes of estimating values are all
imperfect apprehensions of the absolute standards
which exist in God alone. Take the case of beauty.
Opinions differ among individuals, and still more
widely among communities and races, as to what is
beautiful and what is ugly. So far does this difference
go, that it seems quite reasonable to maintain that
beauty is essentially a matter of fashion and convention.
Yet we observe that with the advance of civilization
there is a growing agreement as regards the beautiful
in Nature, human faculties become more and more
able to detect this beauty, and then it turns out that,
in Nature, beauty—a beauty which appeals to our
taste—is the rule, and ugliness is the exception. The
inference surely is that, in this respect, our faculties,
as they develop, correspond more and more perfectly
with the standard set by the Supreme Mind whose
experience constitutes the universe. Let me remind
those who are interested in this fascinating question
of the remarkable treatment of it in Canon Kennedy's
Natural Theology and Modern Thought. There will be
found a valuable criticism of certain questions raised
by Kant in connection with this subject.
How, then, are we to regard the material world ?
It is not the sole ultimate reality as Materialism
regards it. It is not the obverse of a reality whose
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
85
reverse is the world of consciousness, as in the popular
theory of psycho-physical parallelism. It is not a mere
insubstantial vision, a great subjective illusion.
In contrast to all these, we regard the material
world as a great coherent order of things in space and
time, with that lower degree of reality which belongs
to it in relation to the higher reality of spiritual ex-
perience. This higher reality is the more concrete,
and therefore contains within itself all of the lower
reality which it apprehends. In our case this
apprehension is very partial and very interrupted.
But there is a great Universal Spiritual Experience
which includes the whole realm of Nature within its
grasp, and thus it is that the natural world possesses,
in its own degree, a reality which makes it independent
of the partial experiences which belong to finite beings.
Bergson, in his difficult work Matière et Mémoire,
elaborates from the psychological side his theory of
the relation of mind and matter. Though his methods
are wholly different from those which I have followed,
and though his results are expressed in a wholly
different manner, I venture to think that his doctrine,
if I understand it aright, is perfectly harmonious with
that which I have laid before you. By most careful
physiological and psychological investigation, he shows
that images are not stored up in the brain, that memory
is not rightly regarded as a function of the brain, that
between the full spiritual fact of our conscious experi-
ence as presented in the memory which sums up our
past and the perception of external objects there is a
radical difference, and he admits that these objects of
perception are such that they exist only in relation to
consciousness. Against Idealism he brings the charge
that it has neglected to grasp the practical nature of
86 GOI) AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
perception. According to him, perception is always
the detaching, from the totality of things, the possible
action of my body upon them. It is a stage in an
active process. Thus it is that he explains how all
the rest escapes our grasp, although it is of the same
nature as that which is perceived.
If this be a correct account of his doctrine, it
certainly involves a criticism of the current intellectual
idealism, but it is in perfect agreement with the
doctrine set forth above. Nay, our doctrine makes it
far clearer; for we have seen that it is by abstracting
from the fulness of our spiritual experience and
fastening attention on the objective element in that
experience that we grasp the things in space. That
this abstraction takes place in the pursuit of an active
aim is probably correct, though it is not clear that
activity may not sometimes aim at knowledge.
In appreciation of Berkeley, Bergson acknowledges
that "philosophy made a great step forward on the
day when Berkeley proved, as against the 'mechanical
philosophers,' that the secondary qualities of matter
have at least as much reality as the primary qualities.”*
But when he adds that Berkeley made a mistake “in
believing that, for this, it was necessary to place
matter within the mind, and make it a pure idea,"
Bergson does not, I think, come into conflict with that
development of Berkeley's doctrine which I have
ventured to lay before you. For Bergson holds that
perception gives us things in themselves, though only
in a partial way, so far as is necessary for action upon
them, and he maintains that things are "images" in
relation with consciousness — a position which, he
asserts, no philosophical doctrine, if it is to be con-
* Matter and Memory, English translation, p. ix.
7
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
87
sistent with itself, can escape.* That is, our perception
grasps, in their real nature, but imperfectly, fragments
of a world of things which are essentially such that
they exist only in relation to consciousness. We ask
no more.
* Op. cit., Conclusion III., p. 303 f.
CHAPTER IV
GOD AND THE WORLD
In the last lecture we dealt, so far as our space per-
mitted, with the problem of the material world and its
relation to our consciousness. Relying entirely on the
facts given in experience, we were led to a doctrine
having a closer affinity with Berkeley's than with any
other, but rejecting his conception of the human mind
as a kind of screen upon which a Divine operator throws
a succession of images. We were led to the belief that
the material world exists in a universal experience in
which we, in a partial way, share. We saw that this
doctrine is confronted by many difficulties, but that
none of the efforts of recent philosophers promised any
more hopeful solution.
It is clear from this that the problem of the material
world leads on to another and even greater problem-
the problem of God.
The question with which we have to deal is, in
general, What is the relation of the individual human
consciousness to the universal consciousness ? Green
nan
“unifying and self-distinguishing spiritual subject," an
“eternal consciousness which reproduces itself in us,"
and so on. His doctrine is that our consciousness is
really a mode or partial manifestation of the universal
88
GOD AND THE WORLD
89
consciousness. Or, as his language in many places
implies, that a consciousness which is, for itself, eternally
complete, unfolds or realizes itself gradually in our
experience, thus making our experience. But as this
doctrine is founded on the analysis by which we find
the operation of a self-conscious subject in all our own
experiences, there is no escaping the conclusion that
the single spiritual principle, the self-conscious subject
or ego, is in every case the same—that is, that the self
of man is God. The only alternative, as we have
already seen, is to regard the spiritual principle which
realizes itself in every man as an abstract order or
system of categories, which, just because it is abstract,
is capable of indefinite application. In the latter case
God is reduced to a mere abstraction : He becomes a
law according to which experiences develop. In the
former, man loses his personal identity: the self in man
is God. Here is the fundamental difficulty. How can
we affirm God as the subject of universal experience
without denying man? How can man be a sharer in
the life of God?
This difficulty has pressed with so much insistency
on recent thought, that there has arisen a very wide-
spread scepticism as to the possibility of maintaining
a belief in God as Absolute. On all hands we find able
thinkers turning to the idea of a limited God. Apart
from the schools in which Kantian-Hegelianism of the
received type is maintained as an orthodox tradition,
this may be said to be the prevailing tendency amongst
more recent philosophers. Amongst those who have
openly advocated this doctrine of a limited God, or
whose tendencies are in that direction, I may mention
such distinguished names as those of Mr. F. H. Bradley,
William James, Dr. McTaggart, and Dr. Rashdall,
T can mar
er
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90 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
amongst English and American thinkers ; the list in-
cludes some of the most stimulating minds of our
generation. In general it may be said that the tendency
of thinkers who belong to the schools which are
described by the terms Pragmatism, Pluralism, and
Personal Idealism, is towards the conclusion that God
must not be identified with the Absolute; that He, like
ourselves, must be conceived as dwelling within the
all-inclusive universe, and operating upon it under the
limitations imposed by its essential nature; that He is
a sort of elder brother of all spiritual beings, vaster,
wiser, more powerful than they, but not different in
the nature of the relation in which He stands towards
the sum total of all being.
According to Dr. McTaggart, whose personal idealism
(as I think it must be described) is an offshoot of
Hegelianism, this is the only possible conception of
God. He holds that the conception of an omnipotent
God is wholly inconsistent with the existence of pain
and evil in the world, and is therefore one which cannot
be entertained as corresponding to any reality. On
the other hand, a non-omnipotent God can only be, he
contends, “a person who fights for the good, and who
may be victorious." There can be no certainty that He,
any more than we ourselves, shall ultimately prevail.
Professor William James, in his Hibbert Lectures,
which were published under the title A Pluralistic
Universe, develops a conception of a limited God
which is certainly more inspiring. His doctrine is
closely allied to that of Fechner, though the basis of
his thought is different. Fechner regarded body and
mind as necessarily connected, not only in man, but
throughout the whole universe. Just as the body of
man is an organism compounded of many organs, so
GOD AND THE WORLD
91
CIS
the soul of man is the combination of all the various
consciousnesses which belong to these various organs.
So also is there a consciousness of the whole human
race formed by the union of all human souls, though
each soul in its individuality is unaware of the union.
Similarly, according to Fechner, there must be an
earth-soul, and a soul in every one of the heavenly
bodies ; and all these again compound with all kinds
and degrees of souls to form a great universal con-
sciousness. This conception had evidently a great
fascination for Professor James. He did not give him-
self wholly away to it, but it guided his thought. His
investigations in the psychology of religion convinced
him that there is a great realm of psychic reality with
which our experience is subconsciously continuous,
and that from it there come to us endless influences
and elements. The religious “ believer finds that the
tenderer parts of his personal life are continuous with
a more of the same quality which is operative in the
universe outside of him.” “In a word, the believer is
continuous, to his own consciousness, at any rate, with
a wider self, from which saving experiences flow in."
Those who have had this vision “know—that is enough
-that we inhabit an invisible spiritual environment
from which help comes, our soul being mysteriously
one with a larger soul whose instruments we are."'*
There is, then, according to James, a superhuman
consciousness with which we are in close relationship.
Why, we may well ask, does he not go the whole
way and regard this superhuman consciousness as
universal ? The answer is that James was compelled
to abandon this final step by the very same difficulty
which leads Dr. McTaggart to deny the possibility of
* Op. cit., chap. viii.
0
92 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
LIN
an omnipotent God. If God be regarded as Absolute,
what about the pain and evil, the contradictions, of the
world ? " The only way of escape from all this is to
be frankly pluralistic, and assume that the superhuman
consciousness, however vast it may be, has itself an
external environment, and consequently is finite."
“ The line of least resistance," he concludes, “then,
both in theology and in philosophy, is to accept, along
with the superhuman consciousness, the notion that it
is not all-embracing—the notion, in other words, that
there is a God, but that He is finite, either in power or
in knowledge, or in both at once. « These,” he adds,
“I need hardly tell you, are the terms in which common
men have usually carried on their active commerce
with God.”*
Or consider Dr. Rashdall's statement as given in his
article in the volume called Personal Idealism.
Let me say at once that Dr. Rashdall's doctrine and
the process by which he arrives at it appear to me to
be among the most valuable contributions to recent
thought on this great question. Certainly the extra-
ordinary clearness and conciseness of his statement are
beyond praise.
He accepts as conclusive that idealistic proof of the
being of God as supreme self or person, which I
endeavoured to set before you in my own way in the
last lecture. He then passes to the consideration of
the problem which must always confront the inquirer
when this stage is reached : How are we to conceive
the relation between God and human subjects? And
here, of course, he finds the doctrine which regards
human subjects as parts, or elements, or aspects of the
Divine, and therefore in some sense to be identified
* Op. cit., pp. 310, 311.
GOD AND THE WORLD
93
n
with the Divine. With reference to this doctrine he
points out that, as usually presented, it rests upon the
fallacy of regarding human persons as knowing subjects
when considered in relation to their own experience,
and as objects known when considered in relation to
the Divine subject. To regard a subject as an object
does not bring his intrinsic nature within the experience
of another subject. For himself—that is, as he essen-
tially is—he remains independent. It is this very fact
which constitutes the distinction between a person and
a thing. The thing is as it is known, or capable of
being known; the person is as he knows. Or, to use
the language more commonly employed in this con-
nection, the thing exists for a knowing subject, the
knowing subject exists for himself. That is the
fundamental fact of all experience.
Dr. Rashdall is therefore driven to regard the
universe as consisting of God, the Supreme, but not
all-inclusive Spirit, and a multitude of finite spirits
who possess a limited independence by which the
independence of the Deity is also limited. But these
finite spirits are not regarded as eternal or self-
existent: they owe their origin to the will of God.
The limitation of God by these finite spirits is not
therefore a condition imposed upon the Deity by some
power not His own. It is a self-limitation, adopted
with a view to the accomplishment of a supreme
beneficent purpose.
It adds great persuasiveness to this doctrine that it
leaves room for the freedom of the human will and for
the imperfection and evil which we find in the world.
It is also very closely in harmony with the ordinary
thoughts and convictions of religious people. Here we
find a development of idealist doctrine which may be
94 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
contemplated by the mind of the average Christian
with deep satisfaction.
The philosophic critic will, however, be inclined to
call this doctrine a form of pluralism-of the doctrine,
that is, which holds that the universe consists of a
multitude of spirits. To this, however, Dr. Rashdall
demurs. He holds that the manifoldness, the limita-
tions and imperfections, of the world are, in his view,
not of the essence of things : they have arisen through
the self-limitation of the Supreme. The one mind and
will has given rise to the many that, through their
interaction with himself, there may result, in spite of
the emergence of evils which have to be overcome, a
best, an ultimate supreme blessing, which would other-
wise be impossible. There is a ring of good old
orthodoxy about this which will satisfy many minds
that metaphysics are not altogether waste of time.
All such theories as those which I have described-
in fact, all theories which hold that God is limited
—force upon us the question, How then are we to
think of the whole, the all-inclusive totality of being ?
I think it is possible to present briefly to our minds
the various answers which can be given to this question.
And I think that all possible answers must (on the
hypothesis of a limited God) come in the end to one
or other of two views of the universe : either the
universe is a heterogeneous multiplicity, or it is an
assemblage of conscious selves. In the former case we
must think of the whole multitude of conscious beings,
whether sharing a common life (as in James's view)
or not, as having to deal with an environment or
material of some sort, which is, partially at all events,
alien and intractable. In the latter case we think of
the universe as consisting of a multitude of conscious
GOD AND THE WORLD
95
selves, which by their mutual interaction create the
world that we know in our experience. Here surely
are the two forms which Pluralism can assume.
We have seen that the difficulty which in every
case drives thinking men to pluralistic doctrines is the
great problem which comes to light in relation to our
mental life as contradiction and in relation to our
moral life as evil. This is so in the three typical cases
which I have mentioned. It is so with Dr. McTaggart,
with Professor James, and with Dr. Rashdall. There
is an element in the universe which cannot be brought
within any coherent scheme of thought, which cannot
be made consistent with the idea of a universe ordered
by perfect power and wisdom. How can such a fact
be accounted for? In one or other of two ways :
either the Supreme power is working under limitations
imposed upon Him by an intractable environment-
working, that is, under conditions which He cannot,
or does not, wholly control; and therefore His best
endeavours produce a result which is less perfect than
would be produced were His will quite unfettered : or
He is dealing with a multitude of other wills which,
by their freedom, limit His power. In the latter case,
the supposition that the freedom of these wills is itself
due to the Divine Will, and has been created with a
view to the realization of a higher purpose-a purpose
which apart from that freedom would have been im-
possible—is that of Dr. Rashdall, and is the view
commonly accepted by thoughtful Christian people.
God desires, as we say, the willing, loving service of
children, not the mechanical obedience of unthinking
clockwork ; and in making a willing service possible,
He inevitably made disobedience possible also.
In either case we are led to Leibnitz' conception of
96 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
this world as the best of all possible worlds--not neces-
sarily good, but the best that could be had. We are
also led to the Christian idea of a supreme Divine
purpose overcoming the evil and bringing in the good
—a great agelong moral conquest of all that opposes
It is extremely interesting to see these great ideas,
which are consecrated by the meditations and devotions
of many centuries, arising afresh out of the Kantian-
Hegelian discussion of reality.
According to Dr. Rashdall, “philosophers have im-
posed upon themselves and others by the trick of
simply assuming (without proof) an identity between
God and the philosophical Absolute,' and then arguing
that if any of the attributes ascribed by theology or
religion or common sense to God are inconsistent with
what is implied in the conception of the Absolute,'
no such being as the God of religion can exist.”
“Personality,” he adds, “is undoubtedly inconsistent
with the idea of the Absolute or Infinite Being, and
therefore it is assumed that God is not personal.”
“The arguments of Idealism," he goes on, "really, as
it seems to me, go to prove that over and above our
souls there does exist such a Being as theologians,
except when they have unintelligently aped the lan-
guage of philosophies not their own, have commonly
understood by God. The Absolute, therefore, if we
must have a phrase which might well be dispensed
with, consists of God and the souls, including, of
course, all that God and those souls know or ex-
perience."*
It is just here that I think Dr. Rashdall's doctrine
is open to criticism. The foundation of his whole
* Op. cit., p. 392.
GOD AND THE WORLD
97
structure is the argument for the Being of God which
is yielded by Idealism. What is that argument? It
is just this : The world as we know it exists in our
experience, an experience which is essentially the
experience of a person or self. Only as involved in
such an experience can there be a world to know. If,
then, the world that I know is part of a much vaster
world which is independent of me, which existed ages
before I was born, and the greater portion of which is
beyond my ken, it must be because there is an ex-
periencing self indefinitely greater than I who makes
this great world possible. What is my relation to that
Supreme Self? Do I exist apart from Him and inde-
pendently of Him? Surely it is obvious that, since
the world that I know is part of His world, I, who
know it, must in some sense share His life. This is
the fact that Dr. Rashdall's doctrine fails to deal with.
It was this that Green laboured to express when he
spoke of the eternal consciousness reproducing itself in
us. We have seen the objections to which all such
statements are open. Yet I cannot but think that a
doctrine like Dr. Rashdall's, which ignores the nature
of the very facts on which it is founded, is open to
objection in a manner which is even more serious.
The real question which confronts us is this : How
can a world which is one and the same, and which
exists only as it is experienced, enter into the ex-
periences of a multitude of distinct subjects? It can
only be, surely, because all these subjects, in some way
or other, share in one all-embracing conscious life.
It is possible, of course, to deny that the world
which all subjects know is one and the same. Then
the world, as I know it, becomes a sort of vision, or
appearance, that is produced in me in some unaccount-
מן
98 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ULL
able manner. In other words, the world is for every
man his own private vision—a conclusion which is, in
essence, solipsism. It was because he laid himself open
to this interpretation that Berkeley was charged with
preaching illusion. And, for this reason, there was a
certain amount of justice in the charge. No, the only
way to escape solipsism is to hold fast to that de-
liverance of our common experience and our common
sense, that the world which we all know is one and
the same world, that it is a world of things, glowing
with colour, quivering with movement and life, no
insubstantial vision, no mere system of abstract primary
qualities or thought forms. The vivid reality which I
see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, and touch
with my hands, is the same in imy experience and in
yours, though my apprehension of it or yours may be
very partial and very intermittent.
There is the fact on which all our constructions must
be based. And, so far as I can see, the only possible
interpretation of it is that the Universal Spirit which
gives being to this great world of things in time and
space is, in some way, or in some sense, for us an all-
enveloping life, a supreme, all-inclusive experience in
whom all we lesser beings live and move and have our
experience.
Dr. Rashdall, therefore, seems to me to be much
mistaken when he writes : “Philosophers have imposed
upon themselves and others by the trick of simply
assuming (without proof) an identity between God and
the philosophical Absolute.” If we argue from the
nature of our experience of the world, and from our
inevitable belief as to the reality, for ourselves and for
everybody, of that world as known in our experience,
we must regard the spirit which gives being to Nature
We
UTTI
1
GOD AND THE WORLD
99
Ducus
CO
IVE
es
as the Universal Spirit in whose all-embracing life we
share. That is, we must identify God and the Absolute.
Further light is, I think, thrown on this great
problem by considering the nature of the human self
as known in our experience in relation to other selves
and their experiences. But before we proceed to that
consideration, we must define more accurately the
stage of our argument to which we have now attained.
In defiance of Dr. Rashdall's statement that “per-
sonality is undoubtedly inconsistent with the idea of
the Absolute or Infinite Being,” we have arrived at the
conclusion that the Universal Spirit, whose Being gives
reality to the objective world which we know in our
experience, is most certainly personal. That is, we
believe, on the basis of the idealistic argument, in the
personality of God, while holding at the same time
that He is universal, all-inclusive, in relation both to
ourselves and to the world. It is this last statement
which Dr. Rashdall denies. Let us consider the reason
of his denial.
With great clearness, in the article already men-
tioned, Dr. Rashdall sets forth the essential character-
istics of personality. First, it implies consciousness.
Secondly, permanence : the self-conscious subject brings
into relation with one another the experiences of
diverse moments. It is the unifying principle which
links experience together and makes it one. Thirdly,
the subject, or person, distinguishes itself from the
object; and in all experience as we have it, this dis-
tinction of subject and object is essential. Fourthly,
among the objects which are thus distinguished from
the subject are, not only things, but also other subjects
“which are not known merely as objects for this
person's thought, but as beings which exist for them-
A
100 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
selves.” “The consciousness which is personal dis-
tinguishes itself from other consciousnesses, and
particularly from other persons. Individuality is an
essential element in our idea of personality."* Fifthly,
“the person is not merely a feeling, but a willing or
originating consciousness. The self is conscious of
being an åpxý—whether in the sense of the Libertarian
or in the sense of the Determinist, who believes in
self-determination,' need not be discussed here."
In addition to these five marks of personality or
selfhood, Dr. Rashdall considers other qualities which,
he notes, are possessed only in degree by selves, and
are, more or less, open to discussion. But here we
need not follow him. That which he puts fourth calls
for our special consideration. A person in order to be
a person must, he thinks, distinguish himself, not
merely from objects which we class as things, but
from objects which we know are also, for themselves,
subjects. This is the individuality of the person; and
individuality Dr. Rashdall holds to be an essential of
personality. The meaning is that a person can exist
only as one of a crowd. If I did not distinguish
myself from you, I could not distinguish myself as self
at all ; just as I could not distinguish myself as a
subject unless I had first the consciousness of myself
in relation to some object : that is the doctrine. Is it
correct? I do not think it is.
It seems to me that Dr. Rashdall, in common with
many other thinkers, is confusing two very different
things: the way in which we get to know a truth and
the truth itself. I have no doubt that man's conscious-
ness of himself has come to be what it is, not only
through his reaction upon the objective world of things,
* Op. cit., pp. 371, 372.
GOD AND THE WORLD
101
1
but also through his apprehension of the fact that
behind certain experiences of his he must recognize
the agency of conscious subjects like himself and his
dealing with those subjects. Man certainly learns to
know himself by means of his social relationships. But
this is a very different assertion from that which
makes social relationship to be essential to the very
being of personality. Is it true that it is impossible to
conceive a person existing otherwise than as one of a
multitude ? Or, more accurately, when we are working
back to personality as the underlying principle which
makes experience possible, is it necessary to include
social relationship in the experience, so that we could
not arrive at the principle of personality unless it were
included. Surely not: from any experience at all,
whether it includes social relationship or not, we reason
back to the uniting agency of the self-conscious
subject--that is, to personality. As Lotze showed,
the fact that we can appear to ourselves in any way,
or that anything can appear to us, presupposes the
unity of the self.
Two considerations bear out this view. First, it is
generally admitted that if anyone dares to adopt
solipsism as his philosophical creed, and maintain that
he himself and his experience constitute the universe,
it is impossible to overthrow him by argument. His
position is unassailable. Secondly, the self of another
person can, as Dr. Rashdall admits, never become an
object of direct knowledge to me. Its essential nature
is that it exists for itself. As such it is always inac-
cessible to every other self. Only as the supposed
ground of certain elements and changes in my experi-
ence can it become an object of my thought. In this.
way I credit it with a spontaneity like my own. In
he himself and philosophical anyone dares
2.0
102 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
all my thought-processes and conscious apprehensions
the ultimate unity is my self; and within the whole
realm of my experience it is the one reality which
exists for itself. Hence no other beings which exist
for themselves can enter into my experience in their
true nature in order to give rise by contrast to my self
as being for self. The being for self of which I am
conscious is, in fact, posited by contrast with the not-
self. Only as an x, to which I attribute like nature
with myself, but whose nature I do not directly appre-
hend, does the self of another person exist for me.
Yet it is true, as we all know, that only in social
relationship can a properly human life be lived. As a
social being man has come into possession of all his
spiritual powers, and only as a social being can his
as a human being unless in relation to his fellows. By
feeling, sympathy, affection, co-operation, we leap
across the chasm which separates soul from soul, and
build a social life which no effort of the intellect can
reduce to a perfectly articulated intelligible whole. In
this social life the individual self takes its place as an
independent life of its own into which it can withdraw,
a sanctuary that no other self can penetrate.
We find, then, in personality an inmost nature
which asserts itself against the bonds of that social
order in which, so far as our human experience goes, it
must always come to itself. This inmost nature is its
existing for itself, in contrast to mere things which
exist for it. It is because every human soul is ulti-
mately of this nature that the mind of the individual
claims its independence as against the whole world.
“My mind to me a kingdom is.” There I reign, and
GOD AND THE WORLD
103
there I give judgment in the way which seems to me
right. I listen to others. I may say nothing, but I
think all the more.“ Convince a man against his
will, he's of the same opinion still.” It is perfectly
true that we gain our opinions very largely from
others, but they are not ours until we put the stamp
of our own private decision upon them. In practice
this same ultimate nature of the self appears in the
way in which a man can assert himself against the rule
or custom of society. The tyrant may destroy a man's
body, but he cannot touch the will. When a man has
once made up his mind he can face an angry world,
and though that world may destroy him and all his
works, it can never, for the man himself, reverse his
inner decision. “Here I stand. I can do no other.
God help me,” was the utterance of Luther. It was
the expression of a spirit which is, for itself, not only
unconquerable, but inaccessible.
Now, it is this “for-itself-ness” which is the essence
of personality. If we find other characteristics which
seem irreconcilable with this, we must conclude that
there is some error in our psychology, or that such
characteristics are altogether subordinate. Therefore
it seems to me that Dr. Rashdall is wrong in denying
that personality can belong to the Absolute. If
the term Absolute has any meaning at all, if we are
to venture to think or reason about the all-inclusive
totality, we must regard it as existing for itself. We
can think of it in no other way. The Spirit which
gives being to the whole universe must, at least, exist
for Himself. Probably such a mode of expression is
altogether unworthy of so great a subject. But if any
expression at all is applicable, this is.
We cannot, however, go so far as to say that this
104 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
“for-itself-ness ”--this personality, as we understand
it-expresses the full nature of the ultimate reality.
For personality, as it is in us, has no power to include
within its experience a multitude of persons as they
are for themselves. We never can think another soul
from within. This, as we have seen, is characteristic
of our thought. In relation to one another, human
persons are in this sense mutually exclusive. But the
ultimate reality cannot be of this nature. It must
unite in one the diversity of the spiritual universe.
Here the pluralist will raise objection. He will say :
This is a priori philosophizing. I reply that our con-
clusion here is not merely based on a priori principles.
It is no mere application of logic to a sphere in which
logic is probably powerless. On the contrary, in making
this statement we are keeping closely to the teaching
of experience. For experience forces us to believe that,
on the objective side, one and the same great world of
things in space and time integrates all our partial
apprehensions of things. Or, to put it otherwise, there
is a great universal experience in which we all share
Turning to the subjective side, this implies that the
Spirit which gives being to the whole is all-inclusive
in relation to the finite spirits which partially grasp
the world which He posits.
Thus we arrive at the conclusion that, while we must
attribute personality to the Supreme, personality as it
exists in us is not a sufficient account of His nature.
There must be in Him some higher principle of unity.
It seems to me that this is exactly what might be
expected from a consideration of man's place in the
universe as our common sense reveals it. We are gifted
with spiritual powers which lift us above both inanimate
nature and the whole series of living beings, other than
2
.
DI
el
GOD AND THE WORLD
105
are
rea
ourselves, as we find them in the world about us. But we
are certainly not at the summit of being. Confronted
with the vast universe, we must confess the limitations
of our knowledge and power, our littleness, our feeble-
ness, our inability to grasp and understand the whole
of things. It is therefore eminently reasonable to
suppose that our powers enable us to grasp in their
full nature things which are below us in the scale of
being, but fail to give us a complete apprehension of
the things which are above us. Now, since we are, as
individuals, elements in the social order, each one of
us being but one among many, it is probable that the
principle which makes possible this whole order must
be, to some degree, superior in its nature to any prin-
ciple of which we are aware.
In the earlier lectures I showed good reason, as it
seems to me, to believe that there are degrees of reality.
By an analysis of experience, I showed you that by
abstraction we can descend the scale, passing from the
full concrete reality of our given experience to the
world of things in space, and from this to the world of
primary qualities with which physical science deals,
and from this again to the world of mere geometrical
forms, reality thinning out into mere ghostly shadows
as we proceed. But suppose that, instead of descending,
we ascend. In that case we pass from the more to the
less abstract, and come at length to the concrete ex-
perience of the self-conscious subject. But does reality
stop there? Surely not. At the level of human con-
sciousness we find, if we consider the multitude of
thinking individuals, a multiplicity of concrete experi-
ences which, from the point of view of anyone individual,
are incapable of combination in a harmonious whole,
but which, in practice, form a great social order in
dan C
106 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
which every individual is an element. Surely the only
reasonable explanation is that, though we cannot
follow it, the scale of reality rises another step to a
level on which—and for the world-embracing point of
view which must, most certainly, be there—all that
seems disconnected and discordant at the lower level
is combined in a unity of higher order. And just as
the concrete reality of experience takes up completely
into itself the lower stages of reality, so this highest
of all takes up all experiences. It is the most real
and the most concrete.
How can this superior degree of reality be described ?
It cannot, I think, be fully described by the term
“personality,” for, as we have seen, personality is
unequal to the task of effecting a final unification
amongst all conscious subjects. It was for this very
reason that we found it necessary to believe in a higher
principle of unity. This supreme principle must, then,
be described as superpersonal. But it is not for that
reason lacking in personality. On the contrary, for
that very reason, it is personal. For consider the
analogy of the lower degrees : man as spiritual is above
the material world, yet is man material as well as
spiritual. So, we conclude, must the highest super-
personal reality be personal also.
It is possible to go even further. Analogy would
lead to the conclusion that, in this higher unity, the
principle of personality is realized in its highest perfec-
tion. Consider personality in relation to the material
order. As we have just said, man is material as well
as spiritual. But that is not all. The material world
reaches its highest development in connection with
personality. In the human organism, and especially
in the human brain, the organization of matter attains
lan
GOD AND THE WORLD
107
TY
to a complexity and a perfection which are unparalleled
elsewhere. It is surely a just inference that, if there
be a higher reality—a condition of being in which
personality is subordinate to some higher unifying
principle—then, in that reality, personality reaches
a perfection which is far beyond anything in our
· experience.
It is very noteworthy that all religious experience
agrees with the doctrine which I have endeavoured to
set forth. We have seen that, in relation to one
another, finite persons are mutually exclusive. The
self as it is for itself—the self, that is, in its own
intrinsic nature-can never become an object of know-
ledge to another self. You can never know meI can
never know you—from within. I cannot see with
your eyes, or hear with your ears, or think your
thoughts as you think them. But religious experience
is always pervaded by the conviction that this exclu-
siveness of the self does not hold in the relation between
man and God. We cannot help thinking of God as
one who knows us from within. “O Lord, thou hast
searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-
thought afar off. ... There is not a word in my
tongue but lo! O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.”
That is the authentic language of religious experience.
Again, it is the conviction that God is the searcher of
hearts which enables a man to examine his own moral
consciousness with most perfect sincerity. When he
feels that even the secrets which he desires to hide
from himself are “naked and laid open before the eyes"
of God, he becomes honest with himself. This is the
experience of every true penitent. While the moral
value of this experience cannot be questioned, its value
UU
108 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
in other respects may easily be overlooked. Professor
W. James helped us to realize the psychological im-
portance of religious experience. His researches were,
however, mainly directed to the examination of the
evidences of the power of religion to produce moral
change. He has been followed by a number of students
of the facts and experiences which are grouped under
the name of Mysticism. To these writers the ex-
periences of the mystics constitute a proof of the
reality of the communion of devout souls with God,
and therefore a proof from experience of God's being
and character. Both James's doctrine that our con-
sciousness is continuous with a larger consciousness
from which spiritual help comes to us, and the ex-
periences of the mystics, testify to the essential im-
portance of the inner relation of the soul to God. If
religious experience is to have any value at all for
philosophy, this inwardness of relationship with the
Divine must be regarded as its principal deliverance.
It is necessary to be quite clear that, logically, the
statement at which we have now arrived involves
contradiction. Let this fact be distinctly set forth.
The essence of personality is its “for-itself-ness.” On
this account we hold that persons mutually exclude
one another. It is impossible, that is, for a person to
think other persons in their true nature as they exist
for themselves; for, in thought, the object exists for
the subject, not for itself. When we think a subject,
he is for us an object, and therefore lacks in our
thought the essential personal quality of “for-itself-
ness,” while for himself he possesses it. This is the
philosophical statement of the common experience that
we can never get inside the mind of another. Here
theory and experience are in complete accord and
ACA
GOD AND THE WORLD
109
justify one another. But we cannot hold that this
limitation belongs to God; therefore we have concluded
He must be superpersonal-higher in His nature than
we are, knowing us from within and including our
whole being as we are in ourselves within His being.
Yet we have said that we must think of God in
terms of " for-itself-ness”--that is, in terms of person-
ality. This is perfectly true. Further, we proceeded
to show reason for believing that personality as it is in
Him reaches a higher perfection than in us. As matter
reaches its highest perfection when it is taken up into
closest association with personal mind, so we must
expect that personal mind reaches its highest perfec-
tion when entering into relation with an order of things
which is higher than itself—that is, we regard “for-
itself-ness ” as it exists in God as something more than
personality, though it is for us the very essence of
personality.
The more distinctly this difficulty emerges the better
for our purpose. What we are concerned to show is
that our experience is such that, while we cannot think
with logical consistency above the level of personality
as it exists in us, we are driven to believe in an all-
uniting highest degree of reality which includes all
finite persons within its sphere. It matters little
whether we call this highest degree superpersonal or
describe it as personality in its highest perfection.
Certain it is that, while we recognize it as higher in
degree of reality than ourselves, we can think of it
only in terms of the personality that we know.
The mutual exclusiveness of persons in relation to
one another is not inconsistent with the possibility of
their being combined together harmoniously in a single
system when taken up into a higher degree of reality.
One
110 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
SOU
For, in their own sphere, material things in space-
and in that character related to one another-are
mutually exclusive. They have the attribute of im-
penetrability. But as elements in the conscious ex-
perience of a person they are not impenetrable, for we
have seen that, in conscious experience taken as a
whole, the elements interpenetrate. My apprehension
of the material world is penetrated through and through
by feeling, thought, and purpose. So, surely, it is
possible that, in that highest reality which we may
call the Divine Experience, the finite persons which,
on the level of their own proper existence, stand apart,
mutually impenetrable, combine harmoniously in the
unity which belongs to that Supreme Being. We
cannot grasp this ultimate harmony because, as finite
beings, we live on a lower level. Hence the inevitable
contradiction.
To the whole scheme of thought which I have pre-
sented to you, one very serious objection is sure to be
made. It will be said that to identify God with a
higher reality which is all-inclusive in relation both to
the material world and to the whole multitude of finite
persons is to adopt a doctrine which cannot be kept
clear of Pantheism. What is this, it will be said, but
an identification of God with the universe.
I think I can show that this is a misapprehension.
First, the world is no more to be identified with God
than my objective experience is to be identified with
me. There is a sense in which I am inclusive of the
world of things so far as I know it. It is part of my
experience. I am the self which makes that whole
experience possible. So in relation to the world of
material things in the widest sense of the term, God
is the Self who makes it possible in all its extent and
-se.
GOD AND THE WORLD
111
Son
in all its detail. Nor is He to be regarded as the Soul
of the world, unless I am to be regarded as the soul of
the world of my own experience. The term “soul” is,
in this connection, inapplicable. It suggests relation-
ship to a bodily organism. But the relation with
which we are dealing is not the relation of soul to
body, it is the relation of self-conscious subject to
experience.
Secondly, our doctrine is not a doctrine of immanence
in the ordinary sense. It is not the idea of an in-
dwelling life pervading the universe ; it is, rather, a
doctrine of transcendence, holding that God, in His full
reality, transcends both the world of material things
and the world of finite persons. Yet here, again, we
must note that the term transcendence is not used in
its old-fashioned sense. It does not make a comparison
between God in His relation to the world and man in
his relation to the works of his hands. On the contrary,
the transcendence here indicated is that of a higher
reality in relation to a lower reality. As the fuller
reality of our conscious experience transcends the more
abstract reality of the material world, so does God, the
highest reality, transcend our conscious experience.
And here it must be said that the old distinction
between immanence and transcendence needs adjust-
ing to the altered state of philosophic thought. In
popular theology, the conception of the immanence of
God has certainly proved very valuable. It has helped
us to get away from that conception of a transcendent
Deity which filled so large a space in the thought of
the eighteenth century, and which likened God to a
great engineer or architect dealing with given materials
—the carpenter theory of creation which Herbert
Spencer derided so easily and so effectively. It has
IC
U
112 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
mar
also enabled the popular mind to bring its theology
into relation with modern conceptions of evolution.
The idea of an indwelling life, unfolding itself through-
out the ages, gradually realizing a supreme purpose,
harmonized on the one hand with the new scientific
thought of the age, and on the other with the philo-
sophic creed which was derived from the school of
Hegel. But many of those who rushed eagerly to
seize the new idea failed to realize that they were
exposing their theology to very serious dangers.
The indwelling Divine life may be compared to that
natural life which animates the whole organic series of
plants and animals. We trace this natural life ascend-
ing from minute beginnings until it reaches its highest
development in the spiritual and social existence of
man. Here the full spiritual truth of the whole is to
be found, not at the beginning, but at the end. On
such a theory, it is very easy to believe in Incarnation,
because every human being, in his own degree, is an
incarnation of the Divine, and the best man is the
most Divine thing in the whole universe-unless,
indeed, some other planet has turned out a race of
intelligent and moral creatures who have done better
than we have. It is quite clear that such a view of
Divine immanence is not of much value for theology.
If we approach the question from the side of con-
sciousness, and, instead of thinking of the evolution
of organic forms, regard the inner life of feeling,
conation, thought, which gradually comes to light in
the course of development, it may seem more hopeful.
In all such inner life, it may be said, and no doubt
truly, we trace a movement which finds its explanation
and realization in the self-conscious experience of
humanity. The whole process must be regarded as
GOD AND THE WORLD
113
an
cest
W
ere
the working out of an immanent self-consciousness.
Here, it will be said, is Divine immanence. But it is
not clear that anything has been gained by this appeal
from the outer manifestations of life to the inner. It
is still true that the Divine is to be found, not at the
beginning, but at the end; and it is also still true that
the most Divine thing in the whole universe is the best
of finite intelligences.
Not in these ways can we attain to faith in a great
Supreme Spirit guiding, or reigning in, the universe
from the beginning. Much less can we find, in such
speculations, anything to sustain our belief in a great
Father of Spirits.
When we examine the process by which we were
led to the thought of God as the universal self-conscious
subject who gives reality to the whole physical world,
it does not appear that the conception which it yields
is best described by the term immanence. Can we
describe the self of man as immanent in that portion
of the physical world which he apprehends in his
experience? I do not think we can. Let it be noted
that we are not now speaking of the full reality of
experience. We are thinking of the self in relation
to a part only—that is, to the objective side, which is
apprehended when the self abstracts all that peculiarly
belongs to itself. It would be much truer to say of
the self that it is transcendent in relation to the
physical world, for it is certainly higher in the scale
of reality. That being so, it seems to me that as God
is higher still in the scale of reality, we must regard
Him as transcendent, in this special sense, in relation
both to the physical world and also to the whole
multitude of finite spirits.
I do not pretend that these brief statements are at
re
114 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
en I
all adequate as a treatment of the great question of
immanence and transcendence. They amount merely
to an indication of the direction in which, as it seems
to me, we must look for a solution. We shall find it
necessary to return to this subject when we come to
consider the idea of evolution in connection with the
philosophy of will. It is to that branch of our dis-
cussion that it more properly belongs.
Under that heading, also, we must consider the
bearing of the problem of evil upon the doctrine which
I have endeavoured to set forth. As we have seen, it
is this problem most of all which compels philosophers
in so many cases to hold that the only possible con-
ception of God is that which regards Him as limited,
and as, therefore, not the Absolute Being. This much,
however, is now clear : If, as we have seen reason to
believe, God is above man in the scale of reality, we
must believe that contradictions and difficulties which
cannot be resolved on our level are merged in the
higher unity of His Being.
Before leaving the subject of this lecture, I must
revert to Dr. McTaggart's views as briefly stated above.
He holds that only as one among many, only as a sort
of elder brother of all finite spirits, can we believe in
the possibility of God. The reason which drives him
to this conclusion is that which I have mentioned
already. He thinks that the sin and pain of the
world prove that an omnipotent God does not rule
in the universe. “It seems to me,” he writes, “ that
when believers in God save His goodness by saying
that He is not really omnipotent, they are taking the
best course open to them, since both the personality
and the goodness of God present much fewer difficulties
if He is not conceived as omnipotent. But then they
GOD AND THE WORLD
115
univer
must accept the consequences of their choice, and
realize that the efforts of a non-omnipotent God in
favour of good may, for anything they have yet shown,
be doomed to almost total defeat."* " The fundamental
conditions of the universe may prevent it from being
anything but very bad, and all that God's utmost
efforts may be able to do is to make the inevitable
calamity a little less calamitous.Ӡ But Dr. McTag-
gart does not hold the doleful creed which he thus
describes. He does not think there is evidence to
prove the existence of a God of any kind. His con-
ception of the universe is that it consists of a system
of finite selves. It is, he holds, because these selves
form a system that there is order in the universe. It
is this system which makes the universe to be a
universe, and it is itself the ultimate fact the final
reality. This seems to me to be Pluralism with a
vengeance, though Dr. McTaggart professes to be an
idealist and a disciple of Hegel. According to this
doctrine, souls form a system. “But," as Dr. Rashdall
well asks, "a system for whom? The idea of a system
which is not ‘for'any mind at all is not open to an
idealist, and the idea of a world each part of which is
known to some mind but is not known as a whole
to any one mind is almost equally difficult.”I Dr.
McTaggart's doctrine, in fact, either destroys the
world as a reality independent of every finite spirit, or
it assumes that there can be relations without a relat-
ing intelligence. The world, in his view, is posited by
the interrelations of the whole multitude of finite
spirits. But how are these relations possible if there
is no mind which grasps the system as a whole ?
* Some Dogmas of Religion, p. 219.
† P. 260.
I Op. cit., p. 393 note.
CHAPTER V
FREEDOM
U
Is there anything fresh to be said on this old and well-
worn theme? Philosophers and theologians have been
toiling at it through all the centuries of speculation.
At all times there have been the opposing schools of
Libertarians and Necessitarians, neither of which has
ever been able to convince or finally confute the other.
Refinement has followed refinement, and subtlety has
been met with subtlety. Necessity has become Deter-
minism, and liberty has become self-determination, and
still the controversy remains. It might, indeed, seem
a hopeless task to endeavour to grapple once more
with such a problem. But the truth is that there is
no question which more urgently demands considera-
tion at present, for there is none which has had so
much fresh light thrown upon it in recent times.
The reason of this change is to be found in the
immense range of fresh observations which have been
yielded by psychology and biology. The problems of
life and consciousness have been attracting much atten-
tion of late, and have been dealt with both experi-
mentally and by much patient examination of facts.
The study of the phenomena of life is absorbing many
minds. The result is a growing conviction in many
quarters that there is in all forms of life a spontaneity
L
116
FREEDOM
117
OUIS
IS
which cannot be explained by mechanical or chemical
principles and processes. The challenge thrown out a
few years ago at a meeting of the British Association
has met with many vigorous replies, and it is being
realized that the old controversy about spontaneous
generation is already, from the philosophical point of
view, antiquated; that even if it were true that, given
certain material conditions, life would always appear,
yet the new-born life itself would be, in every case,
à thing essentially distinct from the environment of
mechanism out of which it sprang
Again, among psychologists there has been a definite
abandonment of the old associationism which treated
mental states as if they were connected by causal links
like those which bind together antecedents and conse-
quents in the realm of physical forces. As I pointed
out in my first lecture, it is now being recognized that
our conscious experience is not a mere "thread of
consciousness," a mere succession of separate psychic
elements. Its amazing complexity and concreteness
are being realized. How amazing this complexity and
concreteness are I tried to show you,
When discussing this subject we were able to see
how inseparably feeling, knowledge, and will are
united in our conscious experience. Yet, in spite of
the very determined effort which we then made to
exhibit the fulness of the reality which our conscious
experience possesses, the active side of this reality
remained very largely undisplayed. The fact is, there
is no capacity in language sufficient for our purpose.
When we talk of experience, the tendency of our
thought is to regard the experiencing self as a con-
templating intelligence rather than as an initiating
agent. Yet, in all experience, the self is an initiating
a
118 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
agent. There can be no experience without attention,
and attention is an act of will. It is self-direction
upon an object. The tendency of recent psychology
is to regard this self-direction upon an object as the
central characteristic of conscious life. Indeed, some
carry this principle far back into the very beginnings
of life, and find it, in a rudimentary form, in the more
primitive organisms. It is there apparently as an
impulse by which the creature impels itself towards
conditions of environment which correspond to its needs.
This side of the question must be left to those whose
studies enable them to deal with it. Here we are con-
cerned with our own experience. That experience, as
we have seen, is not a succession of separate events :
it is a living, moving continuum. But its life and
movement are not qualities which the self simply
observes : they are inherent in the self: they involve
the river and watch its waters flowing past us. Such
is not the relation of the self to the moving continuun
of its experience. For while the self is certainly the
permanent in relation to every changing element in
the stream of experience, it is also the inner energy of
propulsion which makes the stream to flow. Such
images may help us to realize the nature of the
facts. Yet we have to be on our guard against the
dangers of misapprehension which they involve. It
is because the facts are so close to us that we fail to
see them clearly. They form, indeed, our very life.
Examine that life from within, and it will become
evident that knowledge, feeling, and will, are but
abstracted elements of a single activity which is cen-
constitutes the characteristic nature of the self.
FREEDOM
119
n
It may be truly said that it is the appreciation of
this truth which marks most notably the principal
developments of philosophy in recent times. Upon
this, so far as I know, the most effective thinkers of
our day are agreed. Here, it is recognized, is reality
as it is given to us.
The thinker who has most fully grasped this truth,
and whose philosophy is wholly founded upon it, is
Henri Bergson. With him it becomes a new doctrine
of time. He distinguishes between time in the full
reality of its nature and time as set out in lengths and
measured by reference to spatial standards. Time in
the former sense he calls Duration. It is the very
essence of that becoming which is given in conscious
experience. Time in the latter sense is valid only in
relation to the abstract spatial world.
A good way of presenting this distinction to our
minds is to consider what we mean when we say, for
example, “I have time to catch the train.” In this
case, as in all such cases, the word “time” expresses
the relation between one set of material and spatial
movements and another. Only in this way does time
become capable of quantitative measurement. This is
phenomenal, not real, time.
It would be impossible here and now to enter upon
a discussion of Bergson's doctrine of time. Nor is it
necessary. We are concerned with Free-will and
Necessity. Bergson's treatment of this subject is one
of the most remarkable and valuable discussions of it
in all its great literature. It is the theme of the
earliest of his larger works, the Essai sur les Données.
There he works out his doctrine of time, and applies
it to the question of Freedom. For this reason I men-
tion that doctrine in this place. Yet, in my belief,
120 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1
the principle of Bergson's confutation of Determinism
and of his justification of Freedom can be made clear
without asking you to follow him in his examination
of time, and in his application of the results of that
examination to the process of the will. In general, his
criticism of Determinism is that it is a confusion be-
tween time and space : it is an effort to apply spatial
categories to a process which is in pure time. It is
clear that such a statement as this requires, for its
justification, a detailed examination of the arguments
of the Determinists. Those who desire this will find it.
in the Essai sur les Données.
We can, however, get hold of the principle in the
terms of our own investigation. (We have seen that
the concrete whole of our conscious experience is for
us the fulness of reality as it is given to us. We have
also seen that this whole is a living, moving continuum
of which the inner principle is the activity of the self
—an activity which is essentially self-direction. Ana-
lyzed, this self-directing activity is found to contain
knowledge, feeling, and will. Of these, clearly, Will
most fully corresponds to the nature of the whole
activity; for will is, in essence, the self directing itself'
towards an end. Hence, we conclude, will is essentially
the characteristic activity of the whole self. Will,
that is, is the formative principle of experience when
experience is regarded as a concrete whole.)
We must consider the doctrine of Necessity more
particularly. What is that doctrine? In a vague
general way it is a mode of thought familiar to every
mind, no matter how unaccustomed to philosophy. In
every age it assumes a form corresponding to the ideas
of the time. While never consistently held by any-
one, it appeals in some shape to everyone. None can
evo
FREEDOM
121
wholly escape its influence. To some minds and in
to others as a doctrine of despair. For some it is a
creed, for others a denial of all creeds. Its general
principle may be expressed in these sentences : All
events are so determined that they must be as they
are and can be no otherwise; everything that happens
is settled beforehand ; there is an inevitable tendency
in things which makes them to be as they are ; against
that tendency no power of mind or will can effect any-
thing; though the will of man seems independent, it
is but working out a destiny which is unavoidable.
Fate as a supreme power or ultimate order of things
is a conception which springs into fresh life with every
generation. To the ancients, it appeared as a power
to which even the gods were subject; to the moderns,
as the necessary working out of natural law. At
times the sense of an inherent necessity in the course
of events comes upon the soul of man with crushing
weight. Every great literature bears the impress of
this burden. Here tragedy has found the most effective
means of stirring the heart with deep emotions. The
struggle of a lofty soul against an impending inevit-
able doom has ever provided art with the noblest
themes.
In theological thought this necessity assumes another
shape—it is identified with the will of God. Hence
things are ordered and settled from the beginning.
In the more extreme forms of this doctrine, even the
seemingly wayward thoughts and imaginations of man's
heart and all his doings are parts of a plan which has
been arranged from all eternity. Some are preordained
to goodness and joy, others to sin and suffering. By
122 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
re
such means do the eternal wisdom and power work
out their great designs.
Theologians have struggled to escape the moral
consequences of this doctrine, and struggled in vain.
Logically, when once the principle of the preordina-
tion of events is admitted, there is no escaping the
conclusion that the whole of human life is settled
beforehand. God is the author of evil as well as of
good!
Attempts have been made to distinguish between
the foreknowledge of God and the preordination of all
events. God as omniscient, it is said, must be aware
beforehand of all that ever comes to pass. He knows
all human characters perfectly, and is therefore able
to foretell all that they will do; but He is not therefore
the author of their actions. For these actions they are.
themselves responsible
Yet it must be admitted that if actions are the
inevitable outcome of a man's character and circum-
stances, and if character and circumstances are of such
a nature that a mind of sufficient power can tell before-
hand exactly how the relations between them will work
out, and if that mind has itself designed and deter-
mined the original elements out of which all characters
and circumstances have arisen, it is impossible to escape
the conclusion that the Creator is Himself the author
of all that has followed upon His original creative
activity.
The force of this conclusion has been very strongly
felt by recent theology. The old controversies about
predestination and election have vanished. The doc-
trine of Free-will has been accepted as practically
essential to Christian faith. Belief in necessity,
even in the more refined forms of Determinism, has
HU
even
more
FREEDOM
123
become, as a rule, the mark of a sceptical attitude
towards the fundamental doctrines of religion. An
interesting illustration of the change was given at a
Conference of Calvinistic Churches held a few years
ago in Switzerland, when it was found that one of the
few points on which there was a general agreement
was the abandonment of the doctrine of the Divine
Decrees, the corner-stone of the doctrinal structure of
the original Calvinistic theology.
corne
1
To return from the theological side of this question
to its more general philosophical discussion, it may be
laid down that if the whole series of events which
forms the history of the universe is of such a character
as to be definitely knowable beforehand to a mind of
sufficient intelligence, it is impossible to deny the
doctrine of Necessity. The ancient conception of Fate
usually meant something more than this. It implied,
as a rule, the thought of some inner compulsion forcing
a man to act in a certain way, and not in other ways.
As an artistic conception this view of Fate has never
wholly lost its power. And, in recent times, it has
regained a great part of its ancient impressiveness
through the biological investigation of heredity. The
tendencies which a man inherits from his ancestors
may be so strong as to dominate his life. Against
their influence no determination of the will or benefit
of favouring circumstances seems to be efficacious
for deliverance. Here Ibsen found inspiration for his
tragic genius. And no art could fully display the
greatness of the tragedy revealed in the dry records
of subnormal pedigrees.
The study of eugenics has brought to light an
enormous volume of facts proving the persistency of
124 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
racial characteristics good and bad, and showing how
fatal for the race is the propagation and multiplication
of inferior or degraded types. Further, it has been
shown that, under the laws of inheritance discovered
by Mendel, it is possible to predict the order in which
certain variations of racial type will take place. When
a sufficient number of observations has been made, it
can be foretold that, in certain circumstances, a definite
proportion of the offspring in a particular case will
possess some marked characteristic. An extreme
instance is the proved fact that the child of two feeble-
minded parents is never possessed of normal faculties
Every union of this nature, if it be fruitful, is abso
lutely predetermined to produce offspring who are
unfitted for the responsibilities of life. Here, it may
be thought, is Fate in its most inexorable form, and
revealed by scientific demonstration.
A deeper consideration will show that this is a mis-
understanding. It is certainly true that a man may
be fated, in the sense of predetermined, to the posses-
sion of certain inherent tendencies or limitations. He
may be so feeble-minded as to be unable to grasp the
ordinary rules and responsibilities of normal human
life. He may be so deficient in that power of inhibition
which we call self-control as to be unable to master
his impulses to the degree which is necessary for every
member of ordinary human society. But these de-
ficiencies do not imply that every action is absolutely
determined beforehand so as to be calculable by a
mind of sufficient power. They may have the opposite
effect. It is easier to tell beforehand, in many cases,
the action of a man upon whose wisdom and goodness
you depend, than to foretell the conduct of a homicidal
maniac.

FREEDOM
125
o are
das
SO
The truth is that the inheritance of characteristics
and tendencies does not involve the predetermination
of the details of conduct. What it does involve is a
limitation of the sphere within which freedom can
operate. A feeble-minded person may not be able to
follow a demonstration in Euclid, and in that case no
effort of his will can enable him to do so, but he may
have wit enough to know that bread will satisfy his
hunger and will enough to accept or refuse it when
offered. A homicidal maniac may be habitually subject
to the impulse to commit murder whenever he sees
another man, but he may at the same time have will
enough to refrain in many cases.
No reasonable person claims that there are no limits
to human freedom. Such limits exist in every case.
Characteristics and tendencies, good and bad, of some
sort or other, belong to every man, and always involve
limitations or conditions of the freedom which the man
possesses. They mark out the lines within which his
self-determination can exercise itself. They do not in
any instance imply that his actions are all determined
beforehand
The doctrine of Fate, whether regarded as an
external compulsion or an internal necessity, is there-
fore not involved in the modern scientific doctrine of
heredity. At the same time, there can be no doubt
that there is sufficient basis for all that tragic art
really demands. The fact that influences from the
past of the race can shut a soul up in a prison-house
of circumstances of such a nature that a noble human
life is impossible, or that base or brutal desires are, for
him, inevitable, is a fact so terrible that no art can exag-
gerate its awfulness. In this sense Fate is indeed a fact.
In discussing this question, we have so far assumed
lan
126 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMÁN EXPERIENCE
Un
neces
ISE
that will, in its normal exercise, possesses a freedom of
its own. This assumption must now be justified. Let
us consider how. The doctrine of Necessity may, I
think, be fully stated as assuming one of three forms.
First, it may be purely materialistic, regarding all
action as physically determined ; the mental side, of
which we are conscious, being merely epiphenomenal.
Man is a mechanical automaton: his mind is a
phosphorescence which plays over, but does not in-
fluence, his movements. In the first lecture we showed
that this doctrine is impossible. It is unnecessary to
repeat the refutation here.
Secondly, the doctrine of Necessity may be based on
the old associationist psychology, According to this,
ideas are connected together by a relation of cause
and effect. When two ideas have been associated in
experience, the recurrence of one will excite the other.)
The essence of this doctrine is that it transfers the
activity from the self to the ideas which the self
experiences. A man runs from a mad dog because
the idea of a mad dog is associated in his mind with
the idea of danger. But suppose he sees the dog
about to bite his wife, and does not run away but
goes to her help, it is, on this theory, because the
sight of his wife, being associated with feelings still
stronger than fear for his personal safety, overcomes
his terror. In every case the strongest feeling as
evoked by association determines the man's conduct.
That is the theory
I have already said that this psychology is now
almost universally discredited. Yet it must be ad-
mitted that in a case like that just described it is very
plausible. Also it is true that there are cases in
which action is simply reaction upon a stimulus.)
FREEDOM
127
Just as there are natural actions, such as the blinking
of the eyelids, which occur whenever the appropriate
stimulus is applied, so there are actions in which the
the stimulus involves ideas and the feelings associated
with them, and yet the full determination of the self
is not exercised. So it is that a swordsman parries
the thrust of his adversary. The thrust, the image
of it, the association of that image with the part of
his own body which has to be guarded, and the cor-
responding movement by which the guard is effected :
all these things follow one another by a kind of
physico-psychic mechanism which acts automatically.
No one denies this. It belongs to the very nature of
habit. But in all this there is no intervention of the
concrete will. All is abstract. It is abstraction in
action. That is, it is a subordinate department of
the full conscious life
Consider the swordsman engaged in conflict. His
will is undoubtedly at work. His whole personality
is concentrated upon one end. And the act of will
which determined this concentration employs-indeed
takes up into itself—all the mechanisms of nerve,
muscle, habit, association, and so on, which are
necessary for the attainment of its end. All these
mechanisms taken by themselves are mere abstractions.
The concrete experience, which, from within, is called
“ will,” and on the outer side, "action," includes them
all. To isolate any one of these elements and make
it the determinant of the whole in which it is an
element, is like making the circular form of a wheel
the cause of its rotation.
To recur to our illustration of the mad dog : it is
not merely because his feeling for his wife is stronger
than his fear of the dog that the man goes to her
128 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
help; it is because the sight of his wife has recalled
him to himself, as we most justly say, and made him
determine that, no matter what the danger, he will do
what he ought. That this is so may be seen by sub-
stituting for the wife of his bosom the neighbour who
slandered him. The truth is that the two situations,
the running from the dog in the first instance, and the
running to the help of another in the second, are not
comparable. The running out of danger is instinctive :
the man is not in full possession of himself. The
running to the help of another is a moral act-an act
in which the man identifies himself with an end to be
accomplished. This latter is self-determination
There is, thirdly, a doctrine of Determinism which
is much more subtle and difficult to deal with. Accord-
ing to it a man's reaction upon circumstances is deter-
mined by his character. The most complete and
powerful statement of this doctrine which recent
philosophy has produced is to be found in Dr. McTag-
gart's Some Dogmas of Religion. This is all the more
valuable because Dr. McTaggart is an idealist who
traces his intellectual pedigree from Hegel and Kant.
He defines Determinism as the doctrine that “the
volitions of each man spring from his character, and
are the inevitable result of that character when it finds
itself in a certain situation." As between Determin-
ism and the opposite doctrine of Indeterminism, Dr.
McTaggart states the controversy to be concerned
with the completeness or incompleteness of the de-
termination of choice. The Indeterminist holds that
“a man is free in any action if his choice of that action
is not completely determined. The supporters of this
view do not, I conceive," writes Dr. McTaggart,
* Op. cit., chap. v., § 147.
FREEDOM
129
C
“maintain that a man can ever act without a motive,
nor do they consider that the existence of a motive is
incompatible with freedom. But if the motive com-
pletely determined the act-either because there was
no other motive, or because it was determined to be
more effective than any other—then the act would
not be freely done. It is essential for freedom that
there should be motives prompting to different courses
between which the agent chooses ; and it is essential
that this choice should not be determined. We may
call this freedom of indetermination.” This, according to
Dr. McTaggart, is quite correctly described as Free-will.
But Dr. McTaggart does not believe that it exists.
Against it he urges a most able and effective polemic,
and the most powerful part of his argument is that in
which he shows that our moral judgment upon actions
is essentially a judgment upon character. It is because
action is the expression of character that we approve
the good and condemn the wicked. If a volition is
“a perfectly undetermined choice between two motives."
how are we to pass from the volition to the man who
makes it? “The whole fabric of morality would be
upset if our approval or condemnation of a man for his
volition had no right to last longer than the volition
itself.” Nero would be blameless in the intervals
between his murders. On the contrary, "the approval
or condemnation of the agent is based on the belief
that the character indicated by the past acts survives
in the present, and is ready, on appropriate occasions,
to manifest itself in similar acts. Nero is condemned
in the present because he still has the character which
will probably cause him, when he is tired of eating, to
amuse himself with another murder."*
* Loc. cit., $$ 146, 147.
NTS
1
130 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
m
This argument carries conviction to every reasonable
mind. If freedom is to mean indetermination in the
sense that volition is not the expression of character-
in the sense, to use Dr. McTaggart's words, of being a
“perfectly undetermined choice between motives ”—
then it is impossible to believe in freedom. Such
freedom would most certainly destroy all consistency,
and cut away the foundations of moral judgment and
moral discipline But the more enlightened defenders
of free-will at the present time do not advocate a doctrine
of this kind, and it is strange that a thinker so com-
petent as Dr. McTaggart, and writing as recently as
YIT
of Bergson and other writers of note whose views are
in substantial agreement with his.
It is the very essence of the more recent statements
of the doctrine of Free-will that freedom does not consist
in indetermination as between competing motives, but
that it is the very nature of motived action. Even as
far back as T. H. Green we find a most able presenta-
tion of the doctrine that man is free because he acts in
accordance with motives; that the motive is not to be
confounded with any of the crude desires which press
upon a man in a moment of decision. The motive is,
in fact, the man identifying himself with some one
aim, and so making that aim the full expression of
himself. But this doctrine certainly requires further
explanation if the completeness of its vindication of
freedom is to be grasped.
Determinism is the doctrine that volition is the
inevitable expression of character reacting upon cir-
doctrine of Freedom. For what is Character? and
what are Circumstances? First, as to Character, it
FREEDOM
131
is another name for the man himself. It is the Self
regarded as continuous and dynamic. It is not a set
of fixed dispositions. It is the man as possessing
certain dispositions or tendencies, not dispositions or
tendencies as making the man. Character is always
in the making. This making is the ceaseless movement
of that growing experience which we considered in our
first lecture, and the inner force of this ceaseless move-
ment is that activity which, as active, we term Will.
Self-direction is the essential quality of this activity)
Secondly, consider circumstan
think of the man in relation to circumstances as though
he were a billiard ball driven against certain obstacles
-a cushion or another ball-deflected in accordance
with certain laws, and so reaching another position.
But such a way of thinking omits the fact that cir
cumstances affect a man through the medium of his
own consciousness. What circumstances are to me
depends upon myself. I make them to be what they
are to me.
In will, let it be remembered, we are dealing with
the full concrete reality of experience. When con-
sidering it, we are endeavouring to grasp the very
movement of reality itself. We are seeking to under-
stand that which enfolds both all our understandings
and all the things that we understand. By the con-
tinuous activity of conscious will is shaped the whole
world of our experience. Every moment in this move-
ment is, of course, continuous with the preceding
moment, but its continuity would be more adequately
expressed by the word "spontaneity” than by the word
“determination.” When Dr. McTaggart and other
writers try to fasten us down to the alternative of
Determinism or Indeterminism, saying that the act
132 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
must be completely determined or not completely
determined, they are using a category which has no
application to the subject in hand. The idea of
determination belongs to the lower levels of reality-
to physics-and, it may be admitted, to psychology, in
its dealing with abstract psychical processes such as the
mechanisms of habit, but has no applicability to the
full concrete reality of our conscious experience. All
such arguments are an effort to apply the category
of causality to the whole, where it has no validity. It
belongs solely to the articulation of the parts. The
principle of cause and effect links together the elements
of the lower world—the world of material things—but
cannot control the activity of the self. The self is
often spoken of as a cause, and it is said that in the
self we find the origin of the principle of causation ;
for here we find that idea of efficiency which underlies
our thoughts of causation. I am not here concerned
with the way in which we obtain the fundamental
categories with which we operate when dealing with
the things given in our experience, but it is surely
clear that, however we derive our idea of causation,
that idea, as applied to physical things, is not applic-
able to the self. Causation exists only for the self.
It is a determination of the self, and the self cannot
be classed with its own determinations. That which
makes causation possible cannot be subject to causation.
The doctrine that antecedent and consequent in voli-
tion are bound by the same necessity which binds the
physical antecedent to its physical consequent in every
event in Nature, cannot be admitted. The rule of
necessity holds within the physical world. It binds
every element to every other element in a vast system.
But for that very reason necessity cannot rule the self
0
eason nece
Can
FREEDOM
133
which makes this whole system possible. In the last
resort, Determinism will always be found to be an
effort to subject the self to determination by the
not-self, and that is an impossible theory of the
те
will. *
That this view of the nature of the will is gaining
ground in philosophy is most remarkably shown by
Professor James Ward's treatment of the subject in his
more recent work, The Realm of Ends. Here Professor
Ward develops on independent lines a conception
which is practically the same as Bergson's. He shows
that the concrete integration of experience is the
diametrical opposite to the mechanical production of a
result. It is a creative process, and may most fitly be
SON
by this term is that the synthesis is always more than
the sum of the parts. And there are reasons for
believing that process of this nature is to be found, not
merely in the conscious life of man, but in lower forms
of life also—that epigenesis is probably involved to
some degree in all life.
In the statement which I gave above, I used, for
purposes of exposition, a form of expression to which
Bergson would demur. I spoke of “moments” pre-
ceding or succeeding one another in the movement
of our conscious experience. It is certain that we
think, and are bound to think, in that way when we
reflect upon our experience. But, according to M.
Bergson, such reflection gives rise to an illusion which
is the cause of all our trouble. There is nothing atomic
about experience in its own true, full nature. It is
essentially continuous. This means, according to
M. Bergson, that it is in pure time, real duration.
* See the author's Short Study of Ethics, part i., chap. iii.
1
134 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
means
as
But, when we reflect upon it, we regard it as in
phenomenal time ; time, that is, which is set out in
successive moments by reference to space. Such
moments are regarded as wholly external to one
another, as if they were things in space. But, as
Bergson shows, if that were their true nature there
could be no such thing as movement at all. In fact,
as he shows, with a cogency of proof which is, I confess,
to me overwhelming, science eliminates duration, it re-
duces time to space, it sucks out the life of our conscious
experience, and so gets a residuum with which it can
deal. It is the duty of philosophy, on the other hand,
to restore this life, to eliminate space, to get back
to pure duration.
We have here the means of correcting what was
imperfectly stated in the first lecture. There I said
that, by abstracting from the subjective, we gained
the world of material things. Now we see that what
we really abstract from is, not merely the subjective,
but the living movement of our conscious experience.
When that is eliminated we are left with the spatial
world, the world of mechanical causation, the world in
which everything is determined by things and con-
ditions outside itself.
The moment this truth is grasped we see how the
difficulty arises, as between Freedom and Determinism.
(Necessity, or Determinism, in all its forms, is the effort
to apply the scientific, or spatial, way of thinking to
the full reality of our conscious experience. It is the
attempt to measure the concrete by the abstract, the
living by the dead.
(When Dr. McTaggart speaks of actions being com-
pletely or incompletely determined by motives, he is
viewing the states of the self as if they were separate
FREEDOM
135
things outside of one another, related as physical
things in space are related, and so connected by causal
links. On the contrary, as we saw at the beginning,
all these states of self interpenetrate one another. The
very motives, or desires, which impel us to action and
compete, or seem to compete, with one another, far
from being separate and determinate agencies, are
intermingling elements, each contributing to the whole
experience.
There is another, and perhaps simpler, way of putting
the same argument. When we speak of actions as
determined by motives, regarding these motives as
distinct and separable elements in the man's experience,
we are applying the logic of intellect in a realm which
is outside its proper sphere. An act of will in the
true sense is the outcome of the man's full conscious
life. It is indeed, in every case, that full conscious life
itself. It is therefore not subject to the categories and
thought-processes which belong to the mind's dealing
with the limited and spatially determined world of our
lower abstract experience. The category of causation,
as we apply it to the things of that limited experience,
and the logical processes by which that category is
used for the understanding of these things, are here
altogether misleading. The statement of this truth is
as old as Kant. But in our time we are able to
discern its force with far greater clearness, and to trust
to it with far greater confidence. And here Bergson's
doctrine of Intuition comes to our help. When dealing
with the whole of experience our simple awareness
is of greater value than any amount of logic. The
sense of spontaneity, the feeling of freedom, the recog-
nition of responsibility for our acts of will, are far more
trustworthy guides than all the arguments of the
CSS
136 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Determinists. Plain men have always believed this.
Bergson has taught us the reason of their confidence.
A man is free, then, in the exercise of his will, when
he truly wills, because he is developing the life that is
in him, expressing his character, putting forth himself
in the way which corresponds to his real being.
Language fails here, just as scientific understanding
fails. To know the freedom of such action you must
live it.
Before we leave this subject we must, however,
touch upon another favourite mode of expressing the
idea of Determinism. It is said that, if action is the
outcome of character, it must be capable of being fore-
told. An intelligence of sufficient grasp, it is thought,
could, from a knowledge of the man's character,
foretell accurately how he would act in given circum-
stances. We all exercise this power in a limited
way. We say of onė, he will certainly act in such
a way. He will, for example, give me a subscription
to this good purpose ; he is a generous man, and takes
an interest in such things. Of another we say, he
will not help; he does not care about it, and will not
go out of his way to please me or anyone else : and
we are very often right in such predictions. If with
our very limited ability we are able to forecast the
actions of the will of another, surely a mind of sufficient
grasp could foretell accurately in every case ; a mind
which knew the circumstances of every individual as
well as his character would be able to foretell every
decision ever made and the whole history of the world
as accurately as an astronomer can foretell the recur-
rence of an eclipse. If that be true, how can the will
be free? for surely there must be as necessary a con-
nection between circumstances and character on the
FREEDOM
137
one side and action on the other, as there is between
the physical cause and its effect)
(People who argue in this way fail to consider that
they are trusting to an analogy which will not bear
examination. The reason why we are able to foretell
the actions of others in so many cases is that we com-
pare them with ourselves. We do not calculate their
action as the astronomer calculates the movements of
the heavenly bodies, or as the chemist foresees what
will happen when certain chemicals are combined. We
compare freedom with freedom. We judge what we
should do ourselves in like circumstances, making
allowance for the differences which we know to exist
between ourselves and those whose actions we are
considering, and taking account of our past experience
of their action and the character which it revealed.
The knowledge of a person is essentially different from
the knowledge of an abstract science, or even from the
knowledge of a concrete thing. The real inner nature
of a person always remains inaccessible. It is indeed
in every case unique and incomparable. And this
applies to all acts of will which are the expression of
that nature. We never really know such actions.
When we say of a man's conduct, “I knew he would
do it," we are really referring to the external result.
The inner side is unapproachable. There are people
on whose goodness we rely. We never find it to fail.
Of such we say, "I know that man, therefore I trust
him.” And usually our confidence is justified. Yet,
when we endeavour to think out that knowledge, we
find that, in the last resort, it is not knowledge at all.
It is faith. Consider any individual case--any par-
ticular action and try to grasp it. At once the
intellect fails. Behind it lies a whole history. Feel-
138 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
WF
ings, thoughts, habits, experiences, are blended into
one-one self, one character—and the action is the
outcome. No composition of moral forces, no mental
chemistry, no psychical calculus, could be relied on to
bring this infinitely complex thing within the grasp of
any conceivable measurement. We can say with
practical certainty that there are certain things that
a good man will do, and certain other things that a
good man will not do; but to grasp as a whole the
ISW
is impossible. Every act of will is intrinsically a unique
event.
But, it will be said, suppose for the sake of argument
that you could grasp all the facts of a man's inner life,
would it not then be possible to foretell exactly how
he would act? The answer is that it is impossible to
grasp all the facts of a man's inner life, for those facts
can exist for no one but the man himself. It is the
characteristic of the self that it exists for itself; it is
the characteristic of things that they exist for the
person who knows them. Therefore things are know-
able in their true nature, and selves are not knowable
in their true nature to any but themselves. This is
what Bergson means when he says that “ to know
completely the antecedents and conditions of an action
actions, when we turn back and reflect upon them,
the life has evaporated. We could give no complete
account to ourselves of the situation out of which an
action sprang. Professor Bergson arrives at his con-
clusion on this question, not on the philosophical
grounds which I have just set forth, but for strictly
psychological reasons. The main point in his analysis
* Op. cit., chap. iii., p. 184.., in Time and Free Will.
FREEDOM
139
is that, in the act of imagining psychic states
especially states of feeling-we lose the intensity which
is essentially qualitative, and in its place substitute
a quantitative symbol which does not correspond to
the reality. That quality of feeling which is its inten-
sity is only in our possession while the feeling is being
actually felt. When we try by imagination to repro-
duce it, we do not really reproduce it; we substitute
a wholly different thing for it. Those who desire to
study this side of the question further must be referred
to M. Bergson's Essai sur les Données, where it is
discussed at length.*)
* Translated under the name Time and Free Will. See chap. iii.
of that work.
207
CHAPTER VI
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
THERE is a great saying of Hegel's that “ Freedom
is the truth of Necessity.” It is one of those profound
utterances which move upon the chaos of our thoughts
and bring order out of confusion. There are some
thinkers at present who, in reaction against the
dominance of the scientific conception of physical law,
are inclined to deny mechanical necessity altogether.
As well might one deny the succession of day and
night. Every tram-car in our streets, every machine
in our factories, every eclipse foretold in our almanacs,
affords demonstration that when a uniformity of
20
of cause and effect so disclosed is absolutely inevitable.
The power of prediction is the crowning proof of this
es
bination of physical forces will bring about a certain
result, experience is decisive that here is a rule which
knows no exception. What makes this conclusion
perfectly certain is just the fact that if in any par-
ticular instance the expected result is not produced,
the experimenter always concludes that some un-
counted factor has entered into the combination, and
so altered the total effect. And his conclusion is
always justified. Thus it was that the planet Neptune
140
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
141
was discovered. Thus it was that Argon was revealed.
The forces of Nature do not act capriciously. They
observe a uniformity of operation which gives rise to
an inevitableness which may well be termed Necessity.
But when this fact of physical necessity has been
admitted, a further question remains : What is its
sphere? When some of our scientific thinkers claim
the whole universe of being as the sphere of this
mechanical necessity they are going far beyond the
evidence. Man's intuitive knowledge of the opera-
tions of his own will raises an immediate protest.
And now we find the belief extending that in all life
there is a principle of spontaneity which is not subject
to a purely physical necessity.
Turning back to the investigations which we have
pursued in these lectures, we can, I think, clearly dis-
cern the meaning of Hegel's great saying. The life of
the spirit, conscious experience, is not subject to the
necessity which prevails in the lower material world.
It cannot be, because, in relation to it, the lower
material world is an abstraction. Abstract from the
movement of the living conscious reality and there
remains the world of things in space. In this lower
world every element is linked to every other element
by necessary relations, spatial and causal. This neces-
sity is the description of the articulation of the parts
throughout the whole domain of this world of inferior
reality. Thus it gets its unity as a conceivable
world. Thus we are able to think of it and deal
V
DC
The higher reality, the living, moving continuum of
our conscious experience, does not conflict with the
lower world. It does not contradict it. On the
contrary, the higher includes the lower. The freedom
142 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
of the spirit demands and posits the necessity of the
material. The former determines the whole, the latter
determines the interrelation of the parts. Necessity
is the servant of freedom, the means by which freedom
works out its purposes. If there were no mechanism,
freedom would be helpless in its dealing with the
world of things. A world of things in which events
ЭЛТ
ment for the working out of purposes. A free will is
a will which aims at ends which it sets before itself.
If such ends are to be attained in a world of things,
there must be some settled order among the things by
which purposes can be accomplished. This settled
order is the necessity of the material world. Thus,
what freedom wills necessity executes, and the two
principles are found to be essentially related. But
freedom as belonging to the higher world is the
higher, and therefore the more explanatory, principle.
It is the truth to which necessity must be traced
in order that its meaning and value may be discerned.
This doctrine may raise doubts in your minds. It
may appear to you that there is much in life which
conflicts with it. Is the free spirit of man really
dominant over mechanical necessity? The vast system
of the physical world seems to crush man by its
immensity. Instead of being master of the material
world, man seems very often to be its victim. You
think how, one by one, men slip from the raft of
human existence, and in spite of hands uplifted to
heaven, are overwhelmed in the flood. Man struggles
to maintain himself in security and comfort by master-
ing natural forces, and, for a time, all seems to go well
with him ; but, sooner or later, those pitiless powers
close in upon him and he disappears, swallowed up
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
143
in the great universe. With every generation comes
the fresh hope, and with every generation the fresh
despair.
Further, scientific examination of the world shows
that the regularity with which the forces of Nature
act is often the most terrible and menacing thing
about them. The force of gravitation will act in its
own way and slay us without pity. The lightning
stroke will follow the path marked out for it by the
medium through which it passes, altogether unaffected
by moral considerations. The earthquake will slay its
thousands without pausing to consider whether they
are good or bad. So it seems.
Hence it would seem to follow that if there is
intelligence in the physical universe, it is there in the
sense in which intelligence may be said to pervade
a machine, and not as intelligence belongs to a sensi-
tive human soul. The God who seemed to shine forth
from the universe has disappeared, and cold mechanical
necessity has taken his place. Here is the experience
which has brought a chill—the chill of unbelief-to
many a heart.
Now, it is certainly true that man, being possessed
of a material body, and in that way, and on that side
of his being, entering into the realm of physical forces,
must, in all the relations of that body to the surround-
ing material world, be subject to the laws of that
world. But it is also true that the sense of being an
alien in the universe, of being a sensitive spiritual
thing threatened, and finally crushed, by a gigantic
unfeeling machine, is a condition of mind which has
been created and fostered by a one-sided, and very
modern, way of thinking. It is almost entirely due to
an imperfect apprehension of the meaning and nature
144 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
of physical science. The glorious career of physical
science has overawed the thought of the age. We are
so impressed by its splendid triumphs that we take its
working principles for the expression of ultimate truth.
And we have failed to realize that we are apt to regard
the theoretical side of science as the whole.
Science may be said to consist of two parts. There
is, first, the discovery of the laws of Nature; and there
is, secondly, the application of the knowledge so ob-
tained to the practical uses of life. Regarding the
actual origin and history of scientific discovery, it will
appear that, as a matter of fact, the first part of science
came into being for the sake of the second. The aim
of the whole is, and always has been, definitely prac-
tical. But our minds have been so dazzled by the
splendour of the achievements of theoretical science
that we have come to regard it, from the point of
view of thought, as if it were the whole. We have
forgotten that the practical application is as well worth
our consideration, as a revelation of truth, as pure
theory itself. Our minds have been so obsessed with
the idea of Nature as a great system of forces working
according to invariable laws that we have gained the
impression that Nature so regarded is an ultimate and
self-sufficing reality. When we permit ourselves to
reflect that all this discovery of forces and laws has
been made in the pursuit of practical aims, with the
view, that is, of using these forces and laws for our
own human purposes, we discern that the lesson which
science as a whole teaches about the constitution of
Nature and its relation to ourselves is quite different.
We discover that the more we know about natural
laws, the greater is our power over natural forces. The
conception of Nature which science has yielded is
ces
al
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
145
1
indeed, when rightly regarded, a great proof of the
victory of the spirit.
The main business of man's workaday life is his
dealing with the forces of Nature. We live in a world
containing an amazing multitude of things. By con-
stant trying man has discovered that these things can
be made use of in an infinite variety of ways so as to
yield advantage or pleasure—to bring about, that is,
desired results. In all this, man is subduing the world
to his own will; he is mastering the forces of Nature
and making them serve his purposes. When scientific
methods are developed—that is, when laws of Nature
are discovered and reduced to some system—this sub-
jugation of Nature goes on with vastly increased
rapidity. Look at the earth as it is to-day-almost
completely transformed by human effort. Human
hands have literally remade the world. Only in great
mountain-ranges, or in some deserts and tropical forests,
or near the poles, is it possible to find regions untouched
by the hand of man. At the present moment methods
of communication are being so perfected that the earth
seems to be shrinking almost visibly, and is already
too small for some imaginative minds.
What is the spiritual interpretation of all this?
Surely it is the submissiveness of physical forces.
Instead of living in a world in which the spirit is
subdued to an iron necessity, we live in a world in
which physical forces are everywhere doing homage to
the lordship of the spirit. Man wills and Nature yields.
Man issues his commands, and the world is at his feet.
Again, this subjugation of the physical world to the
purposes of the spirit is carried on without any viola-
tion of the physical order. It is because physical
forces act in accordance with unfailing laws that the
re
au
10
human will is able to employ them to effect its pur-
poses. It is because of the uniformity of Nature that
man can trust the forces of Nature to do his will. If
Nature worked capriciously, no work could be done.
Thus it appears that the iron necessity of Nature-
that mysterious and formidable enemy, as it seems
when regarded in the abstract-is really man's best
friend. It is simply the trustworthiness of the system
in which man finds himself. When man has discovered
that certain natural causes always act in certain ways,
he can then use those causes and trust them to produce
the corresponding results, as occasion may require.
Thus man's power is secured. He is free and mighty
in the world because of this very necessity. It is the
charter of his liberty and authority. Instead of being
a cruel fate to bind him, it sets him free to accomplish
his purposes.
Further, it is important to note that man escapes
subjection to natural forces by making them modify
one another. He can combine natural causes so as to
produce effects which the unassisted course of Nature
could never produce. He can use one force to counter-
act or divert another. So it is that he can defeat
gravitation, make water run uphill, see through the
solid flesh of his own body, send his messages round
the world without any visible medium. Here again
the forces and laws of the material world show them-
selves plastic to the will and in the hands of man.
It would not be going too far to frame a definition of
spirit, as it is known to us in our own mind and will,
and say it is that which is able to control natural
forces with a view to the accomplishment of pre-
conceived ends.
1
lan.
UN.
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
147
na
distinction which we drew between spirit and the
material world as that between a higher and lower
reality! Though taken in the abstract the higher and
lower seem to conflict, there is, in truth, a perfect
harmony between them. Spirit is free; the world is
subject to necessity. But all the laws of necessity
find their perfect fulfilment within the freedom of the
spirit. Nay, that freedom is the ultimate expression
of their meaning. That is what Hegel meant when
he said that freedom is the truth of necessity.
It is, however, clear that man's exercise of this
freedom is very limited. Nature as a system of forces
and laws far surpasses all human powers of subjugation.
The limits which shut man in are, in part at all events,
fairly obvious. Man's body, the instrument by which
he operates in the natural world, is also the symbol of
his limitation. It is small ; slow in its movements
when compared with the velocities of other physical
things; limited in its means of approach. Recent
investigation has shown that it is, in the main, an
instrument of selection for practical uses, laying hold
of such few elements out of the infinite wealth of
Nature as serve the purposes of man's life.* The brain
seems to be specially constructed for this process. It
is an instrument of exchange, something like a tele-
phone exchange, designed to allow an operator to
respond to the messages received from without in the
way which corresponds to his needs and designs. It
is not a storehouse of thought, and certainly not in
itself possessed of the power of purposive selection. I
It is, above all, a motor mechanism in the service of a
conscious and willing operator.
* See Wildon Carr, Philosophy of Change, chap. v.
† Wildon Carr, op. cit., chaps. iii and iy.
Ibid.
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148 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
While, therefore, the body, and especially the brain,
serves man in his dealing with the world of spatial
things, it is also an instrument which limits very
strictly his dealing with these things.
What, then, are we to say of the great world of
Nature as it exists apart from man's activity ? Our
experience makes us believe that the world of things
in space standing in certain necessary relations to one
another is infinitely vaster than those selected parts
of it which enter into the experience of any man or of
all men. If freedom be indeed the truth of necessity,
there must be some all-embracing freedom which corre-
sponds to the world-wide necessity.
We have here the exact counterpart of the argument
which, when considering the philosophical implications
On this occasion we are driven to the conclusion that
the philosophical implications of the examination of
will lead to a corresponding argument. The necessity
of Nature implies the existence of a Universal Will.
The stupendous mechanism of the heavens, the world-
wide system of natural laws governing natural forces :
universal spiritual activity. As in relation to our
human experience, the natural world, so far as it enters
into our experience, is a reality of lower degree, access
to which is obtained by abstracting from the movement
of the full activity of our own life; so, in relation to
universal experience, Nature is the corresponding
reality of lower degree, an abstraction from the uni-
versal life. If Nature, apart from our dealing with it,
is of the same quality and character as in our experience,
no other conclusion is possible.
It is important in this connection to note that the
NECESSITY AND EXPERIENCE
149
Universal Will is to be found, not in each particular
manifestation of physical force as it operates in the
world, but in the whole universe of physical necessity.
There is a popular doctrine which identifies the will of
God with every manifestation of physical energy. It
is said that this energy or force which physics assumes,
and the laws of which have been reduced to a high
degree of exactness, is in every case the will of God
working in the world, and appeal is made to our
immediate knowledge of will as energy. It seems to
me that, apart from the ambiguous use of the word
energy, this conception fails, because it confuses the
lower with the higher, the mechanical with the
spiritual, the necessitated with the free. It reduces
God to mechanism. The true view is surely that the
Supreme Will posits, not each element separately, but
the whole the whole, within the sphere of which is
contained the completely articulated system of the
natural order. Freedom is the law of the determina-
tion of the whole, necessity the law of the determination
isn
CHAPTER VII
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
CLOSELY connected with the consideration of human
freedom in its relation to the natural and social en-
vironment of man's life stand two great problems which
have in all ages forced themselves upon the attention
of thinking minds, and which still remain amongst the
most insistent and perplexing in the whole range of
thought. These are the problems of pain and of evil.
To the first of these we must now turn.
Evils have been by long custom divided into two
classes—physical and moral, suffering and sin. The
former we share with the animal creation, the latter
we regard as peculiarly human. The former has to do
very largely with our bodily organism and the material
world to which it belongs, and to which it is so closely
related; the latter is essentially concerned with our
spiritual life as thinking, willing, and social beings.
Though pain is thus contrasted with sin as being
very largely a matter of physical rather than of moral
disorder, it is yet, as experienced by human beings, to
a great extent involved in man's higher attainments.
(The range of pain is as wide as human lifel From the
vague uneasiness or acute suffering which assails us
through our bodily organs to the agonies of disappoint-
ment, remorse, or hurt affection, which enter into our
150
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
151
loed
neall
higher activities, our experience is capable of an infinite
variety of paiſ. It may be truly said that every
faculty has its corresponding pain. Every member
of the body, while it serves in its own way the pur-
poses of enjoyment, is also the instrument of some
related form of suffering. Qur senses, which yield so
much delight, are also means of sharp torment. Our
intellectual powers, which in their healthy normal
exercise give so much happiness, also present us with
puzzles and problems which perplex and harass us-
in some cases to such a degree as to overthrow the
mental balance, and bring ruin to the whole organism.
Our ästhetic faculties, which give us the enjoyment
of beauty and harmony, bring also the apprehension
of the hideous, the terrible, the discordant, the vile.
Our affections, which afford the purest and sweetest
joys we can know, too often become the means of the
bitterest disappointments. (Every power we possess—
sense, reason, imagination, moral judgment, love-can
become the minister of pain.7
And it is not merely in human life that pain is found.
It is seemingly a universal accompaniment of life,
certainly of animal life. No sooner does a creature
become capable of enjoyment than it also becomes
capable of suffering.)
Further, when we consider the whole economy of
the natural world as it has been revealed by modern
biology, we get the impression of a state of things in
which all life and all progress involve pain. Life is
sustained by life. Parents suffer for their offspring,
multitudes die that one may live, whole generations
are sacrificed that the race may benefit. Nature
brings forth forms marked by the most perfect beauty,
and then gives them over in countless myriads as food
o
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152 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
for some hideous or monstrous breed. It is hard to
say what degree of pain there may be in these count-
less sacrifices, but that there is some degree in most
of them, and a high degree in many of them, seems
to be obviously clear. The rending of flesh in quivering,
sensitive things seems to our minds the very surest
mark of pain.
It seems, then, that throughout the whole animate
creation, as well as in human life, wherever there are
faculties capable of enjoyment, there is suffering in
some degree, and that in multitudes of cases that
suffering becomes agony. The pain of the world, when
we endeavour to form some imagination of it, im-
presses us as one of the most awful facts within our
experience.
It is not surprising that in many minds there arises
the suspicion that the ultimate nature of things, the
final truth of the universe, must be altogether out
of sympathy with the feelings of sensitive creatures.
To some this great fact of pain seems to prove that the
inner nature of reality is but a blind impulse, a force
or tendency, without conscious thought or affection,
that the sensitiveness of sensitive things is a mere
incident, a mere accidental working out of necessary
processes, and that therefore it is absurd to look up to
any Supreme Spiritual Power as a possible helper,
or as a wise Ruler whose great purpose will some day
appear. Nature, seemingly, uses the sensitiveness of
living things with perfect ruthlessness for her own
ends. The cosmic process cares nothing for the pains
of those that it crushes out of existence.
To others, the pain of the world is a proof that the
problem of the universe is utterly insoluble. Here
is a demonstration, such thinkers believe, that human
SHEI
ins
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
153
standards of thought and value have no near relation
to the ultimate nature of things. We naturally regard
the world from our own point of view, and to ourselves
our sufferings are indeed important. Why should we
think them to have a higher importance ? They are
but accidents of the universal process. Nature, after
all, is kind, in that she blots them out in universal
death. Their significance as elements in organic
evolution is great, but why should we look for any
higher meaning ? Man's life is short, his faculties
are limited. Let us improve the conditions of living
as much as possible, and not trouble ourselves about
ultimate problems.
We have already seen reason to reject the material-
istic and agnostic interpretations of experience. We
have seen that our conscious experience regarded as
a whole leads us to believe that universal experience
is very closely related to us, that spirit as we know it
in ourselves is a safe guide to certain definite conclu-
sions as to the character of that universal enfolding
life which we discern to be implied in the mere fact
that human experience is possible. We have seen
reason to believe that Personality belongs to the
Infinite Spirit which the constitution of the universe,
known through our experience, involves. We have
seen indeed that, in Him, Personality must reach a
perfection far beyond any that we know; and that,
though the Infinite must be of such a nature that
Personality cannot be a final account of His being, yet
we cannot regard his ultimate character as in any way
inconsistent with Personal perfection.
If this be true, it is impossible to believe that the
pain of the world is a mere by-product of the cosmic
process, an incident in a great world-wide evolution,
reas
see
154 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
L
lear
which has no special significance outside the experience
of those who suffer Believing in God as One with
whom we are akin, we must believe that, no matter
what appearances may seem to prove, He is not regard-
less of the pain of creation, and that, in the end, this
pain will be found to subserve some supremely great and
good purpose. (There must be some great meaning in
it, and that meaning must be good.
At the same time, it is evident that reasoning of this
kind cannot be finally satisfying. We must look into
the problem itself, examine the facts, endeavour to
realize the actual situation in the world and in human
life, and determine whether we can discern any marks
of beneficent purpose underlying the miseries to which
sensitive creatures are subject.
The tremendous urgency of the problem appears
at every stage of human thought.' Asceticism seeks
to overcome pain by the conquest of desire, using the
evil thing itself as the means of destroying its power.
Epicureanism snatches at whatever of pleasure and
happiness life may yield, and hopes for enjoyment by
means of a studied forgetfulness of the terror. (Live
for the moment, it teaches, and let hope and fear, past
and future, be ignored. Drink of the wine of life
to the best of your ability : it is all that you can
be sure of: all besides is misery and oblivion.
. Then to the lip of this poor earthen urn
I lean'd, the secret of my life to learn :
And lip to lip it murmur'd-While you live,
Drink !—for once dead, you never shall return.'"
In our own day, by a significant and very wonderful
tour de force, Christian science escapes from the problem
by simply denying its existence. Pain and struggle
are unrealities, it teaches. They are illusions created
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
155
by “mortal mind.” Our false views of life beget
If we can but realize the truth that all is God
and God is all, that God is good and good is God, we
shall rise above the miseries of the world, pain will
vanish, disease will disappear, finally even death itself
will be overcome. The sudden advent of this mar-
vellous creed and its wide acceptance are very astonish-
ing facts. They show the vigour with which an
optimistic race rebels against the prevalence of pain.
If the facts cannot be disproved, they must be denied.
In theological thought this problem has always
occupied a large space. In the main, the question
is concerned with conceptions of the power, wisdom,
and goodness of God. If He be perfectly wise and
good, and at the same time omnipotent, how can
He have created a world so full of suffering as this in
which we live? The first reply which the human
mind gave to this question was that God is a just
Ruler and Judge, and therefore the evil man must
suffer. Pain is a punishment for sin. But this answer
failed to satisfy, because the good suffer as well as the
evil. In ancient Hebrew literature this was the side
of the problem which attracted most attention. It
is the theme of the Book of Job and of many of the
Psalms. The answer which is given is not philo-
sophical, nor even theological : it is essentially a
religious answer. It is just this : Trust in God; He
knows all things; we are incapable of understanding
His ways; but of this we may be sure—He will bring
everything right in the end, and we shall find that,
with perfect righteousness, evil has been punished and
goodness rewarded.) “ Commit thy way unto the Lord;
trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. And
He shall make thy righteousness to go forth as the
TY
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е
156 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Ker
light, and thy judgment as the noonday.”* It is not
clear that thought has made much advance on that, in
the religious solution of this particular problem. But
the general problem remains. The pain of the world
as a whole has to be considered. And here we can
gain much help from modern psychology and biology
We can nowadays understand the uses of pain much
better than formerly. (Pleasure and pain have certainly
a close relation to life and development. They have
important functions to perform. In general it may be
said that pleasure is a quality of the feeling which
accompanies the normal and perfect exercise of any
living function, whether it be organic, mental, moral,
or social. Pleasure is the enjoyment of perfect life in
any of its many forms. Pain is the feeling of dis-
organized, perverted, imperfect, or overstrained life.
Perhaps the most complete illustration of the nature
of pleasure is the feeling we experience in the semi-
consciousness of awakening from a perfectly healthy,
dreamless sleep. We have the sensation of leaving
behind a state of being characterized by pure enjoy-
ment. When it dawns upon the mind that this state
must be left behind, there is a recognition of extra-
ordinary regret. That dreamless state is not a blank;
it is, in its own primitive way, perfect bliss. And
perhaps there is, in the smaller experiences of life, no
finer proof of the moral force that belongs to man than
the fact that he tears himself out of that bliss in
obedience to the call of simple everyday duty. Though
the dreamless sleep is not a blank, it is nevertheless the
nearest approach we can get in our experience to a
condition in which our life consists in the mere per-
formance of healthy natural functions altogether un-
* Ps. xxxvii. 5, 6.
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
157
complicated by the intellectual and moral complexities
of our waking existence. Here is an experiment which
will reveal to the mind unskilled in psychological
analysis the essential nature of pleasure.
Its crucial character is shown by the fact that any
disorganization or overstraining of function will injure
or destroy the pleasure. If brain, heart, or digestive
organs, be working amiss, the pleasure vanishes or
is merged in pain, no matter how deep and dreamless
the sleep may be. It is the perfect function which
And what is true of the lower functions is also true
of the higher activities, though we do not discern it so
clearly on account of the complication of the facts. The
enjoyment we have in a glorious landscape, or a great
picture, or in noble music, or in a fine display of
character, or in the doing of our work with success,
of appreciation, or our active powers, and the object
with which they are engaged. A good musical ear
gets pleasure from harmony and pain from discord
because of the perfect correspondence between its fine
faculty of appreciation and the order and relation of
the sounds which it apprehends in the one case and
of the want of correspondence in the other. In this
correspondence one of the higher functions is finding
its proper exercise.
Certain important and highly interesting conclusions
follow from this account of the nature of pleasure. (We
learn that pleasure is essentially positive. It is not,
as Schopenhauer and other pessimists have taught, a
mere relief from pain. Philosophers of this school hold
that pleasure is essentially the feeling of satisfied
desire, and that, as desire is a continual striving for
158 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
the unattained, enjoyment is essentially fugitive.) Relief
and pleasure come when the desire is satisfied; but
this satisfaction vanishes in the moment of attainment,
and with it goes the pleasure. This doctrine has found
its most perfect expression in the old saying current in
the East:
( Life is pleasure and pain,
And, for it passes, all pleasure is pain in the making."
(There are two elements in life, say the Eastern sages-
pleasure and pain, but pleasure is only a passing satis-
faction; we must lose it and lose it quickly : there-
fore it is itself but another form of pain. Hence it
follows that life is painful through and through.
Based on this reasoning is the doctrine that the
negation of the will to live is the one way of happi-
ness. Will, conation, the striving towards some end,
is the true reality, it is said, of all that we call life.
It is by its nature essentially unhappy) In peace,
cessation, the annihilation of will, is to be found man's
highest good. From this arises the conception of
Nirvana-bliss attained through the loss of personal
existence, absorption in the Infinite
We have here the foundation of all pessimisms. It
is a mode of thought which is not only the doctrine
of certain philosophers, but is, in various forms, held
by millions. It is therefore eminently worthy of con-
sideration.
The essence of the doctrine is that pleasure is a
negation, mere relief from the strain of desire. In
contrast with this view we hold that pleasure is
positive, and that it is the constant accompaniment
of all healthy normal living activities. This view is
borne out by the following considerations :
First, any simple particular instance of pleasure
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
159
proves its positive character. The enjoyment we
have in the perfume of a rose is surely a very definite
and positive thing. In the enjoyment of such a
pleasure as this there need be no element of relief
from the strain of desire. Walking through a garden,
every sense satisfied, we draw hear without knowing it
to a blooming rose-tree. Suddenly, as an addition to
the perfume already delighting us, there comes a new
and keener pleasure. Nothing more definitely positive
can be imagined.
Secondly, conation, the effort of will straining to-
wards some end, is not necessarily painful. A healthy
child, or a man or woman in the fulness of youth and
strength, finds delight in mere effort. It is not only
the end gained which delights, but the putting forth
of the power in order to gain it. There is, as a matter
of experience, a keen joy in the perfect exercise of any
faculty.
Thirdly, it is possible to detect very clearly the
source of the false doctrine of the nature of pleasure.
Its origin is to be found in certain special conditions
which belong to human conscious experience. The
physiology of the brain shows that, in the succession
of the various elements which form the mechanism (if
the word be permitted) of any action, consciousness
arises when a new adjustment has to be made. All
our activities seem to be connected with stimuli which
come to us from without. The stimulus is transmitted
by the afferent nerves to the brain. There a reaction
takes place, the efferent nerves carry the response to
the corresponding organ, and the circle is completed by
an action. Thus we react upon our environment. In
many cases the whole series works automatically.
There is no consciousness at all so far as we are aware;
TUL
160 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
there is certainly no conscious intelligence. It appears
to be a purely mechanical process from beginning to
end, though probably not so in its inner nature. In
other cases, when the stimulus reaches the cortex of
the brain, an active consciousness springs into being.
CO
consciousness comes the power to inhibit the response.
mo
u
.
until conscious intelligence has decided on the form
which the response is to take.
It is clear, therefore, that functions which operate
with perfect order and precision, carrying out necessary
duties in the economy of the organism, make no demand
upon our powers of conscious choice. The use of con-
scious intelligence is to deal with difficult cases, to
guard against surprise, to seek for the better and reject
the worse. Consciousness, in fact, is clearest at the
points of highest strain in all the activities in which it
is involved. This is the bright focus of attention; and
the greater the difficulty, the more fully is conscious-
ness involved.
The effect is that, conscious activity being especially
concerned with the point of highest strain in our active
life, we are inclined, in our reflections upon our ex-
perience, to pass over mere enjoyments, and fasten our
attention upon the moments of strain. We think of
these moments as revealing the essential reality of our
being, not discerning that they are but elements in an
experience which is infinitely greater than they. And
so man's life seems to be a continual strife and a
pursuing, with no real attainment-
“The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the eve for the morrow;
The longing for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.”
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
161
U
The situation which thus comes to light is of
supreme importance for the due consideration of the
problem before us. We are now able to understand
something of the place and function of pain in human
experience.
(First, physical pain is a danger-signal. It awakens
attention to some peril threatening the bodily organ-
ism. Its function here is of great value. It startles
the mind into an attitude of strained attention, so that
the danger may be avoided. So far as it serves this
purpose pain is not an evil.
Again, pain is often, though surely not always,
attached to the strain of attention which marks the
decisions of the will. We have seen how clearly this
fact has been brought out by recent investigations.
The moral significance of it is very great. Effort, often
painful effort, is the condition of moral progress. We
learn from this that, in the development of living
forms, when consciousness in the full sense of the term
appears, further advance must be won through a
Thus, conscious desire, dissatisfaction with present
struggle with self, enter into conscious experience.
From that moment pain becomes a condition of a
victorious moral existence.
In general, it may be said that pain is connected
with disordered or unsettled function. It is a warning,
a sign of disease or disorder. It is also a sign of that
condition of unsettlement which affords opportunity
for advance and of the effort by which advance is
achieved in a conscious volitional being. When a
settled functional order is broken in upon in any way,
pain is likely to make its appearance. As pleasure
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162 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
is the concomitant of perfect organic functioning, so is
pain the concomitant of imperfect functioning. And
this may be due either to a breaking down of organic
harmony, as in disease or in case of organic injury, or
to the effort towards higher and better things.
The value and importance of pain are therefore
immeasurably great. We cannot speak of it as in its
nature evil. Its influence is, on the whole, beneficent
It is necessary to be quite clear, in our consideration
of this subject, as to what constitutes value for the
will. Hedonism in all its forms regards pleasure
as the good, and therefore regards pain as essentially
evil. But this doctrine is radically unsound. The
object of the will is not the pleasure which is gained
by each particular action. Desire, which is the raw
material of volition, is always directed towards some
object which is in correspondence with its own par-
ticular nature. This object is presented as in itself
desirable, and so acts as a stimulus which awakens the
will to action. I mention this familiar refutation of
hedonism in order to guard against a misapprehension
which is likely to arise here.
We are now in a position to obtain a clearer view of
the problem of pain in relation to our belief in a
Universal Divine Life enfolding all finite life and
giving reality and consistency to all experience.
Ever since the Darwinian doctrine of the struggle
for existence, as the main method of creation in organic
life, found wide acceptance, the minds of thoughtful
men have been oppressed with the sense of the pain of
the world. Every beautiful form of life seemed to be
the outcome of æons of agony. Behind every mar-
vellous adaptation of organism to environment seemed
to stretch an infinite history of torture : pursuer and
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
163
ve
pursued, torn flesh and quivering nerves, countless
millions of lovely forms and sensitive living things
sacrificed, brief snatches of enjoyment engulfed in
abysses of pain )
We can now see, I think, that, even if natural
selection has done all that has been supposed by its
most thoroughgoing supporters, we have been misled
by the simple process of attributing to the animal
creation all the pain that our human imagination,
drawing from our own experience, connects with a state
of existence such as has been described. We have
suffered from the effects of a great illusion.
Pleasure belongs to all perfect organic functions.
The existence of the healthy normal animal is pleasur-
able through and through. Throughout the lower
creation as a whole, stimulus is followed by reaction in
a perfectly inevitable succession, in the vast majority
of actions. Among the higher animals there may be,
in certain instances, cases in which consciousness inter-
venes, as with man, in order to break the circuit and
give time for choice and painful effort. But, even if this
be true, we are probably inclined to exaggerate its impor-
tance from the fact that we judge of animals mainly
from the highly developed domesticated groups which
have been associated with man and have shared his life.
Bergson in his examination of instinct as contrasted
with intelligence shows that, in the former, conscious
effort acts directly, attaining its end without the inter-
vention of the intellectual process and the deliberation
which mark human choice. Instinct is clearly a func-
tion which operates immediately. The deep pleasure
which belongs to a dreamless sleep, as we know it
in our own experience, affords an analogy which will
help us greatly here. It is not to be supposed, of
164 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
nce
course, that the animal consciousness is no more de-
veloped than our own sleeping consciousness. The
point is that in perfect sleep we have an instance
in our own experience of the pure pleasure which
belongs to natural functions which operate immediately.
When we have got rid of the break which the use of
the intelligence and human choice involve, we find
ourselves in a life which is filled with pure unbroken
enjoyment. And so we may reasonably conclude that
if the animal consciousness attains its ends without
that break, it also owns a life which is purely happy
while it is functioning in a healthy normal manner.
For the animal, pain is simply a sign of disordered
function and a danger-signal.
The animal world, in spite of all the hunting and
slaying which it involves, is therefore, on the whole, a
very happy world.
It seems clear that the principle which has come to
light in this way is one which probably goes much
further back into the earlier or remoter stages of life
than we are at first inclined to suspect. It has been
said that consciousness sleeps in the vegetable world,
dreams in the animal world, and awakens in man.
The saying probably expresses a truth, though its
classification of the various stages is no doubt more
poetic than scientific. If it be correct that pleasure
is the concomitant of perfect functioning, there is good
reason to think that even the vegetable world is per-
vaded by an inner happiness of its own. Certainly
the splendid vigour of its life and its astonishing beauty
bear out such a belief.
Much more could be said on this great subject. It
has often been pointed out that even the sudden deaths
which are characteristic of the wild animal's way of
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
165
living are often painless, and that the victim of a tiger
or lion is benumbed by a torpor which is more pleasure-
able than painful. But it is still more to the point to
consider that if it belong to the nature of a creature
to be hunted by its natural enemies, the fulfilling of that
nature probably involves more pleasure than pain. The
flight and escape of a deer is probably a delightful sensa-
tion. A flight ending in death has probably but little
that is painful in it. In these instances the creature is
performing natural functions and performing them well.
It is when we come to man that we find pain filling
a great space and becoming a terrible element in
existence. Yet here it is clear, from what has been
said above, that this very fact is a signal proof of man's
greatness and high destiny. It is through pain that
man must win his way to the full realization of his
capacities. His gift of deliberate choice makes him
capable of lofty attainments, and the price he pays
for his greatness is the endurance of suffering in a
special and higher sense. We have seen that his value
cannot be estimated in terms of pleasure and pain; he
is framed for things of another sort, things essentially
nobler. All great literature recognizes this truth.
" Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe;
“ Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go !
Be our joys three parts pain !
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!"*
* Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra.
166 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
( The good which corresponds to our nature, and in
which we are to find our realization, is not pleasure,
but something truly objective and permanent-a per-
fection which is beyond us, and to which all true
human living is in some sort or degree an approxima-
tion. But it is through the pain of desire and of effort,
the pain of self-denying choice, the pain of struggle
against difficult and adverse circumstances, that all
true advance towards this end is to be won. In this
fact lies the greatness of human life.
And what is true of the individual is true also of
the human race. Man must win his way to the goal
by sacrifice and suffering.)
A true optimism will not then lose itself in vain
calculations as to whether there is more of pain or
of pleasure in human experience. Estimation is here
impossible, for the simple reason that we are dealing
with realities which are not capable of quantitative
measurement. We are dealing with values, realities
which are essentially qualitative. And the witness
of history and of experience is that the value of mere
sensational pleasure and pain bears no comparison with
the value of true and worthy living-living, that is,
which is directed to an end which is esteemed as in
itself possessing intrinsic and absolute worth.
A very impressive illustration of this truth is given
in the facts of the present time. Upon a pleasure-
seeking world there burst, a few months ago, the
awful tempest of the great war. The opinion had
been widely expressed that the men and women of
our time, enervated by wealth and pursuing sensational
enjoyments, had rendered themselves incapable of
heroic sacrifice and effort. Events speedily proved
the complete falsehood of this estimate. The appeal
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
167
me a
for personal sacrifice met with an immediate and
splendid response; and, more remarkable still, the
revelation which so soon took place of the terrible
destructiveness of modern scientific weapons, and of
the novel risks of modern warfare, instead of damping
the ardour of our volunteers, but increased their eager-
ness. No possibility of suffering, no probability of
horrible surprise involving torture and death, served
to abate their zeal. The men and women of our nation
realized with swift comprehension that the end for
which they were called to give themselves was one
worthy in itself—so worthy that to hold back would
be to stand self-condemned--and at once every con-
sideration of pain and sacrifice became a matter of no
account.
Yet the pain involved in such sacrifice has a very
important function. It increases immeasurably the
moral value. (A sacrifice which involved no pain would
be no sacrifice at all. It is not going too far to say
that the painful element in life has the special function
of intensifying all moral values. It makes them costly,
and therefore precious. It gives weight, seriousness,
dignity to much that would be otherwise trifling. It
may be taken, indeed, as the element whose special
function it is to make us realize the nobility of all
noble things.]
We are now in a position to discern something of
the relation of pain to our belief in a Divine Life
enfolding all human experiences. It is clear, surely,
that when we make an effort to understand the true
function and value of pain, we find it to be, on the
whole, not a difficulty in the way of belief, but exactly
the opposite. First, we realize that the world as a
whole is not a vast torture-chamber. It is of the
reases
eas
CITY
168 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
essence of normal healthy life to have an inner joyous-
ness which is the concomitant of all perfect vital pro-
cesses. Life and happiness are closely related. Life
is made for gladness. In the animal world this happi-
ness is broken in upon from time to time by pain,
in order that warning of danger from outward attack
or inner disease may be given. In addition, we find
that pain in the animal world accompanies the process
of the struggle for existence. It is the mark of the
movement from lower forms of life to higher. As
compared with human experience, this intervention of
pain is very external and accidental. It does not
touch very nearly the inner life, because the quality of
that inner life is characteristically instinctive. Delibera-
tion, choice, consideration of possibilities, the looking
before and after, have very little share in the conscious
life of animals. These things which form the proper
realm of pain belong especially to man.
An illustration of some importance is supplied by
the consideration of pain as a danger-signal. In the
case of the animal, pain awakens to a danger which is,
as a rule, to be avoided by some instinctive movement.
In the case of man, it awakens to intellectual considera-
tion and conscious choice of means to escape. Hence,
with man, pain awakens pain : the physical pain calls
up anxious thought and impels to an effort which
is often in itself painful. There is a cumulative effect
of pain. If the effort to escape the physical pain is
not successful, there is added to that lower form of
suffering the agony of vain striving and disappoint-
ment; and the acute consciousness which accompanies
this, the looking before and after, the thought of what
might have been, increase the pain and give it inevit-
ably a quality which is essentially human, and far
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
169
nal
removed from anything involved in sufferings amongst
creatures less highly endowed. It is the addition of
this spiritual element which makes human suffering the
terrible thing that it is. 3
Yet from this very fact there comes a complete
transvaluation. It is for this reason that in human
life the element of pain, which here assumes such
immense proportions and fills such vast spaces, under-
goes a sudden transformation. It becomes the mark
of man's nobility and the very means of his exaltation.
No longer externally attached to the upward move-
ment, as with animals, it enters into his very life,
so deeply that the voluntary acceptance of it becomes
the essential condition of all lofty achievements, and
the recognition of it an important means of the
discernment of spiritual values,
It is quite clear that, the conditions of human life
being what they are, humanity would have been a far
poorer thing, and the value of life far meaner, if pain
had been omitted.)
There is a great saying of Bacon's that “the blessing
of the Old Testament is prosperity, the blessing of the
New Testament is adversity.” Certainly Christianity
has ennobled our view of suffering. It has taught us
to discern in it the way to attainment and victory.
The message of the suffering Christ to the world in all
ages since the first proclamation of His Gospel has been
“Die to live." Christianity brought about a new rela-
tion of suffering to human experience as a whole. Pain
was found to have a deep meaning and an inestimable
value for God and man; and this teaching was pre-
sented at the first in the concrete facts of a great life,
and all through later ages in a continuous experience.
“The fellowship of Christ's sufferings” became an
uan
n
170 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
U
.
essential part of the Christian life. And, strange
to say, this high estimation of the value of pain did not
involve any hardening of the heart towards the suffer-
ings of the world. On the contrary, side by side with
it there grew up a new tenderness towards the afflicted,
a new realization of duty towards suffering humanity,
and, in due time, a new sympathy with all sensitive
suffering creatures. The adding of a new value to pain
did not result in any willingness to inflict it, but rather
a strenuous endeavour to relieve all who are oppressed
by it. It is interesting also to note that the anti-
Christian movement of thought in recent times, which
finds its extreme expression in the teaching of Nietzsche,
has been accompanied by a new and amazing reaction
towards pagan callousness.
It is important to realize that while great value
is thus attached to pain as an influence making for
moral progress, it would be quite wrong to suppose
that pain in itself could form any part of the ultimate
goal towards which human life is directed. It is
clearly and definitely a means, not an end.
What we must believe is that through the discipline
of pain humanity is working upwards to a new and
higher adjustment, a new and higher harmony of
function and life. The analogy of instinct will help
us here. From Bergson's admirable analysis we gather
that instinct marks the summit of the development of
conscious activity along certain limited lines. Instinct
seems to have attained its perfection. The human
conscious activity, marked as it is by deliberative choice,
is still in the making. Pain is the sign of its incom-
pleteness. But it too will, at some future epoch, attain
its perfection, and, in that great consummation, pain
will vanish. Suffering, the means by which the great
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
171
goal is to be reached, will inevitably disappear in the
attainment of its purpose]
Regarding conscious life as a whole, then, we find
excellent reason to hold that in the fact of pain there
is nothing to shake our belief in an all-embracing
Divine Life, whose character is essentially good and
whose providence designs for the universe of living
beings a final and supreme blessedness.
What, then, are we to say of the way in which the
fact of pain presses upon the individual ? Even if it
be true that, taking organic and human life as a
whole, the net effect of our investigation is to show
that pain is a subordinate, not a dominating, element,
the innocent ? And what about the sufferings of the
good ? These things seem to prove a want of com-
pleteness in the system of the universe, an irrational
element which is hard to reconcile with belief in the
supreme wisdom, power, and goodness of God. We
have seen that the ancient solution of this problem
and dependence, a recognition of God's greatness and
our ignorance, and an exhortation to trust in His
goodness, with the conviction that He will surely make
everything come right in the end. The justification of
this attitude is to be found in Bishop Butler's doctrine
of “our ignorance.” We have no faculties by which
to decide what the scheme of God's providence ought
to be. It must, from the very nature of things, be so
far beyond our comprehension as to make it impossible
for us to judge of the rightness of any particular
instance of the Divine administration.
This attitude of mind may be regarded as a devout
Agnosticism in relation to the ultimate problems, an
172 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
eminently reasonable attitude towards mysteries which
have baffled all generations of thinking men. But
there is no reason why we should not endeavour to
get a little further, and there is also no reason to
suppose that the progress of thought and discovery
may not supply us with the means of making some
further advance. It seems to me that it does. The
principles which came to light in the earlier part of
our investigations should make it clear that, though
we cannot solve the ultimate question as to the dis-
tribution of suffering in human life, we can grasp the
reason why we cannot solve it. What is unsatisfactory
about the argument of Bishop Butler is that it depends
upon a vague and general statement that certain
problems are beyond our comprehension. It is unable
to draw a line and say, Here are problems we can deal
with, and here are problems which are essentially in-
soluble by us; or, if it does attempt to draw such a
line, it gives no clear principle according to which it is
drawn.
A principle of this kind is what we require, and it
has, I think, come to light. We have seen that there
are degrees of reality, that, so far as our experience
goes, the sphere of intellect is to be found in those
degrees which are below that occupied by us in the
full concreteness of our living. Even the fulness of
our own conscious experience is not such that it can
be perfectly grasped by the concepts and logic of the
intellect. When we pass upwards, however, and con-
sider God, we find ourselves in the presence of a degree
of reality not below, but above, our own. We may
rightly apply to Him the term Personality, because
He must possess Personality in even greater perfection
than we do. But we cannot regard Personality as the
ar
THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
173
11
final description of His nature. As His unity includes
· all finite persons within the sphere of His Being, as
His life enfolds all other lives, so must the ultimate
nature of that unity be something superpersonal. It
must have a degree of reality higher than that in which
we live. To suppose, then, that we can think out with
perfect clearness the relation between that highest
reality and each human personal life is absurd. We
cannot do it. If intellect fails to apprehend the fulness
of each human conscious experience, how can it grasp
the relation of that experience to a degree of reality
higher than it ?
All that we can therefore hope to do is to show, by
an examination of the facts within our experience and
the observation of life as a whole, what is the actual
state of the case when it is considered in a large way,
whether suffering is a subordinate element or not,
whether, if it be subordinate, the tendency is upwards
towards a higher life or downwards towards mere
cessation. When we learn, from actual examination,
that pain is subordinate, that it serves on the whole a
beneficent purpose, that life is intrinsically a joyous
thing, we can face the ultimate mystery with reason-
able confidence and believe that the Supreme Spirit in
whom every soul lives and moves and has his being
will not be less kind to the individual than He is
to the race
CHAPTER VIII
EVIL
THE problem of evil is usually considered the greatest
of all. It is the final difficulty, the mystery which lies
in wait for every philosopher when he endeavours to
make his thoughts about the universe consistent. A
thinker who aims at satisfying the demands of the
critical intelligence must always take account of it.
Even if he fails in solving it, he should be able to show
that he can safely leave it unsolved.
The materialist, or agnostic, has apparently an easy
way out of the difficulty. Regarding the spiritual side
of man's nature as an epiphenomenal concomitant of
material changes, or as an insoluble problem, he con
cerns himself only with certain well-defined elements
and with human life as part of the universal evo-
lutionary process. The question of evil as generally
presented seems to him to be only a derivative of
certain theological or metaphysical presuppositions
which do not enter at all into the system of his
thought. For him evil is simply a name for certain
classes of facts which arise inevitably in the course of
development. Pain and sin are marks of the struggle,
disease, and waste which are involved in the evo-
lutionary process. The former is useful to the organ-
ism as a signal of danger, the latter indicates actions
174
EVIL
175
ai
which have been condemned as injurious to organized
human life or mischievous in relation to human happi-
ness. Apart from this, there is no absolute standard
in these things, and therefore no ultimate question.
Moral values are subject to continual readjustment in
accordance with the stage of development to which they
belong. The virtue of one age may be a vice in the next.
As the conditions of human life vary, the accepted moral
values shift and change. CA good man is a man whose
ideas and conduct correspond with his social environ-
ment.) A bad man is a man whose ideas and conduct
do not so correspond. The more brutal crimes are due
to a reappearance of primitive instincts, savage ferocity,
and lack of self-control. Others are marks of de-
generacy. Sometimes a man is condemned because he
is in advance of his generation. Society is bound
to punish crime in order to protect itself against
elements which tend to break it up or to destroy the
general happiness. Thus there comes into being a
recognized code of conduct. Here is the moral stan-
dard. When such a standard has been formed, it
exerts a very powerful influence by means of public
opinion. Few individuals are strong enough to set
themselves in opposition to the voice of the community.
Hence the whole range of moral ideas : moral law,
responsibility, conscience, sin, remorse, retribution.
There can be no doubt that this is, in many respects,
a true account of much that happens in the history
of moral progress. But the root questions remain
unanswered. Whence comes the sense of absolute
value which belongs to moral judgments? Whence
the recognition of absolute authority in the moral
command? Why should a man give himself and all
that he has in a moral cause, if the moral distinction
176 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
be a mere question of more or less perfect adjustment
to the passing conditions of his age? Why should
certain extreme forms of baseness raise a passionate
indignation unparalleled in other cases, and why should
it be universally held that this is not merely justifiable,
but righteous and necessary ?
It is quite clear that if the materialist and agnostic
account of the nature of evil were widely accepted and
popularized, the sense of absolute value in moral dis-
tinctions, and the sense of rightness and necessity in
moral indignation, would vanish--that is, the essen-
tially moral element would disappear. If the mate-
rialist is right, the more a man knows about the nature
of morality the less moral he is likely to be. The
keenness of our moral instincts, and the sense of value
we attach to our moral decisions, are, in fact, based on
illusion.
The sense of an absolute value in the moral judgment
is really the greatest thing in human life. It is the
soul of all heroisms, all noble sacrifices, all great en-
deavours. It is the inspiration of all patient doing of
common duties, and of every sincere service rendered
to mankind)
A system of thought which passes by this tremendous
fact stands condemned. The impotence of Materialism
and Agnosticism are here most clearly revealed. Face
to face with the supreme problem, they have nothing
to say. It is a demonstration of futility.
Idealism has been able to deal much more effectively
with the ultimate moral problem. It has been able to
show that the principle of an absolute good is involved
in the existence of the self-conscious subject. The
relation of subject to object as the fundamental fact
in experience yields, in the practical sphere, the con-
TIT
EVIL
177
1
ception of the good as the end in which the self finds
its true realization. There is therefore set before man
as the true goal of all his efforts the attainment of a
perfection which is absolute because it arises out of
the very nature of his spiritual being. It is the end
for which he exists. So far as he fails in attaining it,
he loses the true purpose of his existence. Here is
full justification for all the duties, sacrifices, and
heroisms of human life. It is a doctrine which makes
life worth living, duty worth doing, and sin worth
hating. So far as it goes, this teaching is surely true)
But it cannot be said that Idealism in its more
complete form, as derived from Hegel and taught in
the schools, is able to deal with the other side of the
question. It can give us a sound doctrine of the good,
but it cannot solve the problem of evil. Here it is
helpless. For Hegelian Idealism, the universe is
throughout a rational whole. Thought is the final
principle of things. A perfect evolution, proceeding in
accordance with a logical development of all categories,
and finding its consummation in the Absolute Idea, is
the true description of the universe. The whole system
is perfectly articulated. Every apparent contradiction
finds its resolution in the next higher stage, as thought
ascends. There can be no place for an unresolved
element. The Absolute Idea is the final and absolute
good. Everything that happens must take its place
in the production of the final result. (There can there-
fore be no place for an element which is out of harmony
with the universal order
The theological interpretation of this doctrine makes
it clearer. According to this, the whole course of the
universe from beginning to end is the working out of
the Divine purpose. Every element must subserve
Y
12
178 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
the one supreme end. God's will is good, and deter-
mines, or overrules, each event. There can be nothing
which hangs loose or disconnected—no ragged ends.
No break, no interruption, no useless element, can find
a place in the whole. (The will of man works out the
Divine Will. To be consistent, such a doctrine must
deny human freedom in any real sense, or escape from
this conclusion by making each human will a mani-
festation of the Divine. In systems of this nature,
freedom can properly be attributed to God only;
human actions are strictly determined. Determinism
of the most rigid sort comes back under the name of
freedom.
It is for this reason that Idealism of this kind has
been rightly described as only an “inverted Natural-
ism.” Human initiative in any real sense is as much
denied as in the most perfect Materialism.
These considerations show that the problem of evil
is to-day in much the same position as that which
it occupied many centuries ago. The difficulty is
simply the problem of free-will in its most acute form.
THow is the independence of human will consistent with
a supreme purpose, a final goal, a settled order, in the
world ? If man's will is really free, it seems to produce
chaos in the universe; it seems to take away the very
possibility of order. Philosophically, it seems to intro-
duce a disorganizing irrational element. Theologically,
it seems to set man's will against God's will in hopeless
antagonism
This is the shape in which the problem of evil has
haunted thought from the beginning. It is well worth
while to regard the question from the religious and
theological point of view. Thus, its essential nature
becomes apparent. (Evil is a violation of the rational
EVIL
179
integrity of the universe. It is will going astray,
aiming at ends which are inconsistent with the supreme
controlling purpose of the whole. It is spiritual dis-
order, the assertion of the self-seeking will against the
universal good. As, in a community, crime is the
wilful act of an individual in violation of the general
welfare; so, in the whole moral order, sin is the
antagonism of the single or partial will to the universal
will. Its essence is the conflict of wills)
In the effort to solve this problem in a manner con-
sistent with the theological conception of the sovereign
omnipotence of God, theology has found itself involved
in hopeless difficulty. By general consent in recent
years the struggle has been abandoned. QOn the one
hand, the supremacy of the Divine Will has been
affirmed as a fundamental dogma, and, on the other,
the reality of human freedom as the essential condition
of moral life has been assumed; and no real endeavour
to combine the two in a single consistent system has
been made. The antinomy has been accepted as a
fundamental difficulty in the nature of things of which
it is no longer worth while attempting the solution.
It is pointed out, however, that we must regard the
existence of free human wills as due to an act of self-
limitation on the part of the Almighty for a definite
purpose. Goodness is possible only in a being whose
will is free. To be genuine, goodness must be freely
willed, it cannot be the result of compulsiont God as
a Supreme Moral Ruler desires a service freely rendered,
the willing obedience of moral creatures, not the soul-
less service of machines. In order to make moral
living possible in finite spirits, He, of His own free
will, limited Himself and endowed humanity with
something of His own freedom. Thus it is that we
0
.
180 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
nec
e
become worthy to be called the children of God. But
if this endowment is necessary for the possibility of
true goodness in finite creatures, it follows inevitably
that, through it, evil also becomes possible. Moral
good demands free choice, and free choice implies the
possibility of moral evil. In creating moral beings
capable of yielding to Him a free and loving service,
God opened the way for the exact opposite, a free
choice which rejects the good.
It is hardly possible for any devout Christian thinker
of the present time to avoid this position. It results
necessarily from the belief in God and the acceptance
of the doctrine of free-will as the essential foundation
of morality. It is also in close correspondence with
the facts of religious and moral experience. Yet it
provides no escape from the fundamental difficulty.
It introduces a seemingly irrational element into the
very constitution of things. It even appears to open
up the possibility of an ultimate defeat of the Divine
purpose. GIf the power of God be limited either in its
own essential nature, or by an act of self-limitation,
what guarantee is there that the good will finally
prevail ? Why may not the forces of evil grow
stronger than the forces of good and at last overcome
them ?)
It seems to be clear that while we think of God
as Personal Will on the same level of reality as the
multitude of human personal wills, there is no answer
to this question. All we can do is to accept the puzzle
as insoluble and trust that there is in God a supreme
power which will somehow bring everything right in
the end. Once again we find religion coming to the
help of theology.
Confronted with the difficulty which has just been set
CON
181
forth, theologians and philosophers often attempt to
escape by maintaining that evil is, in its nature, an
unreality. Among ancient thinkers who adopted this
view, St. Augustine is the most famous. “Let no
one,” he writes, “ seek for the efficient cause of the evil
will. The cause is not efficient, but deficient.” Evil,
according to him, is not an effect, but a defect. It
" to see darkness or to hear silence" as to inquire for
the efficient cause of evil.*
There are insuperable objections to this doctrine.
First, evil cannot be a mere privation like darkness or
silence, because goodness and evil are not opposites
of the same sort as light and darkness, sound and
silence. In these cases the one correlative is unmean-
ing without the other. Where there is no light there
must, for those who have eyes, be darkness ; where
there is no sound there must, for those who have ears,
be silence. Light and darkness, sound and silence,
necessarily imply one another. But good does not
involve evil in this way. Goodness, in a moral being,
involves the possibility of evil, but not its actuality.
A world in which every moral being always chose the
good and rejected the evil is perfectly conceivable. A
perfectly good life implies the absence of sin, but not
the absence of temptation. The existence of the good
does not involve the existence of its opposite
Secondly, actual experience shows that evil is not
a mere privation. As the essence of goodness is the
good will, or good character, so the essence of evil
is the evil will or evil character. In each case the
moral quality implies a definite set or disposition of the
personality. The wickedness of a wicked man consists
* De Civitate, xii. 7.
182 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
SU
in the fact that, by his acts of choice, he has given
himself a certain definite character; and that character
is, in its own way, a positive reality of the moral world.
If evil were merely the privation of good it would be
impossible to distinguish it from innocence. [Go back
to the beginning of a moral life. A being possessed of
moral capacity, assumed to be without any definite
character, faces its first moral decision. Before the
choice is made such a being would be neither good nor
evil. In the choice of the good it becomes good. But
surely the absence of that goodness before the choice
was made did not make it evil. Apart from inherited
dispositions, something like this must happen at the
beginning of every moral life. That primitive innocence
is privative in relation to goodness, but it is certainly
not evil,
When we consider the evil character as we know it
in hardened criminals, or in the refined selfishness to
be found in highly civilized societies, its positive quality
becomes extremely evident.
Thirdly, a sufficient proof that (St. Augustine's
account of evil is not satisfactory is supplied by the
consideration that immoral conduct is essentially the
work of the will. It comes into being in the form of
definite voluntary decisions, which are as positive as
CO
mm
of defect, in contrast to effect, helps us is evident when
we consider that wilful defection from the good is as
positive a thing as the wilful effecting of any result
could be. The act of a will is always positive no matter
what the quality of the result may be. It is, indeed,
the most positive thing we know.)
We cannot, then, escape the great problem by a
device of this nature. The evil will is a positive
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183
fact. We must accept it as such. (We cannot solve
our problem by the simple process of denying its
reality.)
At the same time there is a great truth behind
St. Augustine's distinction. While good can exist
without evil, evil could not exist apart from good.
Good implies the possibility of evil, not its actuality;
but evil implies the actuality of good. For evil is
possible only in a world in which various wills are at
work, and in such a world evil is essentially a dis-
cordant element. It is the setting up of the individual
wills ; and a world in which all wills were at all times
and in every respect in conflict would be an impos-
sibility. For a social world to exist at all there must
be in it some kind or degree of harmony. As Plato
points out, a band of robbers, in so far as it holds
together, must observe justice. For a community to
exist at all there must be some social cement, some
degree of mutual confidence and good will. Universal
evil would involve the annihilation of all social life.
When therefore we speak of evil as being in its nature
NULL
ACE
contrary to good, we mean that if human or spiritual
beings are to exist in relation to one another there
must be a moral basis for their union, and that were
evil to become absolutely dominant social life would be
impossible. Moral relationship is the necessary pre-
supposition of all social existence. This seems to be
perfectly clear. But this does not mean that evil is
an unreality. Its meaning is that if evil were to over-
come good completely there would follow an end of all
moral life. If such an event took place in human
society, it would involve the degradation of man below
184 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
the moral level; for man as a moral being must live in
some degree of social relationship.
The view of evil which we have been examining is
sometimes put in another way. Instead of declaring
evil an unreality, it is said that it is a lower good. It
is good in the making. The virtues of one age, it is
said, are the vices of another. Murder and lying were
at one time legitimate institutions. Gradually, as man
advanced in his upward development, these practices
became limited more and more. It is by means of
what we now call evil that man rose to a higher good
We have to thank the faults of the past for the virtues
of the present. They were simply the lower experiences
through which man won his way to a better life. Where
the tendency to these old practices appears in a man of
the present day we call it criminal, but in truth it is
merely primitive. The man of the Stone Age lives
again in the habitual criminal whom we condemn to
our prisons. We punish the virtues of our forefathers
in the persons of those of their children who walk in
the old paths. These ways of life are simply out of date.
Thinkers who adopt this line of explanation have
already been referred to. Their point of view is that
of the evolutionist whose whole attention is given to
the process by which changes have come about without
sufficient regard to the special character of the facts
It is perfectly true that things which our forefathers
permitted or approved would be condemned to-day.
But surely we owe our better knowledge, not to the
practices which they allowed and we have abandoned,
but to that in them which enabled them to rise above
these practices. Conscience gains enlightenment by
experience, but it must be an experience in which the
man recognizes a true good and seeks to attain it.
man ri
EVIL
185
(Ever striving upward, man's moral nature learns to
discard one manner of life after another as he discovers
the evil. But what helps him upwards is not the
thing he discards, but the moral faith and resolution
with which he deals with the whole of his life. The
criminal of our day does not correspond to the good
man of the Stone Age, but to the criminal of that
period. He is one who, turning aside from the higher
way, chooses that which is for his own period, and, in
the circumstances in which he finds himself, the lower
way. Any other view is surely due to a superficial
attention to the external and accidental in human life,
and à disregard of the inner principle which is at work
in all moral living. It is not true, then, to say that
the virtue of one age is the vice of the next. Goodness
is always to be found in the will which chooses the
good, because it presents itself as the good, and rejects
that which is the mere gratification of self-regarding
impulse. Whatever shape the external act may take,
the moral quality resides in the inner character of the
will. (For man, at whatever stage
may be, there is a good to be chosen and an evil to be
rejected. We gain nothing, then, in the way of
explanation of the nature of evil, by going back up
the stream of time and comparing the actions of the
men of old with those of the men of to-day. The
problem of evil remains where it was.)
We cannot, then, elude the problem of evil by any
of the devices by which it has been attempted to prove
that evil is an unreality. We cannot escape the diffi-
culty by denying its existence. Evil is a fact, the
most tremendous fact in all human experience, a fact
which must be faced courageously if we are to retain
our faith in a supreme beneficent purpose pervading
ny
186 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
е
а
all experience. Is the universe, in its final meaning
and tendency, good? Is life worth living? Is the
hope which springs up so continually in human hearts
justifiable, or is it a delusion ? Have all the strivings
and conquests of the good and great in all ages of
history been making for an end eminently worthy of
their efforts, or has it been all in vain ? Is there a
goal set before us which will be found at last to have
been worth every sacrifice which the martyrs and
heroes among men have ever been ready to make in
the faith that their endeavours would not be fruitless ?
Finally, is the fact of evil reconcilable with the belief
in the supreme wisdom and goodness of God?
There are two distinct questions here. First, accept-
ing the fact, the reality, of evil, are we justified in
believing that it will be finally overcome ? Secondly,
how is the fact of evil to be reconciled with our belief
in God?
These two questions are not necessarily connected.
It is possible to believe in the final overthrow of evil
without believing in God.] Evil, regarded as discord
in human social relationship, the opposition of the
individual will to the common good, might be gradually
eliminated by a growing sense of brotherhood and an
increasing willingness on the part of all to make
sacrifices for the general welfare.
Glorious dreams of such a consummation have
charmed many imaginations and inspired many en-
thusiastic souls. A redemption of humanity wrought
out by self-sacrifice and issuing in a regenerated society
is the ideal which has stimulated all our modern social
reformers. Even though the full realization of the
ideal may seem a long way off, the possibility of
effecting any real approximation towards it is enough
EVIL
187
to call forth all the energies of those who have been
fascinated by the splendour of the vision. The belief
in such a possibility is in itself the equivalent of a
glorious hope.
. Yet it must be admitted that, apart from a deeper
faith as to the ultimate nature of things, experience
and history speak with uncertain voice as to the
probability of success. In modern, as in ancient times
many noble individuals may be found who willingly
sacrifice themselves for the general welfare ; but there
is little to show that large classes and whole races will
act in the same way. It cannot be forgotten that
competition is a very large factor in evolution. Even
though it may not prove to be as dominant as Darwin
believed, it cannot be wholly eliminated. It may be
true that, among individuals, the rigour of competition
may be greatly softened. People belonging to the
same family or race, or united in common bonds of
fellowship and labour, may so far overcome their eager-
ness as to soften away the worst asperities : the
influences of comradeship, of fair play, of mutual good-
will, may prevail over the oppositions arising from
competing interests. But competition between large
and distinct classes and races seems to admit of a very
much smaller degree of limitation. The present war
is a gigantic illustration of the manner in which
national interests, when they come into competition,
destroy international good-will. International law
becomes in a moment a mere cobweb.
It is a remarkable thing that this should occur at a
time when, more than ever before in human experience,
attention was being given to the solution of social
problems, and a higher degree of mutual respect and
consideration was being established among all peoples.
188 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1
eason
(The fact makes us realize the truth that, except on the
basis of religious faith, there
human progress should in the future move in the direc-
tion of universal brotherhood rather than in any other
direction. Looking back over the history of organic
evolution, we trace the appearance and disappearance
of whole races of living beings, we see the struggle for
life going on, we watch ascent and descent; and we
conclude that, regarding the human species as only the
highest in the series, we have no special reason to
believe that love is any better than strength, as a
factor making for survival, or that the human race may
not decline rather than improve, or that the application
of physical science to the uses of life may not in the
end turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing.
The range of ideas which find their most forcible
expression in the writings of Nietzsche, and which
dominate many minds at present, form an interesting
commentary on this conclusion
\ These considerations show that practically the
problem of evil is the supreme burden which presses
upon us as we take up the duties of life and seek
to estimate their meaning and value ; and they show
that ordinary experience and scientific thought provide
no solution to the great problem.
Is there any other way of approaching the question ?
Most certainly there is, if there is any truth in the
principles which we were able to reach in our examina-
tion of the conditions of human experience as a whole.
It will be seen that, though we have not the means of
solving the great problem, we are able to understand
why it is insoluble ; and, further, we can see reason to
believe that, above the level to which our minds can
attain, there is a solution of it.
EVIL
189
PE
We saw that the experience of the individual human
being possesses a reality of higher degree than that
possessed by the material world. Also we saw that
the unity which belongs to this higher reality is of
higher degree than the unity which belongs to the
lower. It is more intimate, more concrete. The
elements which go to form the higher unity enter into
one another in a manner impossible to the elements
of the lower. Contradictions which cannot be resolved
in the latter disappear in the former. Things which
stand apart from one another in hopeless antagonism
as elements in the material world unite in the spiritual
experience of the personal self. The mutually exclusive
things of the physical world form one world in human
experience, a world penetrated through and through
by the thoughts and purposes of the spirit.
Further, we saw that when from individual human
experience we pass to the consideration of the multi-
tude of finite human experiences, it is necessary to
suppose a unity of still higher degree in which they
are combined. Only by this supposition can all the
varying human points of view, all the partial ex-
periences of men, all the worlds which men know, each
regarding the world of experience in his own way, find
a synthesis in a universe including them all. As
Nature must be regarded as a world of which the
natural world as revealed in every finite experience is
a partial manifestation, so must there be a Universal
Spiritual Life in which all finite spirits share. Here
is a degree of reality higher than that of human
experience.
In this Highest Reality, as we must regard it, we
must believe that the contradictions which belong
to the relationships of finite spirits disappear. As the
yn
190 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
oppositions of material things vanish in human ex-
perience, so do the oppositions of finite experiences
vanish in the Highest Reality. The analogy of the
lower realities leads inevitably to this conclusion.
The oppositions and contradictions between finite
spirits find their characteristic expression in the
problem of evil. Evil is the conflict of wills in its most
pronounced form. It is spirit making use of its own
peculiar power in antagonism to the same power exer-
cised by other spirits. Here intellect, an instrument
forged for the uses of the lower realities, is necessarily
powerless. It is unable to effect a reconciliation.
Hence the insoluble problem which has baffled all
generations of thinkers. Hence the impossibility of
thinking out the relations which the problem involves.
But it does not follow that there is no solution. On
the contrary, when we are convinced that there is a
realm of Reality higher than that of human experience,
it follows at once that we have reason to believe that
in that Reality the oppositions which perplex us utterly
find a perfect resolution. This is no mere appeal to
another world and another power to settle problems
which distract ourselves. It is a conclusion to which
all the lines of thought which we have been following
from the beginning lead inevitably.
When, therefore, Christian faith holds with all its
strength to both sides of the question, affirming on
the one hand the sovereign omnipotence of God and
on the other the freedom of human will, and at the
same time maintains that the puzzle which we cannot
solve finds its solution in Him, it is acting with a
wisdom which philosophy must ultimately justify. Its
instinct is directed by the appreciation of the impor-
tance of grasping all the facts, letting none of them
EVIL
191
slip, because to the impatient human intelligence they
seem incapable of reconciliation. It is also inspired by
the conviction, which common experience so amply
bears out, that our knowledge of these greatest things
must be subject to limitations.
When we come to see the necessity of this highest
reality and most perfect unity, we find the justification
of all our hopes as to the final outcome of the moral
struggle in this limited life of ours. There can be no
ultimate defeat of the good. Every life is worth living
and every sacrifice is worth making. The evil which
on the level of our experience presents itself as a reality
so tremendous that it seems to threaten the very
existence of the spiritual universe, is revealed as an
element which must, for the Highest Reality, be alto-
gether subordinate. The fact that in the final unity
all discords must cease involves the disappearance of
evil in the last resort.)
In this discussion we have to some extent anticipated
the examination of the second of the two questions
which we found to require consideration. This was
inevitable, because the two questions are finally one.
But it is necessary now to go back to the parting of
the ways, for there are some points of great importance
which still demand attention. The second question
was stated in the following terms: How is the fact
of evil to be reconciled with our belief in God
We have seen that those who regard this great
problem from the point of view of natural history and
ordinary human experience might rest content if they
could show that the general tendency of things is such
that, in course of time, as development proceeds, evil
will be gradually overcome and goodness and happiness
prevail on the whole. The naturalistic type of thought
as
192 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
nal
anv
can, indeed, seek no other solution. Its defect is that
the welfare of the individual counts for nothing.
Countless human beings must be sacrificed to Moloch
in order that the race may be better and happier at
some future time. Such a doctrine cannot satisfy the
higher needs of the human heart. It is, indeed, in-
consistent with the fundamental principle of the moral
life—the principle that every human soul is an end in
himself, possessed of an absolute moral value.,) It is
therefore altogether unsatisfying to minds which recog-
nize the importance of the spiritual side of human life.
Unsatisfying as this doctrine is in any case, we found
that it is impossible, even from the point of view of
natural science and ordinary experience, to find any
real justification for it. There is no real reason from
a naturalistic standpoint for the belief that the evil
will be overcome. The one principle which can bring
deliverance is that of a Higher Reality, a spiritual
life in which the contradictions which belong to this
life shall be vanquished—that is, faith in God is our
only way of salvation.
All is not yet clear, however. When we seek
deliverance from this great perplexity in the doctrine
which has just been set forth, there comes back upon
us an old question in a new shape. If in this new
sense we accept the doctrine that God is omnipotent
and perfectly good, how does it help us in relation to
our present life? Evil is a fact. It is, for that level
of reality which belongs to our human existence, a
terribly real thing. The belief that for God there is
a higher level on which this terrible thing vanishes is
not much comfort for us who have to live our lives on
the lower level. Further, there is, it will be said,
no more assurance of final victory to be found in this
EVIL
193
TL
re
UI
doctrine than in any other; for, if the present existence
of evil on the level of reality on which we live is not
inconsistent with the perfection of God's life on the
higher level on which He lives, why should not evil go
on for ever? Why should it disappear in the future
any more than in the present ?*
The defect of these arguments is that they regard
God as a purely intellectual Absolute. They omit to
consider His Personality and His moral character. In
logic, a higher principle will resolve a contradiction.
The warring elements disappear in a harmony which
includes and reconciles them. Action and reaction in
mechanics are equal and opposite. For this very reason
they contribute to the strength of any mechanical
system which involves them. That system is a har-
mony resulting from the counteracting efficacy of
opposite forces. But consider each pair of forces in
isolation from the whole, and their push against one
another is revealed as a continually acting opposition.
CSo, it might seem, in the final harmony which is
realized in God, the Highest Reality, the opposition of
good and evil may be a necessary element. We poor
creatures of lower nature feel, and must continue to
feel, all the agonies which we describe as sorrow and
sin, all the tortures of bodily pain, mental disquietude,
disappointed hopes, ceaseless competition with one
Yy
* The discussion of these questions involves points raised by
Mr. Bradley in his Appearance and Reality (see chaps. xvii., xix.,
xxv.), and by Dr. McTaggart in his Some Dogmas of Religion,
p. 209 f. Mr. Bradley holds that personality and morality are
completely transcended in the Absolute. They are for Him
wholly subordinate. Dr. McTaggart finds omnipotence incom-
patible with personality and morality. The form in which the
conception of degrees of reality is presented above seems to get rid
of all these difficulties.
13
194 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
U
.
another, oppositions, disagreements, strife, and war, in
order that, in the higher realm of the Divine Being,
there may be eternal harmony, unbroken peace.
Mr. Bradley's conception of the Absolute is very
close to this. But he wisely sees that, for a modern
thinker, such a being could not be called God.
(God cannot be an Absolute of this kind. Nor can
the Absolute bear such a character. What has hap-
pened here is that the metaphysical mind has let logic
run away with it. The forms and processes of thought
which are perfectly valid when applied to mechanical
things, and which in that application lead to results
which stand every test of verification, are not safe
guides when we are dealing with realities of higher
order. The teaching of Bergson is here most important.
The truth is that the conceptions which belong to
personal life-the ideas of morality especially—are
here much closer to the facts than the forms of intel-
lectual logic. If we think of God as the Absolute, we
shall get our truest conceptions of Him by applying to
Him those human qualities and principles which our
common experience has shown to be essential to all
that is highest and best in humanity. The simple,
devout soul who thinks of God as Father, as supremely
trustworthy, as worthy of highest reverence and adora-
tion, as Love, as a Personal Being in whom all perfection
of moral character is realized, is far nearer to the truth
than is the philosopher who painfully follows the
dialectic of the Hegelian logic, and reaches the absolute
idea in which all contradiction disappears.
The reason is perfectly clear. The reality which
belongs to our human personal life is higher in degree
than the reality in relation to which our intellectual
logic has been shaped.) A perfect instrument in its
U
EVIL
195
LI
10
II
own sphere, this logic is unable to deal with the move-
ment of life, as Bergson has shown. It is unable to
deal with the full reality of the moving continuum of
our human conscious experience. How much greater
must its limitations be when it is applied to the Reality
which transcends our experience!
In relation to this latter Reality, the only clue we
have is the nature of our own personal life when re-
garded as a movement towards its own proper per-
fection. We have seen that the Highest Reality must
be personal; but that personality cannot be a com-
plete account of His nature. We have also seen that
personality must, in Him, reach a perfection far beyond
anything known to us. Just as material organization
reaches its highest perfection when taken up into
personal life, as in the human organism, so must
personality, the characteristic form of our conscious
experience, reach its highest perfection when involved
in the Higher Reality.
(The perfection of His Personality is therefore the
one thing we can really know about God. All
that constitutes personal perfection must be found
in Him.
It follows that we are right to speak of God as good
in the highest degree, and we are right to expect to
find that, in spite of all difficulties, the course of our
human experience and the whole universe, so far as
we can explore it, reveal marks of a supreme goodness.
Since the level of reality on which our experience
moves is lower in degree than that of the life of God,
we must expect difficulties and the appearance of con-
tradiction ; but the good as we find it in ourselves and
in the world of men should be more fundamental in
its nature and relation to the whole than the evil.
mor
196 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Now, this is exactly what we do find, as the following
considerations will show :
First, our whole life, all our thoughts and all our
actions, depend upon the trustworthiness of the
universe in which we dwell. We act upon the
supposition that what is true to-day will be true
to-morrow, and find that we are not deceived. The
whole system of the physical sciences is founded on
the uniformity of Nature. Hence comes the concep-
tion of natural law. The world is a cosmos, not chaos.
Order is more fundamental than disorder. Also, as we
saw in an earlier discussion, the material world is such
in relation to us, and we are so constituted in relation
to it, that we can use its forces and laws for our own
purposes. Matter subserves mind. This relationship
is clearly more fundamental than those which produce
disorder, distraction, dislocation. Health is more
natural than disease. Harmony is more natural than
discord.
(Secondly, in the moral world we find, as was shown
above, that goodness is more fundamental than evil.
Though it be true that in relation to our conscious
experience we cannot call evil an unreality, yet in rela-
tion to goodness its position is subordinate. If there
is to be such a thing as social life at all, if human
beings are to live in relation to one another, there
must be some basis of mutual trust, which is impossible
without some sort or degree of morality. The com-
plete prevalence of evil would involve the destruction
of all life which could properly be called human.
Goodness is therefore essential : evil is not.)
Thirdly, when dealing with the problem of pain, we
were able to show from the psychology of that question
that pleasure has an essential relation to life which
EVIL
197
pain has not. Pain is the mark of disturbance, the
accompaniment of the upward struggle ; and in human
experience is specially connected with freedom of choice.
It is an element which heightens all moral values, a
price we pay for our moral victories.
These considerations bear out the conclusion at which
we have arrived. The Life in whose all-embracing
Being we live, the Highest Reality, is Good. We
have reason to attribute to Him all our best concep-
tions of Personal Perfection. These conceptions are
doubtless not good enough, but they are the truest
expression of which we are capable.
While therefore we are unable to solve the problem
of evil, we can see reason to believe that it is solved in
God. Evil cannot be a permanent element in the
universe. The whole course of natural and human
development must be working towards an end in which
evil will have no place. A God whose nature involves
personal perfection cannot build His own eternal
happiness on the lasting misery of His creatures. It is
impossible. It will surely be found at last that the
good will be perfected and the evil utterly destroyed.
CHAPTER IX
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
movem
In a mechanical system, past and present govern the
future absolutely. Given the present position of the
sun, moon, and other celestial bodies, and knowing
the laws which govern their movements, the astronomer
can tell exactly where they will be a thousand years
hence. Eclipses, conjunctions, transits, and other rela-
lative positions can be calculated with extraordinary
exactness. On this principle the operation of every
machine depends. Putting together properly con-
structed parts and depending on ascertained laws, the
engineer forms an instrument upon the working of
effect the results he desired, his confidence in the laws
understands that there was some fault in adjustment:
the very failure will, he knows, turn out to be a further
instance of the perfect necessity with which past and
present govern the future.
This principle is found to prevail throughout the
whole domain of physical science, so far as human
investigation has been able to penetrate. Hence comes
our idea of natural necessity: each stage arises in-
evitably out of all that went before : the future is
determined by the past: everything is in its nature
essentially calculable and foreseeable.
198
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
199
When, however, we think of such mechanical systems
from the point of view of our own conscious use of
them, we must reverse the order. The future is found
to govern past and present. An event which will
happen to-morrow controlled the processes of yesterday,
and controls the processes of to-day. The newspaper
which will be published next Saturday is keeping the
printing-press at work on Thursday. Here it is clear
that the reversal of the mechanical order is brought
about by the intervention of human mind and will.
Natural processes are made to subserve intelligent
purpose.
The principle which thus comes to light pervades all
human life, in so far as conscious mind and will prevail.
The events of the present are all controlled by the
future. As long as the intelligent direction of life is
taking place, so long does the future dominate all my
actions. I must write a dozen letters in the next hour,
because lunch will be at one o'clock. I am very busy
to-day because I must go to town to-morrow. The
train must start at nine o'clock, because it is timed to
arrive at its destination at half-past ten. All the
mechanisms which are employed in the train's journey
must be adjusted with reference to an event which
will not happen until that hour. It is altogether in
the future, yet it rules a long series of events which
will then be past.
It is important to observe that the greater the
power of the future in a man's life, the greater his
freedom. When a man becomes the victim of habit,
his past controls him. As long as he is able consciously
to choose his own ends and direct his course towards
their attainment, he is free. In thus directing himself
he subordinates to his purpose mechanical processes of
OL
200 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1
many kinds, making them the slaves of his will. All
these mechanical processes, with the forces and laws
they involve, are thus made subject to a consciously
chosen end not yet realized. Here is freedom as the
truth of necessity. The aim of the will is the explana-
tion of the whole series of mechanically necessitated
events.
When the relation of mind to mechanism is thus
presented, it is almost inevitable that the principle
so revealed should be applied to the great mechanisms
of Nature. If in our experience we find conscious
purpose to be the explanation of such mechanical
processes as we can set in motion, surely there is
reason to believe that the physical world as a whole
is designed with a view to some supreme end. We
can hardly fail to discern, in the necessity of nature,
the manifestation of the process by which a world-
wide purpose is being accomplished. We saw above
that this is an argument of very great potency. But
we also saw that it leads to great difficulties when we
come to consider the relation of Divine to human
freedom. Into that question we need not now enter,
as it has been already dealt with sufficiently for our
present needs.
The problem now before us is different. What is
meant by Purpose when the word is used in connection
with the whole movement of things? Or, to narrow
the scope of our inquiry, what is meant by Purpose
when we regard the full concrete reality of our con-
scious experience? It may be that we are being led
astray by the analogy of the mechanical process. Have
we reason to suppose that the whole life-process, the
movement of the full activity of our conscious experi-
ence, has the same character as those abstracted and
Same
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
201
no
isolated parts of it which we single out when we watch
the attainment of a definitely conceived end by means
of a mechanical arrangement specially designed to pro-
duce it? Kant maintained that the phenomenal
activity of the will is not to be regarded as its real
activity. The former is necessary, the latter free.
Bergson has carried Kant's distinction further. He
holds that phenomenal time must be distinguished
from pure, or real, time. All mechanical processes are
in the former; they belong to time, as marked out in
definite quantities by reference to space. Will in the
full sense of the term, the movement of the conscious
life in all its fulness, is in the latter. It is free, not
being bound by the spatial limitations which belong to
the material world.
According to Bergson, the very conception of finalism
is misleading when applied to our conscious experi-
ence. It is a category which belongs to the realm of
intellect. “The human intellect, inasmuch as it is
fashioned for the needs of human action, is an intellect
which proceeds at the same time by intention and by
calculation, by adapting means to ends, and by think-
ing out mechanisms of more and more geometrical form.
Whether nature be conceived as an immense machine
regulated by mathematical laws, or as the realization
of a plan, these two ways of regarding it are only the
consummation of two tendencies of mind which are
complementary to each other, and which have their
origin in the same vital necessities. For that reason,
radical finalism is very near radical mechanism on many
points. Both doctrines are reluctant to see in the
course of things generally, or even simply in the de-
velopment of life, an unforeseeable creation of form.
In considering reality, mechanism regards only the
202 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
aspect of similarity or repetition. It is therefore domi-
nated by this law, that in nature there is only like
reproducing like. ... Fabrication works on models
which it sets out to reproduce; and even when it in-
vents, it proceeds, or imagines itself to proceed, by a
new arrangement of elements already known. Its
principle is that we must have like to produce like.'
In short, the strict application of the principle of
finality, like that of the principle of mechanical causal-
ity, leads to the conclusion that “all is given.' Both
principles say the same thing in their respective lan-
OC
As against the rigidity which intellect thus intro-
duces on both sides of our dealing with things,
M. Bergson holds that life in its real nature is fluid and
creative. It is continually new, always producing that
which is unforeseeable. Its true character can be
described neither by mechanism nor by finalism. It is
not the working out of a plan settled beforehand. It
possesses genuine freedom. But M. Bergson does not
deny that finalism stands for a truth which approaches
the facts of the case more nearly than does the con-
ception of mechanism. Life, he holds, starts with a
direction. It has a tendency. But it is not the reali-
zation of a plan. “It is a creation which goes on for
ever in virtue of an initial movement. This movement
constitutes the unity of the organized world-a prolific
unity of an infinite richness, superior to any that the
intellect could dream of, for the intellect is only one of
its aspects or products.”+ What is determinative,
then, in the course of creation, is not an end or final
cause, consciously aimed at, but the unity of the
* Creative Evolution, chap. i., pp. 47, 48.
Ť Ibid., chap. ii., p. 110.
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
203
original impetus. This élan vital, which is the true
reality, pushes against the opposing material medium
in which it has to operate. Thus it gives rise to
myriad forms, forms and arrangements infinite in
number and variety. Thus also there is an all-per-
vading unity which, to our intellectual examination,
presents a superficial appearance of prearranged design.
But this unity, with its appearance of finalism, can
only be detected when we look backwards to the past
and observe what has been accomplished. Looking
towards the future, we are confronted with the un-
foreseeable. We must believe that the unity of the
impetus will remain. But we have no reason to believe
that there is any definite goal towards which that
impetus is tending. This, according to M. Bergson, is
borne out by the fact of the increasing divergence of
living forms. “In communicating itself, the impetus
splits up more and more. Life, in proportion to its
progress, is scattered in manifestations which un-
doubtedly owe to their common origin the fact that
they are complementary to each other in certain
aspects, but which are none the less mutually incom-
patible and antagonistic. So the discord between
species will go on increasing.” “No doubt there is pro-
gress, if progress mean a continual advance in the
general direction determined by a first impulsion; but
this progress is accomplished only on two or three great
lines of evolution, on which forms ever more and more
complex, ever more and more high, appear. Between
these lines run a crowd of minor paths in which, on
the contrary, deviations, arrests, and set-backs are
multiplied. The philosopher, who begins by laying
down as a principle that each detail is connected with
some general plan of the whole, goes from one disap-
mo
re
ore.
204 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
pointment to another as soon as he comes to examine
the facts ; and, as he had put everything in the same
rank, he finds that, as the result of not allowing for
accident, he must regard everything as accidental.”*
Thus M. Bergson explains his reason for believing
that in creation “the unity is derived from a vis a
tergo: it is given at the start as an impulsion, not
placed at the end as an attraction.” But, for this
eas
CON
than a plan in course of realization. A plan is a term
assigned to a labour : it closes the future whose form
it indicates. Before the evolution of life, on the con-
trary, the portals of the future remain wide open.”+
In dealing with these statements and arguments, it
is necessary to remember that in M. Bergson's philo-
sophy our conscious experience, as developing in pure
time, is life in its most perfect form; and that the
clue to the meaning of the whole is to be found here.
This being so, I think we must conclude that, for the
solution of the problem before us, and especially when
we are dealing with M. Bergson's discussion of it, the
essential nature of our own experience is a much better
guide than the observation of what happens among
the lower grades of living creatures. The question
before us is, Does life aim at a goal? Is it animated
by a purpose ? Or is it aimlessly pushing in any
direction which lies open to it? Life is free and
creative. Is there any reason to believe that its
creative energy is striving towards an end which is
worth while? Or is the whole idea of end meaningless
in relation to it?
When we consider the vast multitudes and infinite
variety of the lower forms of living creatures, and the
* Op. cit., chap. ii., pp. 109, 110. † Op. cit., p. 110.
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
205
1
prodigal way in which the intricate and beautiful
developments which are produced through countless
generations are permitted to perish, we might well be
led to think of life as aimless except in relation to its
immediate effort of adaptation. But surely this may
be due to the fact that here we are viewing an immense
world-wide process at a point so far back that we can
gain no conception of its real meaning, if it has a
meaning. When we turn from the lower forms of life
to man, we gain a point of view far more advanced.
We may well expect that, in his life, there will appear
indications of the meaning and purpose of the whole,
if the ideas meaning and purpose have any applica-
tion at all to the vital process.
The first question we have to deal with is that
which has just been indicated. Has the conception of
end, or final cause, any meaning in relation to life in
its full reality, or is it entirely belonging to the
mechanized scientific intellect? The answer surely is
not difficult. A man can set before himself ends
which have to be attained by means of mechanical
adjustments. But he can also set before himself ends
which are purely spiritual, and to be attained by
spiritual means, means which in some cases involve no
consciously contrived mechanical process at all. All
moral attainment is of this character. The end may
be a state of the man's own being. It may be a social
relationship. When a man sets out to win the love
or friendship of another, the reality of the end at
which he aims is very clear. In the pursuit of it, he
may employ many a subordinate mechanical process,
but the process itself is of higher character throughout,
and the end is one which involves the man's whole
being. This illustration is important, as it seems to
206 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
OVE
bring out more fully the meaning of M. Bergson's own
doctrine of freedom. According to him, man is free
when he acts with the full reality of his being.
Freedom belongs to the onward movement of the
man's whole life. But are we to suppose that, in the
case of man, this movement is a striving anyhow, an
aimless wandering, a bumping into whatever obstacle
first presents itself ? Surely not. Freedom in man
involves self-direction. It is self-direction. That is
its very nature. And self-direction involves an aim-
that is, an end to be realized.
We must therefore be very clear that while, in all
mechanical processes as we use them for our own
purposes, the explanation of the whole is to be found
in the end, this end, or final cause, is not a mere
correlative of mechanism, a mere form of the scientific
intellect. On the contrary, it belongs to the very
nature of our full conscious experience, the highest
reality we can lay hold of. It is just for this reason
that we can speak of the spirit of man dominating
mechanism and using it for his own purposes.
There seems to be, then, some confusion in M. Berg-
son's doctrine. His teaching on the subject of freedom
in his Essai sur les Données seems to go beyond his
doctrine of the élan vital as developed in his L'Évolution
Créatrice.
Further, M. Bergson would seem to have been
somewhat led astray by the unifying, philosophizing
tendency which beguiles all philosophers. He is so
set upon the exhibition of the unity of all life, that he
omits to give proper weight to the inner value which
all conscious things possess for themselves. Whatever
is capable of inner enjoyment has value for itself.
There is an inherent finalism in living creatures. The
m
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
207
mere
: ne
TY
mere capacity for feeling, the mere possibility of the
experience of pleasure and pain, still more the posses-
sion of desires or impulses which seek for cons
satisfaction: all these give to the subject of them a
value which is intrinsic. To enjoy pleasure, to escape
pain, to satisfy desire, is worth while for its own sake.
It belongs to the nature of such experiences to have
value. When, therefore, we see Nature, as we term
it, producing vast multitudes of living beings possessing
this capacity of finding enjoyment in themselves, we
need not, in our pursuit of a complete system of finalism,
demand that every one of them must find a place in a
great scheme of rationally connected elements in which
every element contributes to the whole result. The
myriad beautiful forms of living things which life has
produced along all its lines of development, and which
have passed away, were all worth producing for their
own sake. It is probable, surely, that their beauty
and perfection were all expressive of, and contributory
to, their own enjoyment. We have seen that the due
exercise of normal natural functions is the condition of
pleasure. And, in addition to all this, if it be true, as
we have seen reason to believe, that all these lower
manifestations of life have their place in a great en-
veloping conscious and superconscious life, we must
also believe that their existence and inner enjoyment
possess, for Him also, an intrinsic worth.
This conclusion is strongly reinforced by another part
of M. Bergson's work-his examination of instinct.
According to him, and his arguments are very con-
vincing, consciousness has developed along two distinct
lines in its dealing with the material environment of
living organisms. Instinct is not an imperfect form of
intelligence. On the contrary, instinct in its own
208 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
limited sphere is a more perfect instrument than intel-
ligence. It operates more certainly and immediately.
Intelligence involves pause, hesitation, calculation,
deliberation, choice of means. Instinct acts at once.
Apprehension of the object which has to be dealt with is
followed by an immediate response of the exact sort
necessary. This response is often dependent for its
appropriateness upon most complicated arrangements-
past, present, and future. So it is that the Yucca moth
lays its eggs on the ovules of the Yucca flower, and
then carefully fertilizes the pistil with pollen, so that
the seeds of the plant may feed its young, and yet
carries out the operation in such a way that all the
seeds shall not be destroyed. “The insect acts as
though it knew that its larva would require ripe seed
of the Yucca, as though it knew that this could only
be obtained by fertilization, as though it knew that
ripe seed is also necessary for the continuance of the
existence of the Yucca plants, and therefore for the
activity of Yucca moths; and yet it is manifestly im-
possible that it can possess this knowledge, much less
acquire it in any intelligible sense of the word “know-
ledge.' "* Multitudes of such instances can be given
from the history of the insect creation.
The extraordinary complication of such cases might
lead a hasty thinker to imagine that the whole process
involved in an adaptation of this kind must be
mechanical and quite independent of the intervention
of mental factors. But further thought will show that
such explanation is impossible. Every case of instinct
will be found on examination to involve some moment
at which definite awareness must intervene. There is
always a psychic element. If it is not conscious, in our
* Wildon Carr, Bergson (The People's Books), pp. 37, 38.
n
1.
209
full human sense of that word, it is certainly not un-
conscious. It is mental, not material. The nearest
approach to it in our experience is perhaps to be found
in those less perfect instincts which we ourselves pos-
sess, or, perhaps still more probably, in that immediate
knowledge which we have of the whole current of our
conscious life, the “intuition” of which M. Bergson
has taught us to think.
Whatever instinct may involve, it seems certain that
it is an immediate knowledge of actions to be per-
formed in certain circumstances. But these actions
are not isolated facts. They are always performed
with reference to some result to be attained, some
useful end achieved or some mischief averted. They
are intensely purposive. Life, then, working as mind
in this special way of instinct, is ever engaged in
adjusting conditions with a view to the attainment of
ends. In it, as in our consciously intelligent life, the
future governs the present. A result to be achieved
sets in motion long and complicated processes, involving
the intervention of psychic factors.
It is surely clear, then, that purposiveness, the
adaptation of means to ends, is not a mere working
principle of intelligence. It is not a mere element in
that intellectual system which, according to M. Bergson,
has come into being in order to help us to deal with
matter. Intuition itself, if instinct be a form of in-
tuition, works by means of the same principle. End,
purpose, guidance by a future to be realized, is involved
apparently in all the dealings of life with its material
1
env
Те
(
through intellect or not.
The operations of instinct, like those of intelligence,
partly subserve the well-being of the individual and
LO
LLL
14
210 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
1
partly that of the race. But it would appear that
instinct is, on the whole, less self-seeking than intelli-
gence. It operates, with unerring immediacy, for the
good of the future of the species. While, in the
creature's own inner life, the performance of its normal
functions, carried on instinctively, is a source of some
degree of pleasure or inner satisfaction, the wonderful
adjustments which those functions involve have to do
very largely with the race. Instinct therefore, while
fulfilling an immediate purpose in the life of the indi-
vidual, carries with it a far larger purpose, a purpose
which connects generation with generation, and has to
do with life as a whole. Thus, instinct effects imme-
diately the identification of the individual aim with
the general good.
identification. It is apt to be consciously and dis-
tinctively self-seeking. With the emergence of intellect
comes also the deliberate choosing between various
possible alternatives. The conscious subject has to
pause and think. Hence the distinction between the
good and bad, or between a less good and a greater
good, and the necessity of deciding which is the true
aim in every grouping of circumstances. Here is the
beginning of evil. As moral progress goes on, this
choice becomes, in many cases, a decision between a
good for self only, and a good which includes others
also. The temptation arises to choose that end which
tion often yielded to. The larger good is forgotten,
and the power of intellect is employed to set up selfish
interest against the welfare of the community or that
of the race.
It thus appears that life as manifested in intelli-
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
211
ind
snes
gence, while always involving the pursuit of ends, is
liable to a restriction of aim peculiar to itself. So far
from standing alone in its use of the principle of final
causes, it is not as large nor as consistent in this
respect as other manifestations.
In it, however, comes to light the consciousness of
self as that which definitely and knowingly aims at
its own satisfaction. No doubt the desires of other
living creatures drive them on to the attainment of the
objects which correspond to their needs. The hunger
of an animal is as powerful an impulse as the hunger
of a man. But it would seem that in the conscious
seeking of satisfaction, man alone is able to present the
object to himself in thought as that which he requires
for himself. The bearing of this fact on our present
discussion demands some consideration.
This principle of value for self reaches its climax, so
far as our experience extends, in the moral being of
man. It is of the very essence of the self in man to
seek for self-realization, and to seek it in some end.
This is no mere exercise of the mechanized intelligence.
That intelligence, as M. Bergson has taught us, is an
instrument by which the self subdues the material
environment of the organism and controls certain
elements of that environment for its own purposes.
But these purposes are never merely material. They
always have some relation to self-satisfaction. The
mechanical processes subserve the onward movement
of the whole life : they are subordinate elements in
the whole conscious experience, and that experience
moves forward by ever demanding fresh satisfactions
for the self. The ends, the purposes, belong, therefore,
to the fulness of the concrete reality.
As a social being, man finds that his true satisfac-
212 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ST
tion can only be realized in ends which he shares with
the society to which he belongs. Thus arises the
whole moral life.
It is surely clear, then, that the onward movement
of life as we find it in our own experience, and which
we must regard as the realization of our freedom as
spiritual beings, is no mere aimless pushing outward
in whatever direction we find to be possible. It is a
movement dominated by ends, a movement in which
the future controls the present. It is not a blind
thrusting forward in obedience to a vis a tergo, but the
following of a light which goes before.
Does this conclusion bring us back to the old diffi-
culty so convincingly stated by M. Bergson, when he
contends that “radical finalism” implies that “all is
given,” that it reduces life to the mere carrying out of
a plan settled beforehand? Does it do away with the
"unforeseeableness" which he demands as character-
istic of the freedom of the living movement ? At first
sight it may seem to do so, but a more careful exami-
nation will show that it does not.
It is only the subordinate ends, the ends which form
the termination of mechanical processes, which are
given beforehand. The real end is never so given.
When man is dealing with a series of physical causes
and effects, he can, if his calculations and manipula-
tions are accurate, realize his plan with perfect accuracy.
All is given in these cases. But when he comes to the
application of such results to the uses of life, and still
more when he is dealing with moral and social situa-
tions, his forecast is always different from his attain-
ment. It is not too much to say that in this, the
sphere of man's real life, the future is never given
beforehand. The end when attained always turns out
ey
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
213
to be something different from what he aimed at,
always something more than he planned. Of the most
successful men in the world, it must be said that when
they have won the prizes they set out to seek, their
gains are never exactly coincident with their anticipa-
tions. And this is true, not merely in the sense that
beforehand they failed to consider all the circum-
stances, but in the sense that every such enjoyment
when gained is different in enjoyment from what it is
in anticipation. The living experience, in its true
quality, is always unforeseeable and incapable of repre-
sentation. Just as a past experience, when called up
and presented in thought, is different from what it
was when actually lived, so a future experience is
different in anticipation from what it is found to
be when realized as an actuality. And as, under
M. Bergson's guidance, we discerned that our freedom
in the present is indicated by this very fact, that the
living experience is always different from every pos-
sible representation of it, and would therefore be
incalculable by the most powerful intellect who knew
all the conditions beforehand, so we see that the fact
that we present to ourselves ends and seek to realize
them, does not involve the predetermination of our
actual experience.
The nature of the ends which we set before ourselves
is well worth considering in the light of what has just
been stated. I determine to read a book. Is my ex-
perience in reading the book ever capable of being fore-
told ? Surely not. The nature of that experience, the
pleasure or pain that I get from it, the thoughts it
stirs in me, or the sleep it induces : these in their
actual quality formed no part of my original design.
Only in a general way can I say, when I compare
214 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Пce
anticipation with enjoyment, that I have been satisfied
or disappointed. The total result even, its influence
upon my mind and character, is as incalculable in the
present as it was unforeseeable in the past. The living
experience is always unique, yet it comes to me in the
pursuit of ends conceived beforehand.
When we seek illustrations of a more perfectly
human kind, instances in which the result depends
upon action and reaction among various individuals,
we find a far greater difference between anticipation
and realization. I wish to visit a friend for the sheer
enjoyment of his company. The fact that I intend to
see him to-morrow is so potent, as a future which
governs my present, that I have to rearrange all my
engagements to-day. It is an end which shapes a con-
siderable portion of my life. Yet how wholly impossible
it is to apply to such an experience the rule that because
it is an end definitely aimed at, therefore “all is given.”
When I see my friend and spend some hours in his
company, the interplay of mind with mind, the response
of heart to heart, the association of purpose with pur-
pose, create a whole of experience which was unfore-
seen and unforeseeable. Every single case of social
intercourse would furnish a like example. Even the
happiest marriage is different in realization from every
possible anticipation.
It does not follow, then, that because our whole life
is directed by the pursuit of consciously conceived ends,
therefore it is the realization of a programme arranged
beforehand.
It is well worth while giving some further thought
to the nature of the ends which lure men on to their
experience of life. The most fruitful field for our in-
vestigation is that supplied by our moral and social
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
215
son
life. Here is the realm of all that is, in the truest and
most proper sense, human.
The moral aim is frequently described as the common
good. The description will serve our present purpose
admirably. Its meaning is that, in moral conduct, a
man seeks an end which realizes himself and at the
same time realizes others. He identifies his own good
with the general welfare. Now, suppose a man con-
sciously to apply this principle to some particular
action. He will say to himself, for example, "I must
do this thing, because if I don't it will be bad for us all.
I must join the army for this war: if men like me hold
back the country will be lost, all humanity will suffer.”
Such a man,
- Obedient to the light
That shines within his soul.”
enters upon a whole world of experience which is
absolutely unforeseeable. He takes the risk of a
stupendous adventure. Yet the end he sets before
himself is perfectly clear. That end is the good of
men, the general welfare. In what does this general
welfare consist ? Speaking largely, it is the harmony
of human souls. It is a social cosmos in which the
good, or realization, of every individual is identified
with the good of every other individual. Everyone is
an end in himself; and the whole social order is a
harmonization of interests in which that truth is fully
recognized. Whether such an order could ever exist
as a fact is not the question. The point is, that the
moral ideal which makes a man sacrifice himself for
the general welfare must, when worked out in accord-
ance with our moral experience, assume this form, A
social order in which the individual were completely
subordinated to the whole regarded as a system, as
SH
216 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
as
the bee is sacrificed for the hive, would not be moral
in the human sense. Nor, again, would a system in
which the individual were sacrificed for the future of
the race present a pattern for moral imitation. To be
moral in the proper sense, a social order must recognize
the rights and freedom of every human person. The
moral order is founded upon the principle of personality.
Only in an ideal of the sort indicated above, the con-
ception of an order in which every person is regarded
as an end in himself, can the moral life of man find its
essential characterization. This is the kingdom of God
at which every true action aims, towards which every
moral life is directed. The supreme end is the harmony
of souls.
Now, it is quite evident that an ideal of this kind is
not a plan given beforehand. Its realization may
assume an indefinitely great number of forms. It
might be compared with an equation of indefinite
power involving a practically limitless possibility of
solution. Leibnitz described the Deity as creating the
best of all possible worlds. It would not be wrong to
describe the moral aim in human life as a striving to
realize the best of all possible solutions of a world-
problem in which the factors are practically infinite,
success in that great endeavour depending upon the
bringing into a final harmony of a vast multitude of
wills, each one of which is possessed of freedom.
This last-named condition shows how utterly insuf-
ficient is the illustration of the equation. In that
illustration we have but a faint indication of the
complexity of the problem.
These considerations show how utterly inapplicable
to the whole movement of the moral life of man is the
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
217
.
conception of it as the working out of a plan prepared
beforehand. The future is not settled in advance, yet
the idea of a future settlement on certain principles
forms the guiding star of the whole.
What is settled is a certain kind of relationship
amongst spiritual beings, a relationship which can be
characterized as goodness, or a harmony of wills. In
this connection it must be remembered that we have
experience of one principle at least which can guide
and harmonize human wills without destroying their
freedom : that principle is Love. If we describe the
all-inclusive aim of the whole universe of spiritual
beings as the realization of love, we gain a definition
which will include all goodness and all freedoms, and
which is as far as possible from regarding the spiritual
world as a great mechanical system working out
inevitably a predetermined end.
We agree, then, with M. Bergson, that the history
of the universe is the history of a great adventure.
The end is not settled beforehand. God does not will
the final state of things from the beginning. He has
not put us here that we may carry out a given pro-
gramme. We are free, and the future depends upon
our decisions. We are not caged spirits, beating our
wings vainly against the bars of a mechanically arranged
system. None the less, our whole life is so ordered
that in exercising our freedom there is set before us
the hope of winning a final blessedness in which all
that is best in us will find full realization. Life is
therefore, in the true sense, an adventure, a strife and
a pursuing, the following of a light which moves ever
before us, but which we may well believe will lead us
at last to the home where we would be.
in
218 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
MOV
It is in the strength of this faith that all good lives
are lived, and all that is truly worthy in human work
is accomplished. Yet it cannot be said that the prin-
ciples which have been set forth above, taken by
themselves, provide a satisfactory justification of it.
Why should we believe that the great adventure must
have a fortunate conclusion? Why should the romance
of human history attain to a happy consummation?
May it not be that the total effect of freedom may be,
in the end, a complete disintegration of organized
spiritual life? If it be true that we are moving towards
an unknown and unforeseeable future, may it not be
that the harmony towards which our best efforts are
directed will prove unattainable? May not the wills
which choose self-regarding aims prevail over those
which seek the common good? Or may it not be that
the conditions of our existence, the difficulties we have
to encounter, the forces we have to overcome, will turn
out to be so hostile and so powerful that the good will
be defeated, and the evil finally triumph ? It is a very
sinister fact that after so many centuries of civilized
life, and after so many determined endeavours on the
part of all the forces of good to realize the Christian
ideal of love and brotherhood, the whole world should
be involved in the vastest, bloodiest, and most disastrous
war in all history; and that we should see all the most
marvellous resources of mechanical science used for
destruction. In the face of such a fact as this, our
faith in human destiny might well be lost in despair.
Here, again, comes to our aid the supreme principle
to which every great fundamental problem leads in
the end. Our human wills are all in the last resort
included in One Great Enfolding Life, conscious and
DIT
FREEDOM AND PURPOSE
219
superconscious, personal and superpersonal. There
must be a unity in which all the diversity of the
spiritual universe will be overcome and harmonized.
We move out towards the unknowable future, not as
isolated centres of indetermination competing or co-
operating with one another in a purely capricious and
haphazard manner. We are included in a single,
all-comprehending Life. It may be that, for Him
also, the precise form of the future is, as yet, undeter-
mined, if such a phrase have any meaning as applied
to Him. But the fact of His ultimate all-inclusiveness
and unity is the ground of our assurance that, what-
ever be the nature of the goal, it must be good and
not evil; it must be a harmony and not a discord.
No matter what may happen to us in the course of
our history, we believe that "underneath are the
everlasting arms.”
These considerations bring out in a remarkable way
the value of the great religious doctrine of the Unity
of God. The essence of that doctrine is that the
ultimate truth of things is good not evil, harmony not
discord, realization not disappointment, integration
not disintegration, love not hatred. When St. John
proclaimed that God is Love, he uttered a truth that
forms the summing up of all the best hopes that ever
found a place in human hearts, and a statement which
includes all reasons for confidence in the future that
the human mind has ever been able to grasp.
To the religious mind God is, above all, conceived
as the One who will bring good out of evil, joy out of
sorrow, gain out of loss. He is the One who can and
will overcome all that opposes the final blessedness.
Within the sphere of His all-comprehending Life there
220 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
is room for our freedom, but our freedom will surely
be controlled, not with loss of itself but with full
realization, by His guiding Love. For Love conquers
without destroying. And in these utterances of the
religious mind we can discern an apprehension of the
ultimately depends.
CHAPTER X
FUTURE LIFE
me
WHEN we have reason to believe in the dominance of
purpose in the universe, we are at once confronted
with the problem of immortality, or future life. If the
course of natural and human history is being directed
towards the realization of a supreme end, we are bound
to ask, Is that end one in which we are to have a per-
sonal share, or do we cease to exist when our short life
in this world is finished ? Further, is the end one
which is to be realized under earthly conditions at some
distant date, or is this life only a stage on the way to
another? Is the future towards which we are tending,
the future which is being created by the freedom of all
spiritual beings, a remote, far-off, inaccessible state of
things, as distant, perhaps, from our present life as is
the inner constitution of the dog-star from this earth
of ours, or can we regard it as a harmony in which we
can hope to share ?
There is certainly something in our spiritual nature
which claims for us a permanent part in the order of
the universe, and that, not merely as stages in the pro-
duction of the final result, but as sharers in it. The
belief that the “soul” of man outlives his body in some
way or other, seems to arise naturally, almost inevitably,
out of human experience. The animistic savage believes
221
222 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
as
in a spirit in everything which strikes him as possess-
ing an individuality of its own. Above all, he believes
in the spirits of the departed. This primitive animism
is the source whence springs most of the ancient re-
ligions. It can be easily traced in the faiths of ancient
Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome. It is alive in the
great religions of India, and in China, Japan, and
Burma it breaks through the superimposed Buddhism.
In Egypt, it appeared in the extraordinary elaboration
of funeral rites, and in the effort to secure permanence
for the body and for the habitation to which the body
was consigned. That strange document, the Book of
the Dead, shows how intensely real the after-life was
to the mind of ancient Egypt. In philosophic Buddhism,
the conception of the soul was supplanted by that of a
spiritual resultant, the unextinguished desire of a man's
life, passing on to another life. Only when all evil
craving is overcome does the succession cease.
In some great philosophic and religious faiths the
connection between this life and the future is secured
by the idea of the transmigration of souls. In Buddhism,
which denies the doctrine of the soul, the doctrine of
Karma, just referred to, takes the place of this idea.
But the aim of the wise man, in the Buddhist system,
is to bring the process to an end, and attain peace.
What exactly this final state, commonly called Nir-
vana in the writings of the European interpreters of
Buddhism, is intended to signify it is difficult to say.
Recent interpreters hold that it is not a doctrine of a
future life, but rather of a state to be reached in this
world by him who has attained perfection.
The case of Buddhism is profoundly interesting. Its
essence is a doctrine exceedingly like M. Bergson’s.
It maintains that there is no Being, only Becoming.
FUTURE LIFE
223
Ill
.
TY
It is a philosophy of change, not unlike that of Herac-
leitus. The individual has no real, no permanent,
existence. He, or it, is but an eddy in the river of life,
and, sooner or later, will be dissipated. The only reality
is the eternal flux.
A doctrine like this does not yield belief in individual
immortality. And it is a very important question for
our consideration, whether the conception of reality
with which our investigations started involves a similar
conclusion. What is meant by the soul ? A child-
like, uncritical metaphysic, like that of the average
man, thinks of it as some unimaginable sprite enthroned
in the brain. A more conventional metaphysic calls it
an immaterial substance. A modern idealistic believer
identifies it with the Ego, and claims for it the perman-
ence which must belong to the presupposed subject of
experience.
With this last description we shall not quarrel. But,
in view of the doctrine of reality set forth above, this
account can hardly be regarded as sufficient. The old
scholastic metaphysics divided substances into two
sorts, material and immaterial. Material substances
are the underlying realities of the material things
known through the senses. Over against them stand
the immaterial realities called souls. Both kinds of
substances are regarded as permanent beings.
Our examination of experience led to a very differ-
ent doctrine. Material things are not distinct and
separate beings. Reality as known in our experi-
ence is not a collection of separable things. It is a
living, moving continuum. What we call material things
are elements isolated by abstraction, and they belong
to a lower abstract realm, which is only reached by
this isolating, arresting, process. Their permanence
CES
III
224 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
UUUU
and independence of us are due to the fact that they
are elements in a great universal experience in which
we share. On the other hand, the living, moving con-
tinuum of a human experience possesses a unity of its
own, a unity characterized by that peculiar interpene-
tration of elements which we saw to be of the essence
of conscious experience. This unity is of higher degree
than the unity possessed by any abstract material
thing. Here is the spiritual being of man. The soul,
if the term may be employed, is not a thing which
stands distinct and separate while the current of reality
sweeps by: it is not a hard core, or dense nucleus, in
the centre of a luminous atmosphere : it is the con-
scious experience itself as a whole, and as possessing a
unity which is the very essence of its peculiar nature.
The idea of the soul as a substance is, in fact, altogether
misleading. The soul, in the only sense in which the
word can be properly used, is the living experience in
its fulness. It is the living experience of the individual.
This experience possesses unity, continuity, and indi-
viduality. It is self-conscious and self-directing. This
is the Soul, or Self, of man. It is the Personality.
When this position has been gained, it becomes
evident that the continuance of the soul's life, if there
be such continuance after death, must be, like its life
here, in an order of reality higher than that to which
material things belong. The imagery by which the
thought of Buddhism and of kindred systems represents
the relation of the individual life to the universal is
wholly misleading. The raindrop merged in the ocean,
the eddy forming in the current and then disappearing
these material illustrations provide no parallel with the
facts of the life of the soul in its relation to God. They
belong to the lower order of things. They are efforts
er
e
FUTURE LIFE
225
11
of the limited abstract intelligence to deal with facts
which lie beyond its range.
What we have to consider is, whether there is any
characteristic in the nature of the self which would seem
to carry with it the promise of a larger life than that
which belongs to it in the present state of things?
This question directs our attention at once to the con-
ception of Value. Value exists only in relation to the
life of the self. The whole of human life is regulated
in accordance with a scale of values. Material things
may possess value, but only because they are involved
in certain human needs and interests. Our ästhetic and
moral judgments are all relative to certain standards
of value. Morality stands at the summit of the whole
system. Its fundamental principle is that the human
individual is possessed of absolute value. Every man
is an end in himself. The soul of man has a worth
which sets it above, and apart from, all other finite
e regarded as a means only,
always as an end. It is priceless, absolute.
It might seem, however, that this absolute value of
the human soul is only relative to human life, that we
have no reason to believe that the soul could be re-
garded in this way by a Being dwelling in a higher
order of reality. Here, once again, we shall find help
by considering the soul of man in relation to things
lower in the scale of reality. We saw that the organi-
zation of matter reaches its highest point when matter
is taken up into organic life—when, that is, the material
order of things is brought into closest relation with
conscious experience. On the ground of this analogy
we concluded that personality, which is the character-
istic form of our experience, and which we have reason
to believe belongs also to God, must reach its highest
means
226 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
perfection in Him. For this reason we believe that all
essential forms of personal quality, wisdom, goodness,
love, truth, æsthetic faculty, may not only be predi-
cated of Him, but must reach their utmost perfection
in Him. That is, since God possesses Personality, all
our standards of ultimate value exist for Him. Now,
all these standards depend in the last resort on the
value which resides in the personality itself. Here is
to be found the very meaning of value as such. We
must hold, then, that every person, every self-conscious,
self-directing experience, is possessed of intrinsic value
for God.
This is a conclusion to which the whole history of
the universe, so far as we have been able to grasp it,
points most definitely. We trace, in our retrospective
sciences, the course of evolution, physical and organic.
We watch the formation of worlds, the processes by
which our globe became habitable, the development
of living forms. We see all these forms of life leading
to the manifestation of conscious experience. Living
forms develop along a multitude of separate lines,
Most of these lines go a certain way and then cease.
Those that have survived may be divided into three
great classes—the vegetable, the animal, the human.
The first subserves all animal creation as the essential
and fundamental food-supply; the second has pro-
duced mental life in the form of instinct and, having
attained wonderful and infinitely varied results, has
reached a condition in which no further great advance
seems possible; the third is characterized by the
appearance of intellectual and moral life. So far as
this earth is concerned, man is clearly the summit of
creation. His intellect gives him power over natural
forces and makes him dominant in the animal world.
VETO
FUTURE LIFE
227
æsthetic values, gives him capacity for a truly social life
and for all that we sum up under the term Civilization.
The history of the natural world, then, yields a view
the production of human life. If, then, there be any
directing will in the universe, any tendency in things,
any appreciation of values in relation to the creative
movement, we must discern in man the clearest indica-
tion of the meaning of the whole. The cosmic order
stamps the human type with the hall-mark of supreme
value.
But, it may seem, this leads only to an appreciation
of the type ; immortality, if there be such a thing,
must be for the individual. The objection serves
to bring out the full value of the argument. Of
humanity, it must be said, that the type has no worth
ma
Q7
an end in himself. In humanity, individuality reaches
its consummation. The individuality of lower things
is derivative, abstract. The individuality of man is
concrete and essential. Man's value is intrinsic. It
belongs to him as the possessor of a moral nature.
Believing then, as we do, that God is Himself pos-
sessed of moral Personality, and that therefore the
human individual is, for Him, a creature whose value
resides in itself, a being whom He regards as, for its
own sake, worth making and saving, we must also believe
that He has not destined this creature to a merely
momentary existence. Man's innate sense of absolute
value is witness of his value to God and the one sure
proof of future life. And the proof which thus comes
to light is immensely strengthened by the discovery
that the vast agelong processes of creation have, after
TT
ANO
228 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
infinite variations and the production of myriad types,
brought about a race of beings possessed of moral per-
sonality, able to think and to appreciate ethical and
æsthetic values, capable of love and social relationship,
fitted with faculties which can find no perfect realiza-
tion in a brief earthly existence.
The argument which, under the influence of modern
philosophic thought, assumes this form is, in essence,
precisely that which is contained in the reply of Christ
to the Sadducees. From the great words which were
the charter of the Jewish Theocracy, He derived the
doctrine of the future life. “I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is
not the God of the dead, but of the living." If it be
true that God cares so much for men, then it is also
true that He designs for them a larger life than is
possible in a few short years on earth. He cannot let
them perish. If He is their God and they are His
people, the Almighty must have for them a better
destiny.
An even fuller meaning is found in this teaching
when the conception of Love as the highest description
of the nature of God is considered. Love cannot let its
children perish if it possess the power to save them.
It must seek for them the fulness of life and the deepest
joy. A moral universe in which God, possessed of
moral Personality, interacts with the whole multitude
of finite persons, also moral in their nature, is essentially
a social universe, and therefore a universe which must
find its highest ideal in the realization of love. In such
beings as mere stepping-stones-means, that is, for the
attainment of an end in which they themselves have no
personal share—is an impossibility. The end of love is
FUTURE LIFE
229
the realization of the full nature and capacities of each
and of all, in relation to one another. The whole can-
not be perfected if any one is omitted. The good of
each is the good of all, and the good of all is the good
of each. There is a perfect unification of interests. If
Love be the highest thing in the universe, its aim
must be this. It can be nothing less. And such an
end can never be realized under earthly conditions. It
demands a higher life.
And here comes in the conception of Degrees of
Reality. When we apply the principle of Love to
human life in its present circumstances, we find our-
selves straining against the bars of our prison. Our
conscious experience is the full concrete reality in rela-
tion to the abstract material world which is below it in
the order of being. But, in relation to God, and to
the life of all conscious moral beings in God, our ex-
perience finds itself poor and ineffectual. It feels its
imperfection. Its limitations, which are the cause of
all our troubles when we try to grapple with ultimate
problems, give us a sense of impotence. We are con-
fronted with mystery and apparent contradiction.
But this very fact, when we view it aright, is a proof
of two things. First, that there is a higher order of
being than any that we can attain to here and now.
And, secondly, that we are not wholly aliens in relation
to that higher life. The principle of love which en-
ables us to pass, in some sense, the barrier between
soul and soul; which unites and identifies things and
values which, for our ordinary reason, stand apart un-
reconciled ; which can overcome the opposition between
wills without destroying them, but rather realizing
them ; which, to the simple heart, makes God the
greatest and nearest of all realities, and the direct
n-
230 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
object of the highest affection—this principle is a reve-
lation that we have already some share in the higher
order of being and are capable of enjoying something
of its essential life.
Love is therefore a pledge and a prophecy. It is an
assurance that we are destined to something better
than this life. It is a prophecy that, in a higher state
of being, we shall attain a realization impossible here.
St. Paul, in dealing with the doctrine of the Resur-
rection, foreshadows a conception of the future life
which is essentially that to which we have now attained.
For him, as for Christian thought generally, no mere
belief in the immortality of the soul suffices. It is
characteristic of all doctrines of a disembodied immor-
tality that they regard the future life as a pale copy of
this life, a world of shades. It is through the relation
of the bodily organism to its material environment that
the conscious subject gains the fulness of earthly ex-
perience. It is through the mediation of the same
organism that human will executes its determinations
and shapes the course of life. Cut off from this
mechanism of bodily existence and the sensible matter
of experience which it yields, the conscious experience
must, seemingly, become a dream-life of memories and
reflections. If it can continue to exist, it must, appar-
ently, be devoid of all the rich content which gives ful-
ness and continual variety to our present experience.
The conceptions of the ancient world and the ideas
of pagan peoples at the present day bear, almost all,
the impress of this conclusion. When the Chinese
make paper toys in the likeness of the various things
used by the dead man during his life on earth, and burn
them at his funeral, that their ghosts may serve his
purposes in the world to which he has departed, it is
se
FUTURE LIFE
231
clear that they think of the soul as a shade dwelling in
a world of shadows,
In striking contrast with all such conceptions is the
Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. It teaches that
the future life is no mere shadow-land, but a state of
being fuller, richer, better in every respect, than this
life. It is therefore conceived as an embodied, not a
disembodied, life. But this does not mean, St. Paul
teaches, the reanimation of our earthly organisms.
“ There is a natural body," he writes, “and there is
also a spiritual body." "As we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly.” “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the king-
dom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrup-
tion.” “This corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality. But when
this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal
shall put on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory."*
Here the idea is that at some future moment a great
change shall pass upon us. The conditions of our life
shall be transformed from those of an earthly existence
which is essentially fugitive and subject to decay, to
those of a spiritual existence, as he terms it, which
shall have a higher nature and be essentially enduring.
St. Paul here, with splendid daring, gives to the con-
ception of a spiritual state a new connotation. He
conceives a spiritual body as carrying with it a fuller,
richer, more abundant life.
That this is his intention is clearly shown by the
remarkable passage in which he recurs to this con-
ception and, indeed, carries it a step further. Here
* 1 Cor. xv. 44.f.
+ See 2 Cor. v. 1.ff.
n
re
232 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
the term "spiritual” is not used, but the nature of
the future state of things in its relation to the present
is more clearly defined. The material body is called
“the earthly house of our tabernacle.” If it "be
dissolved,” we have “a building from God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Then,
in the effort after full expression, another metaphor is
introduced. The new life is conceived as a vesture in
which we are to be clothed. “We," writes the Apostle,
“that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ;
not for that we would be unclothed, but that we
would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be
swallowed up of life.” That is, the imperfections
which belong to our life in this world are not to be
remedied by getting rid of an embodied life, but by
entering into a life of higher and better embodiment.
Our sorrows are to be cured, not by passing into a life
of shadows, not by being “unclothed”-by losing, that
is, the wealth of our mediated experiences—but by
being “clothed upon,” by undergoing a change which
shall transform all the conditions of our existence by
merging them in the conditions of a higher life.
The body is rightly chosen as representing the
nature of the life to which it belongs. Here we gain
all our experiences by means of a material body set
in a material environment. The body stands for the
general character of the life which we live. Upon
this lower life, St. Paul teaches, there shall supervene
a higher order of things which shall effect a great
transformation. “Mortality shall be swallowed up of
life.” Or, strictly, “the mortal thing shall be swallowed
up of life.” It would be hard to find language more
justly expressive of the idea of a higher order of
reality taking up a lower into itself, assimilating and
FUTURE LIFE
233
transmuting it. Here we have the essential conception
of St. Paul's teaching about the nature of the future
life. It is a life at a higher level of reality. And, as
the conscious life which we enjoy in our present
existence, while it mediates its experiences by means
of the lower material order of things, yet takes that
order up into itself, so shall the conscious experience
of the future life take up into itself our present life
with all its conditions. And as the conscious experi-
ence which we now have is far fuller and richer than
the material order, so shall the conscious experience
of the future be far fuller and richer than that which
we possess here.
This is the only doctrine of immortality which can
satisfy the demands of a thoughtful modern mind.
An immortality of ghostly shadow-life, if such a con-
ception has any real meaning, would be a misery too
awful to contemplate. So also would be an endless
duration of such life as we have in this world. The
crude conception of the Resurrection, as the restora-
tion and reanimation of our earthly bodies, common
as it is in the mind of unreflecting piety, is impossible
physically, and is also incapable of being reconciled
with the idea of immortality. It is not at all the
doctrine of St. Paul. He saw as clearly as any modern
mind that only in a life of higher order than we
experience here could immortality be a blessing.
CHAPTER XI
MYSTICISM
“WHETHER in the Vedas, in the Platonists, or in the
Hegelians," writes John Stuart Mill, "mysticism is
neither more nor less than ascribing objective existence
to the subjective creations of our own faculties, to
ideas or feelings of the mind; and believing that by
watching and contemplating these ideas of its own
making, it can read in them what takes place in the
world without.”* The consideration which leads
Mill to this statement is his observation of the common
human tendency to suppose “ that wherever there is
a name there must be a distinguishable separate entity
corresponding to the name.” Thus arises the personi-
fication of abstractions. Thus, also, it came to pass
that “concrete general terms were supposed to be,
not names of indefinite numbers of individual sub-
stances, but names of a peculiar kind of entities termed
universal substances."
“It may be imagined,” says Mill, “what havoc
metaphysicians trained in these habits made with
philosophy when they came to the largest general-
izations of all. Substantive secundæe of any kind were
bad enough, but such substantive secundæ as tó öv, for
example, and tó év, standing for peculiar entities
supposed to be inherent in all things which exist, or
* J. S. Mill, Logic, bk. V., chap. iii., § 4.
OC
VU
234
MYSTICISM
235
in all which are said to be one, were enough to put an
end to all intelligible discussion.” “This misappre-
hension of the import of general language,” he con-
cludes, “constitutes Mysticism, a word so much oftener
written and spoken than understood."*
These last words certainly restrict the scope of the
term “mysticism” too much. Its use is not confined
to a way of regarding objects which have the form of
general ideas, such as “the All,” or “the One,” or
“Pure Being.” It is also employed to describe a
peculiar attitude of the mind towards certain feelings
or impressions. It is even applied to a way of regard-
ing visions or appearanoes which are sometimes stated
to have entered into religious experience. Mill, indeed,
takes account of this in the wider definition which
was first quoted.
It is, however, the chief defect of Mill's definition
that he is not content to state the facts, but also adds
a theory to explain them. According to him, mysti-
cism, in every shape and form, is a delusion. It is
the ascribing of objective existence to the subjective
creations of our own faculties. To start with a
definition of this kind is surely to render an impartial
examination impossible. Mill's account must there-
fore be held to be a “question-begging ” theory of the
most obvious kind.
It is not easy to define mysticism. The word is
used vaguely and variously. Sometimes it refers
simply to the mysterious, the hidden, or half-revealed.
Sometimes it connotes the symbolic representation of
things or of doctrines which are regarded as too high,
in their full reality, for human knowledge. But
neither of these uses corresponds to the characteristic
* Loc. cit.
236 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
VIS
lan
element in the experiences of the long succession of
the great mystics. If the history of these great
thinkers, or dreamers, is to be taken as our guide, we
must define mysticism as the effort to know spiritual
realities by immediate experience.
Whether or not this effort has been successful is
the whole question at issue; and it cannot be settled
by a question-begging definition such as Mill's, nor,
on the other hand, by an appeal, however moving, to
the saintliness and spiritual insight of the men and
women who tell us they have attained the beatific
vision. To the man who makes this latter claim, no
reply can indeed be made. His assertion of immediate
knowledge is essentially unanswerable. But it is
always possible to hold, with Mill, that he is mistaking
for objective fact the subjective creation of his own
faculties. If there is nothing to be said but that
he has a strong conviction which yields him great
assurance and peace, it is easy to point out, with
Bishop Butler, that testimony is no proof of enthusi-
astic opinion, but only of facts. If he asserts that,
for him, it is fact, the answer is easy that, for others,
it is but opinion.
Dean Inge sums up his investigations in the history
of mysticism in these remarkable words: “The prin-
ciple, 'Cuique in sua arte credendum est, applies to
those who have been eminent for personal holiness as
much as to the leaders in any other branch of excel-
lence. Even in dealing with arts which are akin to
each other, we do not invite poets to judge of music,
or sculptors of architecture. We need not, then, be
disturbed if we occasionally find men illustrious in
other fields who are as insensible to religion as to
poetry. Our reverence for the character and genius
MYSTICISM
237
of Charles Darwin need not induce us to lay aside
either our Shakespeare or our New Testament. . The
men to whom we naturally turn as our best authorities
in spiritual matters are those who seem to have been
endowed with an anima naturaliter Christiana,' and
who have devoted their whole lives to the service of
God and the imitation of Christ. Now, it will be
found that these men of acknowledged and pre-
eminent saintliness agree very closely in what they
tell us about God. They tell us that they have
arrived gradually at an unshakable conviction, not
based on inference but on immediate experience, that
God is a Spirit with whom the human spirit can hold
intercourse; that in Him meet all that they can
imagine of goodness, truth, and beauty ; that they
can see His footprints everywhere in Nature, and feel
His presence within them as the very life of their life,
so that in proportion as they come to themselves they
come to Him."*
In this passage Dean Inge seems to claim for
mysticism the whole volume of Christian experience.
To do so, is to identify mysticism and religion. It
may be conceded that in our day, and especially
amongst educated people, this identification is practi-
cally correct. It was not so at all times and in all
places. The average Christian of the Middle Ages did
not seek God in his “heart.” God was, for him, a
Supreme Sovereign, enthroned above the sky, imagined
in human form, issuing commands, ruling armies,
summoning men to judgment, rewarding and punish-
ing as a human autocrat would. This view of God
was attained by a process of simple education, and
believed in as we now believe in the facts of present-
* Inge, Christian Mysticism, lecture viii., p. 325.
Omnia
MI
su
238 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
SU
day history; because all ordinary sources of information,
presumably trustworthy, conveyed it. It derived its
power, no doubt, from the fact that, unconsciously, it
made a strong appeal to conscience. But it would be
an abuse of language to describe a religion of this sort
as mystical.
Nor, again, could the type of Christianity which
was characteristic of the eighteenth century be regarded
as mystical. This term could not be applied to a
aS
cular instances of design in Nature, and so reasons out
for itself a belief in Him as a great engineer or artificer,
related to the world as the mechanic is related to the
machine he constructs, and which makes this thought
the corner-stone of all its reflection upon religion and
life. The mind of thinkers like Paley and Butler,
with its conception of God as transcendent in relation
to the world, to the total exclusion of every doctrine
of Immanence, is definitely antagonistic to mysticism.
Yet it is noteworthy that Butler himself reaches his
greatest elevation as a Christian thinker when, in his
two sermons on the Love of God, he sets forth the
nane
adequate supply to all the faculties of our souls; a
subject to our understanding, and an object to our
affections.” But this supreme bliss is, he seems to
hold, altogether for the future life. “As our capacities
of perception improve, we shall have, perhaps by some
faculty entirely new, a perception of God's presence
with us, in a nearer and stricter way, since it is certain
He is more intimately present with us than anything
else can be. Proof of the existence and presence of
any being is quite different from the immediate per-
ception, the consciousness of it. What, then, will be
esence
MYSTICISM
239
the joy of heart which His presence and the light of
His countenance,' who is the Life of the Universe, will
inspire good men with, when they shall have a sensation
that He is the sustainer of their being, that they exist
in Him; when they shall feel His influence to cheer,
and enliven, and support their frame, in a manner of
which we have now no conception? He will be, in a
literal sense, their strength and their portion for
ever.'"*
Butler in this passage-a passage which is all the
more impressive because of its wonderful modesty and
restraint--draws very near to the mystic's paradise,
but he does not enter in. He thinks it too good and
great a thing for the present imperfect state of things.
“The immediate perception, the consciousness” of
God's presence, which the mystic believes he enjoys,
is, for Butler, the highest bliss of the future life.
It is impossible, therefore, to claim for mysticism
the unanimous testimony of all saintly souls. Many
of the best and purest in the long roll of Christian
holiness would be found to regard the mystic's experi-
ences as either too high for their attainment or as
possibly due in great part to overstrained devotion or
“ enthusiasm.”
Yet it is very interesting to observe that the
eighteenth century, which, on its higher intellectual
levels, was so inimical to mysticism, saw an immense
popular revival of religion in which personal experience
of spiritual reality was the predominant note. This
movement began, indeed, in the seventeenth century
with George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends.
His doctrine was essentially mystical. It may perhaps
be described as a mysticism so complete that it eschewed
* Butler, second sermon on The Love of God.
IV
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240 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
US were
everything else. For it, the “inward light” consti-
tuted the whole of religion. All external forms were
discarded. Like the ancient and mediæval mystics,
the Quakers practised a systematic self-emptying that
they might the more readily receive the Divine
inspiration.
It was the very purity and completeness of Quaker
mysticism which restricted the influence of the move-
ment. In eschewing external and institutional forms,
the Society of Friends lost the means of grasping
humanity in a large way. The “inward light” in its
naked purity is not for the multitude. It is the
possession of select souls only. But the principle had
been introduced. Religion as an inner personal relation
of the soul to God had assumed a form which corre-
sponded with the mind of the modern world. The
Quaker spark smouldered awhile, and then, in the
eighteenth century, burst into flame in the great
Wesleyan revival.
From that time onwards the real life of religion has
been essentially mystical, a matter of spiritual experi-
ence. It is not going too far to say that, for us now,
the institutional forms and creeds which we hold as
amongst our most precious heirlooms, could not last a
day were it not that they form a shrine within which
multitudes of human souls find an experience which is
for them a revelation of Divine love, a veritable vision
of God. This is the true proof of religion for modern
minds. The age and venerable dignity of the Church;
the authority of the great Christian literature; the
splendour of the monuments which adorn Christendom,
and which speak of the Faith which has survived cen-
turies of barbarism, renaissance, and revolution ; the
evidential arguments which convinced so many able
enc
1
n
1
MYSTICISM
241
minds a hundred years ago—all these would go for
nothing apart from this present experience of spiritual
blessing.
Dean Inge, in his examination of the older mysticism,
points out that there is a practical agreement amongst
the great authorities as to the way by which the
Divine vision is to be attained. Three stages are
indicated. The first is marked by self-discipline and
purgation : the soul must overcome the feelings and
desires which belong to the life of the body and the
senses. In some cases this stage is marked by extreme
asceticism. Secondly, there is the stage of illumina-
tion, in which all the faculties are concentrated upon
God. Thirdly, there is the rarely attained stage of
contemplation, or unity, in which man comes face to
face with God.
It is important to observe that these three stages
correspond exactly with the elements in the experience
of conversion through which multitudes of simple men
and women have passed in recent times under the
influence of the modern Evangelical movement. First,
there is conviction of sin—the discovery of the sinful
condition of the soul in its natural state. Secondly,
there is the turning away from sin and the turning to
Christ~the act of faith by which the soul lays hold
upon God. Thirdly, there is the peace which comes
from the realization of the Divine Love. In many
cases this experience is followed by a real and very
definite change of life.
Speak to anyone who is fresh from this experience,
and it will be found that the conviction that a genuine
contact of the soul with God has taken place is as vivid
as in any of the great mystics. Every evangelistic
meeting, every Church mission, will yield instances in
11
16
242 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
esen
which, so far as testimony can prove such a thing,
human souls have met with God and found peace. ·
But this experience does not stop here. Something
of the same nature enters continually into sincere
prayer. What is termed "conversion” is not by any
means a unique experience. A conversion is only a
great and signal repentance. When the meeting of
a soul with God marks the end of a period of spiritual
carelessness and the beginning of a period of spiritual
earnestness, it is called a conversion. When it occurs
in the regular course of a religious life, it is a repent-
ance, or simply a prayer. The elements are always in
essence the same : the turning away from the lower,
sinful, or earthly things; the turning to God, realizing
His presence, and trusting in His power and love; the
enjoyment, when faith is keen, of a peculiar bliss
involved in the very fact of His presenc
There can be no doubt at all that in such experiences
a believing soul has a sense of a great Presence which
is sui generis. That Presence is felt; and the feeling is
quite different from the feeling of the presence of a
human friend, no matter how intimate. In the latter
case there is, as a rule, some use of the bodily senses-
the eye, the ear, or the hand provides the connecting
link. Or, if it be true, as now seems probable, that
there is a telepathic feeling which makes us aware of
a friend's presence, this awareness is quite unlike the
religious sense of the Divine presence. Towards God
the soul feels itself absolutely open. He is not only
immediately and most intimately related, but is felt
to penetrate and permeate the whole being. He knows
us better than we know ourselves. When, in sincerest
self-scrutiny in the presence of God, a soul endeavours
to unravel the motives which have led to a certain
im
MYSTICISM
243
course of conduct, and finds itself puzzled, the invari-
able resource is the cry: “I know not; but, O God,
Thou knowest.”
As we saw above, the religious consciousness thinks
of God as knowing us " from within."* And when, in
the deep abyss of personal life, a soul strives with
itself for some real knowledge of itself, and finds no
certain answer to its questionings, the one thought
which gives help is this : “ There is One who knows
me through and through; to Him I appeal.” And the
prayer which is offered is always in effect that of the
Psalmist : “Search me, O God, and know my heart :
try me, and know my thoughts : and see if there be
any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting.”
The implication underlying all these great human
experiences is that there is a spiritual life, larger,
deeper, truer than our own, which envelops us and
penetrates us, which is closer to our whole self than
we are ourselves to much that is part of ourselves—a
life in which “we live and move and have our being."
Tennyson's Higher Pantheism expresses the feeling
which lies behind every prayer, and the conviction that
gives reality to all religious self-examination :
"Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."
But it is not with every spirit that the spirit of man
can meet in the manner we have endeavoured to de-
scribe, but only with that One Supreme All-embracing
Spirit whom we call God. Nor can His nearness be
compared to the nearness of breathing and of hands
and feet, for He is closer to us than is ourself of
yesterday.
* See above, p. 107.
can
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244 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
The experience which we have just considered enters
more or less distinctly into every real prayer. It is,
indeed, the very essence of prayer. It appears, there-
fore, that mysticism, or rather the experience which
mysticism claims as its own peculiar possession, is, in
truth, the central fact of all personal religion. Are
mysticism and personal religion, then, identical ? In
essence it would appear that they are. The only real
distinction would seem to be this—that mysticism
consciously seeks God within ; it sets before itself the
task of coming face to face with God through the dis-
cipline and scrutiny of the inner life of feeling and
thought. The mediæval Christian looked up to the
sky and directed his prayers thither. The child to-day
does the same.
The mind accustomed to think of God in a cosmic
way, as Creator and Ruler of the Universe, may also
direct his prayers to some far-distant sphere where a
Supreme Being sits enthroned. But these are merely
habits of thought which serve as veils to hide the
reality. That reality is God and man meeting in the
realm of the Spirit. And this truth, which in former
times was usually concealed, has now become the
common property of all devout souls. The things
which were hidden from the wise and prudent are now
revealed unto babes.
It is profoundly interesting to consider that the
very real difficulties which were erected for religion
by the science of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, difficulties which overthrew the faith of many
sincere minds, have had the effect of bringing out
the inner meaning and truth of religious experience.
Science, far from destroying religion, has only torn
away the veil of material imagery which hid the reality.
MYSTICISM
245
And let it also be observed that, while this work of
rending the veil was going on, there was taking place
a great religious revival which was at heart the revela-
tion of the truth that mystical experience is not for
the exalted saint or the pious recluse only, but for
every soul that will seek God in sincerity.
The essential fact of religious experience is, then, to
be found in the inner world of the spirit, and not in
the outer world of the material order of things. But
what ground have we for supposing that this inner
experience is anything but, as Mill says, a subjective
creation to which we ascribe objective existence ? This
is a profoundly important question. The sceptic will
inevitably say, This sense of the Divine presence, this
coming face to face with God, of which the mystic is
convinced, belongs to a realm of experience which is
not subject to exact scientific examination. It is a
realm in which imagination is very active. Further, it
will be added, it is quite easy to trace the genesis of
this feeling of a great Presence within. In earlier and
simpler times, when people believed in God as a great
Sovereign in the skies, they addressed their prayers to
Him as to any other great external authority, believing
that with His great powers He could hear and answer,
although so distant. But with waiting and brooding
came a further degree of introspection. Devout persons
began to reflect on their own inner states of mind, to
express their prayers in thought rather than to speak
them with their lips, and to attend more to inward
conditions, such as sincerity or feelings of gladness or
sadness, and to make these conditions signs of success
or failure. The very fact of prayer in thought, instead
of in speech, would generate the feeling of someone
listening within rather than without. The impressions
W
ne
246 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
CU
of gladness or sadness would naturally be regarded as
signs of a presence in which the prayer was acceptable
or the reverse. Hence would arise easily and inevit-
ably the whole range of mystical emotions and convic-
tions. When after the long strain of devotion, perhaps
with much preliminary fasting and mortification, the
pious soul would undergo deep depression followed by
a reaction, the sudden sense of peace would be held to
be a Divine manifestation. Very similar, on this theory,
would be the explanation of the peace of conversion.
Strong emotions of a penitential character—fear,
remorse, self-abasement — followed by the sudden
assurance that forgiveness has been granted, and
crowned with reflection upon the pardoning love of
God as revealed in the sufferings of Christ, naturally
lead to a strong reaction in which a great emotion of
joy in the realization of peace with God predominates.
Out of such experiences it is only to be expected that
there will emerge cases in which a very definite change
of life will be made. A sincere believer, convinced that
he has come under the influence of a higher power, will
often be carried by that conviction through temptations
which would formerly have overcome him, and so be
able to form new habits, thus entering on a new life.
When to this is added the evidence, derived from such
investigations as those contained in James's Varieties
of Religious Experience, which shows that the effect of
the superficial experience of which the man is conscious
may be reinforced by great subconscious changes of
mental or moral balance, it will appear that a strong
case can be made out in favour of a purely psychological
explanation. With such cold logic do some scientific
minds apply Mill's principle to the facts of religious
experience.
nn
La nev
MYSTICISM
247
1
These arguments will not move greatly the believing
soul fresh from the beatific vision, for the vision carries
its credentials with it. Realization of the Divine
presence seems to bear always the marks of a personal
relationship between the soul and God. And just as
the love of one human soul for another can be tested
and proved by no weighing of measurable quantities,
by no scientific methods, but by experience only, so
must it be with the love of God. The proof of such
things must be found in the enjoyment of them, and
their verification in the whole course of the life.
Yet, for thoughtful minds which lie open to all the
suggestions of reason, it is important to consider the
grave question which has thus been raised. Can it
be that the whole mystical experience of mankind is
a great illusion? Can it be true that the God whom
we meet in the silent shrine of our hearts is but a
creature of our dreams ?
In order to be in a position to deal fairly with this
question, we have to consider what is meant by the
distinction between “inner” and “outer” in mystical
experience. Mysticism, we have seen, is the finding
of God within. Its cardinal doctrine is the “inward
light.” It appeals to the saying in the Gospel, “The
kingdom of God is within you.” In the hidden
sanctuary of the heart God and man meet face to face.
This distinction has had an enormous influence on
the nature of the experiences which mystics have
sought and attained. It was the prevailing belief
amongst them that, in order to enjoy union with the
Divine, everything belonging to the life of sense and
to our material body and environment must be rigor-
ously excluded. These were supposed to impair the
spiritual faculties and unfit man for the presence of
248 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
God. Hence mysticism generally tended towards
asceticism. Hence, also, the marking out of the
“negative way” which the mystic must follow in
order to gain his end. From Plotinus and the Pseudo-
Dionysius, through the early and Middle Ages, down
to modern times, the via negativa is set forth by leading
authorities as the true path to the Divine presence.
Here the mysticism of the West shows a very close
affinity with that of the East. In both, a man is
exhorted to empty himself of all that is characteristic
of his own personal life in order that he may enter
into union with the ultimate Reality. Abstracting
from all that belongs to his individuality-from sense,
desire, thought-he is finally to attain to a condition
of blank indefiniteness. In that state he is supposed
to be fitted to enter into union with the Infinite.* .
The vice of all this is the exact counterpart of that
error in speculative philosophy which leads men to
search for truth in abstractions. Pure being and
abstract unity are the thinnest and poorest of all
unrealities. Even so, a mind emptied of all definite
content, in a state of blank indefiniteness, is, in truth,
as far as possible from the Divine fulness. That way
madness lies. It is no wonder at all that the records
of the mystics yield so poor a result in the way of
thought for the enrichment of human life. It is not
surprising that the millions of contemplative religious
who, in monastic cells and in caves and deserts, have
devoted themselves to the attainment of union with
God have bequeathed so little to mankind. Nor need
we wonder at the futile and fantastic visions which so
many of them experienced.
The truth is that the highest Reality must be the
* See Inge, op. cit., on the Negative Way.
UU
1
MYSTICISM
249
Hall
ve
fullest and richest of all, not the emptiest. God is
the most concrete of all Beings, not the most abstract.
He is the Infinite, not the indefinite. The fuller our
life is of all that constitutes true human experience
and development, the nearer we approach to Him.
The true greatness of our human life consists just in
this, that our conscious personal experience takes up
into itself whole worlds of lesser realities and subjects
them to spiritual purposes and to the freedom of
spiritual existence.
We must return to the distinction of “inner” and
"outer” in our experience. The basis of this distinction
is simply the intuition of space. We call that “outer”
which is in space, and that “inner” which is in time
only. The former is material, the latter we think of
as spiritual. Now, we saw, in our investigation of the
nature of our conscious experience, that the spatial
world is an element abstracted from the whole. Taken
by itself, it is a reality lower in the scale than our
experience in its full concreteness. The distinction of
«inner" and "outer” ought, then, to mean the dis-
tinction between the full concrete reality of experience
and the lower reality of the material world. But it
need not do so: for it is possible to abstract from the
fulness of conscious experience without entering the
world of space. It is possible, like some of the mystics,
to abstract from sense, from desire, from thought, and
approach very closely to a blank indefiniteness. It is
not easy, because it is a path we are not accustomed
to follow by voluntary effort. We do it without effort
sometimes, when we let our faculties become relaxed.
But the result of the process, as with other abstrac-
tions, is that we grasp realities of lower degree. There
is not, in this way, any approach to higher things.
TUO
250 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
TY
On the other hand, we can become aware of the
flowing of the full stream of our conscious active life as
a given reality. As we have already seen, we cannot
in its fulness; we can only be aware that it
exists. For us it is the whole of life in contrast with
which each isolated element upon which we direct
attention stands out defined. Its reality is the most
certain fact within our knowledge, for this reality is
the first necessary condition of the possibility of any
knowledge or any activity. Our awareness of it has
been rightly called “intuition” by M. Bergson. But
this stream of living experience which forms the whole
of each personal life is itself but a part of a larger
universe. Of what nature is that universe ?
When we consider any material thing, we find our-
selves inevitably compelled to regard it as a part of a
great material universe. As a thing in space, it occupies
a position which defines it in relation to every other
position in space. Given even one spatial figure, and
a whole spatial universe is posited. When, in ordinary
commonplace speech, we speak of the universe, we
usually mean this spatial material world which is a
necessary complement of every spatial or material
apprehension. But this universe of material things
does not contain the conscious experience of any
spiritual being. It cannot, because the spatial material
world of which any such being is aware is an abstrac-
tion, in relation to the fulness of his experience. It is
a reality of lower degree. The conscious personal life,
being the higher reality, cannot take its place as an
element in a universe of lower reality.
Of what nature, then, is the universe in which the
personal life of each individual human being takes its
place ? There must be some all-including Totality in
MYSTICISM
251
which every finite spiritual experience lives and moves
and has its being. In this Universe all finite spirits
have their home and bond of union. As we have
already seen, this final unification must take place in
a Life which must be the Highest Reality and the
most concrete of all. It is a Life which must be in the
highest degree personal, but which must at the same
time transcend personality. It is not a universe in
the sense in which the world of things in space is a
within itself, and in a way which must transcend all
our understanding of comprehension.
This is a result which we have already obtained.
Here we are specially concerned with it in view of
those experiences which are commonly called mystical.
If these experiences are not wholly illusive, their mean-
ing is that we have the power to become aware of the
fact that our whole conscious life is enveloped and per-
meated by a greater Life, that we can feel the presence
of Him in whom we live and move and have our being.
It may be that the word “feeling” is not the best
to employ in this connection. It may be that the
relation between our finite lives and the All-inclusive
Life is such that no one of the terms expressive of the
modes in which we apprehend the various elements
of our experience is appropriate. It would seem prob-
able that the word “intuition,” by which we express
life, is the best for our purpose.
The question we have then to consider is this : Does
the intuition of our own conscious existence involve
also the intuition of a spiritual universe enveloping
us? In other words, do we, in grasping the fact of
our own existence, grasp also the fact of something
252 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Som
er
more than ourselves? It seems clear, when the
question is put in this way, that the answer must
be affirmative. Whatever the mind grasps, whether
in intuition or in thought, must be in relation to
some other. Every mental act of grasping involves
a universe. If anything at all exists, there must be
a whole to contain it.
Our wider experience confirms this conclusion. We
know there is a vast multitude of distinct personal
lives. Each of them is partial, incomplete, and with
a character of its own. They enter into relation with
one another. They share a common life. On the
material side, this common life takes its place in the
great material universe. On the spiritual side there
must also be a universe whose life they share. The
very fact of the multiplicity of distinct personal experi-
ences and points of view implies an All-inclusive Whole,
a universe embracing them all. That this Whole must
be personal and something more we have already seen
reason to believe.
This is, in essence, the famous à priori proof of the
being of God which is usually connected with the name
of Anselm of Canterbury. He argues from the idea of
God as the greatest and best to His real existence.
The idea of that which is best must include existence,
therefore God exists. As it stands, this argument
certainly lies open to Mill's objection that it ascribes
objective existence to the subjective creations of our
own faculties. As Kant contends, the idea of a
hundred sovereigns is very different from the reality.
But, as Hegel urges against Kant, the idea of God
is very different from the idea of any finite thing.
“Certainly it would be strange," says Hegel, “if the
notion, the very inmost of mind, if even the ego, or,
a ul
iverse
MYSTICISM
253
Tere
VE
above all, the concrete totality we call God, were not
rich enough to include so poor a category as being, the
very poorest and most abstract of all.”*
The abstract language in which Hegel expresses this
and other statements on the subject disguises his real
meaning. To gain the full force of his contention we
must consider the problem in the concrete. The mind
of man, to take the lower instance he gives, certainly
includes in its idea of itself the fact of its existence.
The fact of self-consciousness carries with it the exist-
ence of the self. There could be no self-consciousness
if there were not a self. Further, the fact that any
thought at all is possible carries with it the existence
of the self. “I think, therefore I am." But we can
go further. The fact of thought carries with it also
the existence of a concrete totality embracing both
thoughts and things. And, as things are creatures of
thought, this concrete whole must be not only spiritual
in its nature, but also the highest and best of all
spiritual realities, the All-inclusive Reality.
As a piece of school logic, Anselm's proof has all the
defects Kant and others have found in it. But as an
interpretation of experience, as a demonstration of what
is ultimately involved in the spiritual nature of man, it
is perfectly sound : and the experience of the mystic is
but the practical realization of it. The philosopher,
reasoning back from the nature of human experience,
and seeking the conditions on which it is possible, dis-
covers, as the ultimate presupposition of the whole, a
Universal Spiritual Life in which all finite experiences
have their source and dwelling-place, and in which
they must find their consummation. The religious
* Logic, Wallace's translation, $ 51. Erigena seems to have antici-
pated Hegel here.
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254 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ess
e no
ns, conscious also of an inner need which can
be filled by no finite satisfaction, finds itself at length
in the presence of the Infinite Spirit, and is amazed
at the discovery that the Greatest and Best is also
the closest and the most certain of all realities. “O God,
Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts can
have no rest until they find their rest in Thee.”
Ancient and mediæval mystics were much concerned
with the task of tracing out the road which the soul
must travel in order to make this great discovery.
We have seen that there is a great volume of testi-
mony in favour of the via negativa. Negation of self,
with all its preoccupations of sense, desire, and even
thought, was regarded as the only sure way to the
goal. This way, as we saw, corresponds very closely
with the method of abstraction in philosophy. It
must, therefore, be mistaken. Yet it cannot be wholly
erroneous. How far it is mistaken, and how far it
is right, is a question of much importance. There is
certainly a true and necessary sense in which the
denial of self is the only way to high attainment. To
writers, we must deny the lower self in order that
we may gain the higher self. Mastery over fleshly
appetites and unruly passions, over pleasure-seeking
and wayward impulses, is an essential condition of
moral and spiritual achievement. Again, there is cer-
tainly, from the spiritual point of view, a scale of
values amongst the objects of desire. A self-controlled
man is not always a spiritual man. The mastery of
appetite and unruly passion may be due to a cool calcu-
lation of means to certain very earthly ends. The
MYSTICISM
255
crafty man of the world may be perfectly self-controlled
as regards all the wilder human impulses, because he
is in pursuit of wealth or power. In relation to the
things of the spirit, such aims are perhaps even more
destructive than the animal appetites.
It is clear, therefore, that the denial of the lower
desires and interests is a necessary condition of spiritual
attainment. So far the via negativa must be followed.
But this does not involve the emptying of the self.
Quite the contrary. It is of the nature of the lower
desires that they hinder the soul's full and true
development. If allowed to dominate the life, they
produce a one-sided, and therefore imperfect, person-
ality; the man does not attain to the best of which
he is capable. In a full-orbed personality, every
essential human element should be developed to its
own proper degree and in relation to every other.
The life of sense, for example, which is mediated
through the relation of the body to its material envi-
ronment, is an essential part of human experience, and
must have its due share in the human life; but it ought
not to become dominant. Desires and interests of all
normal kinds give richness and fulness to life, and are
to be satisfied in their due proportion, and in accord-
ance with the capacities and opportunities of the indi-
vidual; but none of them should be allowed to become
so absorbing as to crush out other necessary elements.
n a perfect human life, sense, appetite, desire, intellect,
æsthetic faculty, affection, social capacity, must all have
due share and proper proportion. And it would seem
contrary to all that we can discern of the harmony of
things that any other human type, any abnormal human
development, should be better fitted for intercourse
with God than that which is indicated by all our
ano
256 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
ce as ]
2 were
experience as most perfectly fulfilling the Divine inten-
tion for man. It is not to be supposed that God seeks
a stunted, or one-sided, humanity as the object of His
special favour. The negative way is therefore only to
be followed in so far as may be necessary to subdue the
unruly elements in our nature, so that all may be
brought into subordination to those principles which
should regulate the whole.
In our discussion of the problem of Freedom, we were
led to see that the will in operation is the movement
of the whole personality. For this reason will is free.
This truth has a very important bearing on the ques-
tion before us. It will help us to see that the finding
of God in experience is not a revelation granted to
a soul which has emptied itself of all its human posses-
sions. It will also show that this finding of God is not
the work of any special faculty. Some mystics have
held a doctrine of what they termed a “Divine spark”
in the soul of man, an organ by which man enters into
the life of God. It is conceived as in some way a
connecting link between the Divine and the human.
Psychologically, a doctrine of this kind leads to great
difficulties. Also, the supposition of a special faculty
is wholly unnecessary. Man is nearest to God when he
is most fully in possession of himself. Then it is that
he confronts most distinctly the spiritual environment
in which he lives. The abstract or imperfect life is
apart from God. The concrete life is close to God.
In other words, man is nearest to God when he is most
perfectly human.
For a fuller understanding of this statement, let it
be considered that when a man's whole heart and mind
are devoted to material interests, he is living in the
abstract material world, and the greater and better
MYSTICISM
257
part of his nature remains unoccupied. So, again, if
any special appetite or desire absorbs him, he has fallen
from the height of his full humanity, with its endless
wealth of endowment, and submitted himself to the
bondage of a particular passion. The religious recluse
also, who, in the effort after God, endeavours to empty
his mind of all particular interests, is abstracting from
the fulness of life, and raising barriers against that
very visitation which he desires. No wonder that so
many of those who sought God in this way found
nothing but that aridity of soul which they so often
deplored. No wonder that acedia became a common
disease of the mind.
When an act of will is not merely the carrying out
of some habitual motion, but is a consciously directed
moral decision, it involves the whole personality. First,
it determines the whole relation of the man to his
material environment. On the outbreak of war, for
example, a man decides to devote himself to the
service of his country. He gives up his occupation
and enters the army. At once everything in his life
is changed. His residence, his physical habits, his
meals, his handling of material things, undergo a
transformation. The decision also determines the
man's mental and moral outlook. All his desires and
interests must be adjusted to the new situation. He
must adopt a new attitude towards life. Mind and
character remaining in their main tendencies and
qualities the same, have yet to be brought into a new
relation to the world of men, and also into a new rela-
tion to the man's own hopes and prospects. Any
concrete instance will reveal the fact that when moral
purpose takes shape in a definite act of will, the whole
life with all its physical and mental elements and con-
le
17
258 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
lI
ditions undergoes a fresh determination. Nothing is
really omitted. Nothing remains quite the same. In
other words, the act of will is the movement of the
whole personality.
Let us apply this to the typical experience in which
a human soul finds God. Consider the act of repent-
ance. When, in the course of his experience, a man
is awakened to the sense of moral fault, and recognizes
his guilt, the feeling of responsibility presses upon him,
conscience accuses. Knowing in himself that strange
power of initiative which we call freedom, he discerns
the fact that he is to blame. An honest conscience
always admits this accusation. The plea that tempta-
tion was too strong, or that circumstances compelled,
or that the fall was due to a state of character over
which he had no control, will not be urged by the
sincerely penitent soul. Such a man, thinking of God,
finds himself in the presence of a perfect ideal, and
realizes that his innate sense of responsibility is a
witness to its reality. The inevitable result of such
a situation is heartfelt confession. It is the vision
of God which overwhelms the man in the sorrow of
repentance. “Woe is me, for I am undone,” cried the
prophet, “ for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell
in the midst of a people of unclean lips; and mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."* “Now
mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes.” † “ Against Thee, Thee
only, have I sinned.” I Such is the authentic language
of contrition.
But this turning to God in confession, when it is
the sincere outcome of conviction, carries with it a
definite will to amend. Then it is that, in response
* Isa. vi. 5. † Job xlii. 5, 6.
Ps. li. 4.
a
MYSTICISM
259
to this will, there comes the assurance of Divine
pardon.
Now, this will to amend, when it is real, involves
the free activity of the whole personality. Into that
action the whole life is taken up. All the lines of the
man's life pass through it, as through a focus, and
produce on the other side a new adjustment of the
whole being. The moment of decision which reverses
the man's life is the very moment in which he comes
face to face with God. Here, then, instead of negation
or emptying, we have the personal life in all its fulness.
But there is, most certainly, a negation. There is the
negation of the lower self-that is, of the evil and self-
asserting elements; but that is a negation which
makes the full reality possible.
This instance is probably the most striking which
could be chosen, but every instance of sincere prayer
would yield a similar result in its own degree. Prayer
is not an effortless contemplation, nor is it the mere
asking for gifts from an Almighty giver. It is an
effort of will. In it, when it is real, the full person-
ality engages. It is the expression of a definite
determination of the whole moral being. Here we
have the principle which contains the justification
of prayer both on the subjective side and on the
objective. Such a determination must alter the moral
relationship between God and the man, and so involve
a new adjustment which need not be confined to the
moral sphere. If there be moral principle and moral
activity at the heart of things, prayer cannot go un-
answered. It is one of the chief benefits of the newer
thought about the universe that it enables us to realize
that both God and man are really alive. If God be
indeed a Living God, He cannot but respond to he
ans
260 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
moral determinations of human personalities. People
who disbelieve in the efficacy of prayer have never got
beyond the conception of the universe as an abstract
system of forces and laws.
That prayer does involve this moral determination
of the whole personality appears very clearly when
we discern what may be involved in that particular
might be thought that here is a case in which prayer
makes no effort to effect any result. It seems to leave
everything unchanged. Such a view is, however, very
superficial. The most tremendous prayer in all human
history was a prayer for resignation. Christ, con-
fronted by His Cross and passion, cried out, “O My
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.
Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done." The
circumstances of this prayer, its repetition, its relation
to the events which followed, the apparent fruitless-
ness of it: all give it a place of peculiar significance in
the life of Christ and in the history of the world. And
if ever a prayer gathered up into itself all the elements
of a life, it was this.
We conclude, therefore, that it is not any abstracted
in the soul, which meets with God : it is the whole
personal life in its concrete reality. How, then, can
we explain the fact that so many of those who set out
to follow the “negative way” really reached the
Divine illumination they sought? The answer must
be that, like so many other sincere people, their
practice was better than their precept. With them,
it would appear, the negative way, in practice,
amounted to little more than that denial of the
appetites and passions which is certainly necessary
MYSTICISM
261
for a God-seeking life ; and that, when it was more
than this, it was a hindrance, not a help. Also,
we must believe that their concentration of all
their faculties upon God often led them to that
very spiritual situation which we have described.
Their capital error lay in renouncing the material
world with its wealth of beauty and its infinite dis-
n
(
its affections and opportunities for pure happiness and
service, family life with its tender humanities, and
imagining that these things must come between the
soul and God. A better wisdom finds in these the
very gateway of heaven.
We have arrived, then, at this conclusion, that the
human spirit, when concentrated in moral effort, is
capable of realizing the presence of that All-enfolding
Divine Life which forms its spiritual environment.
Why then, it may be asked, is it that this experience
of God is not universally accepted for truth and fact
by all thinking people? The question is very impor-
tant and demands most careful consideration.
It is not to be supposed that every concentration of
purpose, every determination of will, is equally effica-
cious in this respect. The quality of what we attain
depends very largely upon the quality and purpose of
our determination. While it may be true that every
free decision of the full personality brings us into
a special relation to God, it does not follow that the
relation so established includes consciousness of His
presence, nor correspondence with His character and
will. As regards the last element, it may have an
opposite effect. Apart from this, however, it is clear
that decisions which guide long courses of conduct,
and which are good in themselves, may yet be of such
262 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
e
Be
SONS
a nature as to involve no consciousness of the All-
inclusive Life. A scientific man, for example, plans
a long and complicated investigation. Into this pur-
pose he puts all his powers, and to it he makes all
other engagements subordinate. It would be un-
reasonable to expect that such a determination of his
personality should necessarily involve the conscious-
ness of God. Just as the concentration of all a man's
powers on some special object may render him uncon-
scious of the presence of other human beings, so we
may expect it to be in relation to God. The exercise
of our faculties is controlled by the purpose we have
in view. And this is especially true when we have to
do with relations between persons. Our knowledge of
one another depends very largely upon sympathy. If
we seek to know a man, and approach him with sym-
pathy, we get to know him in a way which is otherwise
impossible. So it is also in relation to God. The soul
that seeks God finds Him. The decision of the will
which is directed towards Him makes possible a great
revelation. Thus we see that it is the religious pur-
pose in the soul which draws near to God which makes
religious experience possible. This is the principle of
Faith, on which religious teaching has ever laid so
much stress. It is not an irrational principle. Quite
the contrary. As we have seen, it arises inevitably
from the nature of knowledge in relation to persons
Only by faith, founded on sympathy and experience,
can any soul gain knowledge of another. Know-
ledge, in the ordinary intellectual sense of the term,
or with the meaning which it has when we apply it to
our apprehension of sensible things, is inapplicable to
our mode of realizing the presence and grasping the
character of other human beings. So, only in a far
SONS
UIC
MYSTICISM
263
Y
higher degree, must it be with the knowledge of
God.
It is true that the presence of the soul to God is
immediate, while the presence of one human person to
another is mediated through material and sensible
relations. But, so far as we can see, this only
strengthens the force of our contention. For the
sensible phenomena through which a human presence
is mediated are objects of knowledge in the ordinary
sense, and so far as revealed in these the human spirit
is knowable like other things. It is the deeper know-
ledge, the knowledge of the character which lies
hidden behind the sensible manifestations, which can
only be gained by sympathy and faith. And, as the
presence of God to the soul lacks altogether the
evidence derived from sensible phenomena, we must
surely conclude that sympathy and faith are more
necessary in the realization of it than in human rela-
tionships. The feeling of the Divine Presence must,
in fact, be more closely allied to what we call sym-
pathy between human souls than to any other feeling
of which we are aware in our ordinary experience.
It is, however, very worthy of our consideration that
the moral experience of mankind seems to show an
element which may well be regarded as another appre-
hension of the truth which we are wont to describe as
the religious consciousness of the Divine Presence.
Students of ethics are aware how difficult it is to
explain in the terms of any theory the finest and most
characteristic fact of man's moral life. Why should a
man sacrifice himself and all that he has for righteous-
ness' sake? Why should a man die for conscience'
sake? Why should a man give up all worldly pros-
pects, and devote all his powers to the salvation of
264 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
wretches who, in the eye of the world, have no claim
upon his love ?
Hedonistic and evolutionary systems of ethical
thought provide no answer to these questions. Per-
fectionist ethics, systems which regard moral perfection
as the true end of man, and moral activity as his only
proper realization, go much nearer to a solution. But
it cannot be pretended that any of these doctrines is
fully satisfactory. Here religion has no difficulty.
Goodness as the character of God, the supreme fact in
the whole universe, becomes at once worthy of every
sacrifice. But it must be confessed that the moral
enthusiasm which Christianity justifies in this fashion
is not an exclusively Christian possession. The pagan
and the modern sceptic can exhibit it as truly, if not
in quite the same fashion nor as frequently, as the
Christian. It can coexist with ethical creeds which
seem to involve its negation. It was characteristic of
such spirits as Plato and John Stuart Mill, as well as
of St. Paul or Bishop Berkeley.
There is, in truth, a great conviction behind all such
moral heroism. Whatever may be the professed creeds
or intellectual prepossessions of those who have it, this
implicit conviction is in every case of the same nature.
It may be described as the belief that the doing of
that which presents itself as the good and the right is
of absolute worth and importance, that no advantage
which might be gained by other conduct could possibly
be worth the sacrifice of the good. And this absolute-
ness means that, not merely for the individual himself,
but for everyone and universally, the thing to be done
is, from the moral point of view, possessed of an inde-
fectible necessity. “Here I stand. I can do no other."
When duty is revealed, every risk must be taken and
jame
MYSTICISM
265
the thing must be done. When truth has to be vindi-
cated, no consideration of consequences must be allowed
to stand in the way. To every man who finds himself
in such a position and with such a determination there
comes the conviction that, though overwhelming human
forces may be against him, yet the supreme central
reality of things is on his side. He discerns, by some
inexplicable insight, often attained by a sudden illu-
mination, that there is a deeper meaning in the
universe than that which is superficially apparent-
that, though all earthly powers be in opposition, there
is some Higher Power, and that the Supreme one, to
which truth and right are infinitely precious. He
sees by some intuitive perception that, though the
world be against him, the eternities and infinities are
on his side.
The consciousness of this fact may be found, not
merely in the conviction which animates men of
supreme moral heroism in their great moments, but in
all the nobler teachers who have inspired mankind,
coldly sceptical and intensely secular as was his
thought, recognized a supreme order, vaguely termed
Heaven, the source of man's nature and of the laws
which should rule in human life. So, again, the teach-
ing of the Buddha, with its total silence as to God
and its disbelief in a human soul, with its doctrines of
the impermanence of the individual and of salvation
through the negation of desire, is yet filled with con-
viction as to the infinite importance of attaining to
truth and of doing the right. For this every sacrifice
is worth making. Armed with truth and right, the
saviour of men goes forth to heal the sorrow of the
world.
266 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
These instances serve to show how even in cases
which seem to involve the denial of God, moral con-
viction involves the apprehension of some supreme
standard of truth and rightness, in accordance with
which all great ends must be accomplished.
In the great age of Greek genius, this apprehension
found most wonderful expression in art, philosophy,
and literature. Amid conditions which, on the moral
side, seem to us strange and incongruous, there flamed
up a splendid faith in truth for truth's sake, a glorious
realization that behind and above all the shiftings
of human opinion there are eternal things whose worth
is absolute. Matthew Arnold points out that “there
is a century in Greek life—the century preceding the
Peloponnesian War, from about the year 530 to the
year 430 B.C.-in which poetry made,” as it seems
to him, “the noblest, the most successful effort she
has ever made as the priestess of the imaginative
reason.” Of “this effort, the four great names are
Simonides, Pindar, Æschylus, and Sophocles.” “No
other poets,” he writes, “so well show to the poetry
of the present the way it must take ; no other poets
have lived so much by the imaginative reason ; no
other poets have made their work so well balanced ;
no other poets, who have so well satisfied the thinking
power, have so well satisfied the religious sense :
“Oh! that my lot would lead me in the path of holy
innocence of word and deed, the path which august
laws ordain, laws that in the highest empyrean had
their birth, of which heaven is father alone, neither
did the race of mortal man beget them, nor shall
oblivion ever put them to sleep. The power of God
is mighty in them, and groweth not old.' *
* M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, No. VI.
MYSTICISM
Matthew Arnold himself, in perhaps the greatest of
his poems, has finely expressed the same conviction :
“ Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling, task'd morality-
Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.
" And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek !
'Ah! child ! she cries, that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
". There is no effort on my brow-
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and, when I will, I sleep.
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once--but where ?
“I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
I saw it in some other place.
And lay upon the breast of God.'”
How nobly, too, does Wordsworth in his “ Ode
to Duty," utter the sense of absolute and eternal
significance in the obedience to the right:
"Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face :
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And fragrance in thy footing treads ;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee,
are fresh and strong."
268 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Here is the sense that the voice of duty speaks with
the authority of the whole universe. In all these
instances, and in the multitude of others which might
be gleaned from literature, there is revealed a moral
mysticism which is closely related to Christian
mysticism, and which, though neither so clear nor
so certain as the latter, in its apprehension of the
ultimate Reality, is yet a witness to its truth. What
Matthew Arnold calls “imaginative reason” is nothing
more nor less than the mystical intuition, the apprehen-
sion in poetic form of the truth that our human life
shares in a greater all-enfolding Life which is akin
to us, and in which all of goodness and perfection that
we can imagine finds its realization.
It is a remarkable fact that many of those minds
which were foremost in promoting the scientific
agnosticism so characteristic of the modern world fed
their religious instincts with poetry. And the poetry
which satisfied their spiritual needs was the poetry
which provided a mystical interpretation of Nature
and of human life. In Wordsworth and Tennyson
especially, Nature-mysticism found its expression. In
Browning the same principle was applied to the deeper
problems of human existence. Of the former, perhaps
the grandest expression is contained in Wordsworth's
noble lines written near Tintern Abbey :
"I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
MYSTICISM
269
All thinking things, all objects of all thought;
And rolls through all things.”
These words have been a veritable creed to multitudes
of thoughtful minds who could find no sure footing in
the creeds of the Churches. They supplied the medium
through which could be gained something of the
mystical apprehension of God by direct intuition,
rather than by the processes of reason. They helped
to give a sacramental character to communion with
Nature.
And what Wordsworth and Tennyson did for our
intercourse with Nature, Browning did for our experi-
ence of human life. He made us feel the immanent
Divinity of it :
“Not once beat 'Praise be Thine !
I see the whole design,
I, who saw Power, see now Love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man !
Maker, remake, complete,-I trust what
Thou shalt do!'”
We have seen that man draws nearest to God in
his moments of most perfect freedom, when he acts in
the fulness of his moral nature. Then it is that he is
able to apprehend God, and then it is that Divine help
comes to him most fully. This doctrine is strongly
contrasted with a doctrine which has been gaining
ground and some degree of popularity in recent years
-a doctrine which draws its inspiration mainly from
some of the investigations of the late Professor James.
According to it, Divine help comes to man mainly
through the subconscious part of his spiritual organiza-
tion. The ground for this belief is to be found mainly
in a review of cases of sudden conversion which Pro-
270 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
On
fessor James cites. But these cases are, for the most
part, pathological. They are abnormal. And it is
unsafe to found a theory on the study of the abnormal.
In normal repentance the conscious act of the will is,
on the human side, the decisive factor. It is this
determination which sets going all the processes,
conscious and subconscious, which are the human
conditions of the change of life which follows. In
abnormal cases these processes are mainly subconscious,
and the processes which lead up to the change are
subconscious. But even Professor James admits that
when a change of life occurs as a result of subconscious
“incubation,” the process which brings it about might
have taken place consciously. The cases are not,
therefore, as distinct as is sometimes imagined.
Further, at the decisive moment there must be an
act of will if the change is to have a genuinely moral
character. It is therefore difficult to see how the sub-
conscious can be, in any distinctive way, an organ for
the Divine intervention. It is also worthy of note
that the plausibility of the theory is very largely due
to the use of material imagery to describe the relation
of the subconscious to the conscious. What that rela-
tion really is we have considered above.
We hold, then, to the principle that man draws
nearest to God in his moments of moral decision, when
he acts with the fulness of his personal life. Then it
is that he can apprehend the Divine Presence, and
come most fully under the Divine influence.
A remarkable conclusion follows: There is no conflict
between Divine assistance and human freedom. The
will of God is most perfectly realized in human life in
those moments when the will of man acts most fully
on its own powers of free initiative. It is exactly
man
MYSTICISM
271
SOL
010
YO
what St. Paul teaches in one of the greatest of his
sayings : “ Work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.”
And here once more comes into view the truth
which is the explanation of all our fundamental diffi-
culties. God in His ultimate nature is higher in the
scale of reality than man. He is personal and also
more than personal. He is at the summit of all
degrees of reality ; man is not. If God were personal
merely in the sense in which that term is applied to.
man, He would be but one among many. A final
harmony would be impossible. It is the supposition
that He is but one person among many which gives
rise to the problem of evil, and which seems to bring
His will and man's into rivalry. When it is discerned
that all the lines of experience converge upon this
result, that in God reality reaches a final degree of
concreteness which is above the concreteness of man's
personal life, then we understand why it is that all
those problems which involve the multitude of wills
must end in hopeless antinomy as long as He is simply
regarded as personal will in the human sense. We
imagine that He is “even such an one as ourselves,"
and so create the problems which puzzle us. But
when we take into consideration the existence of a
degree of reality higher than that in which our human
life is passed, we see at once that on that level the
contradictions which perplex us here, arising as they
do out of the nature of the characteristic form of
personality, must find their resolution. Therefore it
is that there is no essential opposition between the
will of man and God; and therefore, also, it is that
when human will is fully and freely exercised in the
COT
272 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
right way, it becomes the means of bringing man into
closest relation with God. In other words, man draws
nearest to God when his human powers are most fully
exercised. Then it is that he is able to apprehend
Divine Life.
CHAPTER XII
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
THE revelation of God in history is too vast a subject
to be treated here. There is a great literature which
deals with it, a literature which is continually growing.
The origin and development of religious ideas; the
study of comparative religion ; the relation of the
philosophies of the West to those of the East, and
the relation of both to paganism and to Christianity;
the spiritual and social conditions which prepared the
way for Christ; and the history of the Christian Church
itself-all these immense studies would be included in
à general examination of the way in which mankind
gained those conceptions of God and those religious
beliefs which prevail in the world to-day. In relation
to all these departments of research a new seriousness
and hopefulness, and a new thoroughness, have mani-
fested themselves in recent times. It is universally
recognized that, for the student of the humanities,
nothing is more important than the investigation of
religious beliefs and religious experience. Religion
can no longer be dismissed by any serious student as
a matter of comparative unimportance. Whatever be
the explanation of the phenomena, their human value and
significance, and the intimacy of their implication in all
phases of social life, can no longer be ignored or denied.
18
273
274 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
na
2
LN
It is, however, quite another matter to believe that
history contains a real revelation of truth about the
ultimate meaning and purpose of the universe. The
value of history as an account of human experience is
one thing, its value as a manifestation of God is quite
another. Are we justified in believing that history
contains a revelation of God? That is the question
we have to consider.
It is clear that when we think of history in this way
we cannot confine our thoughts to human history. The
history of the human race is but a part, even though
it be the most important part, of universal history.
Modern science has reduced all its departments but
the most abstract to history. That is the meaning
and effect of evolution as a description of universal
process. If, therefore, we wish to examine the story
of the world with a view to discovering whether it
contains a revelation of God, we must take that story
as a whole, so far as we are acquainted with it. We
shall expect, of course, that the clearest and fullest
part of the revelation will take place in the more
advanced portion of the universal process, but we
cannot believe that only there are to be found indica-
tions of Divine power and character.
There is a wider, and also a narrower, sense of the
term “revelation.” Traditionally, we are accustomed
to use the word in the narrower sense. By revelation
is usually meant a Divine intervention for the express
purpose of conveying knowledge of God to man. So
it is that we speak of the Christian revelation. On
the other hand, we can speak of the whole creation as a
revelation of God in the sense that, as it is His work or
-may we say?—the expression of His will, it must bear
the marks of His nature. If the whole universe be
A
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
275
the outcome of the Divine activity, it must reveal the
character of that activity, if we have faculties to
discern it.
. A deeper consideration seems to show that the con-
ception of revelation as a special Divine intervention
is really a part of the old outgrown doctrine of tran-
scendence. When the world is regarded as a mechanical
system working according to an order impressed upon
it at a definite beginning in the remote past, a Divine
intervention for the purposes of demonstration or cor-
rection is an almost inevitable idea to a believer in God.
When the clock goes wrong, the clockmaker must
intervene to put it right. If the world be conceived
as a stupendous clock, then it has certainly gone
wrong, and intervention is a necessity. But this
whole mode of conceiving the relation of God to the
world is erroneous. God is indeed transcendent, but
it is in another and higher meaning of the term. He
is also the immanent life of the universe in a manner
which we represent to our minds by our own relation
to our experience.
If this be so, we must employ the word “revelation"
in the wider sense. We must think of God as mani-
festing Himself in creation, because He is the Life of all
that is; and if there occurred special epochs of revela-
tion, as every Christian believes, then those epochs
were moments of consummation in which agelong
processes reached their climax. They were not breaches
in the universal order.
Before we think of the facts of natural and human
history with a view to considering their value as a
revelation of the character of God, there is another
preliminary question of much importance which must
be answered. How can the history of the material
Ur mi
ir Own
еп
eva
276 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
universe contain a revelation of God? We have seen
that things in space, forming a connected system, are
an abstract element of experience. We get to them
by abstracting from the fulness of our conscious ex-
perience. The mechanical form which belongs to
material things is essentially abstract. Life in its
concrete reality is not mechanical at all. Now, God
is Life. He is Life in a sense higher than that in
which we apply this term to our own form of existence.
The degree of reality possessed by His Life is higher
than that possessed by ours. How, then, can we find
His character in a realm which is relatively to Him
even more abstract than it is in relation to us? What
we are considering here is just this : Is it open to us,
on the principles which have guided us all through, to
ask the ordinary questions of natural theology, and to
find satisfaction in answers which would appeal to those
who seek proofs of God's Being and attributes in Nature ?
Are not the methods of those who seek proofs of God's
Being from design in Nature, or from the contingency
of the world, or from the order or events of history,
or the moral nature of man, quite inconsistent with
the methods of that philosophy which has yielded the
results which have been set forth above? The former,
it may appear, are essentially based upon principles-
such as the principle of causation-which hold only
within abstract spheres of experience ; while the latter
is based on the character of our concrete experience as
a whole, and the conditions which make that experience
possible.
Kant found all such proofs defective, because funda-
mentally contradictory, their inconsistency being simply
due to the fact just stated. Herbert Spencer reaches
his agnostic position in a similar way, by exhibiting
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
277
le
the contradictions involved in all the ideas which
we use to describe the Divine Nature. Why, then,
should we venture into a region beset with such diffi-
culties? The answer is that we must deal with these
problems. We cannot leave them out. To omit them
would be to raise a strong presumption of a very
serious kind against the whole scheme of our thought
as presented hitherto. If religion can justify itself
only in high metaphysics, and can never venture
to face the questions which arise inevitably out of
ordinary intelligent observation, there is ground for a
strong objection against both religion and metaphysics.
To the mind of common sense, it is perfectly clear that
if the universe be indeed due to the activity of a
Supreme Spirit who can in any intelligible sense be
described as Wise and Good, this wisdom and goodness
must be somehow evident to those who examine
creation with sufficient care. If no real marks of
wisdom and goodness can be traced in the plan of the
universe, if things seem to happen anyhow, or in such
a way as to have no reference to the welfare of sensi-
tive and spiritual beings, it is a powerful argument
against the religious belief in God.
Here is the foundation of modern Agnosticism. The
modern scientific view of the world seemed to sweep
away the old proof from the adaptation of means to
ends in Nature. It yielded a conception which seemed
to make mechanical forces in the physical order, and
chance variation in the organic realm, the explanation
of all that formerly seemed to point to intelligent and
benevolent design. When, in addition, we consider
the force of such a demonstration of the inconsistency
of the ideas by means of which men usually conceive
of God's nature as is contained in the earlier part
278 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
SUS
10.
of Herbert Spencer's First Principles, it is impossible
to wonder that the conclusion at which Spencer
arrived commended itself to multitudes of thoughtful
people.
Yet Spencer's statement is itself contradictory.
“ The Power which the Universe manifests to us,” he
concludes, “is utterly inscrutable."* If it be in any
sense manifested, how is it utterly inscrutable? It is
clear that if we are to believe in any power, other than
purely mechanical forces or accidental groupings of
such forces, behind the system of the universe, the
character of that power must somehow appear. Even
Spencer could not frame a sentence to convey his
Agnostic creed without implicitly making the admission.
St. Paul's statement that “the invisible things of Him
since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
perceived through the things that are made, even His
everlasting power and divinity,”f is much more con-
sonant with reason and common sense than Spencer's.
If there be any such Power as Spencer imagines,
creation must in some way or other manifest the
character of that Power. If no character can be
discerned, it is a strong proof that no such Power
exists. Atheism is a more reasonable conclusion from
Spencer's arguments than Agnosticism.
In relation to the mode of presentation adopted
throughout our investigation, the position is as follows:
The material world, regarded in complete abstraction
from human life, assumes the form of a mechanical
system ordered in accordance with laws which are
characterized by an iron necessity. Here is no possi-
bility of the expression of character. But the reason
is that we are dealing with a system which is purely
* H. Spencer, op. cit., chap. ii. † Rom. i. 20 (R.V.).
TTIY
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 279
ann
abstract. In actual experience, the material world
never assumes this form. It is always subordinate,
more or less, to human mind and purpose. As we have
seen, the most remarkable feature of human dealing
with Nature is the manner in which natural forces
have been subdued and made to subserve the uses
of human life; and, as we saw, the ground of this
subjugation is simply that very inflexibility of natural
law which seems at first sight so repellent, when
regarded in abstraction. Consider the immediate
material environment of any human individual; or,
more widely, consider any individual's peculiar relation
to the whole material world, in so far as it enters into
his experience, and it will be found that it expresses
his character with extraordinary accuracy. Go into a
man's house, examine his study, look at his book-
shelves, at the pictures on the walls, the arrangement
of the things he constantly touches, observe his dress,
his writing, and other details of his use of the material
world, and you will be able to form a very good
estimate of who and what he is. So it is also with
human characteristics in general. They find their
expression in the manner in which human life takes up
into itself certain parts of the material world and trans-
forms them. The use of things for human purposes
makes them a means of human expression. Every
race of men, every human ethos, stamps its peculiar
nature on its material environment. We visit the
temples and tombs of Egypt that we may enter into
the spirit of that ancient civilization. We find the
genius of Greece mirrored in her sculptures and archi-
tecture. We detect the mind and will of ancient
Rome in the wonderful remains of her works. We
taste the soul of Italy in Florence and Venice.
280 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
en rea
If, then, there is a Great Spirit which is the
Supreme Reality of the whole universe, we must
expect to find in the material world, and, in due
degree, in all grades of reality, some indication of the
nature of that Spirit. We can go further, and say
that, if there is any reason at all to speak of a Power
to which creation is due, the character of that Power
must find some expression in the universe.
For us, having seen reason to believe that the nature
of our experience points to the existence of a great
Universal Life as the Supreme Reality, it is of the
utmost importance to consider whether the creative
processes of the world reveal a character corresponding
to this conclusion. Do we find marks of wisdom and
goodness, or other qualities which would prove that
personal interests are not alien to the Supreme Power?
Do we find, as development proceeds, that there is a
tendency towards ends which have value for spiritual
beings only? Can we trace a good purpose in the
universal process ? Our religion teaches us to think
of God as a Supreme Father, a Being whose chief
characteristic is a boundless love, a Sovereign Provi-
dence whose care extends over all His sensitive
creatures. If this doctrine be true, we may well
expect to find indications of this great Divine Love in
all our experience of the world and of life. Also, we
should expect to find truth and goodness necessarily
involved in the very structure of the universe. Can
we say that our observation of the general nature and
constitution of things fulfils this expectation ?
Many thoughtful minds have come to the conclusion
that these great assertions and splendid hopes of the
Christian faith are not justified in experience. Christ
declares of the sparrows that “not one of them is
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 281
Warn
пе
forgotten in the sight of God.” But in the great pro-
cesses of Nature, as revealed by modern science,
myriads of generations of such creatures perish and
are forgotten.
In the economy of the organic world, sensitive living
things are produced in millions of millions only to
serve as food or to be exterminated. In human life,
the same production of swarming millions and the same
ruthless disregard of their feelings may, it is alleged,
be discerned. A crowning instance is presented by
the events of our own time. After centuries of
Christian preaching and profession, and in an age
which has proved itself singularly careful of human
life, and peculiarly sensitive in relation to pain—an
age of widespread humanitarian effort-we see vast
populations hurled at one another in a war of the most
gigantic proportions. We see the sudden springing
up, under these new conditions, of a merciless de-
termination to win at all costs of misery, suffering, and
desolation. In a moment pity seemed to vanish, the
kindly influences of Christian civilization proved help-
less; brutal, lawless force was let loose on the world.
And why? Natural causes at work, replies the cold
scientific mind, the pressure of growing populations
and of higher standards of living : these are the forces
which produced the cataclysm. Man, with his high
moral and social ideas, tried for generations to avoid
such disasters. He endeavoured to cultivate kindli-
ness and good-fellowship amongst his kind. But
Nature defeated him. All the while she was at work,
and, when the critical moment was reached, his good
intentions went for nothing.
We have already considered this question in its rela-
tion to the problem of pain. We have now to give it,
CA
282 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
e
са
however briefly, a wider consideration. In this en-
deavour there are certain limitations which must be
kept in view. First, we have reason to believe that it
would be utterly impossible for us to attain to a com-
plete view of the system of the universe so as to
satisfy ourselves in every respect as to the wisdom
and goodness of the whole. The old theologians were
accustomed to think of the scheme of the Divine
government.”. Bishop Butler wisely held that it is
“a scheme beyond our comprehension.” We have
seen reasons which justify his opinion. We have seen
that, wherever we turn, in our examination of ultimate
problems, we discover elements which lead to the con-
clusion that the final constitution of things is at a
level of reality higher than that of our experience. It
is for this reason that we cannot completely solve the
problem of our freedom in its relation to God and to
our fellow-men, and that the problem of evil has
baffled all the efforts of philosophers. A complete
theodicy is impossible, as long as our faculties remain
as they are. There is a sphere in which we are wisely
and rightly agnostic.
Secondly, particular instances of apparent goodness
on the one hand, or of apparent disregard or ruthless-
ness on the other, prove nothing. The scale of the
universe is so vast, and our powers of observation and
understanding are so limited, that we are always
unable to estimate the real significance of the individual
case. In addition to this, belief in a future life alters
the problem so completely, in relation to our present
faculties, that we may fairly say that a judgment
based on earthly principles and experiences is of no
value in relation to God in His dealing with the soul
of a man.
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
283
In former days, natural theology devoted a great
deal of attention to particular instances of the adapta-
tion of means to ends in Nature. On the basis of this
argument a proof of the Divine wisdom and goodness
was founded. The doctrine of evolution, as we have
seen, showed conclusively that this argument could no
longer be presented in its old form. When it appeared
that the adaptation of means to ends could be explained
as due to the working out of a great world-wide process,
the particular instance lost its value—the nature of
the whole had to be considered.
This illustration shows the way. If we are to form
any judgment worth having on the character of the
Supreme Power as displayed in creation, we must
endeavour to grasp fundamental principles, or, at all
events, obtain large views of the nature and tendency
of the universal process. When examined in this
way, it will be found that Nature and life yield very
altogether in harmony with the greatness of the
Universal Spirit.
1
be involved in all our experience of the world and of
human life. The Supreme Power is trustworthy. In
the earlier days of human observation of Nature this
characteristic was not apparent. Man expected to
find the world filled with the influences of capricious
spiritual powers. The savage mind does not expect
constancy in things. His animistic mode of regarding
natural objects leads him to suspect the operation of
spirits in all events. These spirits are conceived as
quite as uncertain and impulsive as he is himself.
They are easily angered or pleased. Religion consists
in the use of charms and magic rites which are sup-
284 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
posed to have a moderating effect upon them. With
the advance of knowledge this conception of Nature
disappears. Man gradually discovers that natural
forces obey certain laws, and are constant in the mode
of their operation. On this discovery all science is
based. By means of this principle man finds he can
subdue the material world. With reflection comes the
further discovery that the principle which thus comes
to light is fundamental in all knowledge. The world
and human life and all the elements they contain rest
upon a trustworthy foundation—a framework of prin-
ciple upon which we can absolutely rely. This we call
truth. Its nature is such that we can depend upon it.
Experience convinces us that when we have arrived at
truth we have attained that which will not fail us.
What is true to-day will be true to-morrow. Holding
fast to truth, we believe we shall never be put to
shame.
The same principle may be traced in our moral
experience. If man is to lead a social life as a human
being, certain rules must be observed. He must keep
faith with his neighbour, defend the community when
it is attacked, do his share in providing for the common
needs. There must be a law, and the law must be
kept. There is something in his nature which re-
sponds to the claim of the law. The man recognizes
the call of duty, the call to obedience. If he disobey,
he admits his responsibility, and submits to punish-
ment. As reflection proceeds, man finds within him-
self an implicit recognition of the law and its demands.
Conscience has been awakened. On the trust-
worthiness of this recognition of moral responsibility
all social life is built. However the scientific moralist
may explain it, the fact cannot be questioned. All
dan
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
285
man ir
human institutions depend on faith in certain principles
involved in man's inner constitution. Here again is
witness to the statement that there is an order in
things, and that order is trustworthy.*
Whatever, then, be the ultimate nature of the Power
which is at work in the universe, we have reason to
think of that Power as essentially trustworthy. How-
ever we may explain it, this quality of trustworthiness
is clearly manifested. And every advance of know-
ledge adds to the strength of the evidence. So over-
whelming is this evidence that it leads men to think
of the universe as through and through, and in every
respect, a system of forces absolutely controlled by
unchangeable law. This extreme conclusion is, as we
have seen, an error, because it takes no proper account
of the life and experience of living and conscious beings.
Since these latter elements must be included in the
whole, we cannot explain the trustworthiness of the
universe as a merely mechanical regularity. There
must be some other explanation.
When we apply the historical method of modern
science to the whole succession of events, so far as that
succession has been traced, we arrive at a statement
which carries us a step further. Creation is an age-
long process. From dim beginnings in, possibly, some
primeval fire-mist, through the formation and consoli-
dation of suns and planets, through slowly acquired
adaptations of the surface of the globe, through millions
of generations of living creatures, through human
development from its most primitive forms up to our
highly complex modern civilization, the present state
of things has been brought about. There is much in
this great history which is still very debatable. There
* See Fraser, Philosophy of Theism, second series, lecture v.
286 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
is also much dispute about the principles which are
involved in it, and the nature of the causes which
have effected it. It is not even agreed that it is to be
regarded as a continuous evolution. Some authorities
hold that, at certain epochs, new creative beginnings
of a special and distinct kind took place.
We need not, for our present purpose, trouble our-
selves with such problems. The order of the main
elements is sufficient. What we have here is a great
upward movement culminating in the highly organized
world that we know. How was that result reached ?
The following may be noted as the main stages in the
vast process : Unstable material conditions; worlds
which have assumed a high degree of stability; on
the earth, conditions of temperature and moisture
fitted for life; the appearance of life ; life dividing
itself into vegetable and animal forms, the former
providing the main food-supply for the latter; sensi-
tive and conscious life; moral and social life appearing
in the human species ; civilization, involving, in its
better forms, the development of lofty ideas of value
--æsthetic, moral, social, religious.
It is not easy to see how any reasonable being can
regard such a result as this as the consequence of a
merely accidental grouping of mechanical forces. Only
a complete preoccupation of mind with certain abstract
mechanical ideas could make such an explanation
possible. By those who reject this explanation this
great world-order must surely be regarded as contain-
ing some revelation of the nature of the Power which
is at work throughout. There is clearly a unity of
some kind pervading the whole. What is the character
of that unity ? M. Bergson, who possesses probably
the most penetrating intellect of the present day,
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 287
ITT
thinks of this unity as an all-pervading vital impulse.
The multitude and diversity of the lines along which
life develops seem to him to show that the unity is
rather a push behind than a purpose in advance. We
have dealt to some extent already with this view of
the question. Here we may be permitted to add that
the theory of the vital impulse, however explanatory
it may seem of the multitude of diverging lines along
which the lower forms of life developed, does not seem
to provide a sufficiently concrete principle when the
whole creative process is taken into consideration.
What about the immense development of the material
world before life appeared ? And what about the inner
nature of life itself, in its highest accessible form, as
found in the living conscious experience of man?
M. Bergson's biological views do not seem to agree
perfectly with his psychology and his philosophy.
The latter demand that life in its full concrete reality
should be the most concrete of all realities; the former,
in the doctrine of the vital impulse, seem to reduce life
to an abstraction. If life in its full reality, so far as
our experience goes, is found in human experience,
then the life which is the explanatory principle of the
whole natural process must be understood by reference
to the essential nature of that experience—that is,
human personality is the best guide to the meaning
of the whole process.
Apart altogether from M. Bergson's doctrine, and
considering the great creative process in its main
outlines from the standpoint of common sense, the
indication which it yields is very remarkable. It
shows a universal movement upwards from material
conditions of a low order, through the whole series
of living forms, to man and human society. The vast
Our
man
288 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
extent of this movement, the innumerable multitude
of the factors involved in it, the distance which sepa-
rates the lower forms of unorganized matter from highly
organized human life, all convey the impression of a
supreme guiding purpose immanent in the whole, or
somehow superintending it. It is difficult for the
unbiassed mind to escape the conviction that the
Power which is manifested in this great ordered
progress is a power which intended to produce spiritual
and social life, a Being to whom the spiritual, with all
its wealth of attainment, is an end greatly prized.
It may seem that this is merely reading our own
ideas into the universal process; but that is exactly
what we are bound to do, since man stands as the final
term of the whole. That the full interpretation is to
be found in a Reality higher than man we have seen
reason to believe. The important point is that it
cannot be found below him. The final meaning is
better, not worse, than our dreams.
Taking, then, the course of evolution so far as it has
gone, and endeavouring to grasp the character or
meaning of the whole, we find our best clue in the
highest point which it has reached. That highest
point is moral and social life at its best. Here is an
idea which is in accordance with all the best human
thought. The vision of a Utopia, a perfected society,
has ever presented itself to the prophets and dreamers
among men as the supreme end towards which all the
highest efforts should be directed. Plato, in his
Republic, expressed the thought of his own age on
this subject in the noblest fashion. Christianity has
given to the world the glorious conception of the
kingdom of God, a Divine rule under which the inner
life of the individual and the organized life of society
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 289
ay
U
are to be brought to harmony and perfection. The
kingdom, as the rule of God in the heart of each man
and at the same time amongst men, is the leading idea
of Christ's teaching. It provides a principle for our
guidance in this world and a promise of greater things
in the next. The kingdom of God is the working out
of the principle of love. Its future perfection will be
love realized a state of existence in which the good
of each and the good of all will be identified.
This great idea provides an adequate interpretation
of the meaning of the universal process when regarded
as a whole. It is by far the most complete interpreta-
tion ever given. While it must be admitted that it
does not fully explain many details, and that certain
elements —such as pain and evil-seem definitely in-
consistent with it, it gives a meaning to the main
outlines and principal stages of the great ascent of
creation which will be sought in vain elsewhere.
If this be correct, it must be admitted that, when
large views of the creative process are taken, we obtain
a sufficiently clear indication of the character of the
Supreme Power. We learn to think of Him for this
pronoun now becomes inevitable-as One who is utterly
trustworthy, who prizes spiritual excellence above all
things, and who through all the ages of natural and
human history has been making all events subserve
the production of a kingdom, a great social order, in
which love shall be perfected.
The one strong objection which can be urged against
this view is the difficulty created by the two evils,
pain and sin. With these problems we have already
dealt so far as space permitted. We have seen that
their total effect is to add force to certain other con-
siderations which compelled us to believe that, while
31
2
.
.
1
L
19
290 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
we can rightly speak of God as possessed of Personality
in the highest degree, we must also believe that this
idea does not fully express His nature.
It is very interesting to observe that this wide view
of the creative process helps us to discern, not merely
the wisdom and power, but the goodness of God. The
divines of the eighteenth century laid great stress on
the witness of creation to the benevolence of the Deity.
So clear did they consider this witness, that, to some
of them, the Christian revelation seemed unnecessary.
The light of Nature appeared sufficient for all practical
purposes. With the scientific developments of the
nineteenth century came the suspicion that while the
light of Nature might perhaps prove the wisdom and
power of God, it could provide no proof of His good-
ness. The agelong struggle for existence, the vast
welter of greed and pain, to which biological science
traced the wonderful adaptations of organisms to their
environment, seemed a very formidable objection against
the comfortable doctrines of the Deist:
"Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed."
Now we can rise to a higher point of view and see
that both sides in this antagonism are taken up into a
fuller conception. Throughout the struggle of the
ages, good is being accomplished by means of sacrifice.
Life is being won through death. Through conflict,
and the pain which conflict brings, the Supreme Power
is working out the coming of the kingdom of Love.
If we desire, from contemplation of the whole process,
to know something of His nature, we must arrive at
our knowledge, not from the struggles of the past, nor
from the pains and disappointments of the present, but
wer
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 291
0
from the tendency of the whole as revealed in the
relation of the successive stages to one another and in
the nature of the best result already produced.
The terrible social upheavals which occur from time
to time make us feel how far we are from the full
realization of the great purpose, but they afford no
reason for the rejection of this great conclusion. That,
in this twentieth century, the civilized world should be
convulsed by a war so dreadful in all its circumstances
as that now raging, however bitterly the fact may
disappoint the high hopes of many hearts, is no reason
for despair. With all its terror and sorrow, the war
has proved that the manhood of our race is as strong
as ever. It has shown that we are as capable of
resolution in the pursuit of what is presented to us as
our duty as were our forefathers. No frightfulness
has had the slightest effect in the way of shaking our
determination or inspiring fear. Never did men and
women show a greater capacity for self-sacrifice.
Further, in the case of some of the nations involved,
there are evidences that the moral effort demanded
has had a purifying and ennobling influence.
These facts do not prove that war is good, or even a
necessary evil. What they really show is that, even
in the darkest times, may be discerned proofs of the
existence of the Light which lighteth every man.
There is a moral purpose dominating all and over-
ruling all evils. Through the sufferings of the present
state of things is being prepared a glory that shall be
revealed. Under the Providence of God the great
rule of Sacrifice is working out a final blessedness.
When we have gained this view of the inner mean-
ing and purpose of the great natural order, we are in a
position to turn to human history and consider whether
LI
mean-
292 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
nan lace
it can be regarded as in a more special way a means
of conveying a revelation of God. Hitherto we have
been examining the whole course of natural and human
history as science discloses it, using our present highly
developed knowledge as the means of interpretation.
We have now to think of how the growing intelligence
of the human race dealt with its experience of the
natural order of things as a manifestation of powers
other than material. The mind of man is never con-
tent to accept the facts of the material world as mere
facts. It never rests content with the given. It ever
seeks some power behind the immediate experience.
It is now admitted that the primitive mind is essen-
tially animistic. Its tendency is to believe in the
activity of spiritual powers as the source of all natural
phenomena. Belief in the human soul, and in its
survival of death, appears to be universal amongst
primitive peoples. The soul is conceived in ways
which are to us fantastic and almost materialistic,
identified with the shadow, or with the reflection in
still water, or with the breath; but its distinction
from the living body is always perfectly clear. Know-
ing in himself the powers of thought and will, and
feeling his own spontaneity, the savage attributes like
powers to such natural objects as attract his attention
in any special way. The river, the tree, the mountain,
the sun and moon, are all supposed to be either them-
selves animated, or to be the abodes or possessions of
spiritual beings. Out of this conception arises, in most
cases, a religion whose chief emotion is fear. The
spirits of natural objects, and the spirits of the dead,
are supposed to be, for the most part, malignant or
dangerous, easily moved to wrath or jealousy. Hence
springs the idea of propitiation. The spirits must
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 293
be pleased with offerings or restrained by such
magical rites as are supposed to have influence upon
It is clear that ideas of this sort naturally pass into
polytheism. Yet polytheistic faiths may contain other
elements. Tribal and national heroes are sometimes
exalted into deities. Also when the whole world is
thought to be peopled with spirits, it is inevitable that
many of these should be personified in a human sense,
and conceived as possessed of human form. Also,
there arises inevitably the idea of grades and hier-
archies of gods; and hence belief in chief deities,
mighty beings, human in form, but superhuman in
power. All these elements can be easily traced in
polytheistic religions.
Most important is the step from polytheism to
monotheism. Regarding this transition in a purely
academic way, it seems easy to pass from the idea of a
great sovereign deity such as Zeus, or such as the
great Sun-god of Egypt and other Eastern lands,
to the conception of one Supreme and only God. But,
strange to say, the transition has not often been
men rose
tain. It is true that in the higher developments
of Greek thought, men rose to the belief in a
uopoň uía of “many names.” It is true also that
in India philosophic theology was able to attain to
a similar elevation.
But such instances are clearly cases of special
insight. They are due to the spiritual capacity of
individuals, or of specially gifted classes or communi-
ties. Only in the religions which draw their inspira-
tion from Judaism did the monotheistic creed become
a really effective human possession. One notable
294 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
exception may perhaps be found in the Amida worship
of popular Buddhism in China and Japan. The ideas
of this creed are so close in many respects to those of
Christianity, that some well-informed writers regard it
as having arisen out of Buddhism under Christian
influence. This influence is supposed to have come
through Northern India in the early Christian cen-
turies.* Others hold that it is a spontaneous develop-
ment. Whichever account be correct, the existence
of this creed as a popular religion is as remarkable as
it is unique.
The truth is that monotheism is a difficult faith.
The history of Israel shows how hard was the struggle
by which it was maintained amongst that people who
were destined to become the means of its propagation
throughout the world. Only through the splendid
faith and zeal of the Hebrew prophets, and the terribly
severe discipline through which the Hebrew race passed,
was the great creed expressed by the words, “ Hear,
O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” fastened in
the national mind and heart. From Israel the mono-
theistic faith passed to Christianity and to Islam, and
so became the possession of the modern world. Yet
even in the modern world it is a difficult faith. For
our experience of life does not give the impression of
a single consistent Principle pervading and controlling
the whole. Man finds himself in a world which is,
apparently, full of inconsistent warring agencies and
principles. Life and death, good and evil, health and
disease, light and darkness, joy and sorrow, pleasure
and pain, success and disappointment, are mingled
together in endless confusion. To the mind of the
primitive animist all these seem to be due to the opera-
* See Arthur Lloyd, The Creed of Half Japan.
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
295
tion of a multitude of more or less discordant spiritual
powers. The pagan interpretation of life presents
itself as a perfectly obvious truth. All polytheistic
religions bear the mark of this way of dealing with the
facts and puzzles of life. In the Zoroastrian concep-
tion of two great principles, one good, the other evil,
the strife between which occasions all the confusions
of the world, this mode of thought reaches its culmina-
tion. Paganism is the natural religion of undisciplined
common sense. How can this world, with its contra-
dictions and inconsistencies, be the work of one great
and good God ? Far more obvious is the supposition
of a multitude of divine beings, great and small. So
common sense, when left to its own unaided mother-
wit, always decides. Monotheism is a victory of faith
over common sense. The term “faith "is here quite
appropriate. The principle at work might, however,
with almost equal suitability, be termed reason, or,
with Matthew Arnold, “imaginative reason.” It is
the principle which aims at unity, the tendency which
drives the thoughtful mind ever onwards towards
simplification. In the practical sphere, it is the regu-
lative principle which bases all effort on the implicit
supposition that the universe is ultimately trustworthy.
When thus regarded it may well be called faith-the
fundamental faith which underlies all thought and life.
The advance from pagan polytheism to monotheism is
therefore a great victory of faith.
When this advance has taken place, man enters on
a new era ; order takes the place of confusion, security
succeeds anarchy; the clouds scatter, the heavens
grow clear above human life. Here is the secret of
the power of Islam in relation to pagan peoples. It
undoubtedly comes to them with a great gift of moral
1
296 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
strength. It transforms the animistic African savage
into a Moslem warrior of formidable powers.
In a far higher way the Christian monotheism has
become a veritable charter of liberty to those primitive
animistic races who have received it. For them it
brings deliverance from a life overshadowed by the
terrors of a world of malignant spirits. When the one
supreme Almighty God takes the place of that horrible
spirit-world, there comes a new sense of security and
freedom. And when to this is added the Christian
belief in God's essential love, the triumph of faith is
complete. The testimony of missionaries and converts
to this liberation of the soul, through the substitution
of the Christian doctrine of the Fatherhood of the one
and only God for the old doctrine of demons, is over-
whelming. Here we see in actual operation that
principle of faith which we have already considered in
general terms.
Faith in this sense is, in truth, the very eye of the
soul in relation to religious experience. It deals with
causes of things, but as trust interpreting all that
happens in accordance with its own nature. It is the
conviction that, however difficult and uncertain the
mental trustworthiness at the centre of things. There-
fore, in all apparently fundamental contradictions, faith
holds to the belief that there must be a final recon-
ciliation. It is essentially a unifying principle. It is,
in fact, reason applied to the deeper problems—the
problems before which intelligence falls helpless. Faith
is a method of dealing with the great human ex-
periences.
When faith in God as the one supreme Almighty
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 297
Being, wise and good, has been attained, there follows
an inevitable reaction upon the whole view of human
life. The course of events cannot be regarded apart
from Him. His activity must be traced in experience,
and especially in the central current of the stream of
Moveme
problem? The answer is to be found in the records
of Christianity.
The manner in which the three great lines of develop-
ment in the ancient world meet in. Christ and in the
movement which sprang from Him has been frequently
and most impressively set forth. Jewish religion,
Greek thought, and Roman rule prepared the way for
the Gospel. Christianity inherited the faith of Israel,
absorbed the philosophy of Greece, and by the Roman
Empire every valley was exalted, and every mountain
and hill were brought low, the crooked was made
straight, and the rough places plain, so that all flesh
might see the salvation of God. If we can speak at
all of a main stream in human history, we must find
it here.
As to the facts of the life of Christ and the labours
of His immediate followers, modern criticism has been
very busy in the examination of them. The net result
is that the efforts which were made to reduce the
accounts of them to myth, or to separate the records
by a long interval from the epoch to which they refer,
have broken down. The New Testament has stood
the test of a thoroughgoing criticism in a manner
which may well excite wonder and confidence.
Here we take these things for granted, and are con-
TTY
12
mankind dealt with the facts. Again the principle
involved was that faith of which we have already
298 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
considered the nature. The character, words, works,
and death of Jesus presented a problem of amazing
difficulty. The simplicity, truth, and elevation of His
character; the penetrating quality of His teaching ;
the claims which He made for Himself; the influence
of His personality; the circumstances of His death;
the conviction of His Resurrection : these things pro-
duced a unique impression upon the minds of those
who experienced them, and through them upon the
world. How were they to be explained ? Only two
explanations were possible. Either Jesus, the best,
purest, holiest, most saving influence in human ex-
perience, was a self-deceived enthusiast, or He was
what He professed to be. Faith triumphed by putting
the highest possible interpretation upon His life and
death. Every other interpretation failed, and must
ever fail. The history of all heresies is the history of
the efforts to find some lower interpretation.
When we are dealing with God the highest inter-
pretation must always be the truest. For the highest
interpretation is that which involves the greatest
degree of unity and concreteness. If all the thoughts
of man about the power with which he finds himself
confronted in his experience, from the most primitive
demonism, or the barest materialism upwards, were
arranged in a series of grades, according to the degree
of unity and concreteness which they attained, it
would be found that the Christian Faith occupies the
highest position of all. It is the highest possible
interpretation of history. It attains the highest unity,
by means of its doctrines of Incarnation and of the
Trinity. It possesses the greatest concreteness, be-
cause, according to it, God takes up into Himself
the material, the spiritual, and the social, and that
ere
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 299
into an ultimate and absolute concrete Life which
is essentially One. Christianity regarded in this way
is found to be the complete victory of that funda-
mental faith on which our whole intellectual and
practical life is based. Encountering problem after
problem, faith moves ever onwards from step to step,
from victory to victory, until, grappling with the great
world-problem of the fact of Christ, it attains to the
one solution by which the ultimate trustworthiness of
things can be maintained, and by which a final unity
can be justified—the Christian interpretation of life.
As the Christian consciousness came to itself the
doctrine of our Lord's Person and the doctrine of His
atoning death took shape. These doctrines were but
the expression by the mind of the great experience
through which faith had passed. The only possible
way of escape from the great dilemma was to see,
in the life and death of the Just One, God Himself
undertaking to deal with the supreme problem of
human life, grappling with the forces of evil and over-
coming them for man's sake. When this point of view
was gained, all that our Lord had said as to His
mission, all the hints He had given as to the meaning
of His approaching death, the insight which He had
granted to His disciples into His own consciousness of
God and of Himself in relation to God and man, the
solemn leave-taking and institution of the Sacrament,
all these received a new illumination. Thus, by means
of the faith which trusts God so much that it dares to
put the highest possible interpretation upon its ex-
perience of His dealing, the greatest of all difficulties
was transformed into the greatest possible revelation
of Divine Love.
Having gained this position, faith was able to turn
300 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
back upon her old conception of God's unity and
discern a deeper meaning. God is Love, and Love
is the great unifier. And this is the character which
faith always attributes to God. The world is full
of discords, but faith rests assured that in God there
is, and must be, a greater harmony in which those
discords find their resolution. “Though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him." Faith sees God everywhere,
but especially in the problems and mysteries of life.
He stands “within all shadows,” and every difficulty,
when rightly dealt with, becomes a further revelation
of Him. Thus the Cross of Christ was transformed
from the most terrible of tragedies into the most
glorious manifestation of Divine Love. A new insight
was gained into the nature of God when faith came to
discern that “God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto Himself.” The very greatness of the difficulty
which was overcome contributed to the greatness of
the conception of Divine Love which emerged from the
overcoming of it, so that it became evident that, far
from the Crucifixion being a degradation of God, it was
the very sufferings of Christ which were in harmony
with the greatness of God. “It became Him, for whom
are all things, and through whom are all things, in
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author
of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”*
Faith, then, is trust in God as supreme Love, as the
great unifying principle which overcomes and harmon-
izes all the dreadful oppositions and discords which
confuse the world in which spiritual beings find their
experience. And the more perfectly this trust in God
is realized, the more fully does faith find itself in
possession of a creed in which is expressed the inter-
* Heb. ii. 10.
in
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
301
ilver's
pretation of the essential stages of human experience
in terms of Divine Love.
When we have reached this point we may usefully
consider somewhat more particularly, though very
briefly, the two great theological conceptions of the
Incarnation and the Trinity.
In his ordinary experience, man finds himself cut off
from the Supreme Power of the universe by barriers
which are apparently impassable. Though conscious
that God is the source of his life and nearer than aught
else, man is aware of a division and estrangement
which seem to create a hopeless separation. God is
Infinite, man is finite. Further, God is the source
of law, especially of moral law, and man becomes
conscious of this fact only to find himself a transgressor
of the law. Here is a great opposition between God
and man. But it is God's opportunity, and it is also
faith’s opportunity. Faith, laying hold upon the
greatest facts in history, finds the love of God most
an
the highest interpretation on the facts, rises to the
belief that, in Christ, God and man are inseparably
united. A deeper thought discovers in the Incarna-
tion, not merely man's union with God accomplished,
but that union revealed as the deepest truth of man's
spiritual being
It has not perhaps been sufficiently considered, in
view of modern scientific thought, that the Incarnation
is the necessary complement of monotheism. Poly-
theistic deities, as conceived by those who believe in
them, are in character, and, even in their relation to
the universe, not so far removed from man as to
prevent him feeling some degree of kinship with them.
But when men come to believe in one only and uni-
VC
302 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
versal Deity, God is necessarily conceived as a Being
immeasurably great. In character, and in His rela-
tion to the universe, He seems to recede from man-
to become vast, vague, and out of touch with human
things; and the greater the knowledge man possesses
of the extent of the universe, the greater will be the
change in this respect. The uneducated Moslem finds
it easy to think of God as a great superhuman despot
enthroned above the world. The cultivated Unitarian
Christian revelation had never taken place, and that
the Jewish monotheism had become the religion of the
modern world. Let us imagine that this doctrine had
endured in its pure form until modern science had
revealed the vast extent and duration of the physical
find it extremely difficult to believe that the Great
Spirit which rules and animates such a universe could
be mindful of creatures so small and short-lived as
ourselves ? Even as it is, this difficulty disturbs
multitudes. What would have been its effect apart
from the existence in the world of great organized
bodies of believers in the Incarnation? Theism in
its Unitarian form is a definite, clear-cut doctrine of
God. It is incompatible with any degree of Agnos-
ticism. God conceived as a solitary Supreme Person,
whether over against the universe as in the old Deism
or immanent in the universe in the fashion dear to
some modern idealists, does not correspond with the
demands of the mind which has entered into the great
scientific revelation of the physical and animate uni-
verse. The world is not a clearly outlined intelligible
whole. As we have seen, no theodicy, or reasoned
account of the Divine administration, is possible. If
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
303
00
it be argued that this is because of God's exceeding
greatness and the vastness of the universe, then its
meaning is that God is so far removed from us that
we have no right to claim kinship with Him, or to
imagine that our concerns are of any special moment
in His sight. The Incarnation, on the other hand,
solves the difficulty, and yet leaves room for that
ultimate Agnosticism which all modern investigation
forces upon our minds. This truth becomes more
evident when we pursue the problem to its final issue
in the doctrine of the Trinity. Deism professed to
know all about God. The Christian doctrine dares to
make certain great assertions, and then veils its face
in the presence of a mystery which it recognizes as too
great for human faculties to penetrate.
The most comprehensive result of the exercise of
that faith which grasps the trustworthy, or unifying,
nature of God is to be found in the doctrine of the
Trinity. To superficial thinking, the Christian doctrine
of the Son of God involves the great danger of the
possibility of a return to polytheism. Such a return
actually took place in Arianism. The Son is distinct
from the Father. It is possible so to regard the work
of the Son as to represent Him as in a manner opposed
to the Father. Even in modern teaching there has
existed a tendency in some quarters to represent the
Father as the personification of hard, unbending justice
and the Son as the personification of mercy. This
tendency goes so far that sometimes the Son is made
to appear as one who counteracts the work of the
Father. But faith must rise above all such distinctions
and oppositions and hold that God is one. It can
never let slip this final and absolute unity, for here
is the very foundation of all trustworthiness in the
304 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
universe. If the facts of the life of Christ and all the
circumstances of the Christian revelation teach us to
think of a distinction of persons in the Godhead, then
the only conclusion at which faith can arrive is that
“ these three are one."
Faith, then, is simply the soul trusting God in all
the difficulties of human life and experience. As these
difficulties have arisen one after another, and, in every
instance, the faithful soul has still trusted God, there
has come to light a theology. That theology is simply
the reaction of the mind upon the positions which faith
has been led to occupy in the course of religious ex-
perience. It is the product of the interaction of faith
and revelation, taking revelation in the widest sense
to include all those religious experiences of the human
race which culminated in the life, death, and resurrec-
tion of Christ. When regarded from the intellectual
side, faith is, as we have seen, in every case a unifying
principle.
It would not be reasonable to suppose that the work
of faith, in its dealing with religious experience, ceased
in the early centuries of our era. That work must be
always going on. In our time, for example, an enor-
mous mass of fresh material has been presented to the
religious consciousness. The scientific view of the
world, the labours of historical criticism, the accumu-
lations of students of comparative religion, the investi-
gations of psychology, the criticisms and constructions
of philosophy, the social problems of the day, the ex-
periences of Christian workers in their dealing with
races, civilizations, and systems of thought never before
brought into contact with Christianity-all these enter
into our religious experience and present fresh materials
and fresh problems. If they are to be successfully
1
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN 305
taken up into the continuous religious life of humanity,
it must be by a further exercise of that same method
of faith by which all previous revelations have been
apprehended; for the modern world, like all other
ages, presents to the religious consciousness its own
peculiar and characteristic revelation. What it conveys
to us depends on the quality and sincerity of our re-
ceptivity.
We saw that there is a close relation between faith
and reason. It is perhaps important to endeavour to
clarify our minds somewhat more perfectly as regards
this relation. Both faith and reason are unifying
principles. Both deal with the problems and opposi-
tions which come to light in the course of experience.
When we contrast the two it is perhaps better to
substitute the word "intelligence" for "reason." Intelli-
gence, then, is the faculty which, confronted with the
difficulties with which it endeavours to deal, seeks to
find some causal or logical nexus by which to establish
unity in place of diversity, or, as overcoming diversity.
Intelligence discovers the causes and relations of things
and events in the natural world. The problems with
which faith deals are of a different character. They
are the fundamental contradictions and oppositions of
human life. Intelligence has ever failed utterly in the
effort to grapple with these problems : God and His
relation to the world and to man, human will, the
mysteries of pain and evil. These and such as these
enter into man's practical life in a way which is uni-
versal and inevitable. Practically, they demand and
must receive some solution. And only by an effort of
faith has any solution ever been gained. And the
principle which guides the mind in all such cases is
this: the foundations of life must be trustworthy,
LU
20
306 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Faith is, in every instance, the application of that
principle. Only by this means can we come to terms
with the ultimate difficulties of our experience. And
the more perfectly this principle is applied, the more
complete will our solution be, the more of truth will it
contain. Our contention here is that the application
of this method to man's religious experience yields, as
its final result, the essential elements of Christian
theology.
Faith and reason, then, are in essence the same.
The difference resides in the mode of application. But
how are we to view the philosophical method which
has guided us all through our investigation? The
truth is we have followed Kant, using what he termed
his transcendental method, the argument from a fact
to its only possible explanation in other words, the
discovery of presuppositions. Kant applied his method
by setting out all conceivable solutions, and throwing
out one by one all those which were found to be im-
possible. That has been the method of all sound
philosophizing ever since. But a deeper examination
will show that this method is in principle the same as
that stated above. Its underlying assumption is the
essential trustworthiness of the foundations of ex-
perience. And it is interesting to note that the whole
process by which the Christian consciousness worked
out the fundamental Christian doctrines was nothing
more nor less than a practical application of Kant's
method. One by one special theories were put forward
to account for the facts of the Christian experience,
and one by one these theories were rejected as inade-
quate or excessive. Christian orthodoxy was the
residue. The conflict with heresy, carried on through
centuries, was an agelong process by which all possible
essa
HISTORY, NATURAL AND HUMAN
307
one after another. Orthodoxy survived as the only
possible explanation of the Christian experience.
The same process of sifting all possible theories
which the ingenuity of man can devise is still going
on. The critical method of philosophy is applied con-
tinually by the collective mind to the whole volume of
our experience, and, in the apparent confusion of
human thought and life, is being shaped the creed
which will guide and express the heart of generations
yet unborn. But there is no sign that this great
process is yielding any fuller or better theology than
that which arose out of the experience of the first
century. Christ is still Lord of the human soul
because He is the supreme revelation of God.
INDEX
ABSOLUTE, the, 76 f., 89, 90, 96, 98 ff., | Berkeley, further development of his
193, 194
thought, 63
value in morals, 175, 176, 215, 225, essence of his doctrine, 74
263
relation to T. H. Green, 75 f.
Abstraction, 3.8., 16, 20, 21, 35, 47, Bergson on, 86
51, 134, 248
charged with preaching illusion, 98
Acedia, 257
See also 88, 264
Activity of the mind, 18, 19, 52
Binet, 59
of the self, 118.ff.
Biology, 39
Adventure, Universe as an, 217
Bosanquet, 68
Æschylus, 266
Botany, 3
Agnosticism, 41, 171, 174, 277, 282, Bradley, F. H., on the self, 46, 47, 50
302, 303
on the Absolute, 89, 193, 194
Alexander, S., 69 ff.
Brain and mind, 23, 24, 44, 45, 59, 85,
Amida worship, 294
147, 159
Animal consciousness, 163 ff.
Browning, 165, 269
Animals, pain of, 164
Buddhism, 222, 224, 265, 294
Animism, 222, 283, 292, 296
Butler, Bishop, on our ignorance, 171,
Anselm, 252, 253
172, 282
Argon, 141
on testimony, 236
Arianism, 303
on the Love of God, 238, 239
Aristotle, 61
Arnold, Matthew, 266, 267, 268, 295 Calvinistic churches, 123
Artist, 4
Capacity, self-consciousness as, 52
Asceticism, 154, 241
Carr, Wildon, 147, 208
Associationism, 117
Causation, 58, 63, 117, 132
Atheism, 278
Character, 31, 129, 130, 136 ff.
Attention, 4.f., 16, 18, 37, 48, 118 Chinese funeral rites, 230
Augustine, St., 181..'
Christ on Resurrection, 228
on Fatherhood of God, 280
Bacon, 169
preparation for, 297
Balfour, A. J., 44, 84
Tife of, 298, 299
Beauty, 10, 83, 84
Cross of, 300
Bergson, criticism of Spencer, 14, 15
as Lord, 307
on spatial things, 21
Christian Science, 154
on interpenetration, 21.f.
Christianity and suffering, 169
on the understanding, 30, 41, 194, Cinematograph, illustration of, 65
Common good, 215
on life and logic, 41, 53
Compresence, 69 f.
on abstract ideas, 64, 65
Concrete thing, 3, 5, 30
on niind and matter, 85, 86
Concreteness of experience, 14, 16, 20,
on will, 119, 133, 135, 138, 139 28, 40, 54
on intuition, 135, 209, 250
Confucius, 265
on instinct, 163, 170, 207
Conscience, 284
on finalism, 2010., 217
Contemplation, 241
on vital impulse, 203, 206, 287 Continuity of experience, 7
Berkeley, his statement of the problem, Continuum, 7, 12, 15, 27, 43, 65, 118,
34,58
141, 223
bearing of modern psychology on Contrition, 258
his doctrine, 59
Conversion, 241, 246, 258
his place among philosophers, 61 | Creation, 285
!
CO
201
309
310 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
20
Oriticism, Biblical, 297
Cross of Ohrist, 300
Cruelty in nature, 152, 281
Darwin, 162, 187
Dead, Book of the, 222
Degrees of reality, 33.ff., 40, 105, 229
Deism, 290, 302, 303
Descartes, 61
Desire, 162
Determinism, 120 ff.
Dionysius, 248
Discipline of mystics, 241
Divine decrees, 121
purpose, 177
spark, 256, 260
Dreamless sleep, 156, 163
Duration, 119
God and the world, Berkeley on, 75 ft.
S
Egyptian funeral rites, 222, 279
Élan vital, 203, 206, 287
End, moral, 215, 225
Epicureanism, 154
Epigenesis, 133
Epiphenomenon, 15, 24, 43
Erigena, 61, 253
Eugenics, 123
Evangelical movement, 241
Evil, 90, 93, 114, 150, 174 .
Evolution, 112, 177, 187, 226, 285.f.
Experience, 1.1.
elements of, 1, 14
individual, 2
universal, 2
possibility of, 2, 13, 14, 62
continuum of, 7.ff., 13
concreteness of, 14, 16.ff., 20
Experience-tone, 52
External and internal, 8.1.
world, 56.ff.
Faculties, 17.ff.
Faith, 262, 296 ff., 303
Fate, 121, 123 .
Fatherhood of God, 194, 280, 296
Fechner, 90, 91
Feeling, 18
Feeling-tone, 31
Ferns, 3
Fichte, 66
Finalism, 2011.
Forces of Nature, 143
Foreknowledge of God, 122
Fox, George, 239
Fraser, O., 285
Freedom and necessity, 140.ff'.
of will, 93, 116 0.
Future, the, 199
life, 221 .
idealistic proof of, 74 f., 92, 96
all things in, 81
limitation of, 89 f., 180
and the self, 89, 97, 107
personality of, 96, 104, 106 f.,
193 f., 226.1.
and evil, 179, 191 ff.
as Father, 194, 280, 296
goodness of, 197
kingdom of, 216, 288 f.
as Love, 219, 228, 300
unity of, 219, 293 ff., 303
as All-inclusive, 251, 271
à priori proof of, 252.7'.
in history, 273.01.
proofs of, 276
Good, the, 215
Greek genius, 266, 279
religious ideas, higher, 266, 293
Green, T. H., on self-conscious subject,
45.7., 88
in relation to Berkeley, 75.1., 83
on the motive, 130
Hedonism, 162
Hegel on the thing-in-itself, 58
in relation to T. H. Green, 75
in relation to Dr. McTaggart, 115
on freedom and necessity, 140 ff.
on à priori proof of God, 252 ff.
Hegelianism, 44, 47, 64, 65, 177
Heraclitus, 223
Heredity, 123 f.
History, 273.0".
Hume, 58, 63
Hypnotism, 27
Ibsen, 123
Idealism, 11, 15, 34, 37, 44, 47, 61 .,
85, 176, 178
Ideas, 6 ff.
Illumination, 241
Immanence, 111.'.
Immortality, 221 A.
Impenetrability, 21, 110
Incarnation, 298, 301 ff.
Incubation, 270
Indeterminism, 128
Indian religion, 293
Individual, value of the, 192
Individuality, 100, 227
Inge, Dean, 236.ff.
Inner and outer, 249
Instinct, 163, 170, 207.j'.
Intellectual tendencies, 31
Intelligence, use of, in philosophy, 30,
41, 194, 201
Internal and external worlds, 8.ff.
Interpenetration, 21.ff., 35, 37, 54, 135
Intensity of feeling, 139
Intersubjective intercourse, 67
General notions, 3, 65
God and the world, 74 f., 88.4'.
INDEX
311
Intuition, 135, 209, 250, 251
Monotheism, 293 ff.
Inward Light, 240
Moral standard, 83
Irish philosophers, 61
life, 212
Islam, 294, 295
aim, 215
value, 225
James, William, on Green's philosophy, | Moslem view of God, 302
76
Motives, 29, 130 0.
on limitation of God, 89.f.
Mysticism, 108, 234 f.
on God and man, 108
Nature-, 268
on religious experience, 246
Mystics, discipline of, 241
on subconscious incubation, 269,
270
Natural selection, 163
Job, Book of, 155
theology, 283
John, St., on God as Love, 219
Nature, 144
Kant on problem of philosophy, 13
laws of, 3, 144 f.
on sensibility and understanding,
forces of, 144.03.
19
-mysticism, 268
on form and matter, 20
Necessity, 117, 120.4., 140.f.
on thing-in-itself, 58, 63
Negative way, 248, 254.4.
his method, 80, 306
Neptune, 140
on freedom of will, 135, 201
Nero, 129
on à priori proof of God, 252 t. Nietzsche, 188
on proofs of God, 276
Nirvana, 158, 222
See also pp. 61, 68, 76, 84
Notion, general, 3
Karma, 222
Kennedy, J. H., 84
Omar Khayyam, 154
Kingdom of God, 216, 288.4.
Omnipotence of God, 90.., 114
Knowledge, 18
Optimism, 166
Knowledge of a person, 137, 262 Orthodoxy, 306
Ovenden, Dean, 22
Leibnitz, 66, 05, 216
Life, problem of, 39, 116, 203
Paganism, 295
and logic, 41
Pain, problem of, 150.4.
future, 221 f.
as a danger-signal, 161, 168
Lloyd, Arthur, 294
a condition of progress, 161
Locke, 6, 10, 38, 51, 64, 75, 79
in the animal world, 163 f.
Logic and philosophy, 42
and moral values, 167
Paley, 238
Love, 217, 228 .
Pantheism, 44, 82, 110
God as, 219, 228, 300
Parallelism, psycho-physical, 24, 43,
Luther, 103
Paul, St., 230 f., 264, 271, 278
Penitence, 107
McDougall, Professor, 25, 44, 45, 57 Personal Idealism, 90
58, 63, 68, 79
Personality, 52.0., 990., 224
McTaggart, Dr., 66, 89, 90, 91, 95, Pessimism, 157 f.
114, 193
Physical illustrations, 7, 23.4'.
on free will and determinism, and psychical, 8, 24
128 ft
Mad dog, 126, 127
Pindar, 266
Maguire, Professor, 63
Plato, 61, 64, 183, 264, 288
Material world, 8.ff., 56.6., 784. Pleasure, 156 f.
Materialism, 15, 43, 174
Plotinus, 248
Mechanism, 39, 142, 198, 201
Pluralism, 65, 66, 90
Mendel, 124
Polytheism, 293
Metaphysics, 12, 14
Pragmatism, 90
Method of theology, 306
Prayer, 242, 244 f., 259, 260
Kant's, 80, 306
Prediction, 136, 140
Presence of God, 107, 242.4., 263
on mysticism, 234 .
Primary and secondary qualities, 10,
Mind and brain, 23, 44, 59, 85, 147, 159 | 38, 63, 79
312 GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Pringle-Pattison, 64
Progress, 203 ff.
Prophets, Hebrew, 294
Psychical and physical, 8, 24
Psychology, 7, 17, 25, 117
Psycho-physical parallelism, 24, 43, 44
Purpose, 22, 26, 200
Spencer H., 15, 111, 276, 278
Spinoza, 44
Spirit, 52, 85, 147
Struggle for existence, 162
Subconsciousness, 5, 25.1., 269
Subject and object, 33, 36, 45, 49.ff.
Substance, 223
Substantice secundae, 234
Sun-god, 293
Super-personal reality, 106, 109, 218, 271
Swordsman, 127
Synthetic activity of the mind, 37
Tennyson, 243, 268, 269
Tertiary qualities, 10
Theodicy, 302
Theology, Christian, 306
method of, 306
Thing-in-itself, 20, 58, 63
Things in space, 34, 36
Thread of consciousness, 23, 117
Threshold of consciousness, 7, 25
Time, 119
Tragedy, 121
Transcendence, 111.ff.
Trinity, the, 298, 303 ff.
Trustworthiness of Nature, 146
of God, 283, 296, 305
Quakers, 239 f.
Quality of feeling, 139
Qualities, primary and secondary, 10,
38, 63, 79
tertiary, 10
Rashdall, Dr., 89, 115
on limitation of God, 92 f.
Realism, modern, 57, 69 .
Reality, degrees of, 33.7., 40, 105, 229
of material world, 81, 98
Relations, 10, 19, 46
Religion, study of, 273 ff.
Religious experience, 107
Repentance, 242, 258
Republic, Plato's, 288
Resurrection, Christ on, 228
St. Paul on, 230 A'.
Revelation, 273 f., 292 f.
Rose, illustration of the, 10
Russell, Bertrand, 74
Sacrifice, law of, 169 f., 291
Sadducees, 228
Schopenhauer, 157
Science, 37.f., 144.1.
Scottish philosophers, 63, 79
Secondary qualities, 10, 38, 86
Self, 11, 45.4., 52, 101, 118, 211, 224
value for, 211
Self-consciousness, 490., 52
Selfishness, 210
Sensations, 10, 19, 59, 60
Shelley, 160
Simonides, 266
Sleep, dreamless, 156
Social relationship, 101, 215, 217
Solipsism, 57, 67, 101
Solvitur ambulanco, 41
Sophocles, 266
Soul, 45, 49.4., 52, 223, 224
of the world, 111
Space, 12, 34, 51, 78, 249, 250
Spark, Divine, 256, 260
Spatial illustrations, 7, 23. ff.
things, 11, 25, 51, 250
Unforeseeable, the, 212 f.
Unitarian theism, 302
Unity of experience, 1.f., 32, 54
of a thing, 11
of self, 45, 48
of God, 219, 293.1., 303
Utopia, 288
Value, 225, 226
Vedas, the, 234
Vegetable world, 164
Via negativa, 248, 254.ff.
Vital impulse, 203.6., 287
Wallace, Professor, 253
Ward, Professor J., 44, 67
on Epigenesis, 133
Wesleyan revival, 240
Will, 18, 20, 22, 120 1'., 257
universal, 148
Wordsworth, 267, 268, 269
Worlds, best of all possible, 96
Zeus, 293
Zoroastrian theology, 295
APR 1 &
1916
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND
Telegrams :
41 and 43 Maddox Street,
“Scholarly, Reg. London.”
Telephone :
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Bond Street, London, W.
September, 1915.
Mr. Edward Arnold's
AUTUMN
ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1915.
WITH OUR ARMY IN FLANDERS,
1915.
By G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS.
Demy 8vo. Illustrated. 128. 6. net.
The author of this timely volume is one of the few accredited
special correspondents with British Headquarters in France.
He has already made his name in the literature of the Great
War by his magnificent account of the battle of Neuve Chapelle,
published in the newspapers shortly after the battle. Since then
Mr. Williams has had ample opportunities of seeing things for
himself, and he may be trusted to have made the best use of his
chances. The narrative will be brought up to the latest possible
date consistent with the appearance of the book early in the
autumn, and will contain the author's vivid impressions of the
from General Headquarters right up to the firing-line.
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE .
NEW FOREST.
By the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES.
With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 128. 6d. net.
It is safe to say that never before has a book been written
about the New Forest by a writer with such qualifications for the
task as the author of this interesting work. Brought up in the
atmosphere of large estates, he was appointed to an official post
in the New Forest at a comparatively early age, and has spent
d
i ri,
; .'.:
Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.
the best years of a long life there. The whole series of its records
has been at his disposal, and engaged as he has been for over
thirty years in administering its resources, promoting its welfare,
and composing the rival claims of its inhabitants, he has gradually
acquired an unequalled knowledge of its history, forestry, sport,
and politics. Its politics he has left severely alone, but on all
other topics he enlarges with the affectionate zeal of a true lover
of the woods. Much entertaining and curious information about
forest customs and hunting lore in bygone times will be found in
the volume; the vicissitudes of the famous King's House at
Lyndhurst are traced, and the entertainment it provided for the
royal visitors. The successive steps taken in regard to the
magnificent timber of the forest, the deer, the game, and
the privileges of its inhabitants, are vividly described, and the
results of modern sport are contrasted with those of earlier days.
The author is equally at home in the hunting field or the game
covert, and as a modern devotee of hawking knows few rivals.
He has already made his mark in literature by his contributions
to the Badminton volume on Falconry and to the Victoria
County History of Hampshire.
A SURGEON IN KHAKI.
By A. A. MARTIN, M.D., F.R.C.S. ENG.
With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 108. 6d. net.
Dr. Martin is a New Zealander, who served as a surgeon in
the South African War, and last summer he made a professional
tour of some well-known British and American clinics. When
the war broke out he was attending the British Medical Associa-
tion meetings at Aberdeen. He at once came to London, and
offered his services to the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was
given a temporary commission in that body. After a short time
at Aldershot he was transferred to the base of the British
Expeditionary Force in France. From there he moved to the
front, arriving on the scene of actual fighting just at the moment
when the great retreat had reached its furthest point, and the
Dr. Martin was attached to one of the Field Ambulances, and did
and afterwards in Flanders.
Although it is written by a surgeon, and contains one or two
chapters on the professional side of the campaign, this book is
essentially one for the general reader. It is written in a fresh,
free style that is becoming noticeable as a characteristic of
writers from the Antipodes; and as the author does not scorn
to give the small details of how he fared from day to day, the
reader gets a more vivid idea of the events as they struck the
individual on the spot than has hitherto been given.
Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements. 3
REMINISCENCES OF JOHN ADYE
CURRAN, K.C.
With Portrait. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
A fund of good stories seems inseparable from a career at the
Irish Bar, and when their possessor elects to place them on record
for the benefit of the public, the reader may look forward to a
treat. The earlier portion of the book deals with the author's
career at the Irish Bar, in the course of which we get illuminating
sketches of many of the great Judges and Advocates who have so
nobly sustained its fame. The pièce de vésistance of these remin-
iscences is, however, the detailed and most interesting account of
the unravelling of the Phoenix Park Conspiracy, and the steps by
which the ringleaders were brought to justice. This episode
exhibits him as a strong and fearless man equipped with a fund
of shrewd common sense and the enviable power of guessing
correctly at the line events had taken. Later on Mr. Curran was
engaged in the very arduous work of stamping out agrarian crime
from a disturbed district in which he again showed a remarkable
combination of courage and tact in dealing with a problem
bristling with difficulties.
THIRTY YEARS A REFEREE.
By EUGENE CORRI.
One Volume. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
These Reminiscences differ from any other in the present
generation, as they are written by one who is thoroughly con-
versant with the inner scenes of the boxing world. In view of
the position held by the noble art in popular esteem just now, a
book such as this, which gives a good first-hand account of the
notabilities and conditions prevailing, will be heartily welcomed.
Mr. Corri considers that boxing-viewed as a great national
sport—was never in a healthier state than it is to-day, and that
a great change has taken place since thirty years ago, when the
heavy gambling element was rather too much in evidence. Of
the actual exponents of the art his opinion is equally encouraging.
He says: “If a fellow has a genuine love of boxing, it is long
odds that he is a white man at bottom, for there is something in
boxing that shames the little shabby meannesses out of a man."
This means a good deal, for Mr. Corri is a shrewd observer, and
has the knack of hitting off the characteristics of the different
boxers' personalities, nor does he hesitate to criticize at times.
There are some rattling good descriptions of fights in the book,
notable among them being those between Frank Slavin and
Peter Jackson, Fred Welsh and Willie Ritchie, and the dramatic
contests associated with the name of Carpentier.
WEI
.
4. Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Anilouncements.
NIETZSCHE AND THE IDEALS OF
MODERN GERMANY.
By HERBERT LESLIE STEWART, M.A., D.PH.,
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY, HALIFAX, Nova SCOTIA; FORMERLY
JOHN LOCKE SCHOLAR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; LATE JUNIOR
FELLOW IN THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.
AUTHOR OF " QUESTIONS OF THE DAY IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY,"
One Volume, Demy 8vo. Cloth. 78. od. net.
This volume is confined to those aspects of Nietzsche's work
which throw light upon the social policy and ideals of Germany
as revealed in the present war. It is an effort to assist those
who wish to correlate the moral outlook of Germany with one
personal influence by which, beyond doubt, it has been in part
directed; and for those who believe that Nietzsche, properly
understood, has been a force making for cosmopolitan peace, the
author sets forth in detail the grounds upon which he believes
the opposite. One key to the enigma of Germany is to be found
in a sinister aberration of thought on ethical questions, especially
on the issues of international conduct. Nietzsche was one
representative of this phase of thought : that he “made the war"
would be a grotesque overstatement; but that he enforced with
singular effectiveness just those doctrines of immoralism which
Prussia has put into execution this book endeavours to show.
He is taken, not as the originator of a policy, but as typical of a
mood which has had fearful consequences for mankind.
MODERN ESSAYS
REPRINTED FROM LEADING ARTICLES IN "THE TIMES."
With an Introduction by Dr. J. W. MACKAIL, F.R.S.L.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. 5s. net.
This volume contains a selection from the charming series of
Essays which have formed such a prominent feature among the
Leading Articles in The Times during the last year or two.
They present admirable examples of modern English style, and
deal with themes, round which the thought of all ages of literature
has sparkled, in the spirit of the twentieth century. Inimitable
as are the Essays of Bacon, Addison or Steele, it cannot be denied
that the lapse of time has inevitably drawn a line between the
intellectual atmosphere in which those famous authors moved,
and the current of modern thought. The same problems are with
us to-day, but their appeal to us is made under new conditions ;
these Essays respond to an ever-present need for the wisdom of
ages, but arrayed in the guise of 1915.
Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.
THE CAPTURE OF DE WET.
By P. J. SAMPSON.
With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
The rebellion in South Africa is one of the very few chapters
in the history of the war which are already completed. It is
a story in itself, somewhat apart from the main current of events,
and even, curiously enough, from the story of the conquest of
German South-West Africa to which it formed a preliminary. To
people in England reading of it at the time in disconnected frag-
ments in the newspapers, the whole thing was not only distress-
ing but perplexing and unintelligible. It is well that they should
be given a consecutive narrative of it, in its true perspective, by
one who was on the spot, and familiar with the strangely diverse
currents of feeling that animate the heterogeneous population of
South Africa. The tale of the fighting-brisk, and full of move-
ment-forms a striking contrast to the trench warfare of Western
Europe, but it is the psychological rather than the military interest
which predominates throughout the book. The protagonists re-
veal themselves with extraordinary vividness : on the one side are
the "slim" Germanized Beyers, and Christian de Wet, fanatical
and irreconcilable to the last, a pitiful, tragic figure : on the other
Botha plays the fine part with which we are already familiar; but
probably few of us have realized, as this book enables us to realize,
all that we owe to the hard-headed efficiency and clear-sighted
sense of honour of General Smuts.
FROTH AND BUBBLE.
By MONTY HARBORD.
Illustrated. 10s. 6d. net.
“ Froth and Bubble" is the light-hearted and breezy record of
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fine horseman, and fond of outdoor life, and went to Canada to look
for experiences and adventures in the wild and woolly West. He
encountered some of the rubs which are the lot of the tenderfoot,
but was ready to take on any job that was going, and held his
own well in any company. We next encounter him in Rhodesia,
where he arrived just in time to take an active part in the Mata-
bele Campaign. He remained in South Africa till the outbreak
of the war. Such a man was sure to do his share, and a bit
more, and Mr. Harbord's modest narrative of his doings with the
Imperial Light Horse well deserves to be preserved. Finally he
found his way to British East Africa, and-need we say ?-did
some big-game shooting.
6
VO
Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.
GOD AND FREEDOM IN HUMAN
EXPERIENCE.
A Study of Degrees of tReality.
CONTAINING THE DONNELLAN LECTURES FOR THE YEAR 1913-14, DELIVERED
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN.
By the Right Rev. CHARLES F. D'ARCY, D.D.,
BISHOP OF Down.
One Volume. 8vo. 1os. 6d. net.
The principle of Degrees of Reality has been coming to light
more and more clearly in many recent developments of
philosophical thought. The purpose of this work is to exhibit the
principle in its relation to ordinary and scientific experience, and
to apply the results so obtained to some of the fundamental
problems of Theology.
10
8vo. 1os.
more principle of Desire
HUMAN IMMORTALITY AND
PRE-EXISTENCE.
By Dr. J. ELLIS MÓTAGGART,
Fellow of TrinITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. 25. 6d. net.
At the request of many friends, Dr. M‘Taggart has reprinted
the interesting chapters on Human Immortality and Pre-Existence
from his well-known work “Some Dogmas of Religion," in order
to bring them within the reach of those readers who found the
expense of the larger book a bar to its purchase. The author is
in the present day, and the subject of this little volume is of such
vital importance that his carefully-thought-out propositions cannot
fail to be of great interest.
A SURGEON IN BELGIUM.
LATE SURGEON-IN-CHIEF OF THE BELGIAN Field HOSPITAL.
Popular Edition, Paper Cover, 28. net. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net.
" This is one of the most impressive books that the war has yet produced ;
it should be read by everyone who wants to regard the struggle in its true
perspective.”—Daily Telegraph.
“An excellently written book.”—Pall Mall Gazette.
"Admirably written and readable from beginning to end."-Morning Post.
"Mr. Souttar is a surgeon with a gift for vivid writing. His book is a quite
fascinating record of his experience."-Daily News.
" Among the multitude of books on the war this must surely hold a foremost
place.”—Westminster Gazette.
Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.
STORIES FROM
" THE EARTHLY PARADISE.”
By WILLIAM MORRIS.
Retold in Prose by C. S. EVANS.
Illustrated, Crown 8vo. 6s.
It is through our natural love of a story that we are led to
appreciate the highest and best in literature. This is Mr. Evans's
justification for his collection of stories from William Morris's
most characteristic work, just as it was Charles Lamb's for his
famous tales from Shakespeare. Morris based most of his
poems upon legends well known in other versions—some of the
world's best stories indeed—and it is hoped that the book will be
read with interest for the stories themselves, and that it may also
serve as an introduction to the work of the poet. With the latter
object in view, Mr. Evans has reproduced, as far as possible, the
poet's own imagery, and has not been dismayed by the fact that,
in the change from poetry to prose, that imagery may seem
sometimes disproportionate and high-flown.
The stories included are “ Atalanta's Race," " The Son of
Cresus," " The Man Born to be King," " The Love of Alcestis,"
“ The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon," " The
Man Who Never Laughed Again,” « The Proud King," " The
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with his schooldays and follows him through the years of early
manhood and of marriage, the picture being presented largely
through his relations with three women, each of whom reflects
the principal character from a different point of view. The study
of middle-class life, in its aspects of alternate comedy and tragedy,
is painted on a broader canvas than the author has hitherto
employed, but the central theme is followed closely, for from the
first the hero is confronted by a spiritual reality which, while
perpetually eluding him, seems ever about to come within his
grasp. And in the last chapters it is this which gives a meaning
to all that has gone before, so that we leave him, if not at the end
of his journey, at least with the open door within sight, and the
8. Mr. Edward Arnold's Autumn Announcements.
HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND.
By SETON GORDON,
Author of "THE CHARM OF THE HILLS," ETC.
With numerous full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 125, 6d. net.
Mr. Gordon is recognized as one of the highest authorities on
the birds of the hills; and he has made a life-study of them and
their ways. He has spent all hours of the day and night at all
seasons of the year watching the habits of these mountain birds.
In his new book the author discusses exhaustively the habits of
the Ptarmigan; he was the first person to obtain photographs of
this bird in the Scottish hills. Much information is also given
about the Golden Eagle, its eggs and young; its food, nesting
haunts, and habits. There is an exhaustive account of the Snow
Bunting, a bird which only nests on the highest and most inacces-
sible hills, close on 4,000 feet high. Mr. Gordon was the first
ornithologist to photograph this bird in its British nesting haunts.
A great deal of the information given in this book is quite new and
original. It is illustrated with numerous photographs of the birds
and their nests and nesting sites dealt with in the book; all these
have been taken by the author himself, mostly on the wildest
moors of the Highlands.
POULTRY HUSBANDRY.
By EDWARD BROWN, F.L.S.,
LATE HON. SEC. NATIONAL POULTRY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY ; PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF POULTRY INSTRUCTORS AND INVESTIGATORS.
AUTHOR OF “Races of Domestic Poultry,” “ Poultry FATTENING," ETC.
Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 8s: 6d. net.
Twenty-four years ago (1891) the first edition of “Poultry-
Keeping as an Industry for Farmers and Cottagers," by Mr.
Edward Brown, F.L.S., whose labours for development of this
branch of rural industrialism are recognized all over the civilized
world, was published. That book has contributed greatly to the
adoption of practical and scientific methods scarcely known
previously. It has passed through eight editions, and been
adopted as a textbook at educational centres in many countries.
Author and publisher now feel that the time has arrived for a
year, therefore, the former has been engaged upon an entirely
new work, in which has been brought into one focus from his
former works what is applicable to modern conditions, together
with the result of practical experience, and research work of later
years, dealing with the entire problem-productive, technical, and
commercial. In it will be found a vast amount of new material,
and special attention has been given to future developments,
whether on extensive or intensive lines.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W -
TYY

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專
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​|
看看​,
看了看​。
WWEI
11