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SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF THEISM 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE LITERATURE 
 OF THEISM 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTORY AND 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED CALDECOTT 
 
 M.A.(LONDij, D.D.fCAMB.) 
 PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 EXAMINER IN HISTORICAL THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 AND 
 
 H. R. MACKINTOSH 
 
 M.A., D.PHIL. (EDIN.) 
 
 MINISTER OF BEECHGROVE UNITED FREE CHURCH, ABERDEEN J 
 TRANSLATOR OF RITSCHL ON " JUSTIFICATION AND RECONCILIATION '' 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 
 1904 
 
J> -3-3 
 
 C 3 
 
 Printed by 
 MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, 
 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND co. LIMITED. 
 
 NBW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNKR'S SONS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SELECTION- PAGE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 I. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: ANSELM . (A. C.) 1 
 
 II. SOME POINTS IN SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY : 
 
 FROM THOMAS AQUINAS . . . (A. C.) 10 
 
 III. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: DESCARTES . (A. C.) 40 
 
 IV. GOD AS INFINITE SUBSTANCE: SPINOZA . (A. C.) 76 
 V. MYSTICISM: THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS . (A. C.) 114 
 
 VI. GOD AS ETERNAL MIND: BERKELEY . . (A. C.) 141 
 
 ~~II. RELIGION IN THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY: 
 
 KANT (H. R. M.) 179 
 
 "-VIII. ROMANTICISM: SCHLEIERMACHER . (H. R. M.) 256 
 
 IX. GOD SEEN IN THE BEAUTIFUL: COUSIN . (A. C.) 305 
 
 X. RELIGION AS SOCIOLOGY: COMTE . . (A. C.) 316 
 
 XI. AGNOSTICISM: MANSEL . . . (H. R. M.) 360 
 
 XII. THE PERSONALITY OF GOD: LOTZE . (H. R. M.) 368 
 
 "XIII. ETHICAL THEISM : MARTINEAU . . (H. R. M.) 386 
 
 - XIV. THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: JANET . (A. C.) 408 
 
 XV. RELIGION AS JUDGMENTS OF WORTH : 
 
 RITSCHL (H. R. M.) 448 
 
 INDEX . 465 
 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS volume has been prepared with the aim of bringing 
 together within a small compass some of the leading positions 
 in the philosophy of religion. It is agreed on all hands, in 
 our day, that no one, except here and there an original 
 genius, can expect to be in line with i twentieth -century 
 thought who dispenses himself from reference to the positions 
 held by great minds. It is by training his mind in their 
 high thoughts that he can expect to win power and insight 
 for himself. Such training may be extended indefinitely, 
 and the vastness of the field tends, no doubt, to discourage 
 many from ever entering upon it they attain to belief, or 
 disbelief, on authority, or by reference to some single influence 
 with which they have been brought into contact, quite 
 casually perhaps. But in the range of religious arguments 
 there are some which are of cardinal importance, and among 
 the men who have given to the world their meditations there 
 are some who are acclaimed as masters. The volume contains 
 a selection of such principal arguments, and our only doubt 
 as to its value lies in the possibility that our choice, 
 restricted for space as it is, may not have been the best that 
 could have been made. 
 
 We have also in view the increasing number of University 
 students for whom this study is prescribed, or who choose 
 it for themselves. The nineteenth century saw a with- 
 drawal of the philosophical treatment of religion from the 
 
 vii 
 
viii Preface 
 
 curricula of British Universities and Theological Colleges 
 partial in Scotland and some Nonconformist Colleges in 
 England, complete in the English Universities and the 
 Theological Colleges of the Church of England. The cause 
 lay, no doubt, in the tacit acceptance of a truce between the 
 Theological and the Philosophical Faculties in face of a 
 supposed conflict. But this is now changing fast. In June 
 1903 the University of Cambridge admitted Philosophy of 
 Religion as a subject (optional) in the advanced stage of 
 study for Theological Honours. The reorganised University 
 of London placed it at the outset as a regular subject for 
 the new Divinity degree. Further recognition in Theological 
 training is sure to come, and then it will remain only that 
 the Philosophical Faculties admit it on their side. At lec- 
 tures students will be constantly referred to certain great 
 thinkers and certain great arguments, and it will not be 
 possible for many of them to own all the books referred to by 
 their lecturers. This volume is offered as a first collection, 
 which may serve them in their preliminary stage. 
 
 For both the general reader and the University student 
 the collection is designed on the ground that it is necessary 
 for them to read standard writings at first-hand. No ponder- 
 ing over abstracts however accurate, or over compendious 
 summaries however judicious, can dispense with resort to 
 the originals. This is desirable for many studies, but it is 
 indispensable in a subject touching life in so many points as 
 is done by religious belief. The form of presentation cannot 
 be sundered from the subject-matter. We have every con- 
 fidence that few who thus come into contact with arguments 
 in their original forms will regard this volume as other than 
 an introduction to the literature, to be followed up as 
 opportunity allows and taste directs. 
 
 The Selections might have been left to speak for them- 
 selves, but it seemed that introductory and explanatory 
 notes, with references for further reading, would be of 
 
Preface ix 
 
 service. Both editors have looked over these notes, but each 
 is responsible only for those accompanying the Selections to 
 which his name is attached (see Table of Contents). 
 
 As we have referred to first-hand study, we have almost 
 to make apology for placing so many translations on our brief 
 list. But this is not, in our judgment, to depart from that 
 aim ; in a faithful translation an English student is closer 
 to the mind of thinkers who wrote in Latin or German than 
 he would be if he were struggling to follow them in languages 
 which he himself thinks in only with effort and hesitation. 
 We have to express our cordial thanks for permission to print 
 our texts from the following standard translations : Des- 
 cartes, to the widow of the late Professor Veitch of Glasgow 
 (Messrs. Blackwood); Kant, by the late Professor Meikle- 
 john (Bonn's Library, Messrs. Bell & Sons) ; to Dr. Abbott 
 (Messrs. Longman) ; to Dr. Bernard, Dean of St. Patrick's 
 (Messrs. Macmillan) ; Schleiermac/ier, to the Eev. John 
 Oman, B.D. (Messrs. Kegan, Paul & Co.) ; Comte, to Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison (Messrs. Longman) ; Lotze, to Miss E. E. 
 C. Jones, Mistress of Girton College (the present publishers) ; 
 Janet, by the Rev. William Affleck, B.D. (the present pub- 
 lishers). New translations are made for Anselm and Thomas 
 Aquinas (with many suggestions from the Rev. W. O. 
 Sutcliffe, Principal of St. Edmund's House, Cambridge), and 
 for Spinoza and Cousin, by the Editor ; for Ritschl we use 
 the translation of the Editor, as already published in the 
 Justification and Reconciliation (the present publishers). We 
 desire also to thank Professor Eraser for permission to use 
 his text of Berkeley, the Clarendon Press for this text and 
 that of Martineau, the Cambridge University Press for that 
 of John Smith, and Mr. John Murray for that of Mansel. 
 
 A. C. 
 
 H. R. M. 
 
 25th March 1904. 
 
NOTE 
 
 IT is due to the memory of a promising Scholar to say 
 that this collection was first planned by me in association 
 with the late William Johnston, B.D., of Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, Professor at Cheshunt College. In the week in 
 which we were settling down to the work Johnston was 
 thrown from his bicycle in Theobald's Park, and died within 
 twenty-four hours, at the age of thirty-eight years. We lost 
 in him one who had pondered over theological and philo- 
 sophical problems from his boyhood, and from whom much 
 was to be expected in his maturity. My colleague joins me 
 in inscribing to his memory this recognition of his connexion 
 with this volume. 
 
 A. C. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 WHAT is the Philosophy of Religion 1 We take it to be the 
 application of ultimate principles of thought to the religious 
 experiences of mankind. To suppose that there is only one 
 philosophy of religion is, therefore, to suppose (1) that there 
 is only one system of ultimate principles, and that it is 
 known ; and (2) that religious experiences are capable of 
 being brought into a coherent whole, and are not incongruous 
 and irreconcilable. No doubt most writers make both these 
 assumptions ; but they do so by the simple method of taking 
 their own principles to be the only system, and the religious 
 experiences they are aware of to be the only religious 
 experiences. But so long as the literature of philosophy 
 teems with varying systems, and the literature of religion 
 with varying religious experiences, it is obvious that we are 
 not in possession of a single philosophy of religion. 
 
 In presenting a selection of views it is not supposed that 
 the reader will be seeking a single one for exclusive adoption. 
 No one is likely now to become a Cartesian or a Berkeleian 
 pure and simple. And at the present day, when the greatest 
 of modern attempts to construct such an absolute philosophy, 
 that of Hegel, has few whole-hearted supporters, if any, and 
 the leaders who have succeeded him fall into several groups 
 or schools, it is plainly indispensable that we should study 
 and compare all the most worthy presentments which are 
 offered to us. By means of such a comparison a way may be 
 
 xi 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 won, not to some exclusive selection, nor to a merely casual 
 eclecticism, but at least in the direction of the unifying 
 principles which philosophy is ever seeking. It is as a first 
 aid for such study that the following selections have been 
 made. 
 
 In looking back, accordingly, over some six centuries of 
 European religious philosophy, we invite the reader to adopt 
 the view that he will always be in contact with living thought. 
 There are, indeed, some thoughts which served their day, and 
 have perished ; they failed to affect the stream, and left no 
 contribution to the common stock. But there are others 
 which touched the issues in a living way, and brought into 
 evidence some vital factor. They were expressed in an 
 investiture of temporary forms, no doubt, yet there was in 
 them an imperishable substance. It is these which we have 
 intended to select, of course j we take each answer to express 
 something vital in reference to some primary problem, and 
 we believe that in pondering over them material will be 
 gained which is indispensable, even now, for the construction 
 of a system which is to be comprehensive. In each case, 
 certain philosophical principles were in operation, and certain 
 religious experiences in view. If space had allowed, it would 
 have been the business of editors to bring these forward. 
 But what could not be done fully we have endeavoured to do 
 in a modest way by our Notes. For further study resort 
 must be made to the standard editions of the authors, and we 
 have suggested a few books to which a first resort might be 
 made for elucidation or criticism. 
 
 We have not been able to cover the whole ground of 
 religion as concerned with God, the Soul, and the World. In 
 selecting, we have chosen the primary topic, the Existence 
 and Nature of God, for the principal part of our space. We 
 have not accepted the invitation of the Psychological School 
 now rising into some prominence, especially in France and 
 America, to take the believer's mind as the primary object of 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 investigation in religion. To do so would be to misrepresent 
 the course of the history, and to presume that that course 
 had been misguided. But this has not prevented us from 
 including some selections in which it is the nature of 
 religious belief rather than its object which is the problem 
 dealt with. 
 
 When we look at our list we confess to some searching of 
 heart at the absence from it of anything to represent either 
 Leibnitz or Hegel. The prominent recognition of Force and 
 Activity in Nature and Mind by Leibnitz, as compared with 
 Descartes, Spinoza, and Berkeley, and the claim for con- 
 structiveness in Transcendental method made by Hegel, as 
 compared with Kant, render these omissions very serious. 
 We must, however, content ourselves with the pleas, that in 
 the case of Hegel we could discover no suitable selection ; 
 that in both cases the state of opinion as to the significance of 
 their systems on the Theistic side is unsettled ; and, further, 
 that both of them can be studied to greater profit after such 
 preliminary discipline as is offered in the selections we have 
 chosen. 
 
 A final word to the reader who makes his first acquaintance 
 with the diversity of judgments upon the doctrine of God, as 
 set in the clear daylight by men of the highest mental and 
 spiritual faculties who agreed in sincerely regarding it as the 
 supreme task of their life to explain it. We would ask him 
 by no means to feel depressed, and disposed to abandon his 
 pursuit of the ideal of philosophical inquiry that there is for 
 religion, as for all else, one universe, one ultimate type of 
 human soul, and one God over all and in all. Bather, let it 
 brace him to take his share in the common task, which is, 
 to bring these varying thoughts into inherent reconciliation 
 with all the highest visions of reason, and with all the noblest 
 sentiments of the soul. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE LITERATURE 
 OF THEISM 
 
 THE ONTOLOGICAL AEGUMENT. 
 
 ANSELM (1033-1109). 
 
 ANSELM, a native of Italy who died Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, can be regarded as the first great Schoolman, if we take 
 Johannes Scotus (Erigena) as a ninth-century pioneer, and 
 allow for Anselm being more Platonist than his successors. 
 During his cloister days at Bee, in Normandy, Anselm, at 
 the request of some of the Brethren, wrote out a meditation 
 on the Essence of the Divine Nature, known as the Mono- 
 logium. In this he set forth the necessity for there being 
 something which is best and greatest and highest of all 
 things, and independent of all things save itself. Reviewing 
 the Monologium, some time afterwards, he was dissatisfied 
 with the fact that the proof seemed to be too elaborate, too 
 much a complex construction of arguments; and, further, 
 that in it the Divine Being was considered only in relation 
 to the created world. He wondered whether or not some 
 argument could be found which should be at the same time 
 simple and self - sufficient. After long deliberation and 
 frequent inclinations to abandon the search, one day, quodam 
 die, when weary with the effort, in the midst of his mental 
 disquiet, the very object he was beginning to despair of 
 presented itself, se obtulit quod desperaveram. This new 
 
2 The Ontological Argument 
 
 thought he at once wrote down, and presently he gave it in a 
 finished form in the Proslogium, or Allocution on the Exist- 
 ence of God. From this brief narrative it is plain that, 
 whatever affinity there may be between Anselm's proof and 
 an earlier form of the same thought given by Augustine, 
 with Anselm it is independent; and his formulation has a 
 distinctive character which has won for it a place of its own 
 in the history of Theism, not unworthy of standing on the 
 threshold of the second thousand years of Christian thought. 
 Remembering that Anselm's mood is fides qucerens intellec- 
 tum (his own expression), we should not duly appreciate his 
 attitude if we wholly omitted the excitatio mentis ad con- 
 templandum Deum with which he opens. The following are 
 the closing aspirations : 
 
 Lord, teach me to seek Thee, and show Thyself to me as I 
 seek, for I cannot seek Thee unless Thou teach me, nor find 
 Thee unless Thou show Thyself. May I seek Thee in 
 longing for Thee, and long for Thee in seeking ; may I find 
 Thee in loving Thee, and love Thee in finding. I confess, 
 Lord, and I offer Thee thanks, that Thou hast created in me 
 this Thy image in order that I may remember Thee, and 
 think on Thee, and love Thee. But this image of Thee is so 
 worn by the pressure of my faults, and obscured by the 
 fume of my sins, that it cannot accomplish its purpose 
 unless Thou renew it and reshape it. Lord, I strive not to 
 penetrate Thy lofty nature, for in no way do I compare my 
 understanding with it; but I desire in some degree to 
 understand Thy truth, believed and loved already in my 
 heart. For, indeed, I do not seek to understand in order 
 that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may under- 
 stand. For this also I believe, namely, that unless I believe 
 I shall not understand. 
 
 Proslogium, c. ii. That God really exists ; although 
 the Foolish man said in his heart, " Tliere is no God." 
 
 Therefore, Lord, Thou who givest understanding to faith, 
 grant to me that as far as Thou knowest it to be expedient 
 
Anselm 3 
 
 I may understand that Thou art, as we believe, and that 
 Thou art what we believe Thee to be. Our belief is this 
 Thou art a Being than which no greater can be conceived, 
 quo nihil majus cogitari potest. 1 Is there, indeed, no such 
 nature because the Foolish man hath said in his heart, There 
 is no God 1 (Vulgate, Ps. xiii. ver. 1 ; A.V., xiv. ver. 1). But 
 certainly that very man, when hearing the term, understands 
 what he hears ; what he understands is in his understanding, 
 even though he does not go on to understand that such 
 a Being exists. For' there is a difference between having a 
 thing in the understanding and understanding that the thing 
 is in existence. When, for example, a painter prepares in his 
 mind what he is about to produce, he has the conception in 
 his understanding, but he understands that what he has not 
 yet produced is not yet in existence. When, however, he 
 has painted his picture, he both has it in his understand- 
 ing, and also understands that the thing which he has now 
 produced is in existence. Even the Foolish man, therefore, 
 is convinced that something than which no greater can be 
 conceived is in his understanding, because when he hears 
 this he understands it, and whatever is understood is in the 
 understanding. 
 
 Now certainly that than which no greater can be conceived 
 cannot be in the understanding alone, for if it were only in 
 the understanding it could then be further conceived to be 
 also in reality, which would be a greater thing. 2 Therefore, 
 
 1 Anselm's word cogitare is translated "conceived," "thought," 
 "thought of"; the word "imagine" being less appropriate to the 
 intellectual character of the operation in this connexion. Intelligere 
 is translated by "understand." 
 
 2 In majus Anselm includes melius. In c. ii. of the Monologium he 
 says, " I do not mean greatness in space, like a body, but greatness in 
 goodness and worth, like wisdom." So that what he means is that a 
 thing which is both in our thought and also in reality is a better 
 thing, a thing of more value, than if it were in our thought only : a 
 picture painted has worth beyond that of a composition which remains 
 
4 The Ontoloyical Argument 
 
 if that than which no greater can be conceived were only in 
 the understanding, there would be something still greater 
 than it, which assuredly is impossible. Something, therefore, 
 without doubt, exists than which no greater can be conceived, 
 and it is both in the understanding and in reality. 3 
 
 c. iii. That God cannot be thought non-existent. 
 
 And certainly this greatest possible exists so truly that it 
 cannot be thought not to exist. For we can think that there 
 is something which cannot be thought of as non-existent, 
 and so is superior to anything that can be so thought of. So 
 that if that than which no greater can be conceived can be 
 thought of as non-existent, it must at the same time be the 
 highest object of thought and not the highest which is an 
 inconsistency. Therefore, there so truly is something than 
 which no greater can be thought, that it cannot be thought 
 of as non-existent. And this Thou art, O Lord our God. 
 
 So truly art Thou, O Lord my God, that Thou canst not 
 be conceived not to be. And rightly so ; for if any mind 
 could frame the conception of something superior to Thee, 
 the creature would be transcending the Creator, and pass- 
 ing judgment upon Him; which is most absurd. And, 
 indeed, all else that exists can be thought of as non-existent, 
 
 only in the artist's imagination ; a moderately well-governed city is 
 of higher value than a perfect Utopia. There is advantage in re- 
 reading the whole argument with the word "better" or "superior " 
 instead of "greater." 
 
 3 This is the pivot for Anselm. An image of a picture may be only 
 mental ; this is inferior to a picture which has been produced, and 
 therefore has existence both in imagination and in reality. But 
 Anselm's new thought lies rooted in the view that has occurred to 
 him, that the inferior and limited status cannot be attributed to 
 ultimate Perfection ; of that there cannot be a conception limited to 
 pure mentality ; it is indispensable for the supremacy of the concep- 
 tion, that we attribute the supreme status, existence both in the mind 
 and also in reality. 
 
Anselm 5 
 
 save Thee alone. Thou, therefore, alone, most truly of all 
 things, and therefore most of all things, hast existence. 
 For whatever other thing exists, exists less truly, and there- 
 fore it has less of existence, than Thou hast. 
 
 But if this is a demonstrable necessity, how can it be 
 possible for even the Foolish man to deny the existence of 
 God 1 Anselm finds that the denial is not real, but verbal ; 
 the thought of God cannot be misapprehended and rejected, 
 but the ivord may be used without the thought, or to signify 
 some other thought. The conclusion is 
 
 Whoever understands that God so is (as above considered) 
 cannot think of Him as non-existent. I offer Thee thanks, 
 good Lord, I offer Thee thanks, for granting that what by 
 Thy gift I formerly believed I now by Thy illumination so 
 understand, that even if I were to be unwilling to believe 
 in Thy existence yet I could not but know it by my under- 
 standing. 4 
 
 In the next chapter Anselm briefly indicates that from 
 this necessary thought of God it follows that He is the 
 Source of all other existence, and of all goodness, and of all 
 happiness. 
 
 This new argument was at once made matter of keen 
 scrutiny in the monasteries and schools. It was immediately 
 challenged in a brief Liber pro Insipiente adversus Anselmi 
 in Proslogio ratiocinationem, by Gaunilo, of the Monastery 
 of Marmoutier, near Tours. Gaunilo disallows the explana- 
 tion of Atheism by reference to verbal misuse, and holds 
 that either the understanding is fallible and may fail to 
 prove the existence of God or else there is no necessary 
 proof of God at all ; he disallows also the analogy between 
 the relation of a picture unpainted to the picture painted 
 and the relation between the quo majus nihil in concep- 
 tion and in reality. To the main argument, that the 
 highest possible excellence will not be there unless exist- 
 ence is included, Gaunilo objects that he cannot admit 
 
 4 Anselm is so confident in the cogency of his argument that he is 
 prepared now to defend Theism on intellectual grounds alone, apart 
 from the prior operation of faith. 
 
6 The Ontological Argument 
 
 any inference from an object of thought to an object of 
 reality ; unless you prove, he says, that your best possible is 
 the best possible thing among existing things, you have 
 proved nothing. You cannot transfer from the region of 
 thought to that of existence. Then he produces his famous 
 illustration 
 
 Some say that there is somewhere in the Ocean an Island 
 which, as it is difficult, or rather impossible, to discover what 
 does not exist, is known as the Lost Island. It is fabled to 
 be more amply supplied with riches and all delights in 
 immense abundance than the Fortunate Islands themselves. 
 And although there is no owner or inhabitant, yet in every 
 way it excels all inhabited lands in the abundance of things 
 which might be appropriated as wealth. Now, let anyone 
 tell me this, and I shall easily understand all that he says. 
 But if he then proceeds to infer : " You can no longer doubt 
 that this most excellent of islands, which you do not doubt to 
 exist in your understanding, is really in existence somewhere, 
 because it is more excellent to be in reality than in the 
 understanding only, and unless it were in existence any other 
 land which does exist would be more excellent than it, and so 
 that which you have understood to be the best of islands would 
 not be the best," if, I say, he wishes in this way to compel me 
 to assent to the existence of this island, and to suppose that 
 there can be no more doubt about it, either I shall consider 
 that he is in jest, or I shall know not which I ought to 
 consider the more foolish, myself if I grant it to him, or him 
 if he thinks that he has, with any certainty at all, proved the 
 existence of that island. He must first have shown me that 
 its very excellence is the excellence of a thing really and 
 indubitably existing, and not in any degree the excellence of 
 a something false or dubious in my understanding. 5 
 
 5 Dr. J. H. Stirling says (Gifford Lectures, x.) that in his under- 
 graduate days he had illustrated the objection he then felt to 
 Anselm's argument by reference to Milton's Garden of Eden and 
 
Anselm 7 
 
 Gaunilo closes with a cordial tribute to the value of the 
 rest of the Proslogium, intimating that the very point in 
 dispute is rightly aimed at, though the argument is weak, 
 recte quideni sensa sed minus firm/liter argumentata,. 
 
 Anselm did not fail to take up the challenge in a brief 
 Liber apologeticus contra Gaunilonem. The pith of the 
 reply is 
 
 (In c. i.) . . . If that than which nothing greater can be 
 conceived can at all be conceived to exist, then it must exist 
 of necessity. For it cannot be conceived as existing except 
 without any beginning ; but that which can be conceived to 
 exist, but does not exist, can be thought to have a beginning 
 of existence. It is not possible, therefore, that the quo majtts 
 nihil could be thought to be, and yet actually not be. If, 
 therefore, it can at all be conceived as existing, it must exist 
 of necessity. 
 
 (In c. iii.) (As to the Island) I confidently say that if any- 
 one has found for me something existing either in reality, or 
 in thought alone, to which he is able to apply my argument, 
 besides the quo majus nihil, I will both find for him that 
 lost island, and I will give it to him and secure him against 
 its ever being lost again. We see clearly now, that the quo 
 majus nihil cannot be thought non-existent, because it exists 
 on an assured ground of truth, otherwise it would not exist 
 at all. Finally, if anyone says that he thinks that it does not 
 exist, I say that at the very moment when he is thinking this, 
 either he is thinking of something than which a greater cannot 
 be conceived, or he is not thinking of it. If he is not 
 thinking of it, he is not thinking that that does not exist 
 of which he is not really thinking at all. But if he is thinking 
 of it, assuredly he is thinking of something which cannot be 
 thought not to be. For if it could be thought non-existent, 
 
 Thomson's Castle of Indolence, without having heard of Gaunilo's 
 Island. In his later development he accepted, with reservations, 
 Anselm's argument in its principle. 
 
8 The Ontological Argument 
 
 it could be thought to have a beginning and an end ; but this 
 is impossible. He, therefore, who really thinks of it, is 
 thinking of something which cannot even be thought of as 
 non-existent. But he who is thinking of this, does not think 
 that it is non-existent, otherwise he would be thinking what 
 cannot be thought. It is impossible, therefore, to think of 
 the non-existence of that than which nothing greater can be 
 conceived. 
 
 It will be observed that Anselm declines to start, as 
 Gaunilo invites him to do, among objects which are con- 
 tingent, and have beginnings and endings. He had done 
 this in the Monologium, where he had followed the upward 
 path from contingencies to necessary Being. But he had 
 been unsatisfied with this, and it is his new discovery that he 
 can go direct to necessary Being. The new position is, then, 
 that the perfect is also existing, and necessarily so ; if you 
 are thinking of perfect Being, you are thinking of necessarily 
 existing Being ; and from this you may proceed downwards to 
 all other existences. 
 
 The reader is sure to have a mixed impression from this 
 argumentation. He feels that there is set a clear opposition 
 between two things, and yet that a unity is aimed at. 
 Thought and existence are set apart, but the right of passing 
 from one to the other is claimed. He will therefore not be 
 surprised to find that for five hundred years not a single 
 cordial and whole-hearted welcome was accorded to this 
 method of Theistic proof by any thinker, in the front rank at 
 least, although the impressiveness of its aim was such that it 
 never passed out of view. By Descartes it was again placed 
 in the front, whether spontaneously or by revival of Anselm's 
 endeavour is uncertain. After Descartes it received pro- 
 minent notice, usually to be rejected, sometimes to be treated 
 with a deference which remained otiose (see Caldecott, Philo- 
 sophy of Religion, pp. 28, 139). But Wolf, who had great 
 influence over academic philosophy and theology in Germany, 
 incorporated it with the cosmological and teleological argu- 
 ments into the " Three Proof System " which Kant found in 
 vogue. Kant (see Selection VII.) severely criticised it, but 
 discerned its intention, and acknowledged that in the Three 
 Proof System it was indispensable, and was indeed the 
 
Anselm 9 
 
 keystone. Hegel set in clear light the distinction between 
 the aim and the form of the argument "the content was 
 right, but the form defective " ; if Anselm and Descartes 
 were trying to pass from thought to existence, they were 
 open to hostile assault : but for Hegel the true position was 
 that in God, in the Infinite or the Absolute, this opposition is 
 transcended by unity ; and it is this which is the true ultimate, 
 and this at which Anselm and Descartes were aiming, and he 
 praised them for bringing into clear consciousness this highest 
 of oppositions, and trying to unite them. This view is 
 endorsed by the modern Spiritualist school in France. The 
 distinction between aim and method of proof must be kept in 
 view in considering any judgment passed upon the Ontological 
 argument, e.g., in passing from Ueberweg's summary con- 
 demnation to Erdmann's approval. Lotze's characteristic atti- 
 tude is manifested in his replacing the attempt at logical proof 
 by reference to the immediate certainty of " living feeling," to 
 the inner experiences which declare it to be " intolerable " to 
 believe that our ideal perfection is "an idea produced by the 
 action of thought, but without existence, power, or validity in 
 the sphere of reality" (Microcosmus, ix. c. iv.). Dr. E. 
 Caird's estimate (Journal of Theological Studies, vol. i. No. 1) 
 amounts to a pronouncement that Anselm's thought is in its 
 essence on a line with that of Platonism, the Christian 
 doctrine of the Logos, and Hegelianism, a line of summit 
 peaks indeed. 
 
 References. Our translation is from Gerberon's Paris edition of 
 1721, compared with Migne's revised text. Expositions and criticisms 
 of Anselm's argument are given in nearly all histories of philosophy 
 and of Theism. The Religion of Science Library, Chicago (Kegan 
 Paul, London), vol. 54 (1903), contains in a cheap form translations 
 of the Monologium, Proslogium, Gaunilo's Attack, and Anselm's Reply, 
 by S. F. Deane, with the Cur Deus Homo. For a study of the 
 character and life, see Dean Church's St. Anselm (3rd ed. 1873), and 
 Mr. Welch's Anselm and his Work (with a lucid account of the 
 Argument), in the present publishers' "Epoch-Makers' " series. 
 
II. 
 
 SOME POINTS IN SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. 
 
 FKOM THOMAS AQUINAS (1227-1274). 
 
 MODERN philosophy of Religion has characters of its own, 
 but no one living in the atmosphere of the twentieth century 
 is likely to suppose that it started ex vacuo with the Renais- 
 sance. The leaders of the new philosophies Bacon, Des- 
 cartes, Spinoza, Locke do, indeed, make protestations of 
 being adventurers on untried lines, and seem to have worked 
 under an exaggerated estimate of the novelty of their pro- 
 cedure. But the lines on which they had been nurtured soon 
 became evident in various strands which run through the 
 fabric of their thinking ; even on the philosophical side we 
 can look back for origins. If this is so for the innovators in 
 philosophy, it is obvious that for the Reformers in Church 
 doctrine and Church order, absorbed as they were in these 
 problems, the results of previous philosophy of religion 
 would continue to suffice ; and it did so, until the stress of 
 conflict as to doctrine and organisation was relaxed, and 
 leisure began to be found by Churchmen for taking account 
 of what was being said in philosophy. So that for theo- 
 logians, both Romanist and Protestant, the mediaeval results 
 of religious philosophy ran on for some time without important 
 modification, and in the new field of philosophical specula- 
 tion these results continued to have important influence. 
 Far from regarding Scholasticism as a by-path, we take it to 
 be on the main line of European thought, and some direct 
 acquaintance with it not to be foregone by the student in 
 search of first-hand knowledge all round. 
 
 From amongst the Schoolmen there need be no hesitation, 
 apart from the interesting Anselmic speculation, in selecting 
 the system of Thomas Aquinas. A superficial reason for 
 
 10 
 
Thomas Aquinas 11 
 
 doing this is obvious in the fact that it was the system 
 which had found its way to official recognition by the Roman 
 See before Western Christendom became divided, and it was 
 therefore dominant in the Schools and Universities in which 
 both the Reformers and the new philosophers were educated. 
 But there is no good ground for regarding this recognition 
 as due to any other source than a straightforward and 
 honest interpretation on the part of the Curia of Rome. The 
 theory of both Conciliar and Papal decisions need not be 
 gainsaid, namely, that they did not create doctrine, but 
 formulated what competent men were thinking ; they were 
 not dictating to the Christian community, but exhibiting to it 
 its own mind. In selecting the system of Aquinas, both for 
 exposition of Christian dogmas and for philosophy of religion, 
 the official recognition may be taken to signify that his was 
 the method which the Christian community of Western 
 Europe found most congenial. It was the most comprehen- 
 sive of them all ; more elements entered into it ; it appro- 
 priated previous thought from more sides than any other 
 did. There was the central line of its Peripatetic Aristotel- 
 ianism, but there were also Platonic features derived from 
 Augustine, and even Neo-Platonic features from Dionysius. 
 And also for its central factor, its Aristotelianism, a claim 
 can fairly be made when we look back over the course of 
 the centuries between the Athenian Schools and the rise of 
 modern speculation, that it presented the most readily 
 appreciated intellectual instrument for general employment, 
 within the sphere of Latin Christianity at least. Hence, 
 although we might usefully set out typical passages from 
 Duns Scotus to illustrate Theism based philosophically on 
 the Will, or from Bonaventura for a Mystical Philosophy, or 
 from William of Ockham for Scepticism as to Reason and 
 withdrawal of religion within the confines of positive Revela- 
 tion, we offer as the most useful for historical study some 
 select points from the system of Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Thomas was an Italian, but he does not in any special 
 sense represent Italy. The great Orders knew no national 
 limits, and Thomas was a Dominican. He passed from the 
 School of Naples to those of Cologne and Paris, and his 
 most influential teacher was a German, Albertus Magnus, 
 who had himself studied at Padua and Bologna. From 
 Albertus, whom some competent judges regard as the master 
 
12 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 in more than a psedagogic sense, Thomas learned to use 
 Aristotle, chiefly in the Physics and Metaphysics; and he 
 acquiesced in allowing to the great Greek the title of " the 
 Philosopher," par excellence. Thomas wrote commentaries on 
 Scripture, and various monographs, and then his systematic 
 intellect was concentrated on the presentation of a single 
 system of Theology and Philosophy; this appeared in two 
 forms (i.) De Veritate Fidei Catholicce contra Gentiles (1261- 
 64) (usually referred to as the Summa contra Gentiles) ; and 
 (ii.) the great Summa Theologica, which he did not live to 
 finish. 
 
 The topics on which selections are given are (i.) Reason 
 and Faith ; (ii.) Canons of Predication in reference to God ; 
 (iii.) the Demonstration of the Existence of God ; (iv.) Per- 
 sonality of God ; and (v.) Evil, in relation to God. 
 
 1. REASON AND FAITH. 
 (From Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. i. c. iii.) 
 
 IN THOSE THINGS WHICH WE ASSERT OF GOD, THE 
 WAY OF TRUTH is TWOFOLD.* 
 
 Since all ways in w r hich truth is manifested are not 
 identical, but "it belongs to the man of learning to 
 endeavour to secure faith in each case only in so far as the 
 nature of the case admits," as the Philosopher has well said 
 
 1 The iirst recognition of a twofold way of truth for religion, as 
 either Natural or Revealed, of which the later Mediaeval Schools made 
 so much use, cannot be traced ; but it so obviously expresses the 
 situation in which Christian thinkers found themselves that we feel 
 that it was inevitable that the distinction should be brought to the 
 front when it was. Albertus, as the first who had to grapple with the 
 metaphysical works of Aristotle unaccommodated to Christian use, 
 was perhaps the first to see clearly that some Christian doctrines must 
 be withdrawn from Aristotle's range and placed in a sphere of their 
 own. The same situation had, however, already become clear to the 
 Jewish Aristotelian, Maimonides (d. 1204), whom it is known that 
 Albertus studied ; and also to the Arabian philosophers, especially to 
 Averroes (d. 1198), who had to deal with the not very congruent subjects 
 
Thomas Aquinas 13 
 
 (Ethica, i. c. 2), 2 and as Boetius also brings before us 
 (De Trin. c. 2), 3 our first need is to show which way is 
 applicable to the manifestation of the truth we are dealing with. 
 In those things which we assert of God, the way of truth 
 is twofold. For there are things true of God which surpass 
 every faculty of human reason that He is three (trinus) and 
 one, for example. But there are others which are within 
 the scope of natural reason, such as, that He exists, that He 
 is one, and others of that kind ; these have been demonstra- 
 tively proved by philosophers, following the light of natural 
 reason. It is quite clear that among the things which can 
 be known about God some wholly exceed the grasp of human 
 reason. 4 The first principle of the whole of the knowledge 
 
 of Aristotelianism and Islam. It may here be noted that in thinking 
 of Revealed Religion the Schoolmen had in view both Islam and the 
 Greco-Roman religion, and that within that sphere they had to dis- 
 tinguish Christianity from these : in most of them the distinction 
 adopted was simply that between true and false claimants to the title. 
 Of. Jastrow, Study of Religion, and Illingworth, Reason and Revelation. 
 It is frequently supposed that when Faith and Reason come into 
 conflict, Aquinas, whether purposively or not, invariably imposed 
 sacrifices upon Reason alone. This cannot be proved : for there are 
 important points on which theologians feel that the sacrifice was im- 
 posed upon theology. And in cases where both could run together, it 
 can be shown that Reason had the leading part. 
 
 2 The Philosopher. The unqualified appropriation of the term to 
 Aristotle is a mark of the character of what this School understood 
 by philosophy or reason in the main. 
 
 3 Boetius or Boethius (470-525), a Neo-Platonist himself, became by 
 means of his translations of the Logical writings the best-known 
 medium of Aristotle before direct access to his other works was recovered. 
 
 4 The doctrines which Aquinas passed over to the region of Faith 
 were those of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and Redemption, Sin, 
 the Resurrection of the flesh (he held from Plato the natural im- 
 mortality of the soul, and tried to read it into Aristotle), the last 
 Judgment, the Church and its Sacraments. Duns Scotus added the 
 Beginning of the World and the Immortality of the Soul ; William of 
 Ockham carried over the whole of Theism, and, indeed, Ethics as well. 
 
14 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 which reason gains concerning anything is the understanding 
 of the substance of that thing, because, as the Philosopher 
 teaches, a demonstration should begin with ivhat a thing is ; 
 it is necessary, therefore, that the measure of understanding 
 the substance of a thing, should be the measure of all that 
 is known about that thing. Wherefore, if human intelligence 
 grasps the substance of a thing, say, of a stone or a triangle, 
 nothing which can be understood about that thing will be 
 beyond the scope of human reason. But this is certainly 
 not our case in the things concerning the Deity. For 
 human intelligence cannot by its natural strength achieve 
 the apprehension of His substance, because in our intelligence, 
 according to the manner of our present life, cognition begins 
 with data of the senses. Those things, therefore, which do 
 not fall within the range of the senses cannot be appre- 
 hended by human intelligence, except in so far as cognition 
 of them is gathered from the data of our senses. 5 But 
 things of sense cannot lead our intelligence to the point of 
 seeing in them what the Divine Substance really is (quid sit\ 
 since they are effects which only inadequately manifest their 
 cause. Our intelligence, however, is led from things of sense 
 into Divine knowledge, to the extent of knowing that God is 
 (quia est\ and other things of that kind, such as are rightly 
 attributed to the first principle of all things. There are therefore 
 
 5 The dependence of human intellect on sense-knowledge was not 
 waiting for Hobbes and Locke to proclaim it ; what they did was to 
 assert it against an exaggerated Intellectualism, and, in Hobbes' case 
 at any rate, to carry it forward to a similar exaggeration. In so doing 
 they were repeating what the degenerate Peripatetics had done before 
 them. It is this modified reference of our knowledge to the humble 
 materials of our sense-experiences which determines Aquinas upon his 
 opposition to metaphysical Ontologism and his claim for a region of 
 Faith. But Aquinas held that it was only materials which the 
 senses supply : they are only passive ; the intellect is active, and by 
 that activity perceives these sense-data, forms them into images, and 
 finally constructs from them universal notions. 
 
Thomas Aquinas 15 
 
 some things knowable about God which are open to human 
 reason, but there are others which wholly surpass its power. 
 
 Further, the same result is apparent when we consider the 
 gradations of things intelligible. For of two men, of whom 
 one has intelligence capable of perceiving things more sub- 
 tilely than the other can do, the one whose intelligence is more 
 lofty understands many things which the other cannot in 
 any way grasp. A rustic, for example, can in no way grasp 
 the refined points of philosophy. Again, the intelligence of 
 an angel excels the intelligence of man more than the 
 intelligence of the best of philosophers excels that of the 
 least uneducated person; for the latter difference lies 
 within the range of the human race, whereas angelic intelli- 
 gence lies altogether beyond it. An angel, indeed, knows 
 God from the consideration of effects of a nobler order than 
 those open to man, by so much as the substance of the angel, 
 by which he is led to know God by natural knowledge, is 
 superior to the things of sense, and even to the soul itself, 
 which form the means by which human intelligence attains 
 to the knowledge of God. And the Divine intelligence 
 surpasses that of angels even more than the angelic intelli- 
 gence surpasses that of man. For the Divine intelligence 
 by its capacity is adequate to the Divine substance, and 
 therefore God understands perfectly what He is Himself, and 
 knows everything which can be understood about Himself. 
 But an angel cannot know what God is, by natural know- 
 ledge, because his own substance, by which he is led to such 
 knowledge, is an effect inferior to the power which has 
 brought him into being. Therefore it is not everything 
 which God understands of Himself that an angel can grasp 
 by natural knowledge, nor can human reason suffice to 
 apprehend everything which lies within the scope of the 
 natural knowledge of an angel. As therefore it would be 
 a sign of the greatest madness for an uneducated man to 
 assert those things to be false which are put forward by the 
 
16 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 Philosopher, simply because he himself cannot grasp them ; so, 
 and much more, would a man be at the height of folly to sus- 
 pect as false the things revealed by the ministration of angels, 
 simply because they cannot be fathomed by human reason. 6 
 
 Further, the same conclusion follows from the deficiency 
 we daily find in our way of knowing things. We are 
 ignorant of most of the properties of the things of sense, and 
 cannot find a complete reason, in most cases, for the 
 properties we have ascertained. Much more, therefore, is 
 reason an inadequate instrument of inquiry into that most 
 excellent substance which surpasses all objects intelligible to 
 man. The saying of the Philosopher endorses this when he 
 asserts that " our intelligence is related to the highest 
 among beings which are most manifest in nature, as the eye 
 of the bat is related to the sun " (Met. n. i.). 7 
 
 Holy Scripture brings its testimony to this truth. For it 
 says, " Can you, forsooth, comprehend the traces of God and 
 discover the omnipotent to perfection *? " (Job ii. 7) ; and, 
 " Behold, God is great, overcoming our knowledge " (xxxvi. 
 26) ; and " We know in part " (1 Cor. xiii. 9). 8 We must 
 
 6 Here it may be supposed that we have some of the vain specula- 
 tions which have caused prejudice against Scholastic writings ; a few 
 words may be of service. Aquinas in his treatment of Angelology 
 resorts as much to Dionysius as in his Physics to Aristotle. But it 
 is no idle part that these speculations play in the thought of Aquinas, 
 and he ought not to be condemned by those who adopt Evolution as a 
 comprehensive conception. For he held to development in the sphere 
 of mind, and indeed, in a subtle way of his own, even as between 
 matter and mind ; and it was natural that he should at times speculate 
 on what might be conceived to be the modes of mental life in beings 
 of a higher grade than that of the human race. 
 
 7 This is another reason for believing in beings endowed with intel- 
 lectual faculty, arising from our own confinement to sense-given data. 
 
 8 The method of the Contra Gentiles of clenching the argument with 
 Scriptural confirmation by means of single texts, detached and un- 
 criticised, shows that this method was no invention of post-Reforma- 
 tion preachers, as is sometimes supposed. 
 
f ^ or THE ' \ 
 
 { UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 \ 
 
 .: , - 
 
 Thomas Aquinas 17 
 
 not, therefore, with the Manicheans and some infidels, reject 
 as false everything which is spoken of God, although it 
 cannot be fathomed by our reason. 
 
 In chap. iv. Aquinas gives some considerations for the need 
 for religious truths, even of the demonstrable order, being 
 accessible to ordinary men otherwise than by study and 
 reflection ; and in chap. vii. he explains his position that the 
 truths obtained by Reason are not contrary to those offered 
 to Faith by Christian Revelation (in opposition to the Arabic 
 admission that contrariety was possible between truth of 
 reason and truth of faith). 
 
 (Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. I. c. vii.) 
 
 THAT THE TRUTH OF REASON is NOT OPPOSED TO THE 
 TRUTH OP THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 
 
 Although the truth of the Christian Faith surpasses the 
 capacity of human reason, yet those things which reason has in- 
 herently in possession cannot be contrary to the Christian truth. 
 
 For those things which are naturally inherent in reason are 
 most true, in so much that they cannot even be supposed 
 false ; nor, on the other hand, is it right to suppose false what 
 we hold by faith on the strength of Divine confirmation. It 
 is only the false which is contrary to the true, as is obvious 
 when we consider their definitions : it is, therefore, impossible 
 for a truth of the faith to be contrary to those principles which 
 reason knows by nature. 
 
 Also, anything which passes into a learner's mind from a 
 teacher is contained within the knowledge of that teacher, 
 unless he is teaching fictions which it is impious to suppose 
 of God. Now the knowledge of principles naturally known 
 by us has been divinely implanted, for God Himself is the 
 Author of our nature. Therefore those principles are in- 
 cluded within Divine Wisdom. Anything which is contrary 
 to such principles must therefore be contrary to Divine 
 Wisdom, and cannot be from God. Therefore the things which 
 
18 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 we hold through faith, by Divine revelation, cannot be con- 
 trary to natural knowledge. 
 
 Further, if reasons oppose one another, our intelligence is 
 fettered, and cannot move on to the knowledge of truth. 
 Should opposing cognitions be sent to us by God, our intelli- 
 gence would be hindered from obtaining knowledge of the 
 truth : this could not proceed from God. 
 
 Still further, things which are natural cannot be changed 
 so long as nature remains. But contrary opinions cannot at 
 the same time be in the same mind. Therefore, no opinion or 
 faith is sent by God against natural knowledge. And there- 
 fore the Apostle says, " The word is near thee, in thy heart 
 and in thy mouth ; that is, the word of faith which we 
 preach " (Rom. x. 8). But because faith surpasses reason it 
 is taken by some to be contrary to it, which it cannot be. 
 The authority of Augustine endorses this, who in the second 
 book of his Super Genesim ad literam (c. xviii.) says, 
 " What truth makes clear can in no way be contrary to the 
 sacred books either of the Old Testament or the New." 
 
 From which it is plainly gathered that whatever argu- 
 ments are set against the documents of the Faith cannot 
 issue from first principles planted in our nature and known of 
 themselves. They cannot have the force of demonstration 
 either, but are either probabilities only or sophistries, and so 
 are susceptible of explanation. 
 
 In chap. viii. he adds a commendation of the employment 
 of Reason by the religious mind. In the sphere of natural 
 knowledge we shall find, he says, vestigia, similitiLdines ; it is 
 itself a beneficial exercise for our mind; and it is also a 
 source of great delight what we may note as a testimony to 
 the happiness experienced in the pursuit of knowledge by one 
 of the greatest intellects of our race. Here, too, we may 
 again notice his resolute adoption of order and system ; for 
 him, Natural Knowledge cannot be disconnected from Re- 
 vealed; it can be employed as material to which Revealed 
 truths give form. 
 
Thomas Aquinas 19 
 
 2. THE KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE 
 THINGS. 
 
 Passing from the distinction between things of Faith and 
 things of Reason or Knowledge, Aquinas proceeds to formu- 
 late distinctions within the region of Knowledge. In this he 
 maintains his general allegiance to the Peripatetic principle 
 that all " knowledge " is through things of Sense, and not 
 absolute; but he applies it to the theological problem on 
 the lines of a remarkable book of the fifth century which 
 specially deals with theological knowledge, the De Divinis 
 Nominibus, ascribed, with manifest inappropriateness, to 
 Dionysius the Areopagite, of Acts xvii. 34. The work is a 
 fifth - century production reflecting Neo - Platonism : with 
 the other writings of the same unknown author it was a 
 favourite with Mystics of the Middle Ages ; and Aquinas had 
 derived some modifying influence from it upon his own 
 mainly Peripatetic mode of thought. 
 
 (Summa contra Gentiles, Bk. I. c. xxx.) 
 WHAT NAMES MAY BE PREDICATED OF GOD. 
 
 We can consider what may be said of God, and what may 
 not be said; and of the former class, what may be said of 
 Him alone, and what of Him and other things also. 9 
 
 For since it is possible to find in God every perfection 
 of the creature, but in another and more excellent manner, 
 whatever names denote perfection absolutely and without 
 defect are predicated of God and of other things also, such 
 as goodness, wisdom, being, and others of that kind. But 
 whatever names denote perfection in a manner peculiar to 
 
 9 The threefold division is important : non dicenda de Deo, such as 
 courage, which implies liability to danger and the overcoming of 
 fear ; dicenda de Deo solo, e.g. self-existence, eternity ; and dicenda 
 de Deo et de aliis rebus, e.g. (1) such qualities as wisdom, which is 
 attributable to both man and God though in different degrees ; and 
 (2) such as are predicable of Him only after the way of analogy or 
 metaphor, e.g. hearing, sitting upon His throne. 
 
20 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 created things cannot be said of God, except by way of 
 metaphor and similitude, according to which predicates true 
 of one thing are usually adapted to some other thing; as 
 when a man is called a stone, on account of the hardness 
 of his intellect. Of this class are all names imposed for 
 the purpose of designating a species of created being, as 
 man and stone; for to each species there is due its own 
 mode of perfection and being. Similarly also, whatever 
 names designate the properties of things such as are caused 
 by the principles proper to their species can only be spoken 
 of God by metaphor. But names which express perfections 
 of this kind in a more excellent manner, by which they are 
 appropriate to God, are spoken of God alone; such as the 
 summum bonum, the first Being, and others of that kind. 
 I say, further, that some of these names imply perfection 
 without defect so far as concerns that which the name was 
 intended to signify; but, so far as concerns the mode of 
 signification, every name is defective, for by a name we express 
 a thing in the way in which we grasp it by our intelligence. 
 . . . Names of this kind can therefore, as Dionysius (De 
 Divinis Nominibus, cc. i. and v.) teaches, be affirmed and 
 denied of God. They may be affirmed by reference to the 
 purpose of the name; they may be denied by reference to 
 the mode of signification. Moreover, the mode of super- 
 eminence in which such perfections are found in God cannot 
 be signified by the names imposed by us except either by 
 negation, as when we say that God is eternal or infinite; 
 or by relation between Him and other things, as when He 
 is called the First Cause or the highest Good. For we cannot 
 grasp what God is, but only what He is not, and how other 
 things are related to Him, as is obvious from what has been 
 said above. 10 
 
 10 Aquinas's class of dicenda de Deo solo does not rise to the lofty 
 range of knowledge claimed by philosophies of the Absolute. His 
 allegiance to Peripateticism, with its lowly origin in sense - data, 
 
ThoTnas Aquinas 21 
 
 (From Summa Theologica, Part I. Quaest. xiii., DC Nominibus 
 Dei, Art 5.) 
 
 It is impossible that anything can be predicated of God 
 and of created beings in the same sense (univoce). 11 For 
 every effect, since it has not an equal value with its 
 cause, takes the likeness of the cause, not adequately, 
 but in a defective manner. So that what is divided and 
 multiple in the effects is simple in the cause and in one 
 mode only; for example, the sun from one single power of 
 its own produces manifold and various forms in things. In 
 the same way, all the perfections of things which are in 
 
 prevents his allowing any claim for knowledge of God per se : it is 
 at its best per creaturas : hence his opposition to Anselm's Onto- 
 logical argument, for instance. But even in the sphere of knowledge 
 which starts with sense-given data, there is a region in which there 
 are attributes proper to the Deity, only these are not absolute ; they 
 are, as he says in the above extract, either negative of creature- attri- 
 butes, or relative to them. This position marks out Aquinas as 
 occupying the middle position between the Sceptics on the extreme 
 left hand, and the Mystics and speculative Rationalists on the ex- 
 treme right. In determining his position Aquinas mediated between 
 the Neo-Platonism of the pseudo-Dionysius (whose work de Nominibus 
 was before him), and such Aristotelianism as was known to him. 
 
 From the dicenda de Deo et de aliis rebus, Aquinas proceeds to 
 bring out the use of analogy and metaphor, protesting against insist- 
 ence upon identity of meaning with as much force as against absence 
 of meaning. By retaining this class, in this sense, Aquinas guards 
 himself against the peril of the relapse into silence which, on his 
 theory of knowledge, awaits those who deny any function for analogy 
 or metaphor in thinking about the Deity. 
 
 11 Univoce, that is, when a word is used with an identical signifi- 
 cance in all its applications ; &quivoce, without any bond or connection 
 between the meanings (e.g. a pen of sheep and a quill pen) ; and 
 analogic^, when there is a ground of comparison amid differences 
 (e.g. the tide of passion) ; if the ground is very slight we have meta- 
 phorice (e.g. the wings of imagination). 
 
22 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 them in division and in multiplicity, pre-exist in God in 
 unity and simplicity. . . . And so, when the word ivise is 
 spoken of a man, it in a certain way circumscribes and grasps 
 the thing signified ; but it is not so when it is spoken of 
 God : in His case it leaves the subject spoken of ungrasped 
 and surpassing the signification of the name. So that it is 
 clear that the word wise is not spoken in the same way 
 of man and of God. And so for other names. No name, 
 therefore, is used in the same sense of God and of created 
 beings. 
 
 And yet it is not used in entirely different senses, as some 
 have maintained. For if this were so, nothing could possibly 
 be known or demonstrated of God from observation of created 
 beings without incurring the fallacy of equivocation. And 
 it would be as much against the Philosopher who proves 
 many things demonstratively concerning God (Phys. viii. 
 and Met. xii.), as against the Apostle who says (Rom. i. 20), 
 " The invisible things of God are rendered intelligible by means 
 of those things which have been made." We must reply, 
 therefore, that names of this kind are applied to God and 
 to created things, according to analogy, that is, proportion. 
 
 Some things are spoken of God and the creature, therefore, 
 neither in entirely different senses, nor in entirely the same 
 sense, but analogically. We have shown (in Art. I.), that we 
 cannot name God except by means of predicates drawn from 
 His creatures ; and thus whatever is said both of God and 
 His creatures is said inasmuch as there is some relation 
 between the creature and God as its principle and cause, 
 in whom there pre-exist, in a more excellent manner, all the 
 perfections of things. 
 
 This method of treatment guides the official Natural 
 Theology of the Koman Church. It has enabled those trained 
 in her schools to regard with some complacency those whose 
 perplexities have obviously been due to attempts to force all 
 
Thomas Aquinas 23 
 
 predications within a single category, whether with sceptical 
 results or with positive results of a partial character and 
 therefore a precarious tenure. 
 
 3. THE DEMONSTRATIVE PROOFS. 
 
 Aquinas opposes the claim for direct or intuitive knowledge 
 of the Deity apart from Faith : He cannot by natural light of 
 Reason be known per se. He examines and rejects the claim 
 for innate ideas as made by John Damascene, and the Onto- 
 logical argument of Anselm, himself resting on Aristotle and 
 on St. Paul (Rom. i. 20), and on his theory of knowledge 
 generally. But, on the other hand, against those who make 
 even the existence of the Deity a matter of Faith, he insists 
 on its demonstrability by inference upwards ; the relation to 
 Faith being that the Divine existence, made known by means 
 of natural reason, gives not articuli fidei sed prceambula ad 
 articulos. His demonstrative proofs are thus given : 
 
 (Summa Theologica, Pt. I. Quaest. ii. An Deus sit ? Art. 3). 
 That God exists can be proved in five Ways : 
 1. The first and most evident Way is the argument from 
 Motion. 12 For it is certain and agrees with what our senses 
 inform us that in this world some things are in motion. But 
 anything which is moved, is moved by some other thing ; for 
 nothing is moved except in so far as there is in it the 
 
 12 This is Aristotle's famous proof of the First Mover (Physics, 
 Bk. vin., and Metaphysics, Bk. XL). Motus is the term used, the 
 KLvrjins of Aristotle. It is of wider significance for both Aristotle 
 and Aquinas than merely change of place. It signifies the coming 
 from potentiality into actuality, mediating between d6va/j.is and 
 tvepyeia, and, indeed, may be taken to cover transitions and changes 
 of all kinds. Aristotle has four kinds of change : of substance, by 
 generation and decay ; of quantity, by increase or decrease ; of quality, 
 by "passion" ; of change of place, by motion proper (Metaphysics, xi. 
 (or xn.) c. 2). We have had it confirmed by Newton in the sphere 
 of motion that motion continues as it is and rest continues as it is, 
 unless a cause of change is introduced : so in everything. How could 
 the potential become actual of itself ? 
 
24 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 relation of potentiality with that towards which it is moved ; 
 but one thing moves another in so far as the former is in 
 actuality, for to move is nothing else than to draw anything 
 from potentiality into actuality. But nothing can be brought 
 from potentiality into actuality except by means of something 
 which is already in actuality. Fire which is actual heat 
 makes wood which is only potentially hot become actually 
 hot, and by this means moves and alters it. Moreover, it is 
 impossible for the same thing to be in potentiality and in 
 actuality at the same time and in the same respect ; it could 
 be "so only in different respects; for what is actually hot 
 cannot be at the same time potentially hot, although it is at the 
 same time potentially cold. It is impossible, therefore, that 
 in the same respect and in the same manner anything should 
 be both moving and moved, or be self-moved. Everything 
 therefore which is moved must be moved by something else. 
 If therefore that by which the first thing is moved should 
 itself be moved this must be by motion from some third 
 thing, and that third thing by some other in its turn. We 
 cannot here proceed to infinity, for in that way there would 
 be no first source of movement and consequently no other 
 moving thing at all, because secondary moving things do not 
 move except as they are moved by the first source of move- 
 ment ; a stick, for example, does not move except it is moved 
 by a hand. We must then arrive at some first source of 
 motion which is moved by nothing else : and such a source 
 all men understand to be God. 13 
 
 13 As Aquinas puts it, we see that his argument lies open to the 
 charge that it gives only that inference to a First Cause which is now 
 known as "Deism." He reaches only an initial Cause and does not 
 bring out permanence of operations. Aristotle was for permanence, 
 because his datum was eternity of motion, the maintenance of a world 
 in actuality which would fall into mere potentiality but for the per- 
 manent Cause. But the doctrine of Creation ex nihilo had been taken 
 as necessary for concordance with Biblical doctrine since Augustine in 
 the Christian Schools, (as it was also in the Jewish Schools, cf. Mai- 
 
Thomas Aquinas 25 
 
 2. The second Way is from consideration of efficient 
 Causes. In things of sense we find an order of efficient 
 causes ; but it is not found, nor is it possible, that anything is 
 the cause of itself, for this would mean that it is prior to itself, 
 which is impossible. Finally, it is not possible in efficient 
 causes to go back to infinity, for in all series of efficient 
 causes first comes the cause of the intermediate, and the 
 intermediate is the cause of the last whether the intermediate 
 be many or only one. If then the Cause is removed so is the 
 effect. Therefore, if there have not been a first among the 
 efficient causes neither will there be a last, nor an inter- 
 mediate. But if we proceed with efficient causes in infinity, 
 there will be no first efficient cause, and so no last effect, nor 
 any intermediate efficient causes ; which is plainly false. We 
 must therefore posit some first efficient Cause : and all men 
 call this God. 14 
 
 3. The third Way is taken from consideration of the possible 
 and the necessary, and proceeds as follows. Amongst things 
 we find some which are capable of existing or not existing, 
 for they are found to be generated and to be corrupted, and 
 therefore can either exist or not exist. It is impossible, 
 however, that all the things of this kind should always be 
 in existence, because what is capable of not existing, at some 
 time does not exist. If, therefore, all things are capable of 
 not existing, there was a time when there was nothing in 
 existence. But if this is true, even now there would be 
 
 monides) and Aquinas made some attempt to twist Aristotle into 
 meaning it. The selection of this first method of proving an originat- 
 ing Cause only has kept the doctrine of the Divine Immanence in the 
 background in subsequent Natural Theology, until Spinoza and Male- 
 branche inaugurated its revival. At the same time, this is only one 
 of the five Ways of Aquinas, and his third, fourth, and fifth Ways 
 imply immanent operation. 
 
 14 This second argument for efficient Causes is simply the argument 
 of Aristotle in his Metaphysics. Its limitation is of the same kind as 
 that of the first argument. 
 
26 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 nothing in existence, for the non-existent does not commence 
 to exist except by virtue of some other thing which is already 
 existing. If ever, therefore, there were nothing in exist- 
 ence, it is impossible that anything should commence to 
 exist : and so there would be nothing in existence now : 
 which is obviously false. Therefore it cannot be that all 
 things are merely capable of existing ; there must be among 
 things some thing which is necessary. 
 
 Moreover, every necessary thing either has a cause of its 
 necessity from some other quarter, or it has not. But it is 
 not possible to proceed in infinity in things necessary which 
 have a cause of their necessity, just as was proved for 
 efficient causes. We must, therefore, posit something which 
 has its necessity, not from some other quarter but per se; 
 and which is itself a cause of necessity to other things. And 
 this all men call God. 15 
 
 4. The fourth Way is the consideration of the grades or 
 stages which are found in things. For we find in things 
 something more or less good and true and noble, and so of 
 other qualities of this kind. But " more " or " less " are 
 spoken of different things, according to their different degrees 
 of approach to what is greatest of all : as that thing is the 
 hotter which more nearly approaches that which is hottest. 
 There is, therefore, something which is most true and most 
 good and most noble, and consequently is being in the highest 
 degree (maxime ens) : for what is true in the highest degree 
 is also being in the highest degree, as is said in the Meta- 
 2)hysics, Bk. n. But whatever is called highest in any kind 
 of being is the cause of all other things which are of that 
 kind ; as fire, which is the highest of the class of hot things 
 is the cause of all hot things, as is said in the same book. 
 
 15 Some modern Romanist theologians, aware of the limitation to 
 Deism involved in the first two arguments, lay most stress on this 
 third, the argument from the Contingent to the Necessary, which 
 provides for Immanence. 
 
Thomas Aquinas 27 
 
 There is, therefore, some being which to all beings is the 
 cause that they exist, and that they are good, and so for 
 every perfection. And this we call God. 16 
 
 5. The fifth Way is the consideration of the government 
 (gubernatio) of things. For we see that some things which 
 have no power of knowing, such as natural bodies, work for 
 ends (propter Jineni), as is manifest from their constantly, or 
 at least frequently, working in the same way for the attain- 
 ment of that which is best ; which shows that they arrive at 
 their end not by chance but from intention. Now such 
 things as have no power of knowing do not tend towards an 
 end unless they are directed by some being which has know- 
 
 16 This also is from Aristotle, and from Augustine ; Anselm, Abelard, 
 and Alexander all employed it. It is the philosophy of Nature which 
 regards all things as compacted of matter and form, and ranged 
 in scale accordingly. For Theism the question is whether Reason 
 can arrest its course without taking into cognisance pure Matter 
 beyond the visible foot of the scale and pure Form beyond the visible 
 summit. The affirmative answer to this would not imply a tran- 
 scendent Theism only, for the theory relates every form to the 
 proximate form below it in one direction, and to the proximate form 
 above it in the other : so that there is profound significance in regard- 
 ing the pure Form as itself the true formative principle from the 
 lowest depth of nature to its highest height. If the several graduated 
 forms are regarded as permanent we have, of course, the view of 
 Nature which has prevailed in our recent pre-Evolution days. But 
 loyal Thomists may repudiate that phase of thought, and claim 
 that it is Evolution that is his fundamental view : indeed he him- 
 self states it, and states it apart from all the other arguments, in 
 the Preface to Book iv. of the S.c. Gentiles, before entering upon the 
 doctrine of God as Holy Trinity. 
 
 In future Theism the purport of this Via, therefore, will fulfil a 
 function more prominent than could be the case when Nature was 
 regarded as a congeries of disconnected and independently created 
 species of being : and the character of the Theism arrived at will be 
 the more profound in consequence. Cf. Bradley, Appearance and 
 Reality, c. xxiv. (Degrees of Truth and Reality), and G. T. Ladd, 
 A Theory of Reality, c. xv. (Spheres of Reality). 
 
28 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 ledge and intelligence, as an arrow is directed by an archer. 
 There is therefore some intelligent Being by which all natural 
 things are directed towards ends. And this we call God. 17 
 
 4. PERSONALITY OF GOD. 
 
 We shall not expect to find in Aquinas the full conception 
 of Personality, either human or Divine, to which the nine- 
 teenth century attained, but we can see that he secures much of 
 it if he proves that to the Supreme Being we must attribute 
 Intelligence, Will, Goodness, and Happiness. This is as far 
 as he takes Natural Theology : he remits the farther exposi- 
 tion to Revealed Theology, where he treats of the doctrine of 
 the Holy Trinity, and where alone he uses the term " Person." 
 
 For Intelligence he gives seven arguments, of which we 
 print five. 
 
 (Summa contra Gentiles, c. 44.) 
 INTELLIGENCE. 
 
 Argument 2. Intelligence must be attributed to the Deity 
 if there is to be a reference of things moveable, not only to 
 a first mover which moves itself, but to a mover which is 
 wholly unmoveable. For the first mover is the universal 
 principle of motion. Therefore, since everything that causes 
 
 17 As here stated it seems scarcely the deeper teleology of imman- 
 ence, but only the popular inference of an intelligent cause being 
 required to keep in regularity of action things which have no cognition 
 and therefore no view of ends and no intentions. 
 
 This may be thought a surprisingly meagre treatment for the great 
 teleological argument which had already been so forcibly ex- 
 pressed in both Greek and Latin literature. And it is sometimes said 
 that the Schoolmen took little interest in this Proof, owing probably 
 to their cloistered life and remoteness from study of nature. But it 
 may be pointed out that Aquinas at least knows what he is doing, and 
 does not look to Teleological argument for proof of existence, but for 
 proof of intelligence all that lie obtains here is aliquid intelligens, 
 which alone would not describe God. The argument is made promi- 
 nent for this purpose in the proof of intelligence (see p. 29). 
 
Thomas Aquinas 29 
 
 motion does so by means of some form which it has in 
 view when it sets up the motion, the form which the first 
 mover has in view must be a universal form and a universal 
 good. But universal forms cannot be found, except in intellect. 
 The first mover, therefore which is God is intelligent. 18 
 
 Argument 3. Further. In no series of things which cause 
 motion is it found that a thing which causes motion by 
 means of intelligence is the instrument of a thing which 
 causes motion apart from intelligence, but much the reverse. 
 All things in the world which cause motion are referred to 
 the prime mover that is, God as instruments to the 
 principal agent. Since, therefore, we find in the world many 
 things causing motion by means of intelligence, it is im- 
 possible that the first mover should be without intelligence. 
 It is necessary, therefore, that God have intelligence. 
 
 Argument 5. Again. No perfection is lacking to God 
 which may be found in any kind of being (as proved in 
 chap. 28), although it does not follow from this that His 
 nature is in any way composite (as shown in chap. 18). 
 Now, among the perfections of things the most important of 
 all is that a thing should be of the order of intellect, for by 
 this it is itself all things in a certain way, having in itself the 
 perfections of all things. God, therefore, has intelligence. 
 
 Argument 6. Moreover. Everything which aims at some 
 end in a fixed way, either prescribes to itself that end, or 
 finds that end prescribed to it by something else ; otherwise 
 it would not aim at this end rather than at that. Now 
 things in nature aim at fixed ends, for natural utilities are 
 not obtained by chance, which of itself would only bring them 
 about in rare instances, and by no means invariably, or even 
 
 18 The Intelligence here proved is correlative to the universal 
 Forms in which Aquinas believes. In Argument 7 (below) the 
 procedure is parallel ; the datum there is particularised forms, from 
 which we pass upward to pure forms, and therefore to an Intelligence 
 to which pure Forms are proper. 
 
30 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 in many cases. Since, therefore, things do not prescribe them- 
 selves an end, the end must be set before them by another, 
 who is the founder of nature. But this (by chaps. 13 and 37) 
 is He who gives being to all things, and is of Himself necessary 
 being : whom we call God. Now He could not prescribe an 
 end to nature unless He understood. God, therefore, has 
 intelligence. 19 
 
 Argument 7. Further. Everything imperfect is derived 
 from something which is perfect; for perfect things are 
 naturally prior to the imperfect, as actuality is to potenti- 
 ality. But the forms existing in particular things are 
 imperfect because they are particularised and have not all 
 the perfection of the universal form. They must therefore 
 be derived from some forms which are perfect and not 
 particularised. But such forms can only be of an intellectual 
 order, for no form is found in its universal scope except in 
 the intellect : consequently these must be intellectual if they 
 are substantial, as they must be in order to be operative. 
 Therefore it is necessary that God, who is the first substantial 
 source of action from which all other things are derived, 
 have intelligence. 20 
 
 ON WILL. 
 
 Will, with Aquinas, has a more exclusive relation 
 to Intellect than much modern treatment assigns to it. 
 
 19 This is an employment of the Teleological argument. Although 
 he has also included it as a distinct " Way " of proving the existence 
 of the Deity (see p. 27), we noted how little he had to say of it in 
 that connection. But here it avails as an argument for certain 
 conclusions as to the nature of the Deity. That this latter is its 
 proper function is now a commonplace of Theism. 
 
 20 These arguments for Intelligence exemplify the now familiar 
 method of demonstrating Personal Theism. The Causal connexion 
 having been established, whatever is seen to be in the effect 
 must be included in the Cause : and as perfection is a character of the 
 Cause, all that is carried up is elevated to perfection, via eminentice. 
 
Thomas Aquinas 31 
 
 For him, Will is the acceptance by the mind of what is 
 presented by Intellect, and it is contrasted with Appetite, 
 which is similarly related to Sensibility. It is Appetitus 
 intellectivus : the bonitas is presented by Intellect, and what 
 Will has to do is (1) to accept this, and (2) to initiate 
 action. Sometimes it seems as if he meant what is more 
 like Feeling, simply a something arising spontaneously when 
 Intellect presents an object ; but this is not his fundamental 
 position, he has separate functions for Will and Feeling. 
 The close attachment of Will to Intellect differentiated 
 Aquinas from Duns Scotus, whose advocacy of the primacy 
 of Will made him the precursor of the Voluntarists and 
 Pragmatists of the present time. 
 
 (Summa contra Gentiles c. 72.) 
 GOD HAS WILL. 
 
 Argument 1. From the fact that He has intelligence it 
 follows that He has Will. For since a good apprehended by 
 the intellect is the proper object of the will, it is necessary 
 that the good so apprehended be willed, in so far as it is of 
 this character : but the term " apprehended by the intellect " 
 is used in reference to an intelligent being : it must therefore 
 be that a being that understands good, in so far as it is of 
 this character, is endowed with will. But God understands 
 good : for since He is intelligent in perfection, as has been 
 proved, He understands being in its relationship to good. 
 He therefore has Will. 
 
 Argument 4. To understand is a source of delight in 
 proportion to its degree of perfection. But God understands, 
 and with the highest degree of perfection (as shown before, 
 c. 44). With Him, therefore, understanding is at the 
 height of delight. But a delight for the understanding 
 comes by means of the will, just as a delight for the senses 
 comes through appetite. In God, therefore, there is Will. 
 
 Argument 5. A form, when presented to the mind by 
 means of the intellect, does not move anything or cause 
 
32 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 anything except by the mediation of a will directed to an 
 end and a good, by which someone is moved to act : therefore 
 the speculative intellect does not initiate motion, nor does 
 the pure imagination, apart from the valuation of good and 
 ill. But the form of the Divine intellect is a cause of 
 motion and of existence in other things, for He acts upon 
 things by means of intelligence (as will be shown later on). 
 He must therefore have Will. 
 
 Argument 6. Also it is in virtues which are active and 
 have intelligence that Will is first found : for Will applies 
 every potentiality to its own act. For we understand because 
 we exercise will, we imagine because we exercise will, and 
 so of other things. And it has this effect because its 
 object is an end, although the intelligence moves the will 
 not after the manner of an efficient and moving cause, 
 but after the manner of a final cause, by setting before 
 Will its object, which is an end. Therefore it is especially 
 fitting that the First Mover have Will. 
 
 Argument 7. A thing is free which is the cause of itself 
 (sui causa) ; and so a free thing has the character of that which 
 is per se. But Will first has freedom in acting : for in so 
 far as anyone acts voluntarily he is said to effect the action 
 freely. It therefore specially belongs to the First Agent to 
 act by way of Will, because it specially belongs to Him to act 
 per se. . . . 
 
 After another Argument, the chapter closes with the 
 usual scriptural confirmation. 
 
 The testimonies of Holy Scripture confirm this attribution 
 of Will to the Divine Being : for it is said, " All things which 
 the Lord hath willed hath He accomplished " (Ps. cxxxiv.) ; 
 and "Who hath resisted His will?" (Rom. ix.). 21 
 
 21 On the relation of Will to Intellect a battle-royal was waged in 
 the Schools. Duns Scotus was the protagonist for the supremacy of 
 Will : Indeterminism. How important the question at issue is for 
 Theism is obvious : if Intellect is of inferior status, its claim to be 
 
Thomas Aquinas 33 
 
 ON FEELING. 
 
 Aquinas follows Aristotle in his treatment of Feeling. 
 In so far as emotion is passive it belongs to our sensibility, 
 which is in alliance with our body; in it our mind is 
 determined from without, and therefore in this sense, as 
 " passion," it is amongst the non dicenda de Deo. But 
 emotions have a purely mental side formal is the term, 
 meaning formal in relation to the passive side as material 
 and with this distinction in view we must inquire again 
 whether or not they are attributable to the Deity. 
 
 (Summa Theoloyica, Part I. Q. xx. c. 1.) 
 
 Is LOVE IN THE DEITY 1 
 
 Intellectual power does not cause motion except by the 
 mediation of appetitive power, and as in us general Reason 
 causes motion by the mediation of particular reason (as is 
 said in De Anima, in.), so the intellectual appetite which is 
 called " Will " causes motion in us by the mediation of the 
 sensitive appetite : therefore the proximate moving power 
 over the body in us is the sensitive appetite. Wherefore 
 some bodily change always accompanies an operation of the 
 sensitive appetite, and especially some change in the region 
 of the heart, which is the first principle of motion in an 
 animal, as the Philosopher says (De Partibus Animalium, n. 
 and in.). 22 So, therefore, operations of the sensitive appe- 
 
 referred to the Perfect Being lapses, or at least is weakened : and 
 we are confronted with a doctrine of a supreme Indeterminate Will, 
 and Divine Laws become Arbitrary Decrees. Aquinas attributes Will 
 to the Divine Being, in its association with Intellect or Reason : 
 for him Divine Laws are expressions of Divine Reason. 
 
 23 This taking over of Aristotelian tradition as to the heart being 
 the seat of bodily activity, illustrates, of course, the absence of 
 recourse to investigations in the physical sciences, which is notorious 
 in the Mediaeval Schools. In psychological analyses what they received 
 was of more enduring value, and they were in a position to carry them 
 further by their own reflections. These brief extracts from Aquinas 
 are only indications of how they handled psychological questions. 
 3 
 
34 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 tite in so far as bodily changes are annexed to them are 
 named " passions," but acts of the will are not so named. 
 Love, therefore, and joy, and delight, are " passions " in so far 
 as operations of the sensitive appetite are signified, but not 
 in so far as operations of the intellectual appetite are meant : 
 and it is in the latter way that they are found in God. 
 Wherefore the Philosopher says (fitkica, vii.) that "God 
 rejoices by a single and simple operation " : and for the same 
 reason He loves without " passion." 
 
 In the passions of the sensitive appetite we have to deal 
 with something as it were material, namely, a bodily change, 
 and something as it were formal, namely, that which springs 
 from the appetite : e.g. in Anger (as is said in De Anima, I.), 
 the material is the kindling of the blood around the heart, or 
 something of that kind ; but the formal is the appetite for 
 vengeance. But, again, in some of these emotions on the side 
 which is formal there is implied some imperfection, e.g. in 
 Desire, which is for a good not in possession, and in Sadness, 
 which is for an evil possessed : and the same is true of 
 Anger, seeing that it implies Sadness. But some emotions 
 imply no imperfection, e.g. Love and Joy. Since, therefore, 
 none of the emotions can be predicated of God according to 
 this material side, neither can those which imply imperfection 
 on the formal side, except by metaphor, according to some 
 similitude in their effect, as said above. But such emotions as 
 do not imply imperfection are correctly referred to the Deity, 
 e.g. Love and Joy ; yet without " passion," as proved above. 
 
 The operation of Love always tends in two directions, 
 namely, toward the good which is desired for some one, and 
 toward the person for whom the good is desired. For, properly 
 speaking, to love anyone is to desire good for him ; therefore, 
 in so far as anyone loves himself he desires good for himself, 
 and so seeks to unite that good to himself, so far as he can. 
 And so far Love is called a uniting power (vis unitiva), even 
 in God ; but without implying composition in Him, for that 
 
Thomas Aquinas 35 
 
 good which He desires for Himself is not anything else than 
 Himself, who is good by His own essence, as above shown. 
 But in so far as anyone loves another person he wishes good 
 to him, and so deals with him as with himself, taking the 
 good befalling the other person as if it befell himself. And 
 so far Love is called a combining power (vis concretiva), 
 because it draws another person to oneself, and one bears 
 oneself towards him as towards one's own self. And so, also, 
 Divine Love is a combining power omitting all idea of com- 
 position in God in that He wills good things to others. 23 
 
 5. EVIL IN RELATION TO GOD. 
 
 In default of space for showing how Aquinas treated either 
 the Creation or the Government of the world (Cosmology), or 
 the Nature of the Soul (Psychology), we add only his method 
 of dealing with the question of Evil in relation to Theism. 
 
 He holds that all conscious activity has good in its aim ; 
 evil cannot be willed : it is privative of good, and has neither 
 independent reality nor a positive ground of being, and 
 therefore it cannot be referred to an absolute principle. On 
 the other hand, the Good is good per se, and not ex institii- 
 tione ; and finite Good finds its necessary explanation in the 
 perfect Goodness of the Perfect Being, in whose essence the 
 perseitas of Goodness is grounded. 
 
 (Summa contra Gentiles, c. 39.) 
 THAT EVIL CANNOT BE IN GOD. 
 
 Being and goodness, and all things in which we refer to 
 essence, have no admixture of anything from outside them- 
 
 23 The references to the Good in the foregoing arguments amount to 
 an anticipation of the Moral argument which has since been drawn 
 apart and exhibited in independence (see, especially, the Selections 
 from Kant and Martineau). Even in modern treatises on Natural 
 Theology composed on Thomist lines, this argument is not set out 
 as an independent one : and the term " Moral Argument " is allotted 
 to the argument from Consensus. 
 
36 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 selves, although that which is good may have something 
 besides its being and its goodness. For there is nothing to 
 prevent that which underlies one perfection from underlying 
 another perfection also, as a body may be both white and 
 sweet. But everything is enclosed within the confines of its 
 own nature (ratio), so that it can take nothing extraneous 
 into itself. But God is not only good but Goodness (as 
 shown in chapters 37, 38). There cannot, therefore, be in 
 Him anything which is not Goodness, and so Evil cannot 
 possibly be in Him. 24 
 
 Further, whatever is opposed to the essence of anything is 
 incompatible with that essence while that essence remains : 
 e.g. irrationality or insensibility is incompatible with a man 
 unless he should cease to be a man. But the Divine essence 
 is Goodness itself, as has been shown (c. 37). Evil, there- 
 fore, which is the opposite of the good, can have no place in 
 Him ; unless He should cease to be, which is impossible, since 
 He is eternal, as before proved. 
 
 Again, since God is His own Being, nothing can be 
 predicated of Him as though He participated in anything, as 
 is evident from the foregoing reasoning (c. 38). If, there- 
 fore, Evil is predicated of Him, He will be said to possess it, 
 not by participation, but by essence. But Evil can be 
 predicated of nothing in such a way as to be its essence ; for 
 
 24 In chapter 37 it is shown that God is good by identifying 
 goodness with perfection which had already been established as 
 Divine ; goodness is a mark of Divinity as the highest object of 
 desire and as the supreme reality, and as the universal Cause of 
 being : in chapter 38, that God is His own goodness (1) as Him- 
 self the author of His own actuality, which is one of the marks of 
 goodness ; (2) as Substance and therefore the source of His own 
 goodness ; and (3) as Simplicity, and therefore good, not by partici- 
 pation in some other goodness than His own, but having goodness 
 in His own essence. From these positions, the argumentation of 
 chapter 89 follows by applying them to Evil as the privation and 
 opposite of Goodness. 
 
Thomas Aquinas 37 
 
 to such a thing being, which is good, would be lacking, as 
 above proved (c. 37). And in Evil there cannot be anything 
 intermixed from outside, just as in the case of goodness. 
 Therefore Evil cannot be predicated of God. 
 
 Also, Evil is opposed to Good. But the nature or essence 
 of Goodness consists in perfection ; the essence of Evil, there- 
 fore, is imperfection. But defect or imperfection cannot be 
 in God, who is truly perfect, as above shown (c. 28). There- 
 fore Evil cannot be in God. 
 
 Besides, anything is perfect according as it is actual ; there- 
 fore, it will be imperfect according as it is deficient in actual- 
 ity. Evil, therefore, is either privative, or it includes privation, 
 or it is nothing. But that which is the subject of privation 
 is only a potentiality, and potentiality cannot be in God ; 
 therefore neither can Evil. 
 
 Moreover, if that is good which is desired by everything, 
 therefore Evil, in so far as it is the undesirable, is what is 
 avoided by every nature. But what is opposed to the opera- 
 tion of anyone's natural appetite, is violent and contrary to 
 nature. Evil, therefore, is for each thing violent and contrary 
 to its nature by reason of its being evil, although it may be 
 natural to it according to some part of its composition, in 
 things which are composite. But God is not composite, nor 
 can anything in Him be violent or contrary to nature, as has 
 been shown. Therefore Evil cannot be in God. 
 
 This is confirmed by Holy Scripture : for it is said, " God 
 is light, and in Him is no darkness at all " (1 John i.) ; and, 
 " Far be impiety from God, and iniquity from the Almighty " 
 (Job xxxiv.). 
 
 As British students are so little accustomed to resort to the 
 actual words of even the chief among the Scholastics, now 
 that these two Selections are before them brief as they are 
 a few words may be added on the general value of the 
 Scholastic philosophy of Theism. 
 
 The Schoolmen were not^ philosophers at large in^search^of 
 
38 Some Points in Scholastic Theology 
 
 beliefs; they were Christian theologians. For them the 
 Scriptural and Ecclesiastical doctrine of Divine things was 
 the possession of the Church of which they were members, 
 and was accepted by their own faith. In their Dogmatics, or 
 Supernatural Theology, they unfolded that doctrine ; but first 
 they looked into Nature by means of the Greek philosophy 
 (as they knew it), which to them meant the natural light of 
 reason, to see what could be found there and by what instru- 
 mentality. An Deus sit ? meant for them not Does the 
 God of Abraham exist 1 not Does God as Holy Trinity exist 1 
 but, Does the system of nature when explored, does reason 
 when forced into explicitness, show a Divine Being 1 And 
 if so, with what attributes'? If not with all the rich- 
 ness of Christian Doctrine, then how far towards that 
 richness 1 ? And similarly for the World, and for the Soul 
 and Human Society. 
 
 We know quite well how particularist their philosophy 
 was : that in the main line of Albert and Thomas Aquinas it 
 was Aristotelianism, in part direct in part as passed to them 
 by the Arabian philosophers, with more or less of Neo- 
 Platonism through Dionysius and Augustine; and that on 
 other lines, more of Platonism on one hand, or more of Scepti- 
 cism on the other, was what they were working by. And 
 their Christian theology had also its particularist limitations. 
 Their task of combining the dogmata of faith and the deliver- 
 ances of natural reason fell within these limits ; and to that 
 part of it which formed their Natural Theology the limits can 
 be without difficulty assigned by the historian. But within 
 these limits their work was of noble proportions. In raising 
 their theologico - philosophical structures they were fellow T - 
 workers with the architects of the great Gothic Cathedrals 
 and Monastic Churches of that very age. And though 
 Modern thought passed into fresh fields by rejecting con- 
 siderable masses of their work, yet in such main issues as 
 those indicated in our Selections, the rejections were much less 
 extensive than is commonly supposed, and many of their 
 leading thoughts persisted under new guises, and persist still. 
 Allowing for particularisms, they stamped indelible features 
 upon the philosophy of Theism, as the broad presentment 
 of what the religious mind believes about God, and Nature, 
 and the Soul. And though no absolute beginning for our 
 study can be made at any point of the stream of thought, we 
 
Thomas Aquinas 39 
 
 feel confident that the student will endorse our decision to 
 commence this set of Selections with Ansehn and Aquinas. 
 
 References. Our translations are from the Turin Edition (VI.) of 
 the Summa contra Gentiles (1894), and from Migne's edition of the 
 Summa Theologica (1858), compared with the edition of Pope Leo 
 XIII., now in course of publication at Rome. [Copies of old editions 
 of both Summce, are procurable through second-hand booksellers the 
 Contra Gentiles for three or four shillings, the great Summa for about 
 two pounds. We mention this because very few English students 
 have ever seen either of them, and they suppose them to be inacces- 
 sible except in expensive folios.] 
 
 The Scholastic Theology, as taught in Romanist Colleges, is, in 
 varying degrees, developed to include many modern ideas. Of text- 
 books prepared with this purpose in English, there is Fr. Boedder's 
 Natural Theology, in the Stonyhurst series of Manuals ; and Fr. 
 Rickaby's Metaphysics, in the same series, should be consulted, with 
 his Aquinas Ethicus, independently published. Harper's Metaphysics 
 of the School (unfinished), is for advanced study. 
 
 In Latin, the following modern works are in good repute : Janssen, 
 Summa Theologica (a commentary in Aquinatis Summam prcesentis 
 cevi studiis aptatam ; vols. i. and ii. are on Natural Theology) ; Rein- 
 stadler, Elementa philosophies Scholastics (vol. ii.); Hontheim, Insti- 
 tutiones theodiccece ; and Boedder, Theologia naturalis (entering more 
 into speculative difficulties than his English book) all published by 
 Herder, at Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden). 
 
 In histories of philosophy, Windelband (tr.) should be noted ; a 
 new history by Dr. Turner (Boston, 1903) is written expressly 
 to vindicate for Scholasticism a higher position in the development 
 of thought than ordinary histories have allowed. The principal 
 special histories are those of Kleutgen, Kaulich, Stockl, and especially 
 Haure"au. For explanation of leading terms, see Professor Royce's 
 article on "Latin and Scholastic Terminology" in Baldwin's Diction- 
 ary of Philosophy, 1901. 
 
III. 
 
 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 DESCARTES (1596-1650). 
 
 IN Descartes we have a metaphysical Theism : the being of 
 God a necessity as the ground of unity in a dualistic universe ; 
 the activity of God the source of the dual series of changes 
 and of their interaction ; or, in reference to knowledge, belief 
 in God as the basis and guarantee for confidence in the 
 validity of the thoughts of imperfect and finite thinking 
 beings. In the Meditations on First Philosophy, including 
 the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul, 
 published in 1641 (set. 45), we have an orderly exposition of 
 the chief features of his system. In Meditations I. and II. 
 he has doubted whether anything is more than a passing 
 object in his mind until he came to his Cogito ergo sum : 
 here he has been able to find a point where he could use the 
 verb esse, could speak of existence. But how is advance to 
 be made 1 In Meditation III. he is trying to discover what 
 other existences or coexistences there are. The point of his 
 philosophy is that he finds this in the existence of Deity. 
 The thought of Deity has always been present to him ; it has 
 hovered in his mind as a possible source of deception even : 
 so that his search takes the form of inquiring whether Deity 
 exists ; and if so, whether His existence can be a source of 
 deception, or is a sure ground of certainty. 
 
 It is not possible to ascertain how much Descartes was 
 influenced by Theology and how much his mind was philo- 
 sophical simpliciter-, but if we use philosophical terms 
 we can put it that when he starts away from Cogito as 
 the one sure intuition of the unity of thought and reality, 
 he has no expectation of discovering further reality in the 
 region of the finite, imperfect, or contingent : doubt is always 
 
 40 
 
Descartes 41 
 
 possible there. His expectation of achieving anything lies in 
 going direct to his consciousness of the Infinite and Perfect ; 
 if the unity of thought and reality is there also, much else 
 may follow. 
 
 MEDITATION III. 
 OF GOD : THAT HE EXISTS. 
 
 I will now close my eyes, I will stop my ears, I will turn 
 away my senses from their objects, I will even efface from 
 my consciousness all the images of corporeal things; or 
 at least, because this can hardly be accomplished, I will 
 consider them as empty and false; and thus, holding con- 
 verse only with myself, and closely examining my nature, I 
 will endeavour to obtain by degrees a more intimate and 
 familiar knowledge of myself. 1 I am a thinking (con- 
 scious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, 
 knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many, [who loves, 
 hates], wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and per- 
 
 1 Descartes has doubted without reserve until he was arrested by 
 the conviction of his own existence : his existence as a conscious being 
 disclosed in every moment of consciousness : the thinker, the very 
 doubter, exists while he thinks and doubts. Various interpretations 
 of the Cogito are before the world. We commend to the reader the 
 following : 
 
 Descartes finds that / am conscious involves I am is a judgment 
 which he makes at every moment whenever he turns his thought upon 
 consciousness. It is not an inference, but a spontaneous judgment. 
 But he sees in it far more than the momentary experience ; he sees in 
 it a something which is universal ; not in the false sense, as if the 
 universal lay side by side with the particular experiences, but in a 
 penetrative sense, so to speak, as in them all. There is a universale 
 (myself) in rebus (my experiences). 
 
 Here is a criterion for belief in existence secure against the powers 
 of doubt. And it is existence in just the sense which thought requires. 
 No individual fact, no mere datum of experience, but an intuition of 
 a universal truth. Whatever belief can be linked to this, or better, 
 can be seen to be involved in it, exists in the same high sense. This 
 he proceeds to work out. 
 
42 The Existence of God 
 
 ceives; 2 for, as I before remarked, although the things 
 which I perceive or imagine are perhaps nothing at all apart 
 from me [and in themselves], I am nevertheless assured that 
 those modes of consciousness which I call perceptions and 
 imaginations, in as far only as they are modes of conscious- 
 ness, exist in me. And in the little I have said I think I 
 have summed up all that I really know, or at least all that 
 up to this time I was aware I knew. Now, as I am 
 endeavouring to extend my knowledge more widely, I will 
 use circumspection, and consider with care whether I can 
 still discover in myself anything further which I have not 
 yet hitherto observed. I am certain that I am a thinking 
 thing ; but do I not therefore likewise know what is required 
 to render me certain of a truth 1 In this first knowledge, 
 doubtless, there is nothing that gives me assurance of its 
 truth except the clear and distinct perception of what I 
 affirm, which would not indeed be sufficient to give me the 
 assurance that what I say is true, if it could ever happen 
 that anything I thus clearly and distinctly perceived should 
 prove false; and accordingly it seems to me that I may 
 now take as a general rule, that all that is very clearly and 
 distinctly apprehended (conceived) is true. 
 
 Nevertheless, I before received and admitted many things 
 
 2 Penser with Descartes represents the whole sphere of conscious- 
 ness, "all the operations of the will, intellect, imagination, and senses 
 are thoughts " (Reply to Second Objections). But in his view the 
 fundamental mode of consciousness is thinking, the others are 
 subordinate, and he is not concerned to find a metaphysical or 
 theological explanation for them as he is for thinking. It is, how- 
 ever, to be observed that some recent advocates of Voluntarism, 
 which makes Will and its cognates more fundamental than Intellect, 
 consider that this runs back to Descartes. It may be so, but if it is, 
 then Descartes was misinterpreted by both friends and foes for two 
 centuries. The reader must refer to the whole works of Descartes if he 
 desires to follow that path : our selections bring out the Descartes who 
 impressed himself on succeeding historical development. 
 
Descartes 43 
 
 as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterwards 
 found to be doubtful. What, then, were those "? They were 
 the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other objects 
 which I was in the habit of perceiving by the senses. But 
 what was it that I clearly [and distinctly] * perceived in 
 them 1 Nothing more than that the ideas and the thoughts 
 of those objects were presented to my mind. And even 
 now I do not deny that these ideas are found in my mind. 
 But there was yet another thing which I affirmed, and 
 which, from having been accustomed to believe it, I thought 
 I clearly perceived, although, in truth, I did not perceive 
 it at all; I mean the existence of objects external to me, 
 from which those ideas proceeded, and to which they had 
 a perfect resemblance; and it was here I was mistaken, or 
 if I judged correctly, this assuredly was not to be traced to 
 any knowledge I possessed (the force of my perception, Lat.). 3 
 But when I considered any matter in arithmetic and 
 geometry that was very simple and easy, as, for example, 
 that two and three added together make five, and things 
 of this sort, did I not view them with at least sufficient 
 clearness to warrant me in affirming their truth 1 Indeed, 
 if I afterwards judged that we ought to doubt of these 
 things, it was for no other reason than because it occurred 
 to me that a God might perhaps have given me such a 
 nature as that I should be deceived, even respecting the 
 matters that appeared to me the most evidently true. But 
 
 * Words within square brackets mark additions made by Descartes 
 himself when revising the French text : the Mcditationes appeared 
 originally in Latin. 
 
 3 Descartes has started with a dualism between himself and objects 
 external. He has been accustomed to hold the doctrine called 
 "representative perception," that ideas of sensible things are copies of 
 those things ; and he now sees that this does not help him to obtain 
 certainty ; for if all that he knows is only a copy, what is the guarantee 
 of there being an original at all ? No study of the copies can avail to 
 give him a knowledge of originals. 
 
44 The Existence of God 
 
 as often as this preconceived opinion of the sovereign power 
 of a God presents itself to my mind, I am constrained to 
 admit that it is easy for Him, if He wishes it, to cause me 
 to err, even in matters where I think I possess the highest 
 evidence; and, on the other hand, as often as I direct my 
 attention to things which I think I apprehend with great 
 clearness, I am so persuaded of their truth that I naturally 
 break out into expressions such as these : Deceive me who 
 may, no one will yet ever be able to bring it about that I 
 am not, so long as I shall be conscious that I am, or at 
 any future time cause it to be true that I have never been, 
 it being now true that I am, or make two and three more 
 or less than five, in supposing which, and other like 
 absurdities, I discover a manifest contradiction. 4 
 
 And, in truth, as I have no ground for believing that 
 Deity is deceitful, and as, indeed, I have not even con- 
 sidered the reasons by which the existence of a Deity of 
 any kind is established, the ground of doubt that rests only 
 on this supposition is very slight, and, so to speak, meta- 
 physical. But, that I may be able wholly to remove it, I 
 must inquire whether there is a God, as soon as an oppor- 
 tunity of doing so shall present itself; and if I find that 
 there is a God, I must examine likewise whether He can 
 be a deceiver; for, without the knowledge of these two 
 truths, I do not see that I can ever be certain of anything. 
 And that I may be enabled to examine this without inter- 
 rupting the order of meditation I have proposed to myself 
 
 4 The introduction of mathematics, based here on the validity of 
 the law of Contradiction, reminds us that Descartes had not cleared 
 his mind of everything, as he seemed to think. When he had secured 
 his start many principles came into force again which he does not 
 pause to criticise. Causality, for example, including necessity of the 
 cause being at least adequate for the effect, and some other principles 
 he recognises, and admits to rank as Axioms by reason of their standing 
 the test of clearness and distinctness to his mind, and he covers them 
 with the expression "the natural light." 
 
Descartes 45 
 
 [which is, to pass by degrees from the notions that I shall 
 find first in my mind to those I shall afterwards discover in 
 it], it is necessary at this stage to divide all my thoughts 
 into certain classes, and to consider in which of these classes 
 truth and error are, strictly speaking, to be found. 
 
 Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things, 
 and to these alone properly belongs the name idea ; as when 
 I think [represent to my mind] a man, a chimera, the sky, 
 an angel, or God. Others, again, have certain other forms; 
 as when I will, fear, affirm, or deny, I always, indeed, 
 apprehend something as the object of my thought, but I 
 also embrace in thought something more than the repre- 
 sentation of the object; and of this class of thoughts some 
 are called volitions or affections, and others judgments. 
 
 Now, with respect to ideas, if these are considered only 
 in themselves, and are not referred to any object beyond 
 them, they cannot, properly speaking, be false ; for, whether 
 I imagine a goat or a chimera, it is not less true that I 
 imagine the one than the other. Nor need we fear that 
 falsity may exist in the will or affections; for, although I 
 may desire objects that are wrong, and even that never 
 existed, it is still true that I desire them. There thus only 
 remain our judgments, in which we must take diligent heed 
 that we be not deceived. But the chief and most ordinary 
 error that arises in them consists in judging that the ideas 
 which are in us are like or conformed to the things that 
 are external to us; for assuredly, if we but considered the 
 ideas themselves as certain modes of our thought (conscious- 
 ness), without referring them to anything beyond, they would 
 hardly afford any occasion of error. 
 
 But, among these ideas, some appear to me to be innate, 
 others adventitious, and others to be made by myself 
 (factitious) ; for, as I have the power of conceiving what is 
 called a thing, or a truth, or a thought, it seems to me 
 that I hold this power from no other source than my own 
 
46 The Existence of God 
 
 nature ; but if I now hear a noise, if I see the sun, or if 
 I feel heat, I have all along judged that these sensations 
 proceeded from certain objects existing out of myself; and, 
 finally, it appears to me that sirens, hippogryphs, and the 
 like, are inventions of my own mind. But I may even 
 perhaps come to be of opinion that all my ideas are of 
 the class which I call adventitious, or that they are all 
 innate, or that they are all factitious, for I have not yet 
 clearly discovered their true origin; and what I have here 
 principally to do is to consider, with reference to those that 
 appear to come from certain objects without me, what grounds 
 there are for thinking them like these objects. 5 
 
 The first of these grounds is that it seems to me I am 
 so taught by nature; and the second, that I am conscious 
 that those ideas are not dependent on my will, and therefore 
 not on myself, for they are frequently presented to me against 
 my will, as at present, whether I will or not, I feel heat ; 
 and I am thus persuaded that this sensation or idea (sensum 
 vel ideam) of heat is produced in me by something different 
 from myself, namely, by the heat of the fire by which I sit. 
 And it is very reasonable to suppose that this object im- 
 presses me with its own likeness rather than any other thing. 
 
 5 He divides ideas into innate, adventitious, and factitious. To 
 the factitious there are plainly no objects corresponding, unless by 
 accident; these we make for ourselves, and we can alter them at 
 pleasure. The adventitious are such as come to us through our Senses : 
 we are accustomed to suppose objects for these, but this may be only 
 our supposition, no certainty is secured by mere contemplation of 
 objects of this kind ; but as Descartes held the doctrine of " representa- 
 tive perception," he allows to these some power of showing us objective 
 reality. The innate ideas are such as we neither make for ourselves 
 nor have thrust upon us, so to speak : they are in us potentially, 
 ready to be evoked when our intellectual faculty is called into activity. 
 (See later, Meditation V. ad init.) The innate ideas of which he 
 will make most explicit use are infinity and perfection, causality and 
 substance, matter and mind. 
 
Descartes 47 
 
 But 1 must consider whether these reasons are sufficiently 
 strong and convincing. When I speak of being taught by 
 nature in this matter, I understand by the word nature 
 only a certain spontaneous impetus that impels me to believe 
 in a resemblance between ideas and their objects, and not a 
 natural light that affords a knowledge of its truth. But 
 these two things are widely different; for what the natural 
 light shows to be true can be in no degree doubtful, as, for 
 example, that I am because I doubt, and other truths of the 
 like kind : inasmuch as I possess no other faculty whereby 
 to distinguish truth from error, which can teach me the 
 falsity of what the natural light declares to be true, and 
 which is equally trustworthy ; but with respect to [seemingly] 
 natural impulses, I have observed, when the question related 
 to the choice of right or wrong in action, that they frequently 
 led me to take the worse part ; nor do I see that I have 
 any better ground for following them in what relates to 
 truth and error. Then, with respect to the other reason, 
 which is that because these ideas do not depend on my will, 
 they must arise from objects existing without me, I do not 
 find it more convincing than the former ; for, just as those 
 natural impulses, of which I have lately spoken, are found 
 in me, notwithstanding that they are not always in harmony 
 with my will, so likewise it may be that I possess some 
 power not sufficiently known to myself capable of producing 
 ideas without the aid of external objects, and, indeed, it 
 has always hitherto appeared to me that during sleep they 
 are formed by some power of this nature without the 
 aid of aught external. And, in fine, although I should 
 grant that they proceeded from those objects, it is not a 
 necessary consequence that they must be like them. On the 
 contrary, I have observed, in a number of instances, that 
 there was a great difference between the object and its idea. 
 Thus, for example, I find in my mind two wholly diverse 
 ideas of the sun; the one, by which it appears to me 
 
48 The Existence of God 
 
 extremely small, draws its origin from the senses, and should 
 be placed in the class of adventitious ideas; the other, by 
 which it seems to be many times larger than the whole 
 earth, is taken up on astronomical grounds, that is, elicited 
 from certain notions born with me, or is framed by myself 
 in some other manner. These two ideas cannot certainly 
 both resemble the same sun; and reason teaches me that 
 the one which seems to be the most immediate is the most 
 unlike the real sun. And these things sufficiently prove 
 that hitherto it has not been from a certain and deliberate 
 judgment, but only from a sort of blind impulse, that I 
 believed in the existence of certain things different from 
 myself, which, by the organs of sense, or by whatever other 
 means it might be, conveyed their ideas or images into my 
 mind [and impressed it with their likenesses]. 6 
 
 But there is still another way of inquiring whether, of the 
 objects whose ideas are in my mind, there are any that 
 exist out of me. If ideas are taken in so far only as they 
 are certain modes of consciousness, I do not remark any 
 difference or inequality among them, and all seem, in the 
 same manner, to proceed from myself; but, considering 
 them as images, of which one represents one thing and 
 another a different, it is evident that a great diversity obtains 
 among them. For, without doubt, those that represent 
 substances are something more, and contain in themselves, 
 so to speak, more objective reality [that is, participate by 
 
 6 Here Descartes sees that the doctrine of ' ' representative per- 
 ception" fails him: it is only by "blind impulse" that he believes 
 in external objects at all. 
 
 In reference to ideas of bodies, it will be seen that Descartes finds 
 that most of the content of our ideas of them is composed of ideas only : 
 there is " but little "that might not be so referred, namely, Extension ; 
 yet for that little, reality must be recognised. This is sufficient to 
 lead him when he has found his Theistic principle, his Substance, to 
 acknowledge a substantiality for corporeal bodies, at least so far as to 
 make them independent of the perceiving mind. But see note 9 . 
 
Descartes 49 
 
 representation in higher degrees of being or perfection] than 
 those that represent only modes or accidents; and again, 
 the idea by which I conceive a God [sovereign], eternal, 
 infinite, [immutable], all -knowing, all-powerful, and the 
 creator of all things that are out of himself, this, I say, 
 has certainly in it more objective reality than those ideas 
 by which finite substances are represented. 
 
 Now, it is manifest by the natural light that there must 
 at least be as much reality in the efficient and total cause 
 as in its effect; for whence can the effect draw its reality 
 if not from its cause 1 and how could the cause communicate 
 to it this reality unless it possessed it in itself 1 And hence 
 it follows, not only that what is cannot be produced by 
 what is not, but likewise that the more perfect in other 
 words, that which contains in itself more reality cannot 
 be the effect of the less perfect : and this is not only 
 evidently true of those effects, whose reality is actual or 
 formal, but likewise of ideas, whose reality is only considered 
 as objective. Thus, for example, the stone that is not yet 
 in existence, not only cannot now commence to be, unless 
 it be produced by that which possesses in itself, formally or 
 eminently, all that enters into its composition [in other 
 words, by that which contains in itself the same properties 
 that are in the stone, or others superior to them] ; and heat 
 can only be produced in a subject that was before devoid of 
 it, by a cause that is of an order [degree or kind] at least 
 as perfect as heat ; and so of the others. But, further, even 
 the idea of the heat, or of the stone, cannot exist in me 
 unless it be put there by a cause that contains, at least, as 
 much reality as I conceive existent in the heat or in the 
 stone : for, although that cause may not transmit into my 
 idea anything of its actual or formal reality, we ought not 
 on this account to imagine that it is less real; but we 
 ought to consider that [as every idea is a work of the mind] 
 its nature is such as of itself to demand no other formal 
 4 
 
50 The Existence of God 
 
 reality than that which it borrows from our consciousness, 
 of which it is but a mode [that is, a manner or way of 
 thinking]. But in order that an idea may contain this 
 objective reality rather than that, it must doubtless derive 
 it from some cause in which is found at least as much formal 
 reality as the idea contains of objective ; for, if we suppose 
 that there is found in an idea anything which was not in 
 its cause, it must of course derive this from nothing. 
 But however imperfect may be the mode of existence by 
 which a thing is objectively [or by representation] in the 
 understanding by its idea, we certainly cannot, for all that, 
 allege that this mode of existence is nothing, nor, conse- 
 quently, that the idea owes its origin to nothing. Nor must 
 it be imagined that, since the reality which is considered in 
 these ideas is only objective, the same reality need not be 
 formally (actually) in the causes of these ideas, but only 
 objectively: for, just as the mode of existing objectively 
 belongs to ideas by their peculiar nature, so likewise the 
 mode of existing formally appertains to the causes of these 
 ideas (at least to the first and principal) by their peculiar 
 nature. And although an idea may give rise to another 
 idea, this regress cannot, nevertheless, be infinite; we must 
 in the end reach a first idea, the cause of which is, as it 
 were, the archetype in which all the reality [or perfection] 
 that is found objectively [or by representation] in these 
 ideas is contained formally [and in act]. I am thus clearly 
 taught by the natural light that ideas exist in me as pictures 
 or images, which may in truth readily fall short of the 
 perfection of the objects from which they are taken, but 
 can never contain anything greater or more perfect. 7 
 
 7 Here he resorts to the category of Causality as a form of con- 
 structing knowledge. That he has not subjected it to criticism or 
 doubt is only an indication that he stood on the threshold of modern 
 philosophy, and that much lay before those who should come after him. 
 
 The purport of this paragraph is not difficult to apprehend ; but the 
 
Descartes 51 
 
 And in proportion to the time and care with which I 
 examine all those matters, the conviction of their truth 
 brightens and becomes distinct. But, to sum up, what 
 conclusion shall I draw from it all 1 ? It is this if the 
 objective reality [or perfection] of any one of my ideas be 
 such as clearly to convince me that this same reality exists 
 in me neither formally nor eminently, and if, as follows 
 from this, I myself cannot be the cause of it, it is a necessary 
 consequence that I am not alone in the world, but that there 
 is besides myself some other being who exists as the cause of 
 that idea ; while, on the contrary, if no such idea be found 
 in my mind, I shall have no sufficient ground of assurance of 
 the existence of any other being besides myself ; for, after a 
 most careful search, I have, up to this moment, been unable 
 to discover any other ground. 
 
 But among these my ideas, besides that which represents 
 myself, respecting which there can be here no difficulty, there 
 is one that represents a God ; others that represent corporeal 
 and inanimate things; others, angels; others, animals; and, 
 finally, there are some that represent men like myself. But 
 with respect to the ideas that represent other men, or animals, 
 or angels, I can easily suppose that they were formed by the 
 mingling and composition of the other ideas which I have of 
 myself, of corporeal things, and of God, although there were, 
 apart from myself, neither men, animals, nor angels. And 
 with regard to the ideas of corporeal objects, I never dis- 
 covered in them anything so great or excellent which I 
 myself did not appear capable of originating; for, by con- 
 sidering these ideas closely and scrutinising them individually, 
 in the same way that I yesterday examined the idea of wax, 
 
 terms used require some study of scholastic terminology, especially 
 formal ; object and subject (which have been altered since Kant). See 
 Veitch, Notes 3 and 7, Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy, and art. 
 on "Latin and Scholastic Terminology" in Baldwin's Dictionary of 
 Philosophy, 
 
52 The Existence of God 
 
 I find that there is but little in them that is clearly and 
 distinctly perceived. As belonging to the class of things that 
 are clearly apprehended, I recognise the following, namely, 
 magnitude or extension in length, breadth, and depth ; figure, 
 which results from the termination of extension ; situation, 
 which bodies of diverse figures preserve with reference to 
 each other ; and motion, or the change of situation ; to which 
 may be added substance, duration, and number. But with 
 regard to light, colours, sounds, odours, tastes, heat, cold, and 
 the other tactile qualities, they are thought with so much 
 obscurity and confusion, that I cannot determine even 
 whether they are true or false; in other words, whether 
 or not the ideas I have of these qualities are in truth the 
 ideas of real objects. For although I before remarked 
 that it is only in judgments that formal falsity, or falsity 
 properly so called, can be met with, there may nevertheless 
 be found in ideas a certain material falsity, which arises 
 when they represent what is nothing as if it were some- 
 thing. Thus, for example, the ideas I have of cold and 
 heat are so far from being clear and distinct, that I am 
 unable from them to discover whether cold is only the 
 privation of heat, or heat the privation of cold ; or whether 
 they are or are not real qualities : and since, ideas being 
 as it were images, there can be none that does not seem 
 to us to represent some object, the idea which represents 
 cold as something real and positive will not improperly be 
 called false, if it be correct to say that cold is nothing but 
 a privation of heat; and so in other cases. To ideas of 
 this kind, indeed, it is not necessary that I should assign 
 any author besides myself : for if they are false, that is, 
 represent objects that are unreal, the natural light teaches 
 me that they proceed from nothing; in other words, that 
 they are in me only because something is wanting to the 
 perfection of my nature; but if these ideas are true, yet 
 because they exhibit to me so little reality that I cannot even 
 
Descartes 53 
 
 distinguish the object represented from non-being, I do not 
 see why I should not be the author of them. 8 
 
 With reference to those ideas of corporeal things that 
 are clear and distinct, there are some which, as appears 
 to me, might have been taken from the idea I have of 
 myself, as those of substance, duration, number, and the 
 like. For when I think that a stone is a substance, or a 
 thing capable of existing of itself, and that I am likewise 
 a substance, although I conceive that I am a thinking and 
 non-extended thing, and that the stone, on the contrary, 
 is extended and unconscious, there being thus the greatest 
 diversity between the two concepts, yet these two ideas 
 seem to have this in common, that they both represent 
 substances. In the same way, when I think of myself as 
 now existing, and recollect besides that I existed some time 
 ago, and when I am conscious of various thoughts whose 
 number I know, I then acquire the ideas of duration and 
 number, which I can afterwards transfer to as many objects 
 as I please. With respect to the other qualities that go to 
 make up the ideas of corporeal objects, namely, extension, 
 figure, situation, and motion, it is true that they are not 
 formally in me, since I am merely a thinking being; but 
 because they are only certain modes of substance, and 
 because I myself am a substance, it seems possible that they 
 may be contained in me eminently. 9 
 
 8 Descartes holds to an absolute distinction between perceptions 
 and conceptions, between ideas of modes or accidents and ideas of 
 substances. He has come to see that the representative theory is 
 almost valueless for perceptions, but he continues his allegiance to 
 it for conceptions such as infinity and eternity : these are not con- 
 fused but clear, not obscure but distinct ; they may be depended 
 upon. 
 
 9 He comes very near to dissolving the independence of external 
 objects. The "little reality " has become only "substantiality "; and 
 even that may belong to myself, and only be accredited to them, as it 
 were, by transference. His dualism nearly disappears here. Some 
 
54 The Existence of God 
 
 There only remains, therefore, the idea of God, in which 
 I must consider whether there is anything that cannot be 
 supposed to originate with myself. By the name God, 
 I understand a substance infinite [eternal, immutable], 
 independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I 
 myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such there 
 be, were created. 10 But these properties are so great and 
 excellent, that the more attentively I consider them the 
 less I feel persuaded that the idea I have of them owes its 
 origin to myself alone. And thus it is absolutely necessary 
 to conclude, from all that I have before said, that God 
 exists : for though the idea of substance be in my mind 
 owing to this, that I myself am a substance, I should not, 
 however, have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I 
 am a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance 
 in reality infinite. 
 
 And I must not imagine that I do not apprehend the 
 infinite by a true idea, but only by the negation of the finite, 
 in the same way that I comprehend repose and darkness by 
 the negation of motion and light : since, on the contrary, I 
 clearly perceive that there is more reality in the infinite 
 substance than in the finite, and therefore that in some way 
 I possess the perception (notion) of the infinite before that 
 of the finite, that is, the perception of God before that of 
 myself ; for how could I know that I doubt, desire, or that 
 something is wanting to me, and that I am not wholly 
 perfect, if I possessed no idea of a being more perfect than 
 
 interpreters press this, and, by reference to other places also, consider 
 that Descartes was showing the way to explicit Idealism. 
 
 10 In this definition of the Divine Being more is expressed than 
 Descartos will make use of : in practice he uses the term Perfection to 
 cover the whole attributes ; when he especially desires clearness he 
 usually selects Infinity. He is not in sight of the problem of 
 Personality: he is seeking the ultimate Reality in a more abstract 
 way. 
 
Descartes 55 
 
 myself, by comparison of which I knew the deficiencies of 
 my nature 1 n 
 
 And it cannot be said that this idea of God is perhaps 
 materially false, and consequently that it may have arisen 
 from nothing [in other words, that it may exist in me from 
 my imperfection], as I before said of the ideas of heat and 
 cold, and the like ; for, on the contrary, as this idea is very 
 clear and distinct, and contains in itself more objective 
 reality than any other, there can be no one of itself more true, 
 or less open to the suspicion of falsity. 
 
 The idea, I say, of a being supremely perfect and infinite, 
 is in the highest degree true , for although, perhaps, we may 
 imagine that such a being does not exist, we cannot, never- 
 theless, suppose that his idea represents nothing real, as I 
 have already said of the idea of cold. It is likewise clear 
 and distinct in the highest degree, since whatever the mind 
 clearly and distinctly conceives as real or true, and as 
 implying any perfection, is contained entire in this idea. 
 And this is true, nevertheless, although I do not compre- 
 hend the infinite, and although there may be in God an 
 infinity of things that I cannot comprehend, nor perhaps 
 even compass by thought in any way ; for it is of the nature 
 of the infinite that it should not be comprehended by the 
 finite ; and it is enough that I rightly understand this, and 
 judge that all which I clearly perceive, and in which I know 
 there is some perfection, and perhaps also an infinity of 
 properties of which I am ignorant, are formally or eminently 
 in God, in order that the idea I have of Him may become the 
 most true, clear, and distinct of all the ideas in my mind. 
 
 But perhaps I am something more than I suppose myself 
 
 11 This paragraph is important as showing that Descartes has 
 always the notion of the positive infinite : there is no ambiguity in 
 his mind between the infinite and the indefinite. It is the simple 
 infinite that he regards as an innate idea, neither fictitious nor 
 adventitious. 
 
56 The Existence of God 
 
 to be, and it may be that all those perfections which I 
 attribute to God, in some way exist potentially in me, 
 although they do not yet show themselves, and are not 
 reduced to act. Indeed, I am already conscious that my 
 knowledge is being increased [and perfected] by degrees ; 
 and I see nothing to prevent it from thus gradually increasing 
 to infinity, nor any reason why, after such increase and 
 perfection, I should not be able thereby to acquire all the 
 other perfections of the Divine nature; nor, in fine, why 
 the power I possess of acquiring those perfections, if it 
 really now exist in me, should not be sufficient to produce 
 the ideas of them. Yet, on looking more closely into the 
 matter, I discover that this cannot be; for, in the first 
 place, although it were true that my knowledge daily 
 acquired new degrees of perfection, and although there 
 were potentially in my nature much that was not as yet 
 actually in it, still all these excellences make not the 
 slightest approach to the idea I have of the Deity, in whom 
 there is no perfection merely potentially [but all actually] 
 existent; for it is even an unmistakeable token of imper- 
 fection in my knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. 
 Further, although my knowledge increase more and more, 
 nevertheless I am not therefore induced to think that it 
 will ever be actually infinite, since it can never reach that point 
 beyond which it shall be incapable of further increase. But I 
 conceive God as actually infinite, so that nothing can be added 
 to His perfection. And, in fine, I readily perceive that the 
 objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a being 
 that is merely potentially existent, which, properly speaking, 
 is nothing, but only by a being existing formally or actually. 12 
 
 12 The last five paragraphs must be carefully studied. They con- 
 tain the proof from the idea to the Cause of the idea ; and it will be 
 found that Descartes is struggling to express a new and profound 
 thought lying underneath an old and more superficial one. Super- 
 ficially, the argument proceeds by using the principle of Causality in 
 
Descartes 57 
 
 And, truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said 
 which it is not easy for anyone, who shall carefully consider 
 it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow my 
 attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind 
 being obscured, and, as it were, blinded by the images of 
 sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why 
 the idea of a being more perfect than myself, must of 
 necessity have proceeded from a being in reality more 
 perfect. On this account I am here desirous to inquire 
 further, whether I, who possess this idea of God, could 
 exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from 
 whom could I, in that case, derive my existence 1 Perhaps 
 from myself, or from my parents, or from some other causes 
 less perfect than God ; for anything more perfect, or even 
 equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined. But if I 
 [were independent of every other existence, and] were myself 
 the author of my being, I should doubt of nothing, I should 
 desire nothing, and, in fine, no perfection would be awanting 
 to me ; for I should have bestowed upon myself every 
 perfection of which I possess the idea, and I should thus be 
 God. And it must not be imagined that what is now wanting 
 to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than that of 
 which I am already possessed; for, on the contrary, it is 
 quite manifest that it was a matter of much higher difficulty 
 
 an external way, to construct a bridge from one thing (his idea) to 
 another (a Perfect and Infinite Being as the Cause of that idea). It is 
 his doctrine of representative perception that some ideas must have 
 Causes. He then shows that the idea of perfection is one of these ; 
 then by the method of exclusion, which he frequently employs, he con- 
 cludes that the Cause must be a Perfect and Infinite Being. But 
 underneath this he sees a relation between the "idea" and the 
 " Object " which is of a more intimate kind, viz. that one is involved 
 in the other by immanent and inherent necessity, the finite in the 
 infinite, and the infinite in the finite. In this deeper view he is com- 
 ing into the vein of thought in which later Idealism was to do its 
 work. 
 
58 The Existence of God 
 
 that I, a thinking being, should arise from nothing, than it 
 would be for me to acquire the knowledge of many things of 
 which I am ignorant, and which are merely the accidents of 
 a thinking substance ; and certainly, if I possessed of myself 
 the greater perfection of which I have now spoken [in other 
 words, if I were the author of my own existence], I would 
 not at least have denied to myself things that may be more 
 easily obtained [as that infinite variety of knowledge of which 
 I am at present destitute]. I could not, indeed, have 
 denied to myself any property which I perceive is contained 
 in the idea of God, because there is none of these that 
 seems to me to be more difficult to make or acquire ; and 
 if there were any that should happen to be more difficult 
 to acquire, they would certainly appear so to me (supposing 
 that I myself were the source of the other things I possess), 
 because I should discover in them a limit to my power. 
 And though I were to suppose that I always was as I now 
 am, I should not, on this ground, escape the force of these 
 reasonings, since it would not follow, even on this supposi- 
 tion, that no author of my existence needed to be sought 
 after. For the whole time of my life may be divided into an 
 infinity of parts, each of which is in no way dependent on 
 any other; and, accordingly, because I was in existence a 
 short time ago, it does not follow that I must now exist, 
 unless in this moment some cause create me anew as it were, 
 that is, conserve me. In truth, it is perfectly clear and 
 evident to all who will attentively consider the nature of 
 duration, that the conservation of a substance, in each 
 moment of its duration, requires the same power and act 
 that would be necessary to create it, supposing it were not 
 yet in existence ; so that it is manifestly a dictate of the 
 natural light that conservation and creation differ merely in 
 respect of our mode of thinking [and not in reality]. All 
 that is here required, therefore, is that I interrogate myself to 
 discover whether I possess any power by means of which 
 
Descartes 59 
 
 I can bring it about that I, who now am, shall exist a 
 moment afterwards : for, since I am merely a thinking thing 
 (or since, at least, the precise question in the meantime 
 is only of that part of myself), if such a power resided in me, 
 I should without doubt be conscious of it ; but I am conscious 
 of no such power, and thereby I manifestly know that I am 
 dependent upon some being different from myself. 13 
 
 But perhaps the being upon whom I am dependent is 
 not God, and I have been produced either by my parents, 
 or by some causes less perfect than Deity. This cannot 
 be : for, as I before said, it is perfectly evident that there 
 must at least be as much reality in the cause as in its 
 effect; and accordingly, since I am a thinking thing, and 
 possess in myself an idea of God, whatever in the end be the 
 cause of my existence, it must of necessity be admitted that 
 it is likewise a thinking being, and that it possesses in itself 
 the idea and all the perfections I attribute to Deity. Then it 
 may again be inquired whether this cause owes its origin and 
 existence to itself, or to some other cause. For if it be 
 self-existent, it follows, from what I have before laid down, 
 that this cause is God ; for, since it possesses the perfection 
 of self-existence, it must likewise, without doubt, have the 
 power of actually possessing every perfection of which it has 
 the idea, in other words, all the perfections I conceive to 
 belong to God. But if it owe its existence to another cause 
 than itself, we demand again, for a similar reason, whether 
 this second cause exists of itself or through some other, 
 until, from stage to stage, we at length arrive at an ultimate 
 cause, which will be God. And it is quite manifest that in 
 
 13 Here he has introduced the argument d posteriori as applied to 
 his own existence, both for creation and conservation. His view of 
 conservation as repeated creation was afterwards formulated by 
 Geulinx as part of his Occasionalism. It is important to notice that 
 conservation is in Descartes' mind, because in this way he avoids all 
 necessity of going back along a line of causes, possibly ad inftnitum. 
 
60 The Existence of God 
 
 this matter there can be no infinite regress of causes, seeing 
 that the question raised respects not so much the cause 
 which once produced me, as that by which I am at this 
 present moment conserved. 
 
 Nor can it be supposed that several causes concurred in 
 my production, and that from one I received the idea of 
 one of the perfections I attribute to Deity, and from another 
 the idea of some other, and thus that all those perfections 
 are indeed found somewhere in the universe, but do not 
 all exist together in a single being who is God; for, on 
 the contrary, the unity, the simplicity or inseparability of 
 all the properties of Deity, is one of the chief perfections 
 I conceive Him to possess; and the idea of this unity of 
 all the perfections of Deity could certainly not be put into 
 my mind by any cause from which I did not likewise 
 receive the ideas of all the other perfections ; for no power 
 could enable me to embrace them in an inseparable unity, 
 without at the same time giving me the knowledge of what 
 they were [and of their existence in a particular mode]. 
 
 Finally, with regard to my parents [from whom it appears 
 I sprung], although all that I believed respecting them be 
 true, it does not, nevertheless, follow that I am conserved 
 by them, or even that I was produced by them, in so far 
 as I am a thinking being. All that, at the most, they 
 contributed to my origin was the giving of certain dis- 
 positions (modifications) to the matter in which I have 
 hitherto judged that I or my mind, which is what alone I 
 now consider to be myself, is enclosed ; and thus there can 
 here be no difficulty with respect to them, and it is absolutely 
 necessary to conclude from this alone that I am, and possess 
 the idea of a being absolutely perfect, that is, of God, that 
 His existence is most clearly demonstrated. 
 
 There remains only the inquiry as to the way in which 
 I received this idea from God; for I have not drawn it 
 from the senses, nor is it even presented to me unexpectedly, 
 
Descartes 61 
 
 as is usual with the ideas of sensible objects, when these 
 are presented or appear to be presented to the external 
 organs of the senses ; it is not even a pure production or 
 fiction of my mind, for it is not in my power to take from 
 or add to it ; and consequently there but remains the alter- 
 native that it is innate, in the same way as is the idea of 
 myself. And, in truth, it is not to be wondered at that God, 
 at my creation, implanted this idea in me, that it might serve, 
 as it were, for the mark of the workman impressed on his 
 work; and it is not also necessary that the mark should 
 be something different from the work itself ; but considering 
 only that God is my creator, it is highly probable that He in 
 some way fashioned me after His own image and likeness ; 
 and that I perceive this likeness, in which is contained 
 the idea of God, by the same faculty by which I apprehend 
 myself, in other words, when I make myself the object 
 of reflection, I not only find that I am an incomplete, 
 [imperfect], and dependent being, and one who unceasingly 
 aspires after something better and greater than he is ; but, 
 at the same time, I am assured likewise that He upon whom 
 I am dependent possesses in Himself all the goods after 
 which I aspire [and the ideas of which I find in my mind], 
 and that not merely indefinitely and potentially, but 
 infinitely and actually, and that He is thus God. And 
 the whole force of the argument of which I have here 
 availed myself to establish the existence of God, consists 
 in this, that I perceive I could not possibly be of such a 
 nature as I am, and yet have in my mind the idea of 
 a God, if God did not in reality exist, this same God, 
 I say, whose idea is in my mind that is, a being who 
 possesses all those lofty perfections, of which the mind 
 may have some slight conception, without, however, being 
 able fully to comprehend them, and who is wholly superior 
 to all defect [and has nothing that marks imperfection] : 
 whence it is sufficiently manifest that He cannot be a 
 
62 The Existence of God 
 
 deceiver, since it is a dictate of the natural light that all 
 fraud and deception spring from some defect. 
 
 But before I examine this with more attention, and pass 
 on to the consideration of other truths that may be evolved 
 out of it, I think it proper to remain here for some time in 
 the contemplation of God Himself that I may ponder at 
 leisure His marvellous attributes and behold, admire, and 
 adore the beauty of this light so unspeakably great, as far, 
 at least, as the strength of my mind, which is to some degree 
 dazzled by the sight, will permit. For just as we learn by 
 faith that the supreme felicity of another life consists in the 
 contemplation of the Divine majesty alone, so even now we 
 learn from experience that a like meditation, though incom- 
 parably less perfect, is the source of the highest satisfaction 
 of which we are susceptible in this life. 14 
 
 In Meditation IV. Descartes is about to apply himself to 
 the deduction of knowledge of the universe from the Supreme 
 Being : " Now I am to discover a path that will conduct us 
 from the contemplation of the true God, in whom are 
 contained all the treasures of science and wisdom, to the 
 knowledge of the other things in the universe." But immedi- 
 ately there presents itself to his mind the fact that in spite of 
 our having access to this first principle we are immersed in 
 many errors, and this needs explanation. It is plain that if 
 all knowledge is deducible from the contemplation of the 
 perfections of God, error cannot be anything more than 
 privation of knowledge. This may arise from weakness and 
 limitation in our faculties ; the understanding cannot but be 
 sound so far as it goes, but we may miss much through its 
 limitation. But there is also another source of error even 
 
 14 This outburst of sentiment is notable. Descartes is working as 
 a metaphysician, but when he has secured his metaphysical conclusion 
 he pauses to express the emotion which arises when he finds himself 
 conducted by force of necessary thinking into the presence of Perfect 
 Being. His conception may be impersonal, but to Descartes it is the 
 Supreme Reality, and the contemplation of it touches the inmost fibre 
 of his soul. 
 
Descartes 63 
 
 more serious, namely, our will, or power of choice, which may 
 lead us away from the indications of our understanding and 
 frustrate its light. (In this we see the ground for the claim 
 of Voluntarism for Descartes, referred to in Note 2.) In 
 this way error may be explained, Descartes thinks, without 
 derogating from the force of his proof of the existence of the 
 Perfect Being. With this possibility of error in his mind he 
 turns to inquire whether there are substances behind material 
 things, as we commonly suppose. He here comes upon 
 another group of clear and distinct ideas which "compel 
 assent," namely, the mathematical properties of bodies. He 
 perceives that in employing these we depend upon the content 
 of the ideas alone, by reason of their clearness and distinct- 
 ness ; and with his mind full of desire to establish his supreme 
 metaphysical principle, it occurs to him that we may similarly 
 depend upon the idea we have of the Perfect Being ; and so 
 he comes to the statement of his Ontological argument, from 
 the content of the idea to belief in a reality corresponding 
 to it. 
 
 MEDITATION V. 
 
 ON THE ESSENCE OF MATEKIAL THINGS : AND, AGAIN, OF 
 GOD; THAT HE EXISTS. 
 
 Several other questions remain for consideration respecting 
 the attributes of God and my own nature or mind. I will, 
 however, on some other occasion perhaps resume the in- 
 vestigation of these. Meanwhile, as I have discovered what 
 must be done and what avoided to arrive at the knowledge of 
 truth, what I have chiefly to do is to essay to emerge from 
 the state of doubt in which I have for some time been, and 
 to discover whether anything can be known with certainty 
 regarding material objects. But before considering whether 
 such objects as I conceive exist without me, I must examine 
 their ideas in so far as these are to be found in my con- 
 sciousness, and discover which of them are distinct and which 
 confused. 
 
 In the first place, VI distinctly imagine that quantity which 
 
64 The Existence of God 
 
 the philosophers commonly call continuous, or the extension 
 in. length, breadth, and depth that is in this quantity, or 
 rather in the object to which it is attributed. Further, I can 
 enumerate in it many diverse parts, and attribute to each of 
 these all sorts of sizes, figures, situations, and local motions ; 
 and, in fine, I can assign to each of these motions all degrees 
 of duration. And I not only distinctly know these things 
 when I thus consider them in general; but besides, by a 
 little attention, I discover innumerable particulars respecting 
 figures, numbers, motion, and the like, which are so evidently 
 true, and so accordant with my nature, that when I now 
 discover them I do not so much appear to learn anything 
 new, as to call to remembrance what I before knew, or for 
 the first time to remark what was before in my mind, but to 
 which I had not hitherto directed my attention. And what 
 I here find of most importance is, that I discover in my mind 
 innumerable ideas of certain objects, which cannot be esteemed 
 pure negations, although perhaps they possess no reality 
 beyond my thought, and which are not framed by me, though 
 it may be in my power to think or not to think them, but 
 possess true and immutable natures of their own. As, for 
 example, when I imagine a triangle, although there is not 
 perhaps and never was in any place in the universe apart 
 from my thought one such figure, it remains true nevertheless 
 that this figure possesses a certain determinate nature, form, 
 or essence, which is immutable and eternal, and not framed 
 by me, nor in any degree dependent on my thought; as 
 appears from the circumstance, that diverse properties of the 
 triangle may be demonstrated, namely, that its three angles 
 are equal to two right, that its greatest side is subtended by 
 its greatest angle, and the like, which, whether I will or not, I 
 now clearly discern to belong to it, although before I did not 
 at all think of them, when, for the first time, I imagined a 
 triangle, and which accordingly cannot be said to have been 
 invented by me. Nor is it a valid objection to allege, that 
 
Descartes 65 
 
 perhaps this idea of a triangle came into my mind by the 
 medium of the senses, through my having seen bodies of a 
 triangular figure; for I am able to form in thought an 
 innumerable variety of figures with regard to which it cannot 
 be supposed that they were ever objects of sense, and I can 
 nevertheless demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no 
 less than of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since 
 I clearly conceive them : and they are therefore something, 
 and not mere negations ; for it is highly evident that all that 
 is true is something [truth being identical with existence] ; 
 and I have already fully shown the truth of the principle, 
 that whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true. And 
 although this had not been demonstrated, yet the nature of 
 my mind is such as to compel me to assent to what I clearly 
 conceive while I so conceive it : and I recollect that even 
 when I still strongly adhered to the objects of sense, I 
 reckoned among the number of the most certain truths those 
 I clearly conceived relating to figures, numbers, and other 
 matters that pertain to arithmetic and geometry, and in 
 general to the pure mathematics. 
 
 But now, if, because I can draw from my thought the idea 
 of an object, it follows that all I clearly and distinctly 
 apprehend to pertain to this object does in truth belong to it, 
 may I not from this derive an argument for the existence of 
 God 1 It is certain that I no less find the idea of a God in 
 my consciousness, that is, the idea of a being supremely 
 perfect, than that of any figure or number whatever : and I 
 know with not less clearness and distinctness that an [actual 
 and] eternal existence pertains to his nature than that all 
 which is demonstrable of any figure or number really belongs 
 to the nature of that figure or number; and, therefore, 
 although all the conclusions of the preceding Meditations 
 were false, the existence of God would pass with me for a 
 truth at least as certain as I ever judged any truth of 
 mathematics to be, although indeed such a doctrine may at 
 5 
 
66 The Existence of God 
 
 first sight appear to contain more sophistry than truth. For, 
 as I have been accustomed in every other matter to dis- 
 tinguish between existence and essence, I easily believe that 
 the existence can be separated from the essence of God, and 
 that thus God may be conceived as not actually existing. 
 But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it 
 appears that the existence can no more be separated from the 
 essence of God, than the idea of a mountain from that of a 
 valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, 
 from the essence of a [rectilineal] triangle ; so that it is not 
 less impossible to conceive a God, that is, a being supremely 
 perfect, to whom existence is awanting, or who is devoid of a 
 certain perfection, than to conceive a mountain without a valley. 1 
 
 1 This is the Ontological argument which is specially associated 
 with Descartes : it is the one which, with Anselm's, is criticised as 
 "the Ontological argument " by Kant. But its late appearance in 
 the order of the Meditations shows that it is not his principal argument. 
 
 For Descartes it is to be parallel with mathematical reasoning : as I 
 can draw from thought (by Geometry) the knowledge of a triangle, and 
 can depend upon it as truly representing properties of Space without 
 needing to resort to any empirical tests ; so from my thought I can 
 draw knowledge of God upon which I can depend with similar con- 
 fidence without needing to look into the universe for any signs of His 
 presence. It is like mathematical reasoning in its general character 
 only : it is different in that it is the only case in which existence as 
 contained in essence is the property to be deduced. 
 
 In the Reply to the Second Objections, Descartes sets out the argument 
 in a more formal way : 
 
 Proposition I. The existence of God is known from the consideration 
 of His nature alone. 
 
 Demonstration. To say that an attribute is contained in the nature 
 or in the concept of a thing, is the same as to say that this attribute is 
 true of this thing, and that it may be affirmed to be in it. (His 
 Definition IX. had expressed this.) 
 
 But necessary existence is contained in the nature or in the concept 
 of God. (His Axiom X. had asserted this.) 
 
 Hence it may with truth be said that necessary existence is in God, 
 or that God exists. 
 
Descartes 67 
 
 But though, in truth, I cannot conceive a God unless as 
 existing, any more than I can a mountain without a valley, 
 yet, just as it does not follow that there is any mountain in 
 the world merely because I conceive a mountain with a valley, 
 so likewise, though I conceive God as existing, it does not 
 seem to follow on that account that God exists ; for my 
 thought imposes no necessity on things; and as I may 
 imagine a winged horse, though there be none such, so I 
 could perhaps attribute existence to God though no God 
 existed. But the cases are not analogous, and a fallacy lurks 
 under the semblance of this objection : for because I cannot 
 conceive a mountain without a valley, it does not follow that 
 there is any mountain or valley in existence, but simply that 
 the mountain or valley, whether they do or do not exist, are 
 inseparable from each other ; whereas, on the other hand, 
 because I cannot conceive God unless as existing, it follows 
 that existence is inseparable from Him, and therefore that He 
 really exists ; not that this is brought about by my thought, 
 or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the con- 
 trary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the 
 necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think 
 in this way : for it is not in my power to conceive a God 
 
 But he goes on to say that ' ' this conclusion may be known without 
 proof by those who are free from prejudice," and he only tries different 
 ways because "it is not so easy to reach so great perspicacity of 
 mind," and "there are certain truths which are manifest to some 
 without proof which are not comprehended by others without a 
 process of reasoning." From which it is fairly clear that the formal 
 process is unnecessary, and that Descartes is really aware that he is 
 asserting an intuitive judgment of an Ontological character, namely, 
 that the necessary thought of a Perfect Being carries with it the 
 thought of existence. As pointed out above, it is not Descartes' 
 principal proof : and he does not resort to it as if it could stand alone. 
 He associates it with the necessity of seeking some other cause than 
 myself, for myself, imperfect as I am and yet possessing this innate 
 idea of necessary perfection. 
 
68 The Existence of God 
 
 without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet 
 devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a 
 horse with or without wings. 2 
 
 Nor must it be alleged here as an objection, that it is in 
 truth necessary to admit that God exists, after having 
 supposed Him to possess all perfections, since existence is one 
 of them, but that my original supposition was not necessary ; 
 just as it is not necessary to think that all quadrilateral 
 figures can be inscribed in the circle, since, if I supposed this, 
 I should be constrained to admit that the rhombus, being a 
 figure of four sides, can be therein inscribed, which, however, 
 is manifestly false. This objection is, I say, incompetent ; 
 for although it may not be necessary that I shall at any time 
 entertain the notion of Deity, yet each time I happen to 
 think of a first and sovereign being, and to draw, so to speak, 
 
 2 In this paragraph Descartes is grappling with the objection 
 of Gassendi, as Anselm had done with that of Gaunilo, as to the 
 legitimacy of passing from idea to existence. Descartes' reply is 
 equivalent to that of Anselm ; the Ontological assertion cannot be 
 claimed for all ideas but only for necessary ones, and such the idea of 
 God, of Perfection, of Infinity, is declared to be. 
 
 With Descartes' statement may be compared the vigorous expression of 
 the Cambridge Platonist, Cudworth (Intellectual System, i. chap. v. ) : 
 
 "Our human soul cannot feign or create any new cogitation or 
 conception that was not before, but only variously compound that 
 which is ; nor can it ever make a positive idea of an absolute non- 
 entit) 7 that is, such as hath neither actual nor possible existence : 
 much less could our imperfect being create the entity of so vast a 
 thought as that of an infinitely perfect Being out of nothing ; this 
 being indeed more than for God Almighty, or a perfect Being, to 
 create a real world out of nothing ; because there is no repugnancy at 
 all in the latter, as there is in the former. We affirm, therefore, that 
 was there no God, the idea of an absolutely or infinitely perfect Being 
 could never have been made or feigned, neither by politicians, nor by 
 poets, nor philosophers, nor any other. Which may be accounted 
 another argument for Deity." 
 
 For general observations on the Ontological argument, see on 
 Anselm, and on Kant. Cf. also Bradley, op. cit. c, xxiv. 
 
Descartes 69 
 
 the idea of Him from the storehouse of the mind, I am 
 necessitated to attribute to Him all kinds of perfections, 
 though I may not then enumerate them all, nor think of each 
 of them in particular. And this necessity is sufficient, as 
 soon as I discover that existence is a perfection, to cause me 
 to infer the existence of this first and sovereign being : just 
 as it is not necessary that I should ever imagine any triangle, 
 but whenever I am desirous of considering a rectilineal figure 
 composed of only three angles, it is absolutely necessary to 
 attribute those properties to it from which it is correctly 
 inferred that its three angles are not greater than two right 
 angles, although perhaps I may not then advert to this 
 relation in particular. But when I consider what figures are 
 capable of being inscribed in the circle, it is by no means 
 necessary to hold that all quadrilateral figures are of this 
 number ; on the contrary, I cannot even imagine such to be 
 the case, so long as I shall be unwilling to accept in thought 
 aught that I do not clearly and distinctly conceive : and con- 
 sequently there is a vast difference between false suppositions, 
 as is the one in question, and the true ideas that were born 
 with me, the first and chief of which is the idea of God. For 
 indeed I discern on many grounds that this idea is not 
 factitious, depending simply on my thought, but that it is the 
 representation of a true and immutable nature : in the first 
 place, because I can conceive no other being, except God, to 
 whose essence existence [necessarily] pertains j in the second, 
 because it is impossible to conceive two or more gods of this 
 kind; and it being supposed that one such God exists, I 
 clearly see that He must have existed from all eternity, and 
 will exist to all eternity ; and, finally, because I apprehend 
 many other properties in God, none of which I can either 
 diminish or change. 
 
 But, indeed, whatever mode of proof I in the end adopt, it 
 always returns to this, that it is only the things I clearly and 
 distinctly conceive which have the power of completely 
 
70 The Existence of God 
 
 persuading me. And although, of the objects I conceive in 
 this manner, some, indeed, are obvious to every one, while 
 others are only discovered after close and careful investiga- 
 tion ; nevertheless, after they are once discovered, the latter 
 are not esteemed less certain than the former. Thus, for 
 example, to take the case of a right-angled triangle, although 
 it is not so manifest at first that the square of the base is 
 equal to the squares of the other two sides, as that the base 
 is opposite to the greatest angle ; nevertheless, after it is once 
 apprehended, we are as firmly persuaded of the truth of the 
 former as of the latter. And, with respect to God, if I were 
 not preoccupied by prejudices, and my thought beset on all 
 sides by the continual presence of the images of sensible 
 objects, I should know nothing sooner or more easily than 
 the fact of His being. For is there any truth more clear 
 than the existence of a Supreme Being, or of God, seeing it is 
 to His essence alone that [necessary and eternal] existence 
 pertains 1 And although the right conception of this truth 
 has cost me much close thinking, nevertheless at present I 
 feel not only as assured of it as of what I deem most certain, 
 but I remark further that the certitude of all other truths is 
 so absolutely dependent on it, that without this knowledge it 
 is impossible ever to know anything perfectly. 
 
 For although I am of such a nature as to be unable, while 
 I possess a very clear and distinct apprehension of a matter, 
 to resist the conviction of its truth, yet because my con- 
 stitution is also such as to incapacitate me from keeping my 
 mind continually fixed on the same object, and as I fre- 
 quently recollect a past judgment without at the same time 
 being able to recall the grounds of it, it may happen mean- 
 while that other reasons are presented to me which would 
 readily cause me to change my opinion, if I did not know 
 that God existed; and thus I should possess no true and 
 certain knowledge, but merely vague and vacillating opinions. 
 Thus, for example, when I consider the nature of the 
 
Descartes 71 
 
 [rectilineal] triangle, it most clearly appears to me, who have 
 been instructed in the principles of geometry, that its three 
 angles are equal to two right angles, and I find it impossible 
 to believe otherwise, while I apply my mind to the demon- 
 stration ; but as soon as I cease from attending to the process 
 of proof, although I still remember that I had a clear com- 
 prehension of it, yet I may readily come to doubt of the 
 truth demonstrated, if I do not know that there is a God : 
 for I may persuade myself that I have been so constituted 
 by nature as to be sometimes deceived, even in matters which 
 I think I apprehend with the greatest evidence and certitude, 
 especially when I recollect that I frequently considered many 
 things to be true and certain which other reasons afterwards 
 constrained me to reckon as wholly false. 3 
 
 3 In these two paragraphs we are brought into view of a con- 
 fusion in Descartes' exposition which needs disentangling. "We find 
 him sometimes staking all knowledge simply on the clearness and 
 distinctness of the deliverances of Reason in general (never on senses 
 or imagination, of course) ; at other times on the clearness and dis- 
 tinctness of some particular deliverance, the Cogito or the existence of 
 God. Hence a manifest circle sometimes appears I trust to clear 
 Reason, because it is from God, who, being perfect, cannot deceive ; and 
 yet I believe in God solely because of the clearness and distinctness of 
 the Reason by which I know Him. This wavering began early : it is 
 in the Discourse on Method ; but at the close of Part IV. he takes his 
 stand, as emphatically as words can enable him to do, on the belief in 
 God as the ground for trusting clearness of Reason itself (and witli God 
 he conjoins the Cogito) ; and when he opens Part V. it is from the 
 perfection of God. Elsewhere he seems to require Theistic belief only 
 for another office, namely, to reassure him where clearness is in 
 abeyance through failure of memory, or through other obstructions, or 
 through necessity of having the whole universe of thought secured 
 when only a part is present to the mind. The wavering recurs, how- 
 ever, in the Meditations, and is repeated in the Principles. It must 
 therefore be acknowledged that Descartes had not cleared his own 
 mind, and various explanations are offered as to why he had not done 
 so. Our own interpretation is that it is the belief in the perfect Being 
 which is for Descartes the ultimate ground of knowledge : this is the 
 
72 The Existence of God 
 
 But after I have discovered that God exists, seeing I also 
 at the same time observed that all things depend on Him, and 
 that He is no deceiver, and thence inferred that all which I 
 clearly and distinctly perceive is of necessity true : although 
 I no longer attend to the grounds of a judgment, no opposite 
 reason can be alleged sufficient to lead me to doubt of its 
 truth, provided only I remember that I once possessed a clear 
 and distinct comprehension of it. My knowledge of it thus 
 becomes true and certain. And this same knowledge extends 
 likewise to whatever I remember to have formerly demon- 
 strated, as the truths of geometry and the like ; for what can 
 be alleged against them to lead me to doubt of them 1 Will 
 it be that my nature is such that I may be frequently 
 deceived 1 But I already know that I cannot be deceived in 
 judgments of the grounds of which I possess a clear know- 
 ledge. Will it be that I formerly deemed things to be true 
 and certain which I afterwards discovered to be false 1 But 
 I had no clear and distinct knowledge of any of those things, 
 
 substantive belief. Its clearness is adjectival, and admits of being 
 generalised into a criterion for universal use. It is quite needless, 
 therefore, to separate them, and to use one as a ground for believing 
 in the other. If we are to admit that the Cogito is another such 
 ultimate intuition, the same remark applies to that. 
 
 A circle also appears in another way. Confidence in the veracity of 
 the perfect Being is necessary for the beginning of knowledge : when I 
 come to investigate knowledge, the most substantial content I find in 
 it is this very existence of perfect Being. It is easy to call this a 
 fallacy of circular reasoning, biit it is easy also to show that the 
 objection does not lie ; it is not reasoning in the sense of inference from 
 one thought to another at all, and so there is no objection to a circle. 
 It is the bringing into explicitness a movement of thought which does 
 not pass from one object to another, but is working within a circle. 
 From the perfect Being or presupposition I proceed to explore : in my 
 exploration I find also the perfect Being at the end. But this is 
 really to say that I find Him everywhere : I am only making explicit 
 that to find Him everywhere means that He is both beginning and end, 
 and that between this beginning and end lies everything I know. 
 
Descartes 73 
 
 and, being as yet ignorant of the rule by which I am assured 
 of the truth of a judgment, I was led to give my assent to 
 them on grounds which I afterwards discovered were less 
 strong than at the time I imagined them to be. What 
 further objection, then, is there 1 ? Will it be said that 
 perhaps I am dreaming (an objection I lately myself raised), 
 or that all the thoughts of which I am now conscious have no 
 more truth than the reveries of my dreams 1 But although, 
 in truth, I should be dreaming, the rule still holds that all 
 which is clearly presented to my intellect is indisputably true. 
 And thus I very clearly see that the certitude and truth of 
 all science depends on the knowledge alone of the true God, 
 insomuch that, before I knew Him, I could have no perfect 
 knowledge of any other thing. And now that I know Him, I 
 possess the means of acquiring a perfect knowledge respecting 
 innumerable matters, as well relative to God Himself and 
 other intellectual objects as to corporeal nature, in so far as it 
 is the object of pure mathematics [which do not consider 
 whether it exists or not]. 4 
 
 4 This states Descartes' view, that from these first principles, 
 which constitute Metaphysics, he can proceed to deduce all know- 
 ledge : they are "such that we can deduce from them the knowledge 
 of whatever else is in the world " (Principles, Preface) ; and his tree of 
 the sciences (ibid. ) is, " Metaphysics the root, Physics the trunk, and 
 the branches which grow out of this trunk, which are reduced to three 
 principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics." On this it 
 should be observed that it is acknowledged by French philosophers 
 that the "spirit of Cartesianism " has characterised too much of 
 French thought, especially in the eighteenth century, by leading to 
 an abstractness and a confidence in deductive method which prevented 
 a true appreciation of the complexity of the universe and the need of 
 historical method. The rich contributions of the French mind to 
 historical work recently and in the present day represent a reaction 
 from the Cartesian influence ; but to Englishmen there is still apparent 
 in French historical work a fine sense of generalisation, which they 
 regard with admiration, and value as an indispensable factor in Euro- 
 pean thought. 
 
74 The Existence of God 
 
 When Descartes came to work out the " little reality " he 
 had candidly acknowledged to be left in bodies as not to be 
 attributed to our ideas, he passed on to recognition of external 
 substantiality to an extent which left Matter on a par with 
 Mind. This dualism, which he had had in his mind before he 
 doubted, and which now recurred to him, might have been 
 subordinated by him to the unity provided by his Meta- 
 physical Theism ; but he left Matter very externally related 
 to the perfect Being much more so than Mind, in which 
 he saw at times an immanent and inherent presence of 
 Divinity. Hence some of his followers became Deists for 
 both Mind and Matter; by others the Theism was abandoned 
 as providing a Deus ex machind ; and others even arose who, 
 between the two substances, attributed superiority to Matter. 
 But these were plainly reversals of Descartes' purpose : he 
 stands out clearly himself for Metaphysical Theism. 
 
 In reference to other aspects of Theism. Descartes made 
 no use of the arguments a contingentia mundi, or from teleo- 
 logy, or from Morals ; nor does he touch the Idealism which 
 starts from the subjective side of consciousness and regards 
 the Divine Being as the all-comprehensive Subject. Nor did 
 he from his Theism deductively draw any system of Ethics or 
 Politics or Religion, though he had indicated the possibility 
 of all these. He rested content with the doctrines of the 
 Church for religious beliefs, and the prevalent opinions of 
 French society for ethical and political life. His interest 
 passed from Metaphysics to the Physical Sciences; and he 
 followed up his deductions into Physics, and even into 
 Anatomy and Physiology, with some reference to experimental 
 observation. But followers arose whose interest lay in the 
 moral sphere, and the simple principles which served in the 
 Physical Sciences were carried over by them without further 
 criticism into the Moral Sciences and into Religion, and gave 
 us Bayle, the Encyclopaedists, and Voltaire. 
 
 The comparison of systems, for which it is a main purpose 
 of this volume to furnish materials, may be assisted by the 
 insertion here of the reasons why Descartes' Philosophy, 
 Theistic as it was, was placed on the Index (1663) thirteen 
 years after his death, a prescription which was adopted by 
 the Universities of Holland under Calvinist direction, and the 
 University of Oxford under Anglican. The opposition marks 
 the differences between Cartesianism and Aquinism as both 
 
Descartes 75 
 
 were understood in Descartes' own age. The following are 
 the grounds assigned : His principle of unreserved doubt 
 was opposed to the claim of religious Faith; his criterion 
 of clearness was subjective and individual; his a priori 
 reason left no scope for Revelation ; his making thought the 
 essence of the Divine Being to the exclusion of spirit and 
 life ; his attributing infinity to the universe instead of to God 
 only; the existence of uncreated matter; the mechanical 
 theory instead of teleological operation ; and his attributing 
 error to the will instead of to will and intellect together. How 
 far these were true readings of Descartes is another matter : 
 these were the interpretations then current. As there are 
 factors in his system, e.g. the infinite, causality, representative 
 ideas, and the absolute difference between perceptions and 
 conceptions, in which Descartes retains leading points of 
 Scholasticism, we see how much he was a worker in an era of 
 transition. 
 
 References. The translation in the text is that of the late John 
 Veitch, professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow : the volume 
 contains also translations of the Method and the Principles, and has an 
 introduction and notes by Veitch. New translations have been made 
 by Lowndes, London, 1878 ; H. A. P. Torrey, New York, 1892 ; and 
 by G. B. Rawlings (n. d., pub. W. Scott). 
 
 Recent monographs are : Wallace (in Encycl. Brit.} ; Dr. E. Caird, 
 " Cartesianism " (in Encycl. Brit., reprinted in Essays, 1892); Mr. 
 Norman Smith, Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy (1902) ; Professor 
 Iveracli, Descartes and Spinoza, 1904 ; Dr. Mahaffy's, in Blackwood's 
 Philosophical Classics, is mainly biographical. The chapter in Kuno 
 Fischer's History of Philosophy has been translated, and printed separ- 
 ately under the title Descartes and his School. But more attention 
 should be given by English students to French opinion : see especially 
 a memorial number of the Revue de Metaphysique, July 1896, by 
 thirteen writers ; and French histories of Philosophy, by Renouvier, 
 Weber, Fouillee, and Levy Brulil. 
 
IV. 
 GOD AS INFINITE SUBSTANCE. 
 
 SPINOZA (1632-1677). 
 
 BY Spinoza we are invited to look at the world through 
 God. The whole array of temporary, finite, contingent 
 persons, events, and things are set in the Eternal, Infinite, 
 Necessary Being. And, further, it is in this vision of Reality, 
 and in it alone, that our Happiness lies : this is the true 
 Religion. 
 
 We have seen Descartes start from Cogito, and soon arrive 
 at the thought of God. Spinoza in his great systematic 
 work omits all preliminaries, and commences with the prius 
 of all knowledge and the substance of all reality : these he 
 takes to be identical; he is Ontological. This should be 
 kept clearly in mind. Spinoza has no scruples that he may 
 be dealing with thoughts only: he is giving his view of 
 Reality ; and will find no after problem how to bring Reality 
 under a scheme of thought which has been developed apart 
 from it. The unity of Reality of Thought is in his con- 
 viction all along. 
 
 This settled, he adopts the method of Geometry for bring- 
 ing Thought and Reality into explicitness : Ethica, more 
 geometrico demonstrates, is his title. In this it is to be 
 noticed that more is meant than the employment of geo- 
 metrical method as a convenient method for Metaphysics as 
 the study of ultimate Reality. There is an assumption of 
 similarity in the subject-matter. To Spinoza, as to his 
 contemporaries, it was not clear that the method of Geometry 
 depended upon the specific subject-matter which was supplied 
 to it to work upon, namely, Space. Spinoza took it that he 
 could posit Reality as he could posit Space. In dealing with 
 plurality in unity, attribute and substance, modes and 
 
 76 
 
Spinoza 77 
 
 attributes, he finds Geometry, with its Figure and properties, 
 an excellent illustration; going further, indeed, and finding 
 in it the " standard of verity," to use his own expression. 
 This Ontological presumption must be kept in mind when 
 taking the system into account as a whole. 
 
 Spinoza in other writings gives some account of the genesis 
 of his theory of knowing and being ; and inquiry as to his 
 intellectual ancestry leads along tracks of great interest in 
 the history of religious and philosophical thought. Here we 
 can print only his result as given in his chief work, the 
 Uthica, written in Latin, and published immediately after 
 his death. 
 
 CONCERNING GOD. 
 
 At the close of Part I., Spinoza sums up his result as 
 follows : "I have unfolded the nature of God and His pro- 
 perties, namely, that He is that which exists of necessity ; that 
 He is one ; that He exists and acts from the sole necessity 
 of His own nature ; that He is the free cause of all things, 
 and how He is so. That all things are in God, and depend 
 upon Him in such manner that without Him they cannot 
 possibly either exist or be conceived. And, finally, that all 
 things have been predetermined by God; not, indeed, from 
 the freedom of a will, or from an absolutely arbitrary decree, 
 but from the absolute nature or infinite power of God." 
 
 1. GOD AS SELF-EXISTING SUBSTANCE. 
 Definitions. 
 
 1. By a cause of itself (causa sui), I mean something of 
 which the essence involves existence ; or of which the nature 
 is conceivable only as being in existence. 1 
 
 1 Causa sui. The meaning of this much discussed expression seems 
 fairly clear when it is looked at in the light of the purpose for which 
 Spinoza required it. The action of cause and effect or with him, 
 more strictly, ground and consequent implies two objects in relation. 
 Could we not close the two up into one, and then we should have 
 
7(S God as Infinite Substance 
 
 2. A thing is called finite in its kind when it can be 
 limited by another thing of the same nature. A body, for 
 instance, is called finite because we always conceive another 
 body greater than it. So also a thought can be limited by 
 another thought. But a body is not limited by a thought, 
 nor a thought by a body. 
 
 3. By Substance, I understand that which exists in itself, and 
 is conceived through itself ; that is, something of which the con- 
 ception needs for its formation the conception of no other thing. 
 
 4. By Attribute, I understand that which the intellect 
 perceives in Substance as (tanquam) constituting its essence. 
 
 5. By Mode, I understand a modification of Substance; 
 or that which is in something other than itself, by means of 
 which also it is conceived. 
 
 6. By God, I understand a Being which is absolutely 
 infinite that is, a Substance consisting of infinite attributes, 
 each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence. 
 
 Explanations. I say infinite absolutely, not infinite in 
 its kind. For an infinity of attributes may be denied to a 
 thing which is infinite only in its own kind. But the abso- 
 lutely infinite contains in its essence all that expresses reality, 
 without any admission of negation whatever. 2 
 
 something of which the existence depends only upon itself? To 
 Spinoza this self-existence was the starting-point of thought, it was 
 the character of Keality as a whole. From this lie thought he could 
 unfold the universe. That the conception of Causation in the sense of 
 dependence as between cause and effect is absent from Spinoza's 
 fundamental method is agreed : with him the relation is a statical 
 one of ground and consequent, the inherence of properties: and his 
 constant parallel, as already pointed out, is geometrical properties in 
 relation to their figures. Causation pushes its way in sometimes, no 
 doubt, but it is alien to his main line of thought. 
 
 2 The three moments seem to be X, plus extension and thought, 
 plus modes of these (extended things and states of consciousness). 
 And as all the modes are within the attributes, and the attributes 
 are within X, all is within X, which is Reality itself. The difference 
 
Spinoza 79 
 
 7. A thing is called free which exists solely by the 
 necessity of its own nature, and acts solely as determined 
 by itself. On the other hand, a thing is necessary, or, better, 
 constrained, which is determined by something other than 
 itself to a fixed and definite way of existing or acting. 
 
 8. By Eternity, I mean existence itself, in so far as it is 
 conceived as following solely from the definition of that 
 which is eternal. 
 
 Explanation. Existence of this kind is conceived as 
 eternal truth, like the essence of a thing. It cannot, therefore, 
 be explained by reference to duration or time, even though 
 duration may be conceived without beginning or ending. 
 
 Axioms. 
 
 1. Whatever exists, exists either in itself or in something 
 else. 3 
 
 2. Whatever cannot be conceived through anything else, 
 must be conceived through itself. 
 
 3. From every definite cause an effect follows of necessity ; 
 and, on the other hand, if there is no definite cause, it is 
 impossible for there to be any effect. 
 
 from Descartes appears in the removal of self-existing substantiality 
 from both body and mind, and insisting on it being confined to the X 
 of which they are the attributes. Of course it is open to ask, what the 
 substance is ? and if it is only the attributes over again, what purpose 
 the conception serves ? Spinoza meant it to serve the purpose of 
 unification, at least. 
 
 3 Axiom 1 must be looked at closely, for battle will be joined 
 upon it by those who are keeping Pantheism at arm's length. They 
 will say that we know of substances which are both in se and in alio, 
 inherently substantial as regards their qualities yet dependent upon 
 God, e.g. the world, and, possibly, each individual soul. Whereas 
 Spinoza's statement is true only if confined to substance in his sense as 
 self-dependent. Much depends on this, as this Axiom enters into the 
 structure of his chain of argument at several points, and so leads him 
 to his one substance, because he started from it. 
 
80 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 4. The knowledge of an effect depends upon the know- 
 ledge of a cause, and involves that knowledge. 
 
 5. Things which have nothing in common cannot be 
 understood by means of one another ; the conception of one 
 does not involve the conception of the other. 
 
 6. An idea is true when it corresponds with its object. 
 
 7. If a thing can be conceived to be non-existent, existence 
 is not involved in its essence. 
 
 Proposition I. Substance is by nature prior to its 
 modifications. 
 
 Proof. This is clear from Defs. 3 and 5. 
 
 Proposition II. Two substances with different attributes 
 have nothing in common. 
 
 Proof. This is evident from Def. 3. For each substance 
 must exist in itself and be conceived through itself ; in other 
 words, the conception of the one does not involve the con- 
 ception of the other. 
 
 Proposition III. Things which have nothing in common 
 cannot be the cause of one another. 
 
 Proof. If they have nothing in common, it follows that 
 one cannot be conceived by means of the other (Ax. 5), and, 
 therefore, one cannot be the cause of the other. 
 
 Proposition IV. Two or more distinct things are distin- 
 guished from one another either by the difference of the 
 attributes of the substances or by the difference of their 
 modifications. 
 
 Proof. Everything that exists, exists either in itself or 
 in something else (by Ax. 1) ; that is (by Defs. 3 and 5), 
 outside intellect there is nothing except substances and 
 their modifications. There is therefore nothing outside 
 intellect by which a number of things can be distin- 
 guished among themselves except substances, or what is 
 the same thing (by Def. 4), their attributes and their 
 modifications. 
 
Spinoza 81 
 
 Proposition V. In the nature of things there cannot be 
 two or more substances of the same nature or attribute. 
 
 Proof. If several distinct substances were given, they 
 must be distinguished from one another by the difference 
 either of their attributes or of their modifications (Prop. 
 IV.). If the difference is in their attributes it will be 
 granted, therefore, that there is only one substance of the 
 same attribute. But if the difference is in the modifications, 
 since substance is by nature prior to its modifications 
 (Prop. I.), then, setting aside the modifications and looking 
 at substance in itself, i.e. (Defs. 3 and 6) truly, it cannot 
 be conceived to be distinguished from another substance, 
 i.e. (Prop. IV.) there cannot be several substances with the 
 same attribute, but only one. 
 
 Proposition VI. One substance cannot be produced by 
 another substance. 
 
 Proof. In the nature of things there cannot be two 
 substances of the same attribute (by Prop. V.), i.e. (by 
 Prop. II.), which have anything common to both. Therefore 
 (by Prop. III.) one cannot be the cause of the other, nor be 
 produced by the other. 
 
 Corollary. Hence it follows that a substance cannot be 
 produced by something else. For in the nature of things 
 there is nothing except substances and their modifications 
 (Ax. 1 and Defs. 3 and 5). But it cannot be produced by 
 another substance (by this Prop.). Therefore, absolutely, a 
 substance cannot be produced by something else. 
 
 Another Proof. This is proved even more easily by 
 reference to the law of contradiction. For if a substance 
 could be produced by something else, the knowledge of it 
 must depend upon the knowledge of that producing cause 
 (Ax. 4) ; and therefore (Def. 3) it would not be substance. 4 
 
 4 In this chain (up to Prop. VI.) Propositions I. to III. only 
 bring together some Definitions and incorporate Axioms 4 and 5 ; bat 
 Axiom 4 rests on Axiom 1, and Axiom 5 depends on Axiom 4 : while VI. 
 6 
 
82 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Proposition VII. Existence belongs to the nature of 
 substance. 
 
 Proof. Substance cannot be produced by something else 
 (by Prop. VI. CoroLL), it will therefore be its own cause 
 (causa sui) that is (by Def. 1), its essence necessarily 
 involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature. 5 
 
 Proposition VIII. Every substance is necessarily infinite. 
 
 Proof. A substance of one attribute must be a unique 
 thing (Prop. V.), and existence belongs to its very nature 
 (Prop. VII.). From its nature, therefore, it must exist either 
 as infinite or finite. But not as finite, for (by Def. 2, a 
 thing is finite in its class which can be limited by another 
 thing of the same nature) it would have to be limited by 
 another thing of the same nature, which also would have 
 to exist by necessity (Prop. VII.). And so there would 
 be given two substances with the same attribute, which 
 is absurd (by Prop. V.). It exists therefore as infinite. 
 
 Scholium I. Since to be finite is really in part a negation, 
 and the infinite is the absolute affirmation of the existence 
 of a nature, it follows, from Prop. VII. alone, that every 
 substance must be infinite. 
 
 Scholium II. (referring to Prop. VII.). I do not doubt that 
 the demonstration of Prop. VII. will be comprehended with 
 difficulty by all those who judge confusedly about things, and 
 have not been accustomed to know things by means of their 
 first causes ; for undoubtedly such persons do not make distinc- 
 
 and its Corollaries are on a similar footing. And so to some the chain 
 hangs in the air. But Spinoza, with his conception of Substance, 
 pursues his way. 
 
 5 This demonstration illustrates Spinoza's way of taking for proof 
 what is really the unfolding of previous assertions. He means to 
 prove existence for Substance ; and does it by drawing it out of the 
 heart aud meaning of Substance itself. We noticed that he enclosed 
 " Cause" (in his sense) in Substance, and now he has only to draw it 
 out again : and Substance as necessarily causing and caused exists in 
 the sense that everything exists of which the Cause exists. 
 
Spinoza 83 
 
 tion between the modifications of substances and the substances 
 themselves, nor do they know how things are produced. The 
 consequence is that they attribute to substances a beginning 
 such as they see belonging to things in nature. For those who 
 are not acquainted with the real causes of things confuse all 
 things together, and they find no intellectual repugnance in 
 representing trees talking like men; or they imagine men origin- 
 ating sometimes from stones, sometimes from seed ; and that 
 forms of particular kinds are changed into forms of other 
 kinds. So also those who confuse Divine nature with human 
 nature easily attribute to the Deity human affections (afectus), 
 especially so long as they are ignorant of the way in which 
 affections are produced in the human mind. But if men 
 would give attention to what the nature of a substance is, they 
 would not have the smallest doubt of the truth of Prop. VII.; 
 nay, this proposition would be accounted by all to be an 
 axiom, and be ranked among common notions. For by 
 " substance " they would understand that which is in itself 
 and is conceived by means of itself; that is, that the 
 knowledge of it needs the knowledge of nothing else : while 
 by modifications, they would understand what are in some- 
 thing else, being conceived by means of the conception of the 
 thing in which they are. So that we can have true ideas of 
 modifications which do not exist : since, although they may 
 not actually exist outside the intellect, yet their essence is so 
 comprehended in something else, that by its means they 
 can be conceived. But there is no truth of substances 
 outside the intellect, except in themselves, because they are 
 conceived through themselves. If anyone should say, there- 
 fore, that he has a clear and distinct that is to say, a true 
 idea of substance, and yet that he doubts whether such a 
 substance exists, it would be the same thing, forsooth, as if 
 he should say that he has a true idea, and yet is in doubt 
 whether it is false (as becomes manifest to anyone who is 
 sufficiently attentive) ; or, if anyone should affirm that a 
 
84 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 substance is created, he by doing so would be affirming 
 that a false idea has become true, which is as great an 
 absurdity as can be imagined. And so it must necessarily be 
 acknowledged that the existence of substance, like its 
 essence, is an eternal truth. 
 
 And hence we can conclude in another way, which I think 
 worth adding here, that only one substance of any nature can 
 be given. 
 
 But that I may do this in due order it is to be noted : 
 (1) The true definition of each thing involves nothing, and 
 expresses nothing, beyond the nature of the thing defined. 
 From which it follows (2) that no definition involves or 
 expresses a fixed number of individuals, seeing that it 
 expresses nothing else than the nature of the thing defined. 
 For example, the definition of a triangle expresses nothing 
 else than the simple nature of a triangle, and certainly not 
 any certain number of triangles. (3) It is to be noted that 
 some certain cause is necessarily given for everything which 
 exists, by virtue of which it comes into existence. (4) Lastly, 
 it is to be noted that this cause, by virtue of which a thing 
 comes into existence, must either be contained in the very 
 nature and definition of the thing existing (simply because it 
 pertains to the nature of the thing to exist), or must exist 
 outside it. From these four points it follows that if in 
 nature a certain number of individuals exists, a cause must 
 necessarily be given why those individuals exist, and not fewer 
 or more of them. 
 
 If, for instance, in the nature of things twenty men exist 
 (whom, for the sake of simplicity, I suppose to exist at the 
 same time, and that none existed in nature before), it will 
 not be sufficient in giving a reason for the existence of the 
 twenty to show the cause of human nature in general, but 
 there will be an additional necessity to show the cause why 
 neither more nor less than twenty exist, since by point 3 a 
 cause must be shown for the existence of everything. But 
 
85 
 
 this cause (by the above points 2 and 3) cannot be contained 
 within human nature itself, since the true definition of man 
 does not involve the number twenty. And, therefore, by 
 point 4, the cause why these twenty men exist, and con- 
 sequently why any one of them exists, must necessarily be 
 placed outside any one of them. And, therefore, we must 
 absolutely conclude that everything of a nature which admits 
 of the existence of several individuals must necessarily have 
 an external cause in order that those individuals may exist. 
 Now, since existence belongs to the nature of substance (as 
 already proved in this Scholium), its definition must involve 
 necessary existence, and consequently from its definition 
 alone its existence must be inferred. But from its definition 
 (as shown in the above points 2 and 3) the existence of 
 several substances cannot follow. It follows, therefore, 
 necessarily from that definition, that only a single thing of 
 one nature exists, as was laid down. 
 
 Proposition IX. The more reality or being a thing has, 
 the greater is the number of its attributes. 
 
 Proof. By Def. 4. 
 
 Proposition X. Each several attribute of the one sub- 
 stance must be conceived through itself only. 
 
 Proof. An attribute is that which the intellect perceives 
 of substance as constituting its essence (Def. 4), and there- 
 fore it must be conceived through itself (Def. 3). 
 
 Scholium. It is thus evident that though the attributes 
 are, in fact, conceived as distinct, that is, one without the 
 help of the other, yet we cannot conclude from this that they 
 constitute two beings or two different substances. For the 
 nature of substance is such that each of its attributes is 
 conceived through itself, as all its attributes have always 
 existed together in it, and no one of them could be produced 
 by any other of them, but each expresses the reality or being 
 of substance. It is therefore by no means an absurdity to 
 ascribe several attributes to one substance; for nothing in 
 
86 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 nature is more clear than that each and every being must be 
 conceived under some attribute, and that its reality or being 
 is in proportion to the number of its attributes expressing 
 necessity or eternity or infinity. It is therefore abundantly 
 clear that an absolutely infinite being must be defined as 
 consisting of infinite attributes, every one of which expresses 
 a certain eternal and infinite essence. 
 
 If it is now asked by what signs we may distinguish 
 between different substances, let the following propositions be 
 read, where it is shown that there is only one substance in 
 the universe ; and that that substance is absolutely infinite, 
 and it will be seen that to search for any such distinguishing 
 mark is futile : 6 
 
 Proposition XI. God, or Substance, consisting of infinite 
 attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite 
 essence, necessarily exists. 
 
 Proof. If you deny this, conceive (if possible) that God 
 does not exist. Then (by Axiom 7) His essence does not 
 involve existence. But this (by Prop. VII.) is absurd. 
 Therefore God necessarily exists. 
 
 Anotlier Proof. A cause or reason of everything should 
 be assigned, either why it exists, or why it does not exist. 
 For example, if a triangle exists, a reason or cause ought to 
 be given why it exists ; but if it does not exist, a reason or 
 cause ought to be given which prevents it from existing, or 
 
 6 An "attribute" is immediately cognisable through itself, or not 
 at all ; while a mode requires reference to an attribute, e.g. motion 
 and rest require reference to extension ; intellect and will, reference to 
 thought. 
 
 Before we pass to consider Prop. XL, we notice that it speaks of an 
 infinity of attributes ; but we also find all along that only two are 
 known by us. Both these points must be kept constantly in view, 
 namely, that there are two, the universe is dual ; but only two, so 
 thought seems arrested abruptly. Spinoza insists that it cannot be 
 arrested, but requires that we follow it up to infinity, and that only in 
 that way are we in face of Reality. 
 
Spinoza 87 
 
 which takes away its existence. But this reason or cause 
 must be either contained in the nature of the thing, or lie 
 outside that nature. For example, the reason why a square- 
 circle does not exist is indicated in the very nature of it : 
 simply because it involves a contradiction. But, on the 
 other hand, why a substance exists follows from its nature 
 alone, namely, because that nature involves existence 
 (Prop. VII.). But the reason why a circle or a triangle 
 exists, or why it does not exist, does not follow from the 
 nature of those things, but from the order of corporeal nature 
 in general. From which it must follow either that a triangle 
 exists of necessity, or that it is impossible for it to exist. 
 And these things are self-evident. Therefore it follows that 
 a thing for which no reason or cause is given which prevents 
 it from existing exists of necessity. If, therefore, neither 
 reason nor cause can be given which prevents the Deity from 
 existing, or which takes away His existence, the conclusion is 
 certain that He exists of necessity. But if any such reason or 
 cause should be given, it would require to be given either in 
 the nature of God or outside that nature, that is, in another 
 substance of another nature. For if it lay in a nature of the 
 same kind, by that very fact it would be conceded that the 
 existence of the Deity is given. But a substance of another 
 nature could have nothing in common with the Deity (by 
 Prop. II., two substances having different attributes have 
 nothing in common with one another), and therefore could 
 neither cause His existence nor remove it. Since, therefore, 
 a reason or cause which can take away the Divine existence 
 cannot possibly lie outside the Divine nature, it will have to 
 lie of necessity, if He does not exist, within His own nature, 
 which would therefore involve a contradiction. It is absurd 
 to affirm this of an absolutely infinite and completely perfect 
 being : therefore neither in God nor outside God is any 
 cause or reason given which can take away His existence ; 
 and therefore God exists of necessity. 
 
88 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Another Proof. To be able not to exist implies absence of 
 power ; and, on the other hand, to be able to exist is the 
 presence of power, as is self-evident. So if there are now 
 existing of necessity nothing but finite beings, there are 
 therefore finite beings more powerful than a being absolutely 
 infinite ; and this is self -evidently absurd. Therefore, either 
 nothing exists, or an absolutely infinite Being exists of 
 necessity also. Now we ourselves exist, either in ourselves 
 or in something else which exists of necessity (Axiom 1 : All 
 things are either in themselves or in something else; and 
 Prop. VII.). Therefore an absolutely infinite Being, that is 
 (by Definition 6) God, exists of necessity. 
 
 Scholium. In this last proof I have desired to establish 
 the existence of God a posteriori, as a demonstration more 
 easily to be perceived, but not because from the same 
 grounds the existence of God does not follow a priori. For 
 since ability to exist is a power, it follows that the more reality 
 belongs to the nature of anything, the more strength it has 
 in itself for existing ; and also that absolutely infinite Being, 
 or God, has from Himself an absolutely infinite power of 
 existing, and therefore exists absolutely. Yet many, perhaps, 
 will not be able to see with ease the force of this demonstra- 
 tion, because they are accustomed to contemplate only those 
 things which flow from causes external to the things ; and, 
 those things which come quickly into being, that is, which 
 exist without difficulty, they see also perishing easily ; and, 
 on the other hand, they consider those things which they 
 regard as more complex to be more difficult to bring about, 
 that is, not so easily to be brought into existence. But that 
 they may be liberated from these prejudices I have no need 
 to show here how far the proverb, " Soon come, soon go," is 
 true, nor even whether in respect of nature as a whole all 
 things are equally easy, or otherwise; but this alone it is 
 sufficient to observe, that I am not speaking now of things 
 which come into being from external causes, but only of 
 
Spinoza 89 
 
 substances which (by Prop. VI. one substance cannot be 
 produced by another substance) can be produced by no 
 external cause. As to things which come into being from 
 external causes, whether they are composed of many parts or 
 of few, whatever perfection or reality they possess is all due to 
 the virtue of their external causes, and so their existence has 
 its origin from the perfection of these external causes alone, 
 not from their own. On the other hand, whatever perfection 
 substance has is due to no external cause : its existence 
 therefore must follow from its own nature, which is nothing 
 else than its essence. Therefore perfection does not annul 
 the existence of a thing, but, on the contrary, establishes it ; 
 but imperfection, on the contrary, annuls existence, and so we 
 cannot be more certain of the existence of anything than of 
 the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect, that is, 
 God. For, since His essence excludes every imperfection and 
 involves absolute perfection, by that very fact every cause for 
 doubting concerning His existence is removed, and the 
 highest certitude of it is given. And this, I believe, will be 
 clear to everyone who gives even a moderate amount of 
 attention to it. 7 
 
 7 This Proposition, with its Scholium, contains four "Proofs" of 
 the existence of the Divine Being. It would be quite futile for anyone 
 to look here for support for proofs of existence of the Divine Being 
 regarded in any other light than in that in which Spinoza has denned 
 Him. They are variants of Ontological "argument" ; if we have 
 asserted that a being is causa sui, we have only to make explicit our 
 belief that he exists. As nothing can prevent the equiangularity of a 
 triangle, so nothing can prevent the operation of an infinite "Cause" 
 which Spinoza has included in his conception of what Reality is. It 
 must again be pointed out that he considered that in Geometry dealing 
 with Space he had a proper analogue for Metaphysics dealing with 
 Reality : his strength and his weakness both lie there. 
 
 In Proof 3, Spinoza seems to consider that he is holding out a hand 
 to those who prefer a posteriori proof. For himself, he sets no store 
 on it, but hastens at once to show that from the same premises a 
 priori argument is available. In Proof 4, therefore, he simply leaves 
 
90 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Proposition XII. No attribute of a substance can be 
 really conceived from which it may follow that substance 
 can be divided. 
 
 Proof. For the parts into which substance, so conceived, 
 would be divided, will either retain the nature of substance, 
 or will not. Under the first supposition (by Prop. VIII.) 
 each several part will have to be infinite, and (by Prop. VI.) 
 be the cause of itself; and (by Prop. V.) it will have to 
 consist of its own peculiar attribute, and thus from one 
 substance many would be able to be constituted, which is 
 absurd (by Prop. VI.). Further, that the parts (by Prop. 
 II.) would have nothing in common with their whole, and 
 the whole (by Def. 4 and Prop. X.) could both be and be 
 conceived without its parts, is an absurdity about which no 
 one can be in doubt. But under the second supposition, 
 namely, that the parts will not retain the nature of sub- 
 stance; then, since the whole substance would be divided 
 into parts of equal value, it would lose the nature of sub- 
 stance and cease to be, which (by Prop. VII.) is absurd. 
 
 Proposition XIII. Substance absolutely infinite is in- 
 divisible. 
 
 Proof. For if it were divisible, the parts into which it 
 would be divided will either retain the nature of substance 
 
 out the empirical reference, and states the a priori in isolation 
 again, namely, the power to exist is at the maximum in the Divine 
 Substance by reason of His absolute perfection. It is tempting to 
 agree with Mr. Joachim (The Ethics of Spinoza) in his excellent 
 section on these proofs. This would imply that Spinoza discerned 
 that connexion between a priori and a posteriori proofs which is 
 shown by Kant (Selection VII.), adopted by Hegel, and now widely re- 
 cognised. In his Proof 3 the combination of both is seen by him : 
 there is a reference to fact, and a reference to thought, and to their 
 combination. But the easy way in which he resumes reference to 
 a priori thought makes it difficult to think that in the other three 
 proofs he was making reference to finite substantiality in a suppressed 
 premise. 
 
Spinoza 91 
 
 absolutely infinite, or will not. If the former, there will be 
 several substances of the same nature, which (by Prop. V.) is 
 absurd. If the second, then (as above) an infinite substance 
 will be able to cease to be, which (by Prop. XI.) is also absurd. 
 
 Corollary. From these points it follows that no sub- 
 stance, and consequently no corporeal substance, in so far 
 as it is substance, is divisible. 
 
 Scholium. That substance is indivisible, is understood 
 more simply from this alone, that the nature of substance 
 cannot be conceived except as infinite, and that by part of 
 substance nothing else can be understood than finite sub- 
 stance, which (by Prop. VIII.) implies a manifest contradiction. 
 
 Proposition XIV. No substance can be granted or con- 
 ceived except God. 
 
 Proof. Since God is Being absolutely infinite, of whom 
 no attribute expressing the^ essence of substance can be 
 denied (Def. 6), and He necessarily exists (Prop. XI.), if 
 any other substance than God were granted it must be 
 explained by reference to some attribute of God, and so 
 there would exist two substances with the same attribute, 
 which (by Prop. V.) is absurd. Thus no substance except 
 God can be given, and consequently no other can even be 
 conceived. For if any other could be conceived, it must 
 necessarily be conceived as existing; but this (by the first 
 part of this Demonstration) is absurd. 
 
 Corollary 1. Hence it follows in the clearest way that 
 God is one (unicum), i.e. (Def. 6) in the nature of things 
 only one substance is given, and that is absolutely infinite 
 (as proved in Prop. X. Schol.). 
 
 Corollary 2. Extension and thought are either attributes 
 of God, or (by Ax. 1) modifications of His attributes. 8 
 
 8 Having arrived at this link in the chain, some questions naturally 
 arise. The critical literature is indeed vast, but in referring to it 
 distinction should be made between criticisms from outside Spinoza's 
 scheme and criticisms from within it. It is one thing to oppose 
 
92 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 2. GOD ACTS NECESSARILY, IMMANENTLY, AND IS ETERNAL j 
 
 THE WORLD is CONTINGENT, BUT GOVERNED BY 
 
 NECESSITY. 
 
 Proposition XVII. God acts by the laws of His own 
 nature alone, without compulsion by any other being. 
 
 Proof. From the sole necessity of the Divine nature, or, 
 what is the same thing, from the sole laws of that nature, 
 infinite things proceed in an absolute manner, as we have 
 shown in Prop. XVI. ; and in Prop. XV. w r e demonstrated 
 that nothing can exist or be conceived without God, but 
 that all things are in Him. Nothing, therefore, can exist 
 outside Him, by which He may be determined or compelled 
 to act ; and so God acts according to the laws of His own 
 nature alone, compelled by no other being. 
 
 Corollary 1. Hence it follows that no cause is given 
 which incites the Deity to action, either from without or from 
 within, except the perfection of His ow r n nature. 
 
 his conception of Substance altogether, and to continue a running fire 
 of criticisms at each successive point of the advance : another to take 
 up his intention, and raise questions as to whether lie pursues a 
 consistently and securely established line of march. Even from 
 within, the process has met with varying receptions ; some think it 
 irrefragable, others declare that it is replete with paralogisms. The 
 principal points where conflict arises as to what Spinoza has accom- 
 plished are, the question whether the infinity of attributes is anything 
 more than a conception, as it is plainly beyond all testing, and cannot 
 be made use of when he comes to apply his conception to the 
 universe; the question whether "Substance," which is unknown and 
 inconceivable, really unites the attributes, or only nominally in other 
 words, whether dualism is not carried out into ultimate Reality ; the 
 incongruous character of the limitation of the attributes to two in an 
 a priori system ; whether the attributes themselves (extension and 
 thought) have sufficient character to be severally grounds for the two 
 parallel series of modes which will have to be dealt with ; and, to name 
 one more, the appearance sometimes given that thought is superior to 
 the other attribute, inasmuch as botli attributes are defined to be Sub- 
 stance in so far as it is thought about. 
 
Spinoza 93 
 
 Corollary 2. It follows also that God alone is a free 
 cause, for He alone exists by necessity of His own nature 
 (Props. XL and XIV. CorolL 1), and acts by necessity of 
 His own nature (Prop. XVI.). And so (by Def. 7, of 
 freedom : A thing is free which acts from necessity of its 
 own nature alone, and is determined to action by itself 
 alone : a thing is necessitated, or rather compelled, which is 
 determined by some other thing to action and operation, 
 in some certain and determined way) He alone is a free 
 cause. 
 
 Scholium. ... I will show, without the aid of this 
 Proposition, that God acts by the laws of His own nature 
 only, without compulsion by any one, that neither intellect 
 nor will belong to the nature of God. There are many, I 
 know, who think that they can demonstrate that supreme 
 intelligence and free will belong to the nature of God ; 
 for they say that they know of nothing more perfect 
 to attribute to God than what is the highest perfection 
 in USL 
 
 Now, although they conceive God in actuality as 
 supreme intellect, yet they do not believe that He can 
 cause everything to exist which is actually in His intellect ; 
 for they think that in that way they are denying power to 
 God. If He had created, they say, everything which is in 
 His intellect, He could then have created nothing further, 
 and this they consider to be repugnant to His omnipotence ; 
 therefore they have preferred to regard God as indifferent 
 to all things, and not creating anything else than what He 
 has decided upon by a certain absolute volition. But I 
 think that I have shown with sufficient clearness (Prop. 
 XVI.) that there have flowed of necessity, or continue to 
 flow by the same necessity, from the supreme power or 
 infinite nature of God, infinite things in infinite ways; in 
 the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows 
 from eternity and to eternity that its three angles are equal 
 
94 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 to two right angles. Therefore the omnipotence of God 
 has been actual from eternity, and will remain eternally 
 in the same actuality. And in my judgment the omni- 
 potence of God is established far more perfectly in this way 
 than in theirs. Indeed, these opponents seem to me, if I 
 may speak freely, to deny the omnipotence of God. For 
 they are obliged to allow that God knows an infinity of 
 things which might be created which He will never be able 
 to create. For otherwise, if He were to create all the things 
 that He knows, He would, according to them, exhaust His 
 omnipotence and render Himself imperfect. In order, 
 therefore, to establish the perfection of God, they are 
 reduced to establishing at the same time an inability to effect 
 all the things to which His power extends ; and I do not 
 see what can be imagined more absurd or more repugnant to 
 His omnipotence. 
 
 Further, to speak of both the intellect and the will, 
 which we usually attribute to God, I will also say this : 
 If both intellect and will belong to the eternal essence of 
 God, something else must be understood by each of them 
 than men usually mean. For the intellect and will which 
 would constitute the essence of God must totally differ 
 from our intellect and will, and could coincide with them 
 in nothing but their names : in precisely the same way as is 
 the case with the constellation the Dog, and the dog, the 
 animal which barks. I will prove it in this way. If 
 intellect belongs to the Divine nature, it cannot, like our 
 intellect, come into operation either later than the things 
 understood (as most choose to think), or at the same time 
 with them, since God is prior in causality to all things 
 (Prop. XVI. Coroll. 1); but, on the other hand, the truth and 
 formal essence of things is such as it is, because it exists 
 as such objectively in the intellect of God. Therefore the 
 intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute 
 His essence, is really the cause of things both in their 
 
Spinoza 95 
 
 essence and in their existence ; which seems to have been 
 noticed by those who have asserted that the Divine intellect, 
 will, and power are all one and the same thing. Since, 
 therefore, the intellect of God is the only cause of things, 
 that is to say, (as we have shown), of their essence as well 
 as of their existence, it must of necessity differ from those 
 things with regard to both its essence and its existence. 
 For a thing caused differs from its cause precisely in that 
 which it has from the cause. For instance, a man is the 
 cause of the existence, but not of the essence, of another 
 man (for the essence is an eternal truth) ; and therefore as 
 to essence they are entirely similar, though they must differ 
 with regard to existence ; and, therefore, if the existence of 
 one of them perishes, that of the other does not perish on 
 that account ; but if the essence of one could be destroyed 
 and rendered false, the essence of the other would be 
 destroyed also. Therefore a thing which is the cause 
 both of the essence and of the existence of some effect, 
 must differ from such an effect both with regard to its 
 essence as well as with regard to its existence. But the 
 intellect of God is the cause both of the essence and the 
 existence of ours; therefore the intellect of God, in so far 
 as it is conceived to constitute Divine essence, differs from 
 our intellect both with regard to its essence and its exist- 
 ence; nor can it coincide with our intellect in anything 
 except in name. A similar proof applies to the will, as 
 everyone can easily see. 
 
 Proposition XVIII. God is the cause of all things, 
 immanently not transcendently (transiens). 
 
 Proof. All things that are, are in God, and must be 
 conceived through God (Prop. XV.), and therefore God is 
 the cause of the things which are in Himself. This is the 
 first point. Further, no substance can be granted outside 
 God (Prop. XIV.), that is (by Def. 3, of Substance), nothing 
 which is outside God exists in itself ; which was the second 
 
96 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 point. Therefore God is the immanent, but not the tran- 
 scendent, cause of all things. 9 
 
 Proposition XIX. God is eternal, that is, His attributes 
 are eternal. For God (Def. 6) is substance, which (Prop. XL) 
 exists of necessity, that is (Prop. VII.), it belongs to its nature 
 to exist ; or, which is the same thing, He is substance from 
 the definition of which His existence follows ; and, therefore 
 (Def. 8), He is eternal. Further, we must understand by 
 attributes of God that which expresses the essence of Divine 
 substance (Def. 4), that is to say, that which belongs to 
 substance ; for this, I say, is what attributes must themselves 
 involve. But eternity belongs to the nature of substance 
 (Prop. VII.). Therefore each of the attributes must involve 
 eternity, and therefore they are all of them eternal. 
 
 Scholium. This proposition is as clear as possible from 
 the method in which I have proved the existence of God 
 (Prop. XL). 
 
 Proposition XXIX. In the nature of things there is 
 nothing contingent, but all things have been determined 
 from the necessity of the Divine nature to exist and operate 
 in a certain way. 
 
 Proof. Whatever is, is in God (Prop. XV.). But God 
 
 9 The term transiens means, not temporary, of course, but passing 
 over from one thing to another, from agent to patient ; and Spinoza 
 denies any such relation as between God and the world : the world is 
 in no way separated off from the Divine Being, but is within Him : 
 everything is in God. If the world which we know had infinite 
 attributes, then we could also say that God is wholly in the world, and 
 Pantheism would be explicit in its complete form. But as there is an 
 infinity of attributes unknown to us, Spinoza cannot be said to teach 
 that the Thought-Space world, though infinite in each of its two 
 aspects, is the totality of the Divine Being. At least by his insisting 
 on the unknown attributes, he is obviously guarding himself from this. 
 Whether or not there is any value in this reference to an unknown 
 and, apparently, unknoivable, is another question. Spinoza here puts 
 the term " Cause" prominently ; his real meaning has been indicated 
 in the Introduction and in note ] . 
 
Spinoza 97 
 
 cannot be called a thing contingent; for (by Prop. XL) He 
 exists necessarily, and not contingently. The modes of the 
 Divine nature have followed from that nature necessarily and 
 not contingently (Prop. XVI.), and that, either considering 
 the Divine nature as absolute or as in a certain way deter- 
 mined to action (Prop. XXVII.). Further, of these modes 
 God is not only the cause in so far as they exist in simplicity 
 (Prop. XXIV. Coroll.), but also (Prop. XXIV.) so far as they 
 are considered as determined to some operation. But if they 
 were not determined by God (by the same Proposition), it 
 is impossible, and not contingent, that they should determine 
 themselves ; and, on the other hand, if they were determined 
 by God, it is impossible, and not contingent, that they should 
 render themselves indeterminate. All things, therefore, have 
 been determined from the necessity of the Divine nature not 
 only to exist, but also to exist and operate in a certain way, 
 and nothing contingent is given. 10 
 
 Scholium. Before I proceed further, I wish here to explain, 
 or rather to recall to mind, what we should understand by 
 Natura naturans and by Natura naturata. For I think 
 that it now stands clear from what has preceded, that by 
 Natura naturans we should understand what is in itself and 
 is conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as 
 express eternal and infinite essence; that is (Prop. XIV. 
 Coroll. 1, and Prop. XVII. Coroll. 2), God, in so far as He 
 is considered as a free cause. By Natura naturata I mean 
 everything which follows from the necessity of the nature of 
 
 10 If every property flows from Attribute, i.e. from Essence, it is 
 obvious that every property is necessary ; and if the universe is the 
 totality of such properties, it is plain that everything in it is wholly 
 necessitated, there is no such thing as contingency ultimately ; the 
 opinion that there is, arises in human imagination only, which arrests 
 our attention prematurely, and leaves us among imperfect and con- 
 fused ideas. In this sense necessity and freedom are the same thing ; 
 a thing acts of necessity according to its own nature, and such a thing 
 we also call free. 
 7 
 
98 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 God or of any one of His attributes ; that is, all the modes of 
 the attributes of God, in so far as they are considered as 
 things which are in God and without Him can neither exist 
 nor be conceived. 11 
 
 Proposition XXXIII. Things could have been produced 
 by God in no other way and in no other order than the way 
 and order in which they have actually been produced. 
 
 Proof. For all things have followed necessarily from the 
 given nature of God (Prop. XVI.), and from the necessity of 
 His nature have been determined to existence and operation 
 of a particular kind (Prop. XXIX.). If, therefore, things 
 could have been of some other nature, or have been deter- 
 mined to operation in some other way, so that the order of 
 nature would be other than it is, then also the nature of God 
 could be other than it is now; and therefore (Prop. XI.) 
 that other nature must exist ; and consequently there would be 
 two or more Divine Beings, which (by Prop. XIV. Coroll. 1) 
 is absurd. 
 
 Scholium 1. Since I have thus shown more clearly than 
 the light of noon that there is in things absolutely nothing 
 on account of which they may be called contingent, I desire 
 to explain in a few words what is meant by us by "con- 
 tingent"; but, first, of "necessary" and "impossible." A 
 thing is called "necessary" either with reference to its 
 essence or its cause. For the existence of anything neces- 
 sarily follows either from its essence and definition or from 
 some given efficient cause. Hence, similarly, a thing is 
 
 11 Natura naturans and natura naturata : these famous phrases, 
 of Scholastic origin, call attention to the distinction between activity 
 and passivity (receptivity), and remind us of the necessity of regard- 
 ing the infinite Substance as actus purus. How the receptive side of 
 nature arises is a crux on a par with that of accounting for the appear- 
 ance of the modes at all. For Spinoza the distinction can be only of a 
 logical kind, as there is no nature or universe which is not in God, no 
 activity which is not His. Granted the distinction, it is easy to allow 
 that human intelligence may partake of both kinds, as Spinoza thinks. 
 
Spinoza 99 
 
 called impossible; namely, either because its essence or 
 definition involves a contradiction, or because no external 
 cause is forthcoming determined for the production of such a 
 thing. But a thing is called contingent from no other cause 
 than in respect to the deficiency of our knowledge. For a 
 thing as to which we are ignorant whether its essence in- 
 volves a contradiction or not, or as to which we are quite 
 sure that it involves no contradiction, while yet we are able to 
 make no certain affirmation of its existence because the order 
 of causes is concealed from us, can never appear to us either 
 necessary or impossible ; and therefore we call it contingent 
 and possible. 
 
 Scholium 2 (part). From what has preceded, it clearly 
 follows that things have been produced in supreme perfection 
 by the Deity, since they have necessarily followed from the 
 given perfection of His nature. Nor does this argue any 
 imperfection in the Deity, for it is His perfection which has 
 compelled us to affirm this very thing. Indeed, from its 
 opposite it would clearly follow (as I lately showed) that the 
 Deity is not supremely perfect; namely, because, if things 
 had been produced in some other way, another nature would 
 have to be attributed to Him than the consideration of a most 
 perfect Being has compelled us to attribute. 12 . . . 
 
 Part IL Proposition XL IV. It is not in the nature of 
 Reason to regard things as contingent, but as necessary. 
 
 13 This is quite different from Fatalism when used as an epithet 
 of opprobrium. Fatalism is obnoxious, because it signifies struggle 
 against an external power which may be sometimes favourable or 
 sometimes opposed in effect, but is always in itself completely indifferent 
 to our interests. The necessity of Spinozism is constancy of operation 
 within the system of Reality, and in things or persons as partakers of 
 that Reality, as against supposed power of things or persons to 
 originate wholly independent activities. From this issues Spinoza's 
 praise, not of optimism, but of cheerful contentment (acquiesccntia). 
 In securing a foundation for this, his Metaphysics gives the basis for 
 his Ethics. 
 
100 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Proof. It is of the nature of Reason to perceive things 
 truly (Part II. Prop. XLL, and Part I. Ax. 6) as they are, 
 that is (Part I. Prop. XXIX.), not as contingent but as 
 necessary. 
 
 Corollary 1. Hence it follows that it is solely due to our 
 imagination that we regard things as contingent, whether in 
 respect to the past or to the future. 
 
 Corollary 2. It is the nature of Reason to perceive things 
 under a certain form of eternity (sub quadam specie 
 ceternitatis). For it is of the nature of Reason to regard 
 things as necessary and not as contingent (by the present 
 Proposition). It perceives this necessity of things truly 
 (Prop. XLL), that is (Part I. Ax. 6), as it is in itself. But 
 (Part I. Prop. XVI.) this necessity of things is the very 
 necessity of the eternal nature of God. Therefore it is of the 
 nature of Reason to regard things under this form of eternity. 
 Add that the foundations of Reason are notions which explain 
 what is common to all things (Prop. XXXVIII.), and which 
 (Prop. XXXVII.) do not explain the essence of single things : 
 by it, therefore, things must be conceived apart from any 
 temporal relation, but under a certain form of eternity. 13 
 
 18 In his view of the human soul, Spinoza disallows any permanent 
 entity such as " soul " usually implies, though we shall find him, when 
 his thought comes to its terminus, impelled to think of mind as 
 eternal in its essence, as participatory in Reason and therefore in 
 eternal truth and life. But at this stage he is concerned with the 
 mind as psychology can take hold of it, so to speak, as willing, 
 perceiving, imagining, feeling ; and here it is quite plain that there 
 is nothing which can be accounted Divine. Spinoza's psychology is 
 very interesting, and shows much acute discernment. But it has a 
 markedly intellectualist cast : will, or rather volitions for Spinoza is 
 a nominalist in the sphere of phenomena, and believes in particular 
 volitions, ideas, etc., not in general faculties or powers are identical 
 with ideas ; they are the ideas insisting on being what they are. 
 Some recent writers endeavour to find more of the distinctive character 
 of volition in his view, and lay stress on Part III., where striving 
 effort (conatui) is brought in. But it is very doubtful whether he is 
 
Spinoza 101 
 
 3. GOD is IMPERSONAL. 
 
 Part I. Proposition XXXI. The intellect in operation, 
 whether the finite or the infinite, together with the will, 
 desire, love, etc., must be referred to nature as passive 
 not as active (to natura naturata, not to natura 
 naturans). 
 
 Proof. For by intellect it is self-evident that we do not 
 mean absolute thought, but only a certain mode of thinking, 
 differing from other modes, such as desire, love, etc., and 
 therefore (by Def. 5, of Mode) it must be conceived through 
 absolute thought; that is to say, it must be conceived 
 through some attribute of God (Prop. XV., whatever is, is in 
 God, and nothing can either be or be conceived without God, 
 and Def. 6, of God) which expresses the eternal and infinite 
 essence of thought, in such a way that without that attribute 
 it can neither exist nor be conceived. It must therefore 
 (Prop. XXIX. Schol. on contingency and necessity) be 
 referred to passive nature (naturata) and not to operative 
 nature (naturans) ; as must also the other modes of 
 thought. 
 
 4. Emotions (Affectus). 
 
 Part III. Def. 3. By emotion, I mean affections of the 
 body, by which the active power of the body is increased or 
 diminished, or assisted or restrained; and also the ideas of 
 these affections. 
 
 General Definition appended to Part III. Emotion, which 
 is called animi pathema, is a confused idea, by which the 
 mind affirms of its body or of any part of it a greater 
 
 referring to anything more than the thing, the idea, being what it is, 
 continuing so to be. It is quite likely that so comprehensive a mind 
 as Spinoza's could not be confined within the limits lie had formulated, 
 and that he had occasional penetrative glances over the boundary 
 towards what we now call Voluntarism. 
 
102 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 or a less force of existence than there was before; on the 
 appearance of which increase the mind is determined to 
 one mode of consciousness (cogitandi) rather than to 
 another. 14 
 
 Part V. Proposition XVII. God is free from passion, 
 and is not affected by any emotions of either joy or 
 sorrow. 
 
 Proof. All ideas are true in so far as they are re- 
 ferred to God, i.e. (Part II. Prop. XXXII.) are adequate, 
 and therefore God is free from passions (which, by their 
 general definition, are inadequate ideas). Further, God 
 can pass to neither a greater nor a less perfection, and there- 
 fore He is affected by no emotion of either joy or sorrow ; 
 and (Corollary), properly speaking, He neither loves nor 
 hates anyone. 
 
 Part IV., in Preface. As for the terms good and bad, 
 they indicate nothing positive in things considered in them- 
 selves ; and, indeed, are nothing more than modes of thought 
 or notions which we form when we compare things amongst 
 themselves. For one and the same thing can be good and 
 bad at the same time, and also indifferent. Music, for in- 
 stance, is good for a man in a melancholy mood, and bad for 
 
 14 In spite of all the attention he gave, it seems very doubtful 
 whether Spinoza allows to the properly aesthetic quality of emotion 
 any value at all. This general definition is quite wide of the mark, it 
 defines feeling by reference to its effects. And in the special treatment 
 it is the effects or the conditions which give the basis of classification 
 and treatment. Yet he saw with singular clearness that emotion can 
 enter into conflict only with emotion ; and this psychological principle 
 he kept as a clue when looking for the final state of salvation for man, 
 and finding it necessary to allow intellect to be associated with love. 
 But there again he shrinks from really admitting genuine feeling ; and 
 we find that the blessed state is rest and quietude from all that could 
 be called emotion, and intellectual contemplation remains alone. 
 Feeling if thus identified with its conditions and its functions is, of 
 course, wholly inapplicable to the essence of the Divine Being, as is 
 stated in the next Proposition. 
 
Spinoza 103 
 
 one in mourning, while for a deaf man it is neither the one 
 nor the other. Nevertheless, we must retain these two terms ; 
 for as we desire to form an idea of a man as an example of 
 human nature, it will be of service for us to retain the terms 
 in the sense I here give. 
 
 Part IV. Definitions 1 and 2. By Good, I mean that 
 which we certainly know to be useful to us ; by Evil, I mean 
 that which we certainly know to prevent our being competent 
 to attain any goodness. 
 
 Proposition VIII. The knowledge of good and evil is 
 nothing else than an emotion of joy or of sadness in so far as 
 we are conscious of it. 15 
 
 16 Goodness and Evil, being qualities relative to the human mind in 
 its lower ranges, have no applicability to the Divine Nature. This is 
 not to deny their significance for man, but the locating them in the 
 lower side of his nature gives the clue to deliverance from human 
 bondage. Salvation and Peace are to be looked for in the possibility 
 of our transcending the sphere when good and evil have significance, 
 and rising to the sphere when their distinction has disappeared. To 
 God everything is good, and we should think so if we would only 
 think with Him. It is quite parallel with the solution of the 
 problem of error and falsity : all ideas are true if looked at as God 
 looks at them : the error, untruth, falsity, is due to the confusions 
 and one-sided views of human intelligence in its lower ranges. A 
 glance over the eliminations from Divine Essence made in the Pro- 
 positions given in this section makes it clear that Spinoza was bound 
 to be opposed in his day, and for many days. At the opposition or 
 neglect which befell him for a century after his death there need be 
 no surprise. Bayle and Voltaire were as outspoken as Malebranche 
 and Clarke ; the defenders of Personal Theism joined with the 
 guardians of historical Religion in opposing the substitution of an 
 impersonal Deus sive Natura sive Substantia for a Personal Creator of 
 the world and Ruler of mankind. And, on the other hand, when in 
 the nineteenth century Goethe and Schleiermacher and Coleridge 
 raised him to a high pedestal among the wise men of our race, it was 
 for the characters of eternity, infinity, necessity, and rationality that 
 they brushed aside the abstract and utilitarian eighteenth century to 
 listen to Spinoza on the Divine Essence and the universe which flows 
 from Him. See especially Bradley, op. cit. c. xxv. 
 
104 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 5. MAN'S BLESSEDNESS is IN THE INTELLECTUAL LOVE 
 OF GOD. 
 
 Part V. Proposition XXVII. In this third and ultimate 
 kind of knowledge lies the source of tranquillity for the 
 mind. 
 
 Proof. The highest virtue of the mind is to know God 
 (Part IV. Prop. XXVIII.), or to understand things by the third 
 kind of knowledge ; and this virtue is the greater as the 
 mind knows more of things by knowledge of this kind. 
 Whoever, therefore, knows things by this kind of knowledge, 
 passes to the summit of human perfection, and consequently 
 is affected (Part III. Def. 2) by the highest pleasure, with the 
 accompaniment of an idea of himself and of his own virtue ; 
 and therefore (Part III. Def. 25) tranquillity of the mind arises 
 in this highest kind of knowledge. 16 
 
 Proposition XXX. Our mind, in so far as it knows 
 itself and its body under the form of eternity, necessarily 
 knows God, and is aware that it is in God and is conceived 
 through God. 
 
 16 The three orders of knowledge recognised by Spinoza are, first, 
 knowledge derived from the particulars of sense- experience : these 
 are confused ideas, opinions, imaginations ; the second kind, which 
 he calls "reason" in a lower sense, the notions as to laws and pro- 
 perties collected by discursive reasoning ; and, third, scientia intuitiva, 
 intuitive knowledge of the essences of things, and ultimately of 
 the Divine Essence. This latter Mr. Bradley illustrates by supposing 
 that we might rise from looking out through this, that, or the other 
 window-frame and seeing the world as a succession of vignettes, to 
 looking out upon it as a whole with all the frames removed. No 
 thinker has ever made a bolder claim than Spinoza's for the presence 
 in man of the intuitive Reason which sees things as they are, i.e. as in 
 God. In the early treatise, De Deo, c. xix., Spinoza makes an interest- 
 ing parallel between the stages of knowledge and the stages of 
 progress as marked by Christian theologians ; Sin is parallel with 
 false opinion ; perception of the Law with reasoned opinion ; and 
 appreciation of Grace with intuitive knowledge. 
 
Spinoza 105 
 
 Proof. Eternity is the very essence of God, in so far as 
 this essence involves necessary existence (Part I. Def. 8). 
 Therefore, to conceive things under the form of eternity is to 
 conceive them in so far as they are conceived through the 
 essence of God as being real entities, or in so far as through 
 the essence of God they involve existence. 17 
 
 Proposition XXXII. Whatever we understand by the 
 third kind of knowledge we delight in; and this is accom- 
 panied by the idea of God as cause. 
 
 Proof. From this kind of knowledge arises the highest 
 possible peace of mind, that is (Def. of Emotions, 2), pleasure 
 arises ; and this is accompanied by the idea of itself (Prop. 
 XXVII.), and consequently (Prop. XXX.) it is accompanied 
 by the idea of God as cause. 
 
 Coi^ollary. From this third kind of knowledge arises 
 necessarily the intellectual love of God. For from this kind 
 of knowledge arises (by this Proposition) pleasure, with the 
 accompanying idea of God as cause, that is (by Def. of 
 Emotions, 6), the love of God ; not in so far as we imagine 
 Him to be present now, but in so far as we understand 
 Him to be eternal : and this is what I call the intellectual 
 love of God. 
 
 Proposition XXXVI. The intellectual love of the mind 
 towards God is that very love of God with which God loves 
 Himself, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far as He 
 can be explained through the essence of the human mind 
 considered under the form of eternity; that is to say, the 
 intellectual love of the mind towards God is a part of the 
 infinite love with which God loves Himself. 
 
 17 The mind is now treated as participating in Divine knowledge : 
 we can think sub qnadam specie ccternitatis. Our body as a mode of 
 extension has no permanence, and our mental life in lower ranges 
 comes and goes with it : in intuitive knowledge coming and going cease. 
 And, further, there is no need to wait for this until after the dissolu- 
 tion of the lower range of our nature : we can attain eternal life now. 
 
106 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Proof. This love of the mind must be referred to the 
 actions of the mind (Prop. XXXII. Coroll. above, and Part III. 
 Prop. III., Actions of the mind arise only from adequate 
 ideas, but Emotions depend upon inadequate ideas) ; and it is, 
 therefore, an action in which the mind contemplates itself 
 with the accompanying idea of God as cause (Prop. XXXII.); 
 that is (Part I. Prop. XXV., and Part II. Prop. XI. Coroll.), an 
 action by which God, so far as He can be explained by the 
 human mind, contemplates Himself, with the accompanying 
 idea of Himself. And so (Prop. XXXV., God loves Himself 
 with an infinite intellectual love) this intellectual love of the 
 mind towards God is part of the infinite love with which God 
 loves Himself. 
 
 Corollary. Hence it follows that God, in so far as He 
 loves Himself, loves men ; and, consequently, that the love of 
 God towards men and the intellectual love of the mind 
 towards God, is one and the same thing. 
 
 Scholium. From this we clearly understand in what our 
 salvation (solus) or blessedness (beatitudo) or freedom con- 
 sists, namely, in our permanent and eternal love towards 
 God, or in the love of God towards us. In the Holy 
 Scriptures this love or blessedness is called Glory ; and not 
 undeservedly. For, whether this love be referred to God or 
 to the mind, it can rightly be called Peace of mind, which is 
 really not different from glory. (Def. of Emotions, 25 : Peace 
 within one's self is pleasure arising when a man contemplates 
 himself and his power of action ; and 30, Glory is a pleasure 
 with an accompanying idea of some action of ours which we 
 imagine other men to be praising.) For, in so far as it is 
 referred to God, it is (by Prop. XXXV., God loves Himself 
 with an infinite love) a pleasure if I may still use this term 
 with the accompanying idea of Himself ; and similarly as it 
 is referred to the mind (Prop. XXVII.). Again, because 
 the essence of our mind consists solely in knowledge (cogni- 
 tione\ and God is the first principle and the foundation of 
 
Spinoza 107 
 
 knowledge (by Part I. Prop. XV., and Part II. Prop. XLVIL 
 Schol.), it is clear to us how and in what way our mind, in its 
 essence and its existence, follows from the Divine nature, and 
 is permanently dependent upon God. I have considered it 
 important to draw attention to this here, that I might show 
 by this example what is the value of the knowledge of 
 single things which I have called intuitive or of the third 
 kind (Part II. Prop. XL. Schol. 2), and how it excels that 
 universal knowledge which I have called knowledge of the 
 second kind. For, although I showed in a general way in 
 Part I. that all things, and with them the mind of man, 
 depend upon God both for essence and existence, yet that 
 first demonstration, though legitimate and placed beyond 
 reach of doubt, does not affect our mind so much as when the 
 same inference is made from the very essence of each single 
 thing which we affirm to depend upon God. 
 
 Proposition XXXVII. There is nothing in nature which 
 is opposed to this intellectual love, or which can take it 
 away. 
 
 Proof. This intellectual love follows necessarily from the 
 nature of mind, in so far as it is considered, through the 
 nature of God, as an eternal truth (Props. XXXIII. and 
 XXIX.). If, therefore, anything were given which were 
 opposed to this love, it would be opposed to what is true ; 
 and, consequently, whatever could take away this love would 
 cause what is true to be false, which is self-evidently 
 absurd. 18 
 
 18 The "intellectual love of God" seems to be designed to 
 include more than "contemplation of God " would do. In the Ethics 
 Spinoza had become more intellectualist than in earlier stages of his 
 thought. Yet we find him as the close approaches reluctant to leave 
 the emotional side of our nature entirely in the lower and transitory 
 region of our life. His psychological provision for control of the 
 "passions " by means of some influence akin to them had included a 
 reference to emotion of an elevated kind involved with the activity of 
 the highest intellect. His "intellectual love" aims at being some- 
 
108 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 Social Life of the Rational Man. 
 
 Part IV. Appendix VII. It is not possible to ex- 
 clude man from being a part of nature and following 
 its general order; but if a man be situated among such 
 individuals as accord with his own nature, his power of 
 action will be helped and fostered. But if, on the other 
 hand, he is among such individuals as are in very slight 
 accord with his own nature, he will scarcely be able to 
 accommodate himself to them without a great change in 
 himself. 
 
 Appendix IX. Nothing can be more in accord with the 
 nature of anything than other individuals of the same species. 
 And so (by App. VII.) there is nothing given to man more 
 useful for his preservation and his enjoyment of rational life 
 than another man who lives by Reason. Further, as we know 
 of nothing among particular things better than a man who is 
 led by reason, therefore in no way can anyone better show 
 what he is worth in skill and character than in training 
 other men towards the attainment of life under the govern- 
 ment of Reason. 19 
 
 thing more than Aristotle's dewpla. ; it anticipates Kant's doctrine of 
 Reason operating by means of the Reverence specifically arising when 
 Reason speaks. But, in any case, Spinoza does not consider that this 
 highest form of the soul's life includes what we call ethical regards ; 
 lie does not raise love of justice, for example, to this highest region : 
 the intellectual love of God is love of God alone. And, after all, his 
 praise of tranquillity and repose of soul seems to exclude the aesthetic 
 side of our mental life. 
 
 19 Spinoza provides for the social sentiments in his psychology of 
 the emotions. He worked out a theory of Society in his Tractatus 
 Theologico-Politicus, where Society is regarded as indispensable and 
 advantageous as coming from the surrender by individuals of conflict- 
 ing rights in favour of the State. In a perfect Society of wise men no 
 such surrender would be necessary, as interference would have no 
 place. Meanwhile the range of rights surrendered is wide as to 
 externals, but must not include the inner life. 
 
Spinoza 109 
 
 Peace of Mind obtained through following the Order of 
 Nature. 
 
 Part IV. Appendix XXXII. Human power is very 
 limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external 
 things ; so that we are not in possession of absolute power to 
 adapt external things to our own convenience. And yet 
 whatever things happen to us in opposition to the require- 
 ments of our own convenience, we shall bear them with 
 tranquillity of mind if we are conscious that we have dis- 
 charged our duty, and that the power with which we are 
 endowed could not extend to the avoiding such opposition ; 
 and that we are a part of universal nature, and follow its 
 general order. If we clearly and distinctly understand this, 
 that better part of ourselves which is denned as intelligence 
 will be entirely at peace in this status, and will strive to 
 stand fast in its tranquillity. For, in so far as we are 
 intelligent, we can desire nothing save what is necessary, nor 
 absolutely rest in anything save what is true. In so far, 
 therefore, as we rightly understand these things, the effort of 
 the better part of ourselves is in accord with the order of 
 nature as a whole. 
 
 Eternity of Mind. 
 
 Part V. Proposition XXIII. The human mind cannot 
 be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains 
 something of it which is eternal. (Proved from various 
 propositions in Part II. dealing with the relation of mind and 
 body.) 
 
 Proposition XXX. (see p. 104) on the mind's conception 
 of itself and of the body under the form of eternity. 
 
 Proposition XXXIV. It is only while the body endures 
 that the mind is susceptible to those emotions which are 
 referred to passion. 
 
 Proof. Imagination is an idea by which the mind con- 
 
110 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 templates something as present (Part II. Prop. XVII. 
 Schol.); though it indicates the present constitution of the 
 human body rather than the nature of the external thing. 
 Emotion therefore (Def. of Emotion) is imagination in so far 
 as it indicates the present constitution of the body; and 
 therefore it is only, etc. 
 
 Corollary. Hence it follows that no love is eternal except 
 intellectual love. 
 
 Scholium. If we refer to the common opinion of men, we 
 shall find that they are conscious of the eternity of their 
 mind, but confuse eternity with duration, and refer it to im- 
 agination or memory, which they believe to persist after death. 
 
 Proposition XXXVIII. In proportion as the mind 
 understands more things by the second and third kind of 
 knowledge, it suffers less from those emotions which are evil, 
 and has the less fear of death. 
 
 Proposition XXXIX. He who possesses the most adapt- 
 able body has the greatest part of his mind eternal. 20 
 
 Blessedness is Virtue and Freedom. 
 
 Proposition XLII. (closing the Ethics). Blessedness 
 (beatitudo) is not the reward of virtue, but it is itself virtue : 
 and we do not rejoice in it because we restrain our lusts, 
 but, on the contrary, we are able to restrain them because we 
 rejoice in blessedness. 
 
 20 This eternity of mind is not equivalent to "immortality," if 
 by this we mean persistence of the lower ranges of mind. It is an 
 assertion that a participant in Divine reason is in a sphere where 
 beginning and ending has no place : it is life in the eternal present. 
 In the earlier treatise, On God, Man, and Happiness, Spinoza had 
 expounded this view as between one man and another, the man of the 
 sensuous type and the spiritual man ; he now applies it within eacli 
 man, indicating a part which is perishable and a part which is eternal. 
 The position to which Spinoza has worked is that of Aristotle, with 
 the vovs TradrjTiKds perishable and the vovs TroiTjrt/^s imperishable ; and 
 the bearing on "personal " immortality is the same. 
 
Spinoza 111 
 
 Proof. Blessedness consists in love towards God (Prop. 
 XXXVI.), and this arises from knowledge of the third kind 
 (Prop. XXXII.). This love, therefore (Prop. LIX., and 
 Part III. Prop. III.), must be referred to the mind as active, 
 and therefore (Part IV. Def. 8) it is virtue itself ; which was 
 the first point. Again, in proportion as the mind rejoices in 
 this Divine love or blessedness it has understanding (Prop. 
 XXXII.) ; that is, it has the more power over emotions (Prop. 
 III. Coroll.), and suffers the less from such as are evil. And 
 thus the mind has the more power of controlling lusts the 
 more it rejoices in this Divine love or blessedness. And, 
 since human power of controlling emotions rests solely with 
 the intellect, no one rejoices in blessedness because he has 
 controlled his emotions ; but, on the contrary, the power of 
 controlling the lusts arises from this blessedness itself. 21 
 
 Scholium. I have now completed all that I wished to show 
 concerning the power of the mind over emotions, and con- 
 cerning the liberty of the mind. From what has been shown, 
 we see the power of the wise man and his superiority over 
 the ignorant man, who is moved by lust alone. For the 
 ignorant man is agitated by external causes in many ways, 
 and never obtains true peace of soul; he lives, as it were, 
 ignorant of himself and of God and of things, and as soon as 
 he ceases to suffer he ceases also to exist. Whereas the 
 wise man, in so far as he is considered wise, is scarcely ever 
 moved in his soul ; conscious, by a kind of eternal necessity 
 both of himself and of God and of things, he never ceases to 
 exist, but is always in possession of true contentment of 
 soul. 
 
 21 Here is a true touch of transcendental method. We do not 
 attain the heights, he says, by a succession of victories in lower 
 stages : no single victory would be possible if we were not already 
 occupants of the higher position : the successive stages of control to 
 which we win are themselves evidences that we have had power 
 from above all the while. "Born from above" is in Spinoza's 
 philosophy as it is in the Gospel. 
 
112 God as Infinite Substance 
 
 The way I have shown may seem very arduous, yet it can 
 be found. And it must indeed be arduous, for its discovery 
 is so rare. If salvation lay at our hand, and could be dis- 
 covered without any great toil, how could it be neglected by 
 nearly all men 1 But all things excellent are as difficult as 
 they are rare. 22 
 
 22 The elevation ot Mind to eternity is either a mystical 
 absorption into union with God, or it amounts to a replacement of 
 the one Eternal by a plurality of eternal beings. Some authorities 
 (e.g. Erdmann, History of Philosophy, ii. 273) consider that Spinoza 
 did really pass from the one Substance of his Part I. to the admission 
 of many "Substances," from Monism to Pluralism. Sir F. Pollock 
 agrees that this is the issue, but considers that Spinoza was unaware 
 of it, and refers the situation to his having started with a predomi- 
 nantly Theological interest, but having been led into Metaphysics, 
 with this result. He was consistent, Erdmann thinks, not in keep- 
 ing to his starting-point, but in being faithful to principles which led 
 him away from it. This amounts to admitting, if we take the Theism 
 of Part I. to be what is usually meant by his "system," that Spinoza 
 himself passed out of Spinozism. It is a significant fact that a 
 Cambridge expounder and critic of Hegel, Mr. McTaggart, has come 
 to the conclusion that Hegel either came to see, or might be shown 
 to involve, the Pluralism of the Absolute (Studies in Hegelian Cosmo- 
 logy, 1901) ; and that Pluralism enters largely into the speculations 
 of Professors Royce and Howison, and is the express doctrine of Mr. 
 Schiller. 
 
 This high debate as to the issue of Spinozism brings up the other 
 great problem as to its real significance. The union of the soul with 
 God at the end brings us back to the starting-point, and we have to 
 ask, What really is the Divine Substance of Spinoza ? Is it X behind 
 the Attributes which are behind the modes ? or is it the Attributes 
 and therefore also the modes? Is it Nothing or Everything? the 
 Void or Absolute Fulness ? Advocates appear for each side of the 
 contention: "A dark abyss," says Hegel; "the negative gulf of 
 Substance," Schwegler ; "refunds all into undifferentiated and feature- 
 less unity," Fraser; either "an indeterminate abstract or the sum 
 of all possible reality," Adamson ; "a positive, concrete, most real 
 being," Weber; "Divine Substance is the Attributes, therefore the 
 modes, therefore everything," Pollock ; "the most concrete being, the 
 fullest and richest nature," Joachim. We have endeavoured to present 
 
Spinoza 113 
 
 References. Qwc translation is from the text of Bruder (Tauchnitz 1 
 edition), compared with the standard text of Van Vloten and Land ; 
 and we have consulted the translations of Elwes (Bohn's Library) 
 and White (Triibner). In English we have five recent Monographs 
 J. Caird (1888), Martineau (3rd ed. 1895), Sir F. Pollock (2nd ed. 
 1899), Mr. H. H. Joachim (1901), and Mr. Duff (1902) on the 
 Ethical and Political Philosophy. In every History of philosophy 
 Spinoza finds prominent treatment "all the authorities make a 
 primate of Spinoza," says Dr. Stirling; and no one enters upon 
 philosophy of religion without reference to him. Dr. E. Caird, in 
 his Essays, treats Spinoza as more closely dependent on Descartes 
 than is now usual, as does Professor Iverach, Descartes and Spinoza, 
 1904. The treatment in the late Professor Adamson's Development of 
 Modern Philosophy should also be studied. Professor Sorley's article 
 in Mind (1880) should be read for a critical study of the reference to 
 Jewish influences, with an adverse decision. In this reference a begin- 
 ning could be made with Mainionides' Guide to the Perplexed (Triibner's 
 Foreign Translation Library). For the treatment in Continental 
 literature, if the reader commences with J. P. N. Land's Essay, with 
 its notes, printed by Professor Knight along with Kuno Fischer's, 
 Kenan's, and Van Vloten's memorial panegyrics (Williams & Norgate, 
 1882), he will have a starting-point for the investigations he may 
 desire to pursue. In the Critical Review for January 1903 is an 
 admirable article on the present position of the philosophy of Spinoza, 
 by the late Professor Johnston, the scholar referred to in our Preface. 
 For different modes of treating of God as immanent, see Mr. Illing- 
 worth's Divine Immanense and Dr. Fairbairn's Philosophy of the 
 Christian Religion. 
 
 material upon which the reader may form at least a provisional judg- 
 ment for himself. 
 
 For "Religion" in other ranges of life than knowledge and what 
 knowledge can do for us, Spinoza made an offer of a simple character, 
 set forth at large in his treatise Theologico-Politicus. He remitted 
 it to a lower region than philosophy, the region of imagination and 
 lower reason and emotion ; to piety, in short. There the multitudes 
 dwell with their Prophets and Priests and the historical religions ; 
 and for it, with his fine sympathies and strong social feeling, he felt 
 the greatest consideration and respect. He did even better, in his 
 own character and life he combined a grave and kindly regard for 
 religious feelings and observances in others, with a peace of mind 
 nearly as philosophic as his own ideal. 
 
V. 
 MYSTICISM. 
 
 THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY). 
 
 THIS short discourse is printed as an example of Mystical 
 Theism. The Neo-Platonism of Alexandria never wholly 
 failed to have its votaries in succeeding centuries, although 
 there was a long period of partial eclipse when the more 
 intellectualist method which was regarded as Aristotelian 
 was in vogue. The triumph of Aquinas marked the ebb of 
 Neo-Platonic influence, but there was always a current in 
 Germany, France, and England, and when the Renaissance 
 and the Reformation had made some way its tide returned. 
 In the seventeenth century a group of Cambridge divines 
 were drawn together towards Plato, and are known by the 
 name of the Cambridge Platonists. But they did not go 
 back all the way to Plato ; they halted at Alexandria, find- 
 ing there a vein of thought that suited them. They were 
 regarded as the Broad Churchmen of their day, and their 
 influence ran over into many small channels besides its main 
 stream, although it was again to wane in the eighteenth 
 century, until revived by Coleridge. The chief men of the 
 group were Whichcote, Culverwell, Cudworth, Henry More, 
 and John Smith. 
 
 It might have been expected that these theologians these 
 five were clerical fellows of colleges, two of them heads of 
 houses would have resorted to the Christian Platonists of 
 Alexandria, Clement and Origen, or the later pseudo-Dion- 
 ysius ; but they preferred to go to the philosophers Plotinus, 
 lamblichus, and Simplicius, and to re-read Christian theology 
 for themselves. They varied in the degree of their attach- 
 ment to Neo-Platonism, from Cudworth who had least of 
 it and most of Intellectualism, to Henry More in his 
 
 in 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 115 
 
 later stage, who from a Cartesian gradually became a 
 rhapsodist in his Alexandrianism. A central position was 
 occupied by John Smith, who died at the age of thirty- 
 six (1652). 
 
 In the discourse here printed John Smith gives in a few 
 broad strokes the general method of this group; the paper 
 was designed by him as "a necessary introduction " to his 
 other discourses, his friend John Worthington says. As this 
 looks at religion from the point of view of how man is to 
 know God, we add the chapter from his fine discourse on the 
 Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion, in which he speaks 
 of knowledge as given by God to man. We have not printed 
 the references for the very numerous quotations ; they will 
 be found in the Cambridge edition mentioned in our 
 reference paragraph. 
 
 A PREFATORY DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE 
 TRUE WAY OR METHOD OF ATTAINING 
 DIVINE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 It hath been long since well observed, that every art and 
 science hath some certain principles upon which the whole 
 frame and body of it must depend; and he that will fully 
 acquaint himself with the mysteries thereof, must come 
 furnished with some prcecognita, or 7rpo\rjif/ci<s, that I may 
 speak in the language of the Stoics. Were I indeed to 
 define divinity, I should rather call it a Divine life than 
 a Divine science ; it being something rather to be understood 
 by a spiritual sensation, than by any verbal description, as 
 all things of sense and life are best known by sentient 
 and vital faculties ; yvoms eKao-rwv 81 O/AOIOT^TOS yivcrai, as 
 the Greek philosopher hath well observed everything is 
 best known by that which bears a just resemblance and 
 analogy with it; and therefore the Scripture is wont to 
 set forth a good life as the prolepsis and fundamental 
 principle of Divine science; "Wisdom hath builded her 
 house, and hewn out her seven pillars"; but "the feav of 
 
116 Mysticism 
 
 the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," the foundation of 
 the whole fabric. 1 
 
 We shall therefore, as a prolegomenon or preface to what 
 we shall afterward discourse upon the heads of divinity, 
 speak something of this true method of knowing, which is 
 not so much by notions as actions ; as religion itself consists 
 not so much in words as in things. They are not always 
 the best skilled in divinity that are the most studied in 
 those pandects, into which it is sometimes digested, or that 
 have erected the greatest monopolies of art and science. 
 He that is most practical in Divine things hath the purest 
 and sincerest knowledge of them, and not he that is most 
 dogmatical. Divinity, indeed, is a true efflux from the eternal 
 light, which, like the sunbeams, does not only enlighten, but 
 heat and enliven; and therefore our Saviour hath, in His 
 beatitudes, connected purity of heart with the beatifical 
 vision. And as the eye cannot behold the sun, ^AtoctSr?? /AT) 
 ytvo/xevos, unless it be sunlike, and hath the form and 
 resemblance of the sun drawn in it; so neither can the 
 soul of man behold God, flcoeiSrjs /AT/ ytvo/xeVr;, unless it 
 be Godlike, hath God formed in it, and be made partaker 
 of the Divine nature. And the Apostle St. Paul, when he 
 would lay open the right way of attaining to Divine truth, 
 saith that "knowledge puffeth up," but it is "love that 
 edifieth." The knowledge of divinity that appears in systems 
 and models is but a poor wan light ; but the powerful energy 
 of Divine knowledge displays itself in purified souls : here 
 we shall find the true ircStov dXq&tae, as the ancient philo- 
 sophy speaks " the land of truth." 
 
 1 This paragraph strikes the keynote: the "Way" is not to be 
 won by intellect alone ; the nature of the Divine Being is too full for 
 that. It is not a Metaphysical principle, nor a Substance with some 
 definite Attributes, however far-reaching, but the living God, of 
 whom Smith is to speak. The searcher must come with his whole 
 personality. A comparison with Spinoza, both as to the nature of 
 God and the nature of the believer, is full of suggestion. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 117 
 
 To seek our divinity merely in books and writings, is 
 to seek the living among the dead : we do but in vain 
 seek God many times in these, where His truth too often 
 is not so much enshrined as entombed : no ; intra te qucere 
 Deum, seek for God within thine own soul; He is best 
 discerned j/oepa 7ra<f>rj, as Plotinus phraseth it, by an 
 intellectual touch of Him we must " see with our eyes, 
 and hear with our ears, and our hands must handle the 
 word of life," that I may express it in St. John's words. 
 v E(m KCU i/^x^s aicrOrjo-Ls TIS the soul itself hath its sense, 
 as well as the body; and therefore David, when he would 
 teach us how to know what the Divine goodness is, calls 
 not for speculation but sensation : " Taste and see how good 
 the Lord is." That is not the best and truest knowledge 
 of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of 
 the brain, but that which is kindled within us by a heavenly 
 warmth in our hearts. As, in the natural body, it "is the 
 heart that sends up good blood and warm spirits into the 
 head, whereby it is best enabled to perform its several 
 functions ; so that which enables us to know and under- 
 stand aright in the things of God, must be a living principle 
 of holiness within us. When the tree of knowledge is not 
 planted by the tree of life, and sucks not up sap from 
 thence, it may as well be fruitful with evil as with good, 
 and bring forth bitter fruit as well as sweet. If we would 
 indeed have our knowledge thrive and flourish, we must 
 water the tender plants of it with holiness. When Zoro- 
 aster's scholars asked him what they should do to get 
 winged souls, such as might soar aloft in the bright beams 
 of Divine truth, he bids them bathe themselves in the 
 waters of life : they asking what they were, he tells them, 
 the four cardinal virtues, which are the four rivers of 
 Paradise. It is but a thin, airy knowledge that is got by 
 mere speculation, which is ushered in by syllogisms and 
 demonstrations ; but that which springs forth from true 
 
118 Mysticism 
 
 goodness is fleiorepov TI Tracrr/s aTroSet^ccos, as Origen speaks 
 it brings such a Divine light into the soul, as is more clear 
 and convincing than any demonstration. The reason why, 
 notwithstanding all our acute reasons and subtile disputes, 
 truth prevails no more in the world, is, we so often disjoin 
 truth and true goodness, which in themselves can never 
 be disunited; they grow both from the same root, and 
 live in one another. We may, like those in Plato's deep 
 pit, with their faces bended downwards, converse with 
 sounds and shadows, but not with the life and substance 
 of truth, while our souls remained denied with any vice or 
 lusts. These are the black Lethe lake which drench the 
 souls of men : he that wants true virtue, in heaven's logic, 
 " is blind, and cannot see afar off." Those filthy mists that 
 arise from impure and terrene minds, like an atmosphere, 
 perpetually encompass them, that they cannot see that 
 sun of Divine truth that shines about them, but never 
 shines into any unpurged souls; the darkness comprehends 
 it not, the foolish man understands it not. All the light 
 and knowledge that may seem sometimes to rise up in 
 unhallowed minds, is but like those fuliginous flames that 
 rise up from our culinary fire, that are soon quenched in 
 their own smoke ; or like those foolish fires that fetch 
 their birth from terrene exudations, that do but hop up 
 and down, and flit to and fro upon the surface of this 
 earth, where they were first brought forth; and serve not 
 so much to enlighten, as to delude us; not to direct the 
 wandering traveller into his way, but to lead him farther 
 out of it. While we lodge any filthy vice in us, this will 
 be perpetually twisting up itself into the thread of our 
 finest-spun speculations; it will be continually climbing up 
 into the TO 'Hyc/xovi/coi/ the hegemonical powers of the 
 soul, into the bed of reason, and defile it : like the wanton 
 ivy twisting itself about the oak, it will twine about 
 our judgments and understandings, till it hath sucked 
 
The Cambridge, Pkitonists 119 
 
 out the life and spirit of them. I cannot think such 
 black oblivion should possess the minds of some, as to 
 make them question that truth which to good men 
 shines as bright as the sun at noonday, had they not 
 foully denied their own souls with some hellish vice 
 or other, how fairly soever it may be they may dis- 
 semble it. There is a benumbing spirit, a congealing 
 vapour that ariseth from sin and vice, that will stupefy 
 the senses of the soul ; as the naturalists say there is from 
 the torpedo, that smites the senses of those that approach 
 it. This is that venomous solatium that deadly night- 
 shade that infuses its cold poison into the understandings 
 of men. 
 
 Such as men themselves are, such will God Himself 
 seem to be. It is the maxim of most wicked men, that 
 the Deity is some way or other like themselves ; their souls 
 do more than whisper it, though their lips speak it not; 
 and though their tongues be silent, yet their lives cry it 
 upon the house-tops and in the public streets. That idea 
 which men generally have of God is nothing else but the 
 picture of their own complexion : that archetypal notion of 
 Him which hath the supremacy in their minds, is none 
 else but such a one as hath been shaped out according to 
 some pattern of themselves; though they may so clothe 
 and disguise this idol of their own, when they carry it 
 about in a pompous procession to expose it to the view of 
 the world, that it may seem very beautiful, and indeed 
 anything else rather than what it is. Most men (though 
 it may be they themselves take no great notice of it), like 
 that dissembling monk aliter sentire in scholis, aliter in 
 musceis, are of a different judgment in the schools from 
 what they are in the retirements of their private closets. 
 There is a double head as well as a double heart. Men's 
 corrupt hearts will not suffer their notions and conceptions 
 of Divine things to be cast into that form into which a 
 
120 Mysticism 
 
 higher reason, which may sometimes work within them, 
 would put them. 2 
 
 I would not be thought, all this while, to banish the 
 belief of all innate notions of Divine truth; but these are 
 too often smothered, or tainted with a deep dye of men's 
 filthy lusts. It is but lux sepulta in opaca materia light 
 buried and stifled in some dark body, from whence all 
 those coloured, or rather discoloured, notions and appre- 
 hensions of Divine things are begotten. Though these 
 common notions may be very busy sometimes in the 
 vegetation of Divine knowledge, yet the corrupt vices of 
 men may so clog, disturb, and overrule them (as the 
 naturalists say this unruly and masterless matter doth the 
 natural forms in the formation of living creatures), that 
 they may produce nothing but monsters, miserably distorted 
 and misshapen. This kind of science, as Piotinus speaks, 
 "associating too familiarly with matter, and receiving and 
 imbibing it into itself, changeth its shape by this incestuous 
 
 2 The place of search is the seeker's own soul : this also is a 
 cardinal maxim with the Platonists. Not by reference to external 
 nature, nor to the abstractions of being in general, but in the 
 depths and heights of the soul's own life, man must look for a reflec- 
 tion of Divinity. Smith has a discourse on "the Existence and 
 Nature of God," in which he expounds this, claiming to be with 
 Plato and Piotinus. In that discourse he finds in the soul (1) 
 reason, but deficient reason, so he must look away to infinite 
 reason ; (2) the exercise of power, but very limited, so he must look 
 from that to omnipotence ; (3) love, so he must look to infinite love ; 
 (4) and (5), limitation in place and time, so he must look to eternity 
 and infinity ; (6) a limited freedom, so he must look to perfect 
 freedom ; and (7) ideals (imperfect and unrealised) of goodness, so he 
 must look away to eternal goodness and perfect beauty. He closes 
 with a preference for this last reflection. The affirmative aspect of 
 mysticism is thus very marked in Smith ; he and his Cambridge 
 associates found nothing congenial in the via negativa to which Neo- 
 Platonism resorted in its later phase. For historical evidence that it 
 is Love, and not Fear, which has predominated in Religion, see Dr. 
 Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 121 
 
 mixture." At best, while any inward lust is harboured in 
 the minds of men, it will so weaken them, that they can 
 never bring forth any masculine or generous knowledge ; as 
 ^Elian observes of the stork, that if the night-owl chanceth 
 to sit upon her eggs, they become presently as it were 
 vTTT/j/e/xia, and all incubation is rendered impotent and 
 ineffectual. Sin and lust are always of a hungry nature, 
 and suck up all those vital affections of men's souls which 
 should feed and nourish their understandings. 
 
 What are all our most sublime speculations of the Deity, 
 that are not impregnated with true goodness, but insipid 
 things that have no taste nor life in them, that do but swell, 
 like empty froth, in the souls of men ! They do not feed 
 men's souls, but only puff them up, and fill them with pride, 
 arrogance, contempt, and tyranny towards those that cannot 
 well understand their subtile curiosities : as those philosophers 
 that Cicero complains of in his times, qui disciplinam suarti 
 ostentationem, scientice, non legem vitce, putabant who made 
 their knowledge only matter of ostentation, to vindicate and 
 set off themselves, but never caring to square and govern 
 their lives by it. Such as these do but, spider-like, take a 
 great deal of pains to spin a worthless web out of their own 
 bowels, which will not keep them warm. These, indeed, are 
 those silly souls that are " ever learning, but never come to 
 the knowledge of the truth." They may, with Pharaoh's lean 
 kine, eat up and devour all tongues and sciences, and yet, 
 when they have done, still remain lean and ill-favoured as 
 they were at first. Jejune and barren speculations may be 
 hovering and fluttering up and down about divinity, but they 
 cannot settle or fix themselves upon it : they unfold the 
 plicatures of truth's garment, but they cannot behold the 
 lovely face of it. There are hidden mysteries in Divine truth, 
 wrapt up one within another, which cannot be discerned but 
 by Divine " Epoptists." 
 
 We must not think we have then attained to the right 
 
122 Mysticism 
 
 knowledge of truth, when we have broken through the out- 
 ward shell of words and phrases that house it up ; or when, 
 by a logical analysis, we have found out the dependencies 
 and coherencies of them one with another ; or when, like stout 
 champions of it, having well guarded it with the invincible 
 strength of our demonstration, we dare stand out in the face 
 of the world, and challenge the field of all those that would 
 pretend to be our rivals. 3 
 
 We have many grave and reverend idolaters that worship 
 truth only in the image of their own wits ; that could never 
 adore it so much as they may seem to do, were it anything 
 else but such a form of belief as their own wandering specula- 
 tions had at last met together in ; were it not that they find 
 their own image and superscription upon it. 
 
 There is a knowing of " the truth as it is in Jesus " as it 
 is in a Christlike nature, as it is in that sweet, mild, humble, 
 and loving spirit of Jesus, which spreads itself, like a morning 
 sun, upon the souls of good men, full of light and life. It 
 profits little to know Christ Himself after the flesh ; but He 
 gives His Spirit to good men, that searcheth the deep things 
 of God. There is an inward beauty, life, and loveliness in 
 Divine truth, which cannot be known but then when it is 
 digested into life and practice. The Greek philosopher could 
 tell those high-soaring Gnostics that thought themselves no 
 less than Jovis alites ; that could (as he speaks in the 
 Comedy) aepoftaTclv KOL 7repL<f>povcw rov fjXiov, and cried out 
 so much, " look upon God," that " without virtue and real 
 goodness God is but a name," a dry and empty notion. The 
 profane sort of men, like those old Gentile Greeks, may make 
 many ruptures in the walls of God's temple, and break into the 
 holy ground, but yet may find God no more there than they did. 
 
 Divine truth is better understood, as it unfolds itself in the 
 
 3 These protests against intellectualisra are repeated throughout ; 
 Cud worth would not have endorsed them all, and called his own chief 
 work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 123 
 
 purity of men's hearts and lives, than in all those subtile 
 niceties into which curious wits may lay it forth. And there- 
 fore our Saviour, who is the great master of it, would not, 
 while He was here on earth, draw it up into any system or 
 body, nor would His disciples after Him ; He would not lay 
 it out to us in any canons or articles of belief, not being, 
 indeed, so careful to stock and enrich the world with opinions 
 and notions, as with true piety, and a Godlike pattern of 
 purity, as the best way to thrive in all spiritual understanding. 
 His main scope was to promote a holy life, as the best and 
 most compendious way to a right belief. He hangs all true 
 acquaintance with divinity upon the doing God's will : "If 
 any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
 whether it be of God." This is that alone which will make 
 us, as St. Peter tells us, " that we shall not be barren nor 
 unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour." There 
 is an inward sweetness and deliciousness in Divine truth, which 
 no sensual mind can taste or relish : this is that i/^vx^os 
 dvrjp that natural man that savours not the things of God. 
 Corrupt passions and terrene affections are apt, of their own 
 nature, to disturb all serene thoughts, to precipitate our 
 judgments, and warp our understandings. It was a good 
 maxim of the old Jewish writers : " The Holy Spirit 
 dwells not in terrene and earthly passions." Divinity is 
 not so well perceived by a subtile wit, ua-rrep aio-flrjcrci K*a- 
 Oap/jitvrj, " as by a purified sense," as Plotinus phraseth it. 
 
 Neither was the ancient philosophy unacquainted with 
 this way and method of attaining to the knowledge of Divine 
 things ; and therefore Aristotle himself thought a young man 
 unfit to meddle with the grave precepts of morality till the 
 heat and violent precipitancy of his youthful affections were 
 cooled and moderated. And it is observed of Pythagoras, 
 that he had several ways to try the capacity of his scholars, 
 and to prove the sedateness and moral temper of their minds, 
 before he would entrust them with the sublimer mysteries of 
 
124 Mysticism 
 
 his philosophy. The Platonists were herein so wary and 
 solicitous, that they thought the minds of men could never be 
 purged enough from those earthly dregs of sense and passion, 
 in which they were so much steeped, before they could be 
 capable of their Divine metaphysics : and therefore they so 
 much solicit a x (U> P La '^ <"ro TOV crayuM-os, as they are 
 wont to phrase it "a separation from the body," in all 
 those that would KaOapus </>iAocro<eti/, as Socrates speaks, 
 that is indeed, "sincerely understand Divine truth"; -for 
 that was the scope of their philosophy. This was also 
 intimated by them in their denning philosophy to be //,eA.er7; 
 Qavdrov " a meditation of death " ; aiming herein at only a 
 moral way of dying, by loosening the soul from the body and 
 this sensitive life, which they thought was necessary to a right 
 contemplation of intelligible things; and therefore, besides 
 those dpfTal KaOapTLKat by which the souls of men were to be 
 separated from sensuality and purged from fleshly filth, they 
 devised a further way of separation more accommodated to 
 the condition of philosophers, which was their mathemata, or 
 mathematical contemplations, whereby the souls of men 
 might further shake off their dependency upon sense, and 
 learn to go as it were alone, without the crutch of any 
 sensible or material thing to support them ; and so be a little 
 inured, being once got up above the body, to converse freely 
 with immaterial natures, without looking down again and 
 falling back into sense. Besides, many other ways they had, 
 whereby to rise out of this dark body, avafiacrtis CK TOV 
 o-7rr)\aiov, as they are wont to call them, several steps and 
 ascents out of this miry cave of mortality, before they could 
 set any sure footing with their intellectual part in the land of 
 light and immortal being. 
 
 And thus we should pass from this topic of our discourse, 
 upon which we have dwelt too long already, but that before 
 we quite let it go, I hope we may fairly make this use of it 
 further (besides what we have openly aimed at all this while), 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 125 
 
 which is to learn not to devote or give up ourselves to any 
 private opinions or dictates of men in matters of religion, nor 
 too zealously to propugn 'the dogmas of any sect. As we 
 should not, like rigid censurers, arraign and condemn the 
 creeds of other men which we comply not with, before a full 
 and mature understanding of them, ripened not only by the 
 natural sagacity of our own reason, but by the benign 
 influence of holy and mortified affection ; so neither should 
 we over hastily credere in Jidem alienam subscribe to the 
 symbols and articles of other men. They are not always the 
 best men that blot most paper; truth is not, I fear, so 
 voluminous, nor swells into such a mighty bulk as our books 
 do. Those minds are not always the most chaste that are 
 most parturient with these learned discourses, which too often 
 bear upon them a foul stain of their unlawful propagation. 
 A bitter juice of corrupt affections may sometimes be strained 
 into the ink of our greatest scholars; their doctrines may 
 taste too sour of the cask they come through. We are not 
 always happy in meeting with that wholesome food (as some 
 are wont to call the doctrinal part of religion) which hath 
 been dressed out by the cleanest hands. Some men have too 
 bad hearts to have good heads : they cannot be good at theory 
 who have been so bad at the practice, as we may justly fear 
 too many of those from whom we are apt to take the articles 
 of our belief have been. Whilst we plead so much our right 
 to the patrimony of our fathers, we may take too fast a 
 possession of their errors, as well as of their sober opinions. 
 There are idola specus innate prejudices, and deceitful 
 hypotheses, that many times wander up and down in the 
 minds of good men, that may fly out from them with their 
 graver determinations. We can never be well assured what 
 our traditional divinity is; nor can we securely enough 
 addict ourselves to any sect of men. That which was the 
 philosopher's motto, 'EAev'0epov ctvat Set 777 yvw/xry rov /xeAAoj/ra 
 <i\ocro<v, we may a little enlarge, and so fit it for an 
 
126 Mysticism 
 
 ingenuous pursuer after Divine truth : "he that will find 
 truth, must seek it with a free judgment and a sanctified 
 mind " : he that thus seeks shall find ; he shall live in truth, 
 and that shall live in him ; it shall be like a stream of living 
 waters issuing out of his own soul ; he shall drink of the 
 waters of his own cistern, and be satisfied; he shall every 
 morning find this heavenly manna lying upon the top of his 
 own soul, and be fed with it to eternal life ; he will find 
 satisfaction within, feeling himself in conjunction with truth, 
 though all the world should dispute against him. 4 
 
 And thus I should again leave this argument, but that 
 perhaps we may, all this while, have seemed to undermine 
 what we intend to build up. For if Divine truth spring up 
 only from the root of true goodness, how shall we endeavour 
 to be good, before we know what it is to be so 1 or how shall 
 we convince the gainsaying world of truth, unless we could 
 also inspire virtue into it 1 
 
 To both which we shall make this reply : that there are 
 some radical principles of knowledge that are so deeply sunk 
 in the souls of men, as that the impression cannot easily be 
 obliterated, though it may be much darkened. Sensual base- 
 ness doth not so grossly sully and bemire the souls of all 
 wicked men at first, as to make them, with Diagoras, deny 
 the Deity, or, with Protagoras, doubt of, or, with Diodorus, 
 to question the immortality of rational souls. Neither are 
 the common principles of virtue so pulled up by the roots in 
 all, as to make them so dubious in stating the bounds of 
 virtue and vice as Epicurus was, though he could not but 
 
 4 Divine knowledge cannot be acquired at second hand ; neither 
 ecclesiastical tradition nor social opinion can be substitutes for first- 
 hand knowledge. The insistence on this when the Church of England 
 was passing through the turmoil of the Stuart period, and ecclesias- 
 tical order was the prominent interest in the minds of so many 
 religious men, led to the designation of Latitudinarian being applied 
 by the controversialists to this group of men who endeavoured to rise 
 to a serener plane. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 127 
 
 sometimes take notice of them. Neither is the retentive 
 power of truth so weak and loose in all sceptics, as it was in 
 him, who, being well scourged in the streets till the blood 
 ran about him, questioned, when he came home, whether he 
 had been beaten or not. Arrian hath well observed, that the 
 common notions of God and virtue impressed upon the souls 
 of men, are more clear and perspicuous than any else ; and 
 that if they have not more certainty, yet they have more 
 evidence, and display themselves with less difficulty to our 
 reflective faculty than any geometrical demonstrations : and 
 these are both available to prescribe out ways of virtue to 
 men's own souls, and to force an acknowledgment of truth 
 from those that oppose, when they are well guided by a 
 skilful hand. Truth needs not at any time fly from reason, 
 there being an eternal amity between them. They are only 
 some private dogmas, that may well be suspected as spurious 
 and adulterate, that dare not abide the trial thereof. And 
 this reason is not everywhere so extinguished, as that we 
 may not, by that, enter into the souls of men. What the 
 magnetical virtue is in these earthly bodies, that reason is in 
 men's minds, which, when it is put forth, draws them one to 
 another. Besides, in wicked men there are sometimes 
 distastes of vice, and flashes of love to virtue; which are 
 the motions which spring from a true intellect, and the faint 
 strugglings of a higher life within them, which they crucify 
 again by their wicked sensuality. As truth doth not always 
 act in good men, so neither doth sense always act in wicked 
 men ; they may sometimes have their lucida intervalla 
 their sober fits ; and a Divine Spirit blowing and breathing 
 upon them, may then blow up some live sparks of true under- 
 standing within them ; though they may soon endeavour to 
 quench them again, and to rake them up in the ashes of their 
 own earthly thoughts. 
 
 All this, and more that might be said upon this argument, 
 may serve to point out the way of virtue. We want not so 
 
128 Mysticism 
 
 much means of knowing what we ought to do, as wills to do 
 that which we may know. But yet all that knowledge 
 which is separated from an inward acquaintance with virtue 
 and goodness is of a far different nature from that which 
 ariseth out of a true living sense of them, which is the best 
 discerner thereof, and by which alone we know the true per- 
 fection, sweetness, energy, and loveliness of them, and all 
 that which is OVTG p^roV, ovr ypairrov that which can no 
 more be known by a naked demonstration than colours can 
 be perceived by a blind man, by any definition or description 
 which he can hear of them. 
 
 And, further, the clearest and most distinct notions of 
 truth that shine in the souls of the common sort of men 
 may be extremely clouded if they be not accompanied with 
 that answerable practice that might preserve their integrity : 
 these tender plants may soon be spoiled by the continual 
 droppings of our corrupt affections upon them ; they are but 
 of a weak and feminine nature, and so may be sooner de- 
 ceived by that wily serpent of sensuality that harbours 
 within us. 
 
 While the soul is TrArjp^s TOV croj/Aaros " full of the body " 
 while we suffer those notions and common principles of 
 religion to lie asleep within us ; that yeveo-tov/oyos Swa/us 
 " the power of an animal life " will be apt to incorporate and 
 mingle itself with them ; and that reason that is within us, 
 as Plotinus hath well expressed it, becomes more and more 
 <rv/t<vros ACCIKCUS rats eirtytvo/xevats 8ocus it will be infected 
 with those evil opinions that arise from our corporeal life. 
 The more deeply our souls dive into our bodies, the more 
 will reason and sensuality run one into another, and make 
 up a most dilute, unsavoury, and muddy kind of knowledge. 
 We must therefore endeavour more and more to withdraw 
 ourselves from these bodily things, to set our soul as free as 
 may be from its miserable slavery to this base flesh : we 
 must shut the eyes of sense, and open that brighter eye of 
 
TJie Cambridge Pkdonists 129 
 
 our understandings, that other eye of the soul (as the 
 philosopher calls our intellectual faculty), rjv e^et ju.ev 7ras, 
 Xpwrai 8e oAtyot "which indeed all have, but few make 
 use of." This is the way to see clearly; the light of the 
 Divine world will then begin to fall upon us, and those 
 sacred eAAa/ju^ets those pure coruscations of immortal and 
 everliving truth will shine into us, and in God's own light 
 shall we behold Him. The fruit of this knowledge will be 
 sweet to our taste, and pleasant to our palates, "sweeter 
 than honey or the honeycomb." The priests of Mercury, as 
 Plutarch tells us, in the eating of their holy things, were 
 wont to cry out yXvKv -rj aXrjOeia "sweet is truth." But 
 how sweet and delicious that truth is, which holy and heaven- 
 born souls feed upon in their mysterious converse with the 
 Deity, who can tell but they that taste it? When reason 
 once is raised, by the mighty force of the Divine Spirit, into 
 a converse with God, it is turned into sense : that which 
 before was only faith well built upon sure principles (for 
 such our science may be) now becomes vision. We shall 
 then converse with God TW v<5, whereas before, we conversed 
 with Him only rrj Scavot'o, with our discursive faculty as 
 the Platonists were wont to distinguish. Before, we laid 
 hold on Him only Aoyw dTroSet/crt/ca) with a struggling, 
 agonistical, and contentious reason, hotly combating with 
 difficulties and sharp contests of diverse opinions, and labour- 
 ing in itself, in its deductions of one thing from another ; we 
 shall then fasten our minds upon Him Aoyo> aTro^ai/rt/cuJ, 
 with such a "serene understanding," yaXtjvrj voe/aa, such an 
 intellectual calmness and serenity as will present us with a 
 blissful, steady, and invariable sight of Him. 5 
 
 5 Here is raised the intellectualist's question : Surely we must 
 know an object before we can have respect for it ? Surely we must 
 learn what goodness is before we can attempt to aim at it ? This is 
 the question which, in the opinion of all thoroughgoing intuitivists, 
 has slain many souls ; as Bunyan, for example, was for months 
 9 
 
130 Mysticism 
 
 And now, if you please, setting aside the Epicurean herd 
 of brutish men, who have drowned all their own sober reason 
 in the deepest Lethe of sensuality, we shall divide the rest 
 of men into these four ranks, according to that method 
 which Simplicius upon Epictetus hath already laid out to us, 
 with respect to a fourfold kind of knowledge, which we have 
 all this while glanced at. 6 
 
 The first whereof is avOpwiros cru/xTrc^vp/xevos rf) yei/<m, 
 or, if you will, avOpwros 6 TTO\VS "That complex and 
 multifarious man that is made up of soul and body," as it 
 were by a just equality and arithmetical proportion of parts 
 and powers in each of them. The knowledge of these men 
 
 entirely perplexed with the suggestion that lie must prove Christ 
 before he accepted Him. The Intuitivists' answer is peremptory 
 such knowledge as the knowledge of God must arise deeper down in 
 the soul than where such a division could take effect ; below where 
 knowing and loving divide, lies the soul, with its own simple vision. 
 The impulses of our superficial nature and the notions of our superficial 
 understanding come in to disguise and cloak and confuse the deeper 
 presentments. This is the constantly-expressed answer of the Mystic 
 to the assertions that not all men can see what they see, and therefore 
 love what they love : "You are clogged with superficial influences," 
 they reply ; "let your inner soul be opened, and you will see what 
 we see, and find that love issues from that vision." 
 
 6 In his discourse on the Excellency of Religion, Smith is con- 
 tent with the older Platonists' graduated scheme of three orders 
 of knowledge. Here he adopts the more elaborated forms given by 
 Simplicius of Cilicia, one of the last of those Neo-Platonists who 
 had to leave Athens when Justinian closed its School of Philosophy 
 (A.D. 529). It is by reference to such methods of graduating human 
 nature that the sane Mystics keep in touch with actual experiences. 
 This formulates the ideal character of their knowledge also, for they 
 do not claim that they actually occupy the highest stage. The praise 
 of "ecstasy," which has proved the snare of many, did not ensnare 
 these Cambridge men, at their best. It is their firm hold upon an 
 ideal, while acknowledging the presence of an actual which includes 
 even error and confusion, that is the source of that balance between 
 humility and boldness, modesty and insatiable aspiration, which most 
 readers will acknowledge to be present in John Smith. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 131 
 
 I should call d/xvSpoV 8oa> in Plutarch's phrase ; "a know- 
 ledge wherein sense and reason are so twisted up together," 
 that it cannot easily be unravelled and laid out into its first 
 principles. Their highest reason is 6/xo8oos TCUS alorOrja-ean, 
 " complying with their senses," and both conspire together 
 in vulgar opinion. To these that motto which the Stoics 
 have made for them may very well agree, y&'o? wroAi^is, 
 their life being steered by nothing else but opinion and 
 imagination. Their higher notions of God and religion are 
 so entangled with the birdlime of fleshy passions and mun- 
 dane vanity that they cannot rise up above the surface of this 
 dark earth, or easily entertain any but earthly conceptions 
 of heavenly things. Such souls as are here lodged, as Plato 
 speaks, are O7n<r0o/3apets, "heavy behind," and are continually 
 pressing down to this world's centre; and though, like the 
 spider, they may appear sometime moving up and down aloft 
 in the air, yet they do but sit in the loom, and move in that 
 web of their own gross fancies, which they fasten and pin to 
 some earthly thing or other. 
 
 The second is avOpv-Tros Kara, rrjv XoyLKrjv <Drjv ovo-ioyxeVo? 
 the man that looks at himself as being what he is rather 
 by his soul than by his body ; that thinks not fit to view his 
 own face in any other glass but that of reason and under- 
 standing ; that reckons upon his soul as that which was made 
 to rule, his body as that which was born to obey, and, like a 
 handmaid, perpetually to wait upon his higher and nobler 
 part. And in such a one the communes notitice, or common 
 principles of virtue and goodness, are more clear and steady. 
 To such a one we may allow rpavccrrepai/ /cat eya</>areoTpai/ 
 3o av " more clear and distinct opinions," as being already 
 eV KaQdpo-tL "in a method or course of purgation," or, at 
 least, fit to be initiated into the mysteria minor a "the 
 lesser mysteries of religion." For, though these innate 
 notions of truth may be but poor, empty, and hungry things 
 of themselves, before they be fed and filled with the practice 
 
132 Mysticism 
 
 of true virtue; yet they are capable of being impregnated 
 and exalted with the rules and precepts of it. And therefore 
 the Stoics supposed on TOIOVTW irpoo->JKovo-tv at -rjOLKol /cat 
 TToXtrtKat dperat that the doctrine of political and moral 
 virtues was fit to be delivered to such as these ; and though 
 they may not be so well prepared for Divine virtue (which is 
 of a higher emanation), yet they are not immature for human, 
 as, having the seeds of it already within themselves, which, 
 being watered by answerable practice, may sprout up within 
 them. 
 
 The third is av0/>w7ros rjSij KCKaflap/xeVos he whose soul is 
 already purged by this lower sort of virtue, and so is con- 
 tinually flying off from the body and bodily passion, and 
 returning into himself. Such, in St. Peter's language, are 
 those "who have escaped the pollutions which are in the 
 world through lust." To these we may attribute a voOrj 
 eTno-nj//,?/, a lower degree of science, their inward sense of 
 virtue and moral goodness being far transcendent to all mere 
 speculative opinions of it. But, if this knowledge settle here, 
 it may be quickly apt to corrupt. Many of our most 
 refined moralists may be, in a worse sense than Plotinus 
 means, TrA^pcofoWes TQ eavTwv </>vcm "full with their own 
 pregnancy " ; their souls may have too much heave and swell 
 with the sense of their own virtue and knowledge; there 
 may be an ill ferment of self-love lying at the bottom, which 
 may puff it up the more with pride, arrogance, and self- 
 conceit. These forces with which the Divine bounty supplies 
 us to keep a stronger guard against the evil spirit, may be 
 abused by our own rebellious pride, enticing them from their 
 allegiance to God, to strengthen itself in our souls, and 
 fortify them against heaven : like that supercilious Stoic, 
 who, when he thought his mind well armed and appointed 
 with wisdom and virtue, cried out, Sapiens contendet cum 
 ipso Jove de felicitate. They may make an airy heaven of 
 these, and wall it about with their own self-flattery, and 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 133 
 
 then sit in it as gods, as Cosroes, the Persian king, was 
 sometimes laughed at for enshrining himself in a temple of 
 his own. And therefore, if this knowledge be not attended 
 with humility and a deep sense of self-penury and self- 
 emptiness, we may easily fall short of that true knowledge 
 of God after which we seem to aspire. We may carry such 
 an image and species of ourselves constantly before us as 
 will make us lose the clear sight of the Divinity, and be too 
 apt to rest in a mere " logical life " (an expression of 
 Simplicius) without any true participation of the Divine life, 
 if we do not (as many do, if not all, who rise no higher) 
 relapse and slide back by vainglory, popularity, or such 
 like vices, into some mundane and external vanity or 
 other. 
 
 The fourth is avOpuiros tfewpT/TiKos the true metaphysi- 
 cal and contemplative man, os TT/V eavrov AoyiK^i/ ^COTJI/ 
 VTreprpe^toi/, oAa>s eu/ai /JovAerai TCOV K/>ITTOVCDI> who, run- 
 ning and shooting up above his own logical or self-rational 
 life, pierceth into the highest life; such a one, who, by 
 universal love and holy affection, abstracting himself from 
 himself, endeavours to attain the nearest union with the 
 Divine essence that may be, Ktvrpov Kcvrpu crvvafyas, as 
 Plotinus speaks; knitting his own centre, if he have any, 
 unto the centre of Divine being. To such a one the 
 Platonists are wont to attribute Qflav eVicr-nj/x^v "a true 
 Divine wisdom," powerfully displaying itself cv i/oepa <i>rj 
 " in an intellectual life," as they phrase it. Such a know- 
 ledge, they say, is always pregnant with Divine virtue, 
 which ariseth out of a happy union of souls with God, and 
 is nothing else but a living imitation of a Godlike perfection 
 drawn out by a strong fervent love of it. This Divine 
 knowledge KO,\OVS KOL fpaarrovs Trotet, etc., as Plotinus speaks, 
 makes us more amorous of Divine beauty, beautiful and 
 lovely ; and this Divine love and purity reciprocally exalts 
 Divine knowledge ; both of them growing up together, like 
 
134 Mysticism 
 
 that "Epws and 'Avrlpws that Pausanias sometimes speaks of. 
 Though, by the Platonists' leave, such a life and knowledge 
 as this is, peculiarly belongs to the true and sober Christian, 
 who lives in Him who is life itself, and is enlightened by 
 Him who is the truth itself, and is made partaker of the 
 Divine unction, "and knoweth all things," as St. John speaks. 
 This life is nothing else but God's own breath within him, 
 and an infant-Christ (if I may use the expression) formed in 
 his soul, who is, in a sense, a7ravyao-/xa T^S So^s, the shining 
 forth of the Father's glory. 7 But yet we must not mis- 
 take ; this knowledge is but here in its infancy ; there is a 
 higher knowledge, or a higher degree of this knowledge, that 
 doth not, that cannot, descend upon us in these earthly 
 habitations. We cannot here see in speculo lucido ; here we 
 can see but in a glass, and that darkly too. Our own 
 imaginative powers, which are perpetually attending the 
 highest acts of our souls, will be breathing a gross dew upon 
 the pure glass of our understandings, and so sully and 
 besmear it that we cannot see the image of the Divinity 
 sincerely in it. But yet this knowledge, being a true, 
 heavenly fire, kindled from God's own altar, begets an 
 undaunted courage in the souls of good men, and enables 
 them to cast a holy scorn upon the poor, petty trash of this 
 life, in comparison with Divine things, and to pity these poor, 
 brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the mere husks 
 of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with. This sight of 
 God makes pious souls breathe after that blessed time when 
 mortality shall be swallowed up of life, when they shall no 
 more behold the Divinity through the dark mediums that 
 eclipse the blessed sight of it. 
 
 As this introductory discourse looks at Divine knowledge 
 from the point of view of human nature, we print Chapter I. 
 
 7 This expression represents the way in which the school applied 
 their method to Christian religion. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 135 
 
 of the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion, where the 
 point of view is rather that of revelation, from the nature 
 of God to the excellency of the knowledge and enjoyment of 
 Him which is open to man. 
 
 THE EXCELLENCY AND NOBLENESS OF 
 TRUE RELIGION. 
 
 True religion is a nolle thing in its rise and original, and 
 in regard of its descent. True religion derives its pedigree 
 from heaven, is /3A.a<m7/xa TOV ovpavov, it comes from 
 heaven, and constantly moves toward heaven again ; it is a 
 beam from God, 1 as " every good gift and every perfect 
 gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of 
 lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 
 turning," as St. James speaks. God is the first truth and 
 primitive goodness : true religion is a vigorous efflux and 
 emanation of both upon the spirits of men, and, therefore, 
 is called " a participation of the Divine nature. 2 Indeed, 
 God hath copied out Himself in all created being, having 
 no other pattern to frame anything by, than His own 
 essence; so that all created being is umbratilis similitudo 
 entis increati, and is, by some stamp or other of God upon 
 it, at least remotely allied to Him ; but true religion is such 
 a communication of the Divinity, as none but the highest 
 of created beings are capable of. On the other side, sin 
 and wickedness is of the basest and lowest original, as being 
 
 1 The metaphors in this short chapter alone express very vividly 
 the revelational character of religion, that it comes by operation of 
 the Divine Spirit. It is "a beam from God"; "a vigorous efflux 
 and emanation"; "a seed of God"; truths are "inscribed"; God 
 has ' ' stamped a copy " ; ''imprinted as with the point of a diamond " ; 
 He "communicates Divinity." 
 
 2 The combination of Truth and Goodness is asserted. Any 
 separation between them is neither in the depths of man's soul nor 
 in the height of the Divine Nature. 
 
136 Mysticism 
 
 nothing else but a perfect degeneration from God, and those 
 eternal rules of goodness which are derived from Him. 
 Religion is a heaven-born thing, the seed of God in the 
 spirits of men, whereby they are formed to a similitude and 
 likeness of Himself. A true Christian is every way of a 
 most noble extraction, of a heavenly and Divine pedigree, 
 being born avwOw, " from above," as St. John expresseth it. 
 The line of all earthly nobility, if it were followed to the 
 beginning, would lead to Adam, where all the lines of 
 descent meet in one ; and the root of all extractions would 
 be found planted in nothing else but Adamah, " red earth " ; 
 but a Christian derives his line from Christ, who is the 
 only - begotten Son of God, "the shining forth of His 
 glory, and the character of His person," as He is styled. 
 We may truly say of Christ and Christians, as Zebah and 
 Zalmunna said of Gideon's brethren, "As he is, so are 
 they (according to their capacity), each one resembling 
 the children of a king." Titles of worldly honour in 
 heaven's heraldry are only tituli nominales ; but titles of 
 Divine dignity signify some real thing, some real and Divine 
 communications to the spirits and minds of men. All 
 perfections and excellences, in any kind, are to be measured 
 by their approach to that primitive Perfection of all, God 
 Himself; and, therefore, participation of the Divine nature 
 cannot but entitle a Christian to the highest degree of 
 dignity " Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
 bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of 
 God." 
 
 Thus much for a more general discovery of the nobleness 
 of religion, as to its fountain and original ; we may further, 
 and more particularly, take notice of this in reference to 
 that twofold fountain in God, from whence all true religion 
 flows and issues forth, namely (1) His immutable nature, 
 (2) His will. 
 1 . 1. The immutable nature of God. From thence arise all 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 137 
 
 those eternal rules of truth and goodness, 3 which are the 
 foundation of all religion, and which God, at the first 
 creation, folded up in the soul of man. 4 These we may 
 call the truths of natural inscription ; understanding, hereby, 
 either those fundamental principles of truth which reason, by 
 a naked intuition, may behold in God, or those necessary 
 corollaries and deductions that may be drawn from thence. I 
 cannot think it as proper to say, that God ought infinitely 
 to be loved because He commands it, as because He is, 
 indeed, an infinite and unchangeable goodness. God hath 
 stamped a copy of His own archetypal loveliness upon the 
 soul, that man, by reflecting into himself, might behold there 
 the glory of God intra se videre Deum, see within his soul 
 all those ideas of truth which concern the nature and 
 essence of God, by reason of its own resemblance to God ; 
 and so beget within himself the most free and generous 
 motions of love to God. Reason in man being lumen de 
 lumine a light flowing from the Fountain and Father of 
 lights and being, as Cicero phraseth it, participata simili- 
 tudo rationis ceternce (as the law of nature the vo/xos 
 y/m7rros the law written in man's heart is participatio legis 
 ceternce in rationali creatura), it was to enable man to work 
 out of himself all those notions of God which are the true 
 
 3 Truth and Goodness are both asserted again. The Beautiful 
 is not separately set out, but in general tone and by frequent 
 expressions John Smith makes it manifest that this sentiment was 
 highly developed in him. In this respect the influence of the Neo- 
 Platonists, especially of Plotinus, was marked. It would not be very 
 venturesome to regard the sentiment for Beauty and Nobleness and 
 Excellency as one of the traits which drew these Cambridge men, 
 undergraduates of the same decade as Milton, towards the Platonic 
 tradition. 
 
 4 The phrase "folded up" reminds us of the answer of Des- 
 cartes when supposed to mean by innate ideas that we always 
 have the full idea before us. As Smith says, lower down in this 
 paragraph, the notions must be "worked out of himself" by man, 
 the Spirit itself enabling him to do this. 
 
138 Mysticism 
 
 groundwork of love and obedience to God, and conformity 
 to Him, and in moulding the inward man into the greatest 
 conformity to the nature of God was the perfection and 
 efficacy of the religion of nature. But since man's fall from 
 God, 5 the inward virtue and vigour of reason is much 
 abated, the soul having suffered a TrTepoppvr/cris, as Plato 
 speaks a defluvium pennarum-, those principles of Divine 
 truth, which were first engraved upon man's heart with the 
 finger of God, are now, as the characters of some ancient 
 monument, less clear and legible than at first. And, there- 
 fore, besides the truth of natural inscription 
 
 2. God hath provided the truth of Divine revelation, 
 which issues forth from His own free will, and clearly 
 discovers the way of our return to God, from whom we are 
 fallen. And this truth, with the effects and productions of 
 it in the minds of men, the Scripture is wont to set forth 
 under the name of grace> as proceeding merely from the free 
 bounty and overflowings of the Divine love. Of this revealed 
 will is that of the apostle to be understood ra TOV eov 
 ouSeis oTSei/ " The things of God knoweth no man " ; 
 " ovSei's," none, neither angel nor man, could know the mind 
 of God, could unlock the breast of God, or search out the 
 counsels of His will. But God, out of the infinite riches 
 of His compassions toward mankind, is pleased to un- 
 bosom His secrets, and most clearly to manifest " the way 
 into the holiest of all," and " bring to light life and im- 
 mortality," and, in these last ages, to send His Son, who 
 lay in His bosom from all eternity, to teach us His will, and 
 declare His mind to us. When we "look unto the earth, 
 then behold darkness and dimness of anguish," that I may 
 use those words of the prophet Isaiah. But when we look 
 towards heaven, then behold light breaking forth upon us, 
 like the eyelids of the morning, and spreading its wings 
 
 5 The doctrine of the Fall is accepted, and Plato invoked to 
 endorse it. Upon it is based the need for extraordinary revelation. 
 
The Cambridge Platonists 139 
 
 over the horizon of mankind, sitting in darkness and the 
 shadow of death, " to guide our feet into the way of 
 peace." 
 
 But, besides this outward revelation of God's will to 
 men, there is also an inward impression of it on their 
 minds and spirits, which is, in a more special manner, 
 attributed to God. 6 We cannot see Divine things but in 
 a Divine light : God only, who is the true light, and in 
 whom there is no darkness at all, can so shine out of Him- 
 self upon our glassy understandings, as to beget in them a 
 picture of Himself, His own will and pleasure, and turn 
 the soul, as the phrase is, like wax or "clay to the seal" 
 of His own light and love. He that made our souls in 
 His own image and likeness, can easily find a way into 
 them. The word that God speaks, having found a way 
 into the soul, imprints itself there, as with the point of a 
 diamond, and becomes Aoyos eyyey/)a//,jueVos eV TT} TOV (jiavOdv- 
 OI/TOS i/wx??> that I may borrow Plato's expression. Men 
 may teach the grammar and rhetoric, but God teaches the 
 divinity. Thus it is God alone that acquaints the soul with 
 the truths of revelation ; and He it is also that does 
 strengthen and raise the soul to better apprehensions even 
 of natural truth ; " God being that in the intellectual world 
 which the sun is in the sensible," 6Vep cv rots aio-Oyrols 6 
 77X109, TOVTO ev TCKS 1/077x01$ 6 cos, as some of the ancient 
 Fathers love to speak, and the ancient philosophers too, who 
 meant God by their intellectus agens, whose proper work they 
 
 6 The phrase ''in a more special manner" is significant. So 
 thoroughgoing is the confidence of Smith in the Natural Light, that 
 the special revelation of Christianity or rather Christianity in so 
 far as it is special, differential has something of an ' ' outward " 
 character. After indicating its place, he falls back again to the 
 general fact of the Natural Light. We can see how it was that the 
 School was regarded as more philosophical than Christian. The 
 affinity with Schleiermacher and the contrast with Mausel should be 
 studied. 
 
140 Mysticism 
 
 supposed to be, not so much to enlighten the object, as the 
 faculty. 7 
 
 References. The Cambridge University Press edition of the Select 
 Discourses, edited by H. G. Williams, 4th ed. 1859. For Neo- 
 Platonism, see Harnack in Encycl. Brit. ; for the Christian Platonists 
 of Alexandria, Dr. Bigg's Bampton Lectures ; and for the Cambridge 
 School, Tulloch's Rational TJieology in England. For all of these, 
 Mr. Inge's Bampton Lectures, Christian Mysticism, In conjunction 
 with this selection, the following are specially recommended for 
 reading: Theologica Germanica (in "Gold en Treasury" series); Law's 
 Spirit of Prayer and Way of Divine Knowledge ; the Selection from 
 Schleiermacher ; Erskine's Spiritual Order, and other writings ; and 
 Emerson's Essays. In philosophy, Professors Pringle-Pattison, Royce, 
 and Ormond represent a more appreciative attitude to the intention, 
 at least, of Mysticism than has been usual in English Schools. On 
 the psychological side, see Professor James, Varieties of Religious 
 Experience ; Professor Granger, The Soul of a Christian ; and for a 
 treatment which combines Mysticism with Rationalism, Mr. \V. S. 
 Lilly, The Great Enigma. 
 
 7 This phrase suggests the use of "Inspiration" as in some ways 
 more accurate for Smith's view than "Revelation." God is always 
 there, and always showing Himself ; it is man's power of vision which 
 needs the operation of the Spirit in order that religious knowledge 
 may arise. 
 
VI. 
 
 GOD AS ETERNAL MIND. 
 
 BERKELEY, BISHOP GEORGE (1685-1753). 
 
 The Third Dialogue betiveen Hylas and Philonous. 
 
 IN this Dialogue we shall find Berkeley's demonstration of 
 the existence of Eternal Mind ; his Idealism in the sense that 
 we can know the ultimate reality, and that it is spiritual. It 
 is a polemic against our being called upon to believe in a 
 dead, senseless, inert something called " Matter." It aims at 
 showing that there is no such thing, whether as superior to 
 mind, as Materialists were urging, or as of equal rank with it, 
 as Descartes and Spinoza had, more or less consistently, 
 maintained. Of course, the crude notion of Matter as the 
 congeries of all the qualities we perceive when we are in con- 
 tact with the external world, was not what was put forward ; 
 the conception had been refined, and indeed reduced to a 
 thin residuum, being, in fact, only extension in length and 
 breadth and depth for some, with inclusion of unknown force 
 for others. But Berkeley thought that extension was amen- 
 able to explanation as quality perceived, and should be so 
 regarded, and not set up as if independent. And then to 
 suppose that there was behind that a something altogether 
 unperceived and unperceivable he held to be not what 
 common sense meant, nor what philosophy justified ; and the 
 opinion that there was, was inimical to the cause of Religion ; 
 was Atheistic, in short. 
 
 There is only one substance known to us directly, he 
 thought, our conscious, perceiving, thinking mind; and his 
 Theism consisted in proving from this that we ought 
 to infer the existence of an Eternal Mind. This in- 
 ference was resistless, he held, and by reference to it 
 
 141 
 
142 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 the problems of philosophy and of religion were to be 
 solved. 
 
 Berkeley commenced his philosophical works with his 
 Essay toivards a Neiv Theory of Vision (set. 24); in this 
 an original psychological analysis was given of our perception 
 of distance, showing that the perception is acquired by means 
 of a systematic way of interpreting certain quite arbitrary 
 signs. This was followed by his Principles of Knowledge 
 (set. 25), in which he expounded more comprehensively his 
 doctrine of Perception. Three years later he followed these 
 up by Three Dialogues, in which his views were expressed in 
 a free and animated manner. Written when his theory was 
 in full possession of his mind, and when his powers of 
 forcible and attractive expression were in somewhat pre- 
 cocious maturity, these Dialogues attained a high pitch of 
 excellence, "the gem of British metaphysical literature," 
 Professor Fraser admiringly calls them ; and certainly no one 
 has ventured to set up a rival claim for any other single work. 
 
 In Dialogues I. and II. he has worked up to his demon- 
 stration of the inconsistency and the uselessness of supposing 
 that there was any substance, known as Matter, giving 
 reality to the phenomena of external nature. He has 
 reasserted his analysis of visual extension, as in the Essay on 
 Vision, and the extension of analysis to dissolve the supposed 
 substantiality evinced by tactual reality as resistance in 
 extended body, as in the Principles. So that what we have 
 in knowledge is factors of perception, and their synthesis by 
 the mind. Hylas, the unsophisticated representative of 
 ordinary men, has been led along so far by Philonous, the 
 spokesman for philosophy. At the opening of Dialogue III. 
 Hylas presents himself as one who has been convinced of the 
 unreality of Matter, and is at present of the opinion that 
 there is no reality at all. Philonous is now to lead him 
 forward. 
 
 THE THIRD DIALOGUE. 
 
 Philonous. Tell me, Hylas, what are the fruits of yester- 
 day's meditation 1 Hath it confirmed you in the same mind 
 you were in at parting, or have you since seen cause to 
 change your opinion 1 
 
Berkeley 143 
 
 Hylas. Truly, my opinion is that all our opinions are 
 alike vain and uncertain. What we approve to-day, we 
 condemn to-morrow. We keep a stir about knowledge, and 
 spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas ! we know 
 nothing all the while : nor do I think it possible for us ever 
 to know anything in this life. Our faculties are too narrow 
 and too few. Nature certainly never intended us for 
 Speculation. 
 
 Phil. What ! say you we can know nothing, Hylas 1 
 
 Hyl. There is not that single thing in the world whereof 
 we can know the real nature, or what it is in itself. 
 
 Phil. Will you tell me I do not really know what fire or 
 water is ? 
 
 Hyl. You may indeed know that fire appears hot, and 
 water fluid ; but this is no more than knowing what sensa- 
 tions are produced in your own mind, upon the application 
 of fire and water to your organs of sense. Their internal 
 constitution, their true and real nature, you are utterly in 
 the dark as to that.\ 
 
 Phil. Do I not know this to be a real stone that I stand 
 on, and that which I see before my eyes to be a real tree 1 
 
 Hyl. Know ? No, it is impossible you or any man alive 
 should know it. All you know is, that you have such a 
 certain idea or appearance in your own mind. But what is 
 this to the real tree or stone 1 I tell you that colour, figure, 
 and hardness, which you perceive, are not the real natures 
 of those things, or in the least like them. The same may be 
 said of all other real things or corporeal substances which 
 compose the world. They have none of them anything of 
 themselves, like those sensible qualities by us perceived. 
 We should not therefore pretend to affirm or know anything 
 of them, as they are in their own nature. 
 
 Phil. But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for 
 example, from iron : and how could this be if I knew not 
 what either truly was *? 
 
144 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 Hyl. Believe me, Philonous, you can only distinguish 
 between your own ideas. That yellowness, that weight, and 
 other sensible qualities, think you they are really in the 
 gold 1 ? They are only relative to the senses, and have no 
 absolute existence in nature. And in pretending to distinguish 
 the species of real things, by the appearances in your mind, 
 you may perhaps act as wisely as he that should conclude 
 two men were of a different species, because their clothes 
 were not of the same colour. 
 
 Phil. It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the 
 appearances of things, and those false ones too. The very 
 meat I eat, and the cloth I wear, have nothing in them like 
 what I see and feel. 
 
 Hyl. Even so. 
 
 Phil. But is it not strange the whole world should be 
 thus imposed on, and so foolish as to believe their senses'? 
 And yet I know not how it is, but men eat, and drink, and 
 sleep, and perform all the offices of life, as comfortably and 
 conveniently as if they really knew the things they are 
 conversant about. 
 
 Hyl. They do so : but you know ordinary practice does 
 not require a nicety of speculative knowledge. Hence the 
 vulgar retain their mistakes, and for all that make a shift to 
 bustle through the affairs of life. But philosophers know 
 better things. 
 
 Phil. You mean, they know that they know nothing. 
 
 Hyl. That is the very top and perfection of human know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Phil. But are you all this while in earnest, Hylas ; and 
 are you seriously persuaded that you know nothing real in 
 the world 1 Suppose you are going to write, would you not 
 call for pen, ink, and paper, like another man ; and do you 
 not know what it is you call for ? 
 
 Hyl. How often must I tell you that I know not the real 
 nature of any one thing in the universe 1 I may indeed upon 
 
Berkeley 145 
 
 occasion make use of pen, ink, and paper. But, what any 
 one of them is in its own true nature, I declare positively I 
 know not. And the same is true with regard to every other 
 corporeal thing. And, what is more, we are not only 
 ignorant of the true and real nature of things, but even of 
 their existence. It cannot be denied that we perceive such 
 certain appearances or ideas; but it cannot be concluded 
 from thence that bodies really exist. Nay, now I think on 
 it, I must, agreeably to my former concessions, further 
 declare that it is impossible any real corporeal thing should 
 exist in nature. 
 
 Phil. You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and 
 extravagant than the notions you now maintain ; and is it 
 not evident you are led into all these extravagances by the 
 belief of material substance 1 This makes you dream of 
 those unknown natures in everything. It is this occasions 
 your distinguishing between the reality and sensible appear- 
 ances of things. It is to this you are indebted for being 
 ignorant of what everybody else knows perfectly well. Nor 
 is this all : you are not only ignorant of the true nature of 
 everything, but you know not whether any thing really 
 exists, or whether there are any true natures at all; foras- 
 much as you attribute to your material beings an absolute or 
 external existence, wherein you suppose their reality consists. 
 And, as you are forced in the end to acknowledge such an 
 existence means either a direct repugnancy, or nothing at all, 
 it follows that you are obliged to pull down your own 
 hypothesis of material Substance, and positively to deny the 
 real existence of any part of the universe. And so you are 
 plunged into the deepest and most deplorable Scepticism that 
 ever man was. Tell me, Hylas, is it not as I say ? 
 
 Ilyl. I agree with you. Material substance was no more 
 than an hypothesis, and a false and groundless one too. I 
 will no longer spend my breath in defence of it. But, what- 
 ever hypothesis you advance, or whatsoever scheme of things 
 10 
 
146 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 you introduce in its stead, I doubt not it will appear every 
 whit as false : let me but be allowed to question you upon 
 it. That is, suffer me to serve you in your own kind, and I 
 warrant it shall conduct you through as many perplexities 
 and contradictions, to the very same state of Scepticism that 
 I myself am in at present. 
 
 Phil. I assure you, Hylas, I do not pretend to frame any 
 hypothesis at all. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to 
 believe my senses, and leave things as I find them. To be 
 plain, it is my opinion that the real things are those very 
 things I see and feel, and perceive by my senses. These I 
 know, and, finding they answer all the necessities and 
 purposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous about any 
 other unknown beings. A piece of sensible bread, for 
 instance, would stay my stomach better than ten thousand 
 times as much of that insensible, unintelligible, real bread 
 you speak of. It is likewise my opinion that colours and 
 other sensible qualities are on the objects. I cannot for my 
 life help thinking that snow is white, and fire hot. You, 
 indeed, who by snow and fire mean certain external, unper- 
 ceived, unperceiving substances, are in the right to deny 
 whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in them. But I, 
 who understand by those words the things I see and feel, am 
 obliged to think like other folks. And, as I am no sceptic 
 with regard to the nature of things, so neither am I as to 
 their existence. That a thing should be really perceived by 
 my senses, and at the same time not really exist, is to me a 
 plain contradiction ; since I cannot prescind or abstract, even 
 in thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being 
 perceived. Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the 
 like things, which I name and discourse of, are things that 
 I know. And I should not have known them but that I 
 perceived them by my senses ; and things perceived by the 
 senses are immediately perceived ; and things immediately 
 perceived are ideas; and ideas cannot exist without the 
 
Berkeley 147 
 
 mind ; their existence therefore consists in being perceived ; 
 when, therefore, they are actually perceived, there can be no 
 doubt of their existence. Away then with all that Scepticism, 
 all those ridiculous philosophical doubts. What a jest is it 
 for a philosopher to question the existence of sensible things, 
 till he hath it proved to him from the veracity of God ; * or to 
 pretend our knowledge in this point falls short of intuition or 
 demonstration ! I might as well doubt of my own being, as 
 of the being of those things I actually see and feel. 
 
 Hyl. Not so fast, Philonous] you say you cannot con- 
 ceive how sensible things should exist without the mind. Do 
 you not ? 
 
 Phil. I do. 
 
 Hyl. Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive 
 it possible that things perceivable by sense may still exist 1 
 
 Phil. I can; but then it must be in another mind. 
 When I deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, 
 I do not mean my mind in particular, but all minds. 
 Now, it is plain they have an existence exterior to my mind ; 
 since I find them by experience to be independent of it. 
 There is therefore some other mind wherein they exist, 
 during the intervals between the times of my perceiving 
 them : as likewise they did before my birth, and would do 
 after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is true 
 with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily 
 follows there is an omnipresent eternal Mind, which knows 
 and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view 
 in such a manner, and according to such rules, as He 
 
 1 Cf. Selection from Descartes, p. 43. Philonous is assuring 
 Hylas that it is not "sensible things" on which doubt has been 
 thrown, but "Matter" supposed to be behind them or within them : 
 he cannot agree that it is wise to go so far in "doubting" as he 
 professes to suppose that Descartes had done, and hold belief in 
 sensible things wholly in suspense. His point is that he is going to give 
 an account of them as they exist, in all their orderly arrangement. 
 
148 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 Himself hath ordained, and are by us termed the laws of 
 nature. 2 
 
 Hyl. Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly 
 inert beings 1 Or have they any agency included in them 1 
 
 Phil. They are altogether passive and inert. 
 
 Hyl. And is not God an agent, a being purely active 1 
 
 Phil. I acknowledge it. 
 
 Hyl. No idea therefore can be like unto, or represent the 
 nature of God 1 
 
 Phil. It cannot. 
 
 Hyl. Since, therefore, you have no idea of the mind of 
 God, how can you conceive it possible that things should 
 exist in His mind? Or, if you can conceive the mind of 
 God, without having an idea of it, why may not I be allowed 
 to conceive the existence of Matter, notwithstanding I have 
 no idea of it 1 
 
 Phil. As to your first question : I own I have properly no 
 idea, either of God or any other spirit; for these being 
 active, cannot be represented by things perfectly inert, as our 
 ideas are. I do nevertheless know that I, who am a spirit or 
 thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas 
 exist. Further, I know what I mean by the terms / and 
 myself; and I -know this immediately or intuitively, though 
 I do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a 
 sound. The Mind, Spirit, or Soul is that indivisible 
 unextended thing which thinks, acts, and perceives. I say 
 
 2 Here we have Berkeley's Theism in a paragraph : every word 
 tells. The Materialists e.g. some of those who took up the sub- 
 stantiality allowed to Matter by Descartes, and set it up by itself 
 ask, what becomes of, say, Mont Blanc when no human being is near 
 it, or looking at it. Berkeley gives his answer. He shows that he is 
 not for ' ' subjective idealism "or ' ' solipsism "or " pan-egoism " ; true, 
 his own percipience was his starting-point for knowledge, but he 
 moves out to the inference to an Eternal Mind, and holds this infer- 
 ence to be valid in itself, and adequate to account for the existence of 
 Mont Blanc, and of all else. 
 
Berkeley 149 
 
 indivisible, because unextended; and unextended, because 
 extended, figured, movable things are ideas ; and that which 
 perceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is plainly itself no 
 idea, nor like an idea. Ideas are things inactive and per- 
 ceived. And Spirits a sort of beings altogether different 
 from them. I do not therefore say my soul is an idea, or 
 like an idea. However, taking the word idea in a large 
 sense, my soul may be said to furnish me with an idea, that 
 is, an image or likeness of God though indeed extremely 
 inadequate. For, all the notion I have of God is obtained 
 by reflecting on my own soul, heightening its powers, and 
 removing its imperfections. I have, therefore, though not an 
 inactive idea, yet in myself some sort of an active thinking 
 image of the Deity. And though I perceive Him not by 
 sense, yet I have a notion of Him, or know Him by reflection 
 and reasoning. My own mind and my own ideas I have an 
 immediate knowledge of; and, by the help of these, do 
 mediately apprehend the possibility of the existence of other 
 spirits and ideas. Further, from my own being, and from 
 the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an 
 act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of 
 all created things in the mind of God. So much for your 
 first question. For the second : I suppose by this time you 
 can answer it yourself. For you neither perceive Matter 
 objectively, as you do an inactive being or idea ; nor know it, 
 as you do yourself, by a reflex act ; neither do you mediately 
 apprehend it by similitude of the one or the other ; nor yet 
 collect it by reasoning from that which you know im- 
 mediately. All which makes the case of Matter widely 
 different from that of the Deity? 
 
 3 The ideas we derive from perception Berkeley unreservedly 
 regards as "passive and inert." Hume, Brown, Comte, the Mills, 
 followed on this line, but a different view culminated in recent 
 treatment of them as activities of the mind : as to some extent in the 
 " presentative activities" of Herbartian psychology, the id&s-forces 
 
150 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 \Hyl. You say your own soul supplies you with some sort 
 of an idea or image of God. But, at the same time, you 
 acknowledge you have, properly speaking, no idea of your 
 own soul. You even affirm that spirits are a sort of beings 
 altogether different from ideas. Consequently that no idea 
 can be like a spirit. We have therefore no idea of any spirit. 
 You admit nevertheless that there is spiritual Substance, 
 although you have no idea of it ; while you deny there can 
 be such a thing as material Substance, because you have no 
 notion or idea of it. Is this fair dealing 1 To act consist- 
 ently, you must either admit Matter or reject Spirit. What 
 say you to this 1 4 
 
 of Fouillee, and the description of mind by Professor James as a 
 seething mass of living yeast, or an ant-heap. For Berkeley they are 
 passive ; he will therefore need some active cause for their appear- 
 ance. He declines the reference to Matter ; and as they are not due 
 to activity of the percipient's mind, the only course is to refer them 
 directly to the Mind which pervades the universe. But he is far from 
 allowing that the passive ideas cover the whole range of knowledge, 
 and in this paragraph he is recognising "a sort of beings altogether 
 different from ideas." For these he brings up the term "notipn." 
 Of myself as an activity, " perceiving, knowing, willing, and operating 
 about ideas," I have a "notion"; by inference, I form a similar 
 "notion" of similar spiritual activities on a par with myself; and a 
 further ultimate "notion" of Divine Mind arises by inference, by 
 "act of reason." Whenever he comes into view of any ideas, or order 
 among ideas, which he cannot assign to operations of his own mind, 
 he refers to the agency of the Divine Mind. For Hegelian objection 
 to this procedure, see Dr. Stirling's Note on Berkeley, in Schweglcr, 
 p. 419 ; and Green's Introduction to Hume, p. 153. 
 
 4 The reader must be uncompromisingly severe with our author 
 here. Berkeley has given an admirable specimen of philosophical 
 criticism in his polemic against Materialism : he must be subjected to 
 every test that can be applied when he comes forward to offer Mind as 
 the universal substitute. He is himself aware that all depends upon 
 his establishing the validity of the " notions " he has just brought in. 
 This and the next three paragraphs were added in his third edition, 
 and Professor Fraser accounts them to be "perhaps the most im- 
 portant passages in the Dialogues." It was by refusing to admit such 
 
Berkeley 151 
 
 Phil. I say, in the first place, that I do not deny the 
 existence of material substance, merely because I have no 
 notion of it, but because the notion of it is inconsistent ; or, 
 in other words, because it is repugnant that there should be 
 a notion of it. Many things, for aught I know, may exist, 
 whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any 
 idea or notion whatsoever. But then those things must be 
 possible, that is, nothing inconsistent must be included in 
 their definition. I say, secondly, that, although we believe 
 things to exist which we do not perceive, yet we may not 
 believe that any particular thing exists, without some reason 
 for such belief ; but I have no reason for believing the exist- 
 ence of Matter. I have no immediate intuition thereof ; 
 neither can I immediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, 
 actions, or passions infer an unthinking, unperceiving, in- 
 active Substance either by probable deduction, or necessary 
 consequence. Whereas the being of my Self, that is, my own 
 soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently know by 
 reflection. You will forgive me if I repeat the same things 
 in answer to the same objections. In the very notion or 
 definition of material Substance, there is included a manifest 
 repugnance and inconsistency. But this cannot be said of 
 the notion of Spirit. That ideas should exist in what doth 
 not perceive, or be produced by what doth not act, is 
 
 "notions" that Hume carried the perceptive theory of knowledge to 
 Scepticism as to our knowing Self or Deity, or any " substance" at all. 
 As it was Hume who awoke Kant from slumberous acceptance of such 
 "substances," it is plain that these paragraphs, as containing such 
 constructive effort as Berkeley had exerted, require the closest 
 scrutiny. 
 
 We should ask especially (1) Does Berkeley justify his Idealism as 
 a broad, simple, principle ? and (2) does he contribute anything to 
 the detailed construction of Idealism as an illuminative system of 
 philosophy ? That he was personally conscious of inability (in some 
 way) to achieve the latter purpose is evidenced by his own resort in 
 his later life to a Platonic Mysticism. 
 
152 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 repugnant. But, it is no repugnancy to say that a perceiv- 
 ing thing should be the subject of ideas, or an active thing 
 the cause of them. It is granted we have neither an im- 
 mediate evidence nor a demonstrative knowledge of the 
 existence of other finite spirits ; but it will not thence follow 
 that such spirits are on a foot with material substances : if to 
 suppose the one be inconsistent, and it be not inconsistent to 
 suppose the other ; if the one can be inferred by no argu- 
 ment, and there is a probability for the other; if we see 
 signs and effects indicating distinct finite agents like our- 
 selves, and see no sign or symptom whatever that leads to a 
 rational belief of Matter. I say, lastly, that I have a notion 
 of Spirit, though I have not, strictly speaking, an idea of it. 
 I do not perceive it as an idea, or by means of an idea, but 
 know it by reflection. 
 
 Hyl. Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems 
 that, according to your own way of thinking, and in conse- 
 quence of your own principles, it should follow that you are 
 only a system of floating ideas, without any substance to 
 support them. Words are not to be used without a meaning. 
 And, as there is no more meaning in spiritual Substance than 
 in material Substance, the one is to be exploded as well as the 
 other. 
 
 Phil. How often must I repeat, that I know or am con- 
 scious of my own being; and that / myself am not my 
 ideas, but somewhat else, a thinking, active principle that 
 perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas. I know 
 that I, one and the same self, perceive both colours and 
 sounds : that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound 
 a colour : that I am therefore one individual principle, dis- 
 tinct from colour and sound ; and, for the same reason, from 
 all other sensible things and inert ideas. But, I am not in 
 like manner conscious either of the existence or essence of 
 matter. On the contrary, I know that nothing inconsistent 
 can exist, and that the existence of matter implies an incon- 
 
Berkeley 153 
 
 sistency. Further, I know what I mean when I affirm that 
 there is a spiritual substance or support of ideas, that is, that 
 a spirit knows and perceives ideas. But, I do not know 
 what is meant when it is said that an unperceiving substance 
 hath inherent in it and supports either ideas or the arche- 
 types of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole no parity 
 of case between Spirit and Matter.] 
 
 Hyl. I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you 
 in earnest think the real existence of sensible things consists 
 in their being actually perceived 1 If so ; how comes it that 
 all mankind distinguish between them "? Ask the first man 
 you meet, and he shall tell you, to be perceived is one thing, 
 and to exist is another. 5 
 
 Phil. I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common 
 sense of the world for the truth of my notion. Ask the 
 gardener .why he thinks yonder cherry-tree exists in the 
 garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees and feels it ; in 
 a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask him why 
 he thinks an orange-tree not to be there, and he shall tell 
 you, because he does not perceive it. What he perceives by 
 sense, that he terms a real being, and saith it is or exists ; 
 but, that which is not perceivable, the same, he saith, hath 
 no being. 
 
 Hyl. Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible 
 thing consists in being perceivable, but not in being actually 
 perceived. 
 
 Phil. And what is perceivable but an ideal And can 
 
 5 In the following paragraphs Berkeley strives once more to 
 make fast his position: "existence" is "being perceived," and the 
 perceiver of the universe is Mind, active Spiritual Intelligence. 
 Berkeley's Idealism, it may here be noted, applies not only to 
 Matter behind obvious concrete objects, it applies to such remote con- 
 stituents as our modern atoms and cells. The nature of mathematical, 
 physical, and biological elements is not different in this respect from 
 the subject-matter of morals or aesthetics : the existence of all of them 
 involves their being " perceived " in some way or other. 
 
154 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 an idea exist without being actually perceived ? These are 
 points long since agreed between us. 
 
 Hyl, But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you 
 will not deny it is shocking, and contrary to the common 
 sense of men. Ask the fellow whether yonder tree hath an 
 existence out of his mind : what answer think you he would 
 make 1 ? 
 
 Phil. The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth 
 exist out of his mind. But then to a Christian it cannot 
 surely be shocking to say, the real tree, existing without his 
 mind, is truly known and comprehended by (that is exists in) 
 the infinite mind of God. Probably he may not at first 
 glance be aware of the direct and immediate proof there is of 
 this; inasmuch as the very being of a tree, or any other 
 sensible thing, implies a mind wherein it is. But the point 
 itself he cannot deny. The question between the Materialists 
 and me is not, whether things have a real existence out of 
 the mind of this or that person, but, whether they have an 
 absolute existence, distinct from being perceived by God, and 
 exterior to all minds. This indeed some heathens and 
 philosophers have affirmed, but whoever entertains notions 
 of the Deity suitable to the Holy Scriptures will be of 
 another opinion. 
 
 Hyl. But, according to your notions, what difference is 
 there between real things, and chimeras formed by the 
 imagination, or the visions of a dream since they are all 
 equally in the mind ? 
 
 Phil. The ideas formed by the imagination are faint 
 and indistinct ; they have, besides, an entire dependence on 
 the will. But the ideas perceived by sense, that is, real 
 things, are more vivid and clear; and, being imprinted on 
 the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not the like 
 dependence on our will. There is therefore no danger of 
 confounding these with the foregoing : and there is as little 
 of confounding them with the visions of a dream, which are 
 
Berkeley 155 
 
 dim, irregular, and confused. And, though they should 
 happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their not 
 being connected, and of a piece with the preceding and 
 subsequent transactions of our lives, they might easily be 
 distinguished from realities. In short, by whatever method 
 you distinguish things from chimeras on your scheme, the 
 same, it is evident, will hold also upon mine. For it must 
 be, I presume, by some perceived difference ; and I am not 
 for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive. 
 
 Hyl. But still, Philonous, you hold there is nothing in 
 the world but spirits and ideas. And this, you must needs 
 acknowledge, sounds very oddly. 
 
 Phil. I own the word idea, not being commonly used 
 for thing, sounds something out of the way. My reason 
 for using it was, because a necessary relation to the mind 
 is understood to be implied by that term; and it is now 
 commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediate 
 objects of the understanding. But, however oddly the pro- 
 position may sound in words, yet it includes nothing so very 
 strange or shocking in its sense ; which in effect amounts to 
 no more than this, to wit, that there are only things perceiv- 
 ing, and things perceived ; or that every unthinking being is 
 necessarily, and from the very nature of its existence, per- 
 ceived by some mind ; if not by a finite created mind, yet 
 certainly by the infinite mind of God, in whom " we live, and 
 move, and have our being," Is this as strange as to say, the 
 sensible qualities are not on the objects : or that we cannot 
 be sure of the existence of things, or know anything of their 
 real natures though we both see and feel them, and perceive 
 them by all our senses ? 
 
 Hyl. And, in consequence of this, must we not think there 
 are no such things as physical or corporeal causes ; but that a 
 Spirit is the immediate cause of all the phenomena in nature 1 
 Can there be anything more extravagant than this 1 
 
 Phil. Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say a thing 
 
156 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 which is inert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiv- 
 ing is the cause of our perceptions, [without any regard either 
 to consistency, or the old known axiom, Nothing can give to 
 another that ivhich it hath not itself].* Besides, that which 
 to you, I know not for what reason, seems so extravagant is 
 no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred places. 
 In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author 
 of all those effects which some heathens and philosophers are 
 wont to ascribe to Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthink- 
 ing principle. This is so much the constant language of 
 Scripture that it were needless to confirm it by citations. 
 
 Hyl. You are not aware, Philonous, that, in making God 
 the immediate Author of all the motions in nature, you make 
 Him the Author of murder, sacrilege, adultery, and the like 
 heinous sins. 6 
 
 Phil. In answer to that, I observe, first, that the imputa- 
 tion of guilt is the same, whether a person commits an action 
 with or without an instrument. In case, therefore, you 
 suppose God to act by the mediation of an instrument, or 
 occasion, called Matter, you as truly make Him the author of 
 sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all those 
 operations vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I further observe 
 that sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward 
 physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the 
 will from the laws of reason and religion. This is plain, in 
 that the killing an enemy in a battle, or putting a criminal 
 legally to death, is not thought sinful ; though the outward 
 act be the very same with that in the case of murder. Since, 
 
 * The words within brackets were omitted in the third edition. 
 
 6 The questions of Moral responsibility and of Evil come up if the 
 Divine Mind is to be an all-pervading agency. Matter had for ages 
 served as an intermediate substance, or even an independent sub- 
 stance, to which the possibility of Evil could be referred : what will 
 Berkeley do if this intermediary disappears ? He does not pause here 
 to give any elaborate answer, it will be seen ; but to what is urged in 
 this paragraph must be added the treatment of Pain later (p. 161). 
 
Berkeley 157 
 
 therefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the 
 making God an immediate cause of all such actions is not 
 making Him the Author of sin. Lastly, I have nowhere said 
 that God is the only agent who produces all the motions 
 in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any other 
 agents besides spirits; but this is very consistent with 
 allowing to thinking rational beings, in the production of 
 motions, the use of limited powers, ultimately indeed derived 
 from God, but immediately under the direction of their own 
 wills, which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of 
 their actions. 
 
 Hyl. But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal 
 Substance ; there is the point. You can never persuade me 
 that this is not repugnant to the universal sense of mankind. 
 Were our dispute to be determined by most voices, I am 
 confident you would give up the point, without gathering the 
 votes. 
 
 Phil. I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and 
 submitted to the judgment of men who had plain common 
 sense, without the prejudices of a learned education. Let me 
 be represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he 
 knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of 
 their existence ; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, 
 your paradoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall 
 willingly acquiesce in the determination of any indifferent 
 person. That there is no substance wherein ideas can exist 
 beside spirit is to me evident. And that the objects im- 
 mediately perceived are ideas, is on all hands agreed. And 
 that sensible qualities are objects immediately perceived no 
 one can deny. It is therefore evident there can be no sub- 
 stratum of those qualities but spirit ; in which they exist, not 
 by way of mode or property, but as a thing perceived in that 
 which perceives it. I deny, therefore, that there is any un- 
 thinking sithstratum of the objects of sense, and in that 
 acceptation that there is any material substance. But if by 
 
158 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 material substance is meant only sensible body, that which is 
 seen and felt (and the unphilosophical part of the world, I 
 dare say, mean no more), then I am more certain of Matter's 
 existence than you or any other philosopher pretend to be. 
 If there be anything which makes the generality of mankind 
 averse from the notions I espouse, it is a misapprehension 
 that I deny the reality of sensible things ; but, as it is you 
 who are guilty of that and not I, it follows that in truth 
 their aversion is against your notions and not mine. I do 
 therefore assert that I am as certain as of my own being, that 
 there are bodies or corporeal substances (meaning the things 
 I perceive by my senses) ; and that, granting this, the bulk 
 of mankind will take no thought about, nor think themselves 
 at all concerned in the fate of those unknown natures and 
 philosophical quiddities which some men are so fond of. 7 
 
 Hyl. What say you to this 1 Since, according to you, men 
 judge of the reality of things by their senses, how can a man 
 be mistaken in thinking the moon a plain lucid surface about 
 
 7 He returns to the question of Matter as substance, in order to show 
 that his philosophy is perfectly congruous with what common sense 
 means when it is cleared up. When Dr. Johnson, as a representative 
 of Common Sense, kicked a stone as a silent but sufficient refutation 
 of Berkeleianism, it is obvious that he was supposing Berkeley to deny 
 the existence of the stone, and that he appealed to the sensation of 
 muscular resistance as a fact of experience which could not be gain- 
 said. But Berkeley had in no way denied that sensation : it was one 
 of those "passive ideas " which he has all along recognised in our 
 experience. And the fact that Dr. Johnson would experience that 
 particular sensation, in connexion with the visual sensations present 
 to him when he was looking at the stone, was also fully recognised by 
 Berkeley. What he did deny was the reference of the sensations and 
 of their connexion to some supposed substance within the stone, quite 
 occult and in no way perceived by Dr. Johnson, but supposed by him 
 as a cause for the sensations and their connexion. Such a supposi- 
 tion, Berkeley keeps saying, is a fiction ; and worse, it is an intrusion 
 perniciously obscuring the true inference, namely, to a Mind which is 
 the ultimate source of all ideas, and of all those connexions between 
 them which we call "laws of nature." 
 
Berkeley 159 
 
 a foot in diameter ; or a square tower, seen at a distance, 
 round ; or an oar, with one end in the water, crooked ? 
 
 Phil. He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he 
 actually perceives, but in the inferences he makes from his 
 present perceptions. Thus, in the case of the oar, what he 
 immediately perceives by sight is certainly crooked ; and so 
 far he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that upon 
 taking the oar out of the water he shall perceive the same 
 crookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked 
 things are wont to do : in that he is mistaken. In like 
 manner, if he shall conclude from what he perceives in one 
 station, that, in case he advances towards the moon or tower, 
 he should still be affected with the like ideas, he is mistaken. 
 But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately and 
 at present (it being a manifest contradiction to suppose he 
 should err in respect of that), but in the wrong judgment he 
 makes concerning the ideas he apprehends to be connected 
 with those immediately perceived : or, concerning the ideas 
 that, from what he perceives at present, he imagines would 
 be perceived in other circumstances. The case is the same 
 with regard to the Copernican system. We do not here 
 perceive any motion of the earth : but it were erroneous 
 thence to conclude that, in case we were placed at as great 
 a distance from that as we are now from the other planets, 
 we should not then perceive its motion. 
 
 Hyl. I understand you ; and must needs own you say 
 things plausible enough : but, give me leave to put you in 
 mind of one thing. Pray, Philonous, were you not formerly 
 as positive that Matter existed, as you are now that it does 
 not 1 ? 
 
 Phil. I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my 
 positiveness was founded, without examination, upon preju- 
 dice ; but now, after inquiry, upon evidence. 
 
 Hyl. After all, it seems our dispute is rather about words 
 than things. We agree in the thing, but differ in the name. 
 
160 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 That we are affected with ideas from without is evident ; and 
 it is no less evident that there must be (I will not say arche- 
 types, but) powers without the mind, corresponding to those 
 ideas. And as these powers cannot subsist by themselves, 
 there is some subject of them necessarily to be admitted, 
 which I call Matter and you call Spirit. This is all the 
 difference. 8 
 
 Phil. Pray, Hi/las, is that powerful being, or subject of 
 powers, extended 1 
 
 Hyl. It hath not extension ; but it hath the power to raise 
 in you the idea of extension. 
 
 Phil. It is therefore itself unextended 1 
 Hyl. I grant it. 
 Phil. Is it not also active 1 
 
 Hyl. Without doubt : otherwise, how could we attribute 
 powers to it 1 
 
 Phil. Now let me ask you two questions : first, Whether 
 it be agreeable to the usage either of philosophers or others 
 to give the name Matter to an unextended active being 1 ? 
 And, secondly, Whether it be not ridiculously absurd to 
 misapply names contrary to the common use of language 1 
 
 Hyl. Well then, let it not be called Matter, since you will 
 have it so, but some third nature distinct from Matter and 
 Spirit. 9 For what reason is there why you should call it 
 spirit ? Does not the notion of spirit imply that it is think- 
 ing as well as active and unextended ? 
 
 Phil. My reason is this : because I have a mind to have 
 some notion of meaning in what I say : but I have no notion 
 of any action distinct from volition, neither can I conceive 
 volition to be anywhere but in a spirit; therefore, when I 
 speak of an active being, I am obliged to mean a spirit. 
 
 8 He reverts to the considerations in favour of reference to Mind 
 rather than to a supposed "Matter." 
 
 9 He will not accept such an intermediary substance as the Plastic 
 Nature of Cudworth. See note on Janet, p. 429. 
 
Berkeley 161 
 
 Beside, what can be plainer than that a thing which hath no 
 ideas in itself cannot impart them to me ; and, if it hath 
 ideas, surely it must be a spirit. To make you comprehend 
 the point still more clearly if it be possible I assert as well 
 as you that, since we are affected from without, we must 
 allow powers to be without, in a being distinct from ourselves. 
 So far we are agreed. But then we differ as to the kind of 
 this powerful being. I will have it to be spirit, you Matter, 
 or I know not what (I may add too, you know not what) 
 third nature. Thus, I prove it to be spirit. From the 
 effects I see produced I conclude there are actions; and, 
 because actions, volitions; and, because there are volitions, 
 there must be a will. Again, the things I perceive must 
 have an existence, they or their archetypes, out of my mind : 
 but, being ideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist 
 otherwise than in an understanding; there is therefore an 
 understanding. But will and understanding constitute, in 
 the strictest sense, a mind or spirit. The powerful cause, 
 therefore, of my ideas is, in strict propriety of speech, a 
 spirit. 
 
 Hyl. And now I warrant you think you have made the 
 point very clear, little suspecting that what you advance 
 leads directly to a contradiction. Is it not an absurdity to 
 imagine any imperfection in God 1 
 
 Phil. Without a doubt. 
 
 Hyl. To suffer pain is an imperfection ? 
 
 Phil. It is. 
 
 Hyl. Are we not sometimes affected with pain and uneasi- 
 ness by some other being 1 
 
 Phil. We are. 
 
 Hyl. And have you not said that being is a spirit, and is 
 not that spirit God 1 
 
 Phil. I grant it. 
 
 Hyl. But you have asserted that whatever ideas we per- 
 ceive from without are in the mind which affects us. The 
 ii 
 
162 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 ideas, therefore, of pain and uneasiness are in God; or, in 
 other words, God suffers pain : that is to say, there is an 
 imperfection in the Divine nature, which, you acknowledge, 
 was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction. 
 
 Phil. That God knows or understands all things, and that 
 He knows, among other things, what pain is, even every sort 
 of painful sensation, and what it is for His creatures to 
 suffer pain, I make no question. But that God, though He 
 knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can 
 Himself suffer pain, I positively deny. We, who are limited 
 and dependent spirits, are liable to impressions of sense, the 
 effects of an external agent, which, being produced against 
 our wills, are sometimes painful and uneasy. But God, 
 whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by 
 sense as we do, whose will is absolute and independent, 
 causing all things, and liable to be thwarted or resisted by 
 nothing; it is evident such a Being as this can suffer 
 nothing, nor be affected with any painful sensation, or indeed 
 any sensation at all. We are chained to a body, that is to 
 say, our perceptions are connected with corporeal motions. 
 By the law of our nature we are affected upon every altera- 
 tion in the nervous parts of our sensible body ; which sensible 
 body, rightly considered, is nothing but a complexion of such 
 qualities or ideas as have no existence distinct from being 
 perceived by a mind : so that this connection of sensations 
 with corporeal motions means no more than a correspondence 
 in the order of nature between two sets of ideas, or things 
 immediately perceivable. But God is a pure spirit, dis- 
 engaged from all such sympathy or natural ties. No cor- 
 poreal motions are attended with the sensations of pain or 
 pleasure in His mind. To know everything knowable is 
 certainly a perfection ; but to endure, or suffer, or feel any- 
 thing by sense, is an imperfection. The former, I say, 
 agrees to God, but not the latter. God knows or hath ideas; 
 but His ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense, as ours are. 
 
Berkeley 163 
 
 Your not distinguishing, where there is so manifest a 
 difference, makes you fancy you see an absurdity where there 
 is none. 10 
 
 Phil. It is your opinion the ideas we perceive" by our 
 senses are not real things, but images or copies of them. 11 
 Our knowledge, therefore, is no farther real than as our ideas 
 are the true representations of those originals. But as these 
 supposed originals are in themselves unknown, it is impossible 
 to know how far our ideas resemble them ; or whether they 
 resemble them at all. We cannot, therefore, be sure we have 
 any real knowledge. Farther, as our ideas are perpetually 
 varied, without any change in the supposed real things, it 
 necessarily follows they cannot all be true copies of them ; 
 or, if some are and others are not, it is impossible to dis- 
 tinguish the former from the latter. And this plunges us 
 yet deeper in uncertainty. Again, when we consider the 
 point, we cannot conceive how any idea, or anything like an 
 idea, should have an absolute existence out of a mind nor 
 consequently, according to you, how there should be any 
 real thing in nature. The result of all which is that we are 
 thrown into the most hopeless and abandoned Scepticism. 
 Now, give me leave to ask you, First, whether your referring 
 ideas to certain absolutely existing unperceived substances 
 as their originals be not the source of all this Scepticism? 
 
 10 We omit six pages here : they contain a brief refutation of a 
 suggestion that Matter is required to explain gravitation, and a 
 defence against the charge of novelty in dispensing with "Matter," as 
 to which sufficient is said in other parts of the Dialogue to show 
 Berkeley's determination to insist on common opinion being really on 
 his side, sometimes expressing himself with Socratic irony, but often 
 with the direct earnestness of the advocate of a very serious cause. 
 
 11 Here Berkeley shows that he has shaken himself free from the 
 doctrine of Representative perception that our ideas are copies of 
 things which we saw Descartes retaining from Scholasticism 
 (see p. 43). 
 
164 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 Secondly, whether you are informed, either by sense or 
 reason, of the existence of those unknown originals 1 And, 
 in case you are not, whether it be not absurd to suppose 
 them 1 ? Thirdly, whether, upon inquiry, you find there is 
 anything distinctly conceived or meant by the absolute or 
 external existence of unperceiving substances^ Lastly, 
 whether, the premises considered, it be not the wisest way to 
 follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying aside all anxious 
 thought about unknown natures or substances, admit with the 
 vulgar those for real things which are perceived by the senses 1 
 
 Hyl. For the present I have no inclination to the answer- 
 ing part. I would much rather see how you can get over 
 what follows. Pray, are not the objects perceived by the 
 senses of one likewise perceivable to others present 1 If there 
 were a hundred more here, they would all see the garden, the 
 trees, and flowers, as I see them. But they are not in the 
 same manner affected with the ideas I frame in my imagina- 
 tion. Does not this make a difference between the former 
 sort of objects and the latter 1 12 
 
 Phil. I grant it does. Nor have I ever denied a difference 
 between the objects of sense and those of imagination. But 
 what would you infer from thence 1 You cannot say that 
 sensible objects exist unperceived, because they are perceived 
 by many. 
 
 Hyl. I own I can make nothing of that objection ; but it 
 hath led me into another. Is it not your opinion that by 
 our senses we perceive only the ideas existing in our minds 1 
 
 12 This is the question raised by asking what is the real sun, if 
 the perceptions of it by, say, ten men are diverse, with the pre- 
 sumption that no one of them is more correct than the others. This 
 carries us into a region where higher Idealism takes up its stand : 
 agreeing with Berkeley that the supposition of "Matter" has no 
 special claim for a hearing there ; that, on the contrary, it is Mind 
 which alone touches the problem raised. (See Ward, Naturalism 
 and Agnosticism.) 
 
Berkeley 165 
 
 Phil. It is. 
 
 Hyl. But the same idea which is in my mind cannot be 
 in yours, or in any other mind. Doth it not therefore 
 follow, from your principles, that no two can see the same 
 thing 1 And is not this highly absurd 1 
 
 Phil. If the term same be taken in the vulgar acceptation, 
 it is certain (and not at all repugnant to the principles I 
 maintain) that different persons may perceive the same thing; 
 or the same thing or idea exist in different minds. Words 
 are of arbitrary imposition ; and, since men are used to apply 
 the word same where no distinction or variety is perceived, 
 and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions, it follows 
 that, as men have said before, several saw the same thing, 
 so they may, upon like occasions, still continue to use the 
 same phrase, without any deviation either from propriety of 
 language or the truth of things. But if the term same be 
 used in the acceptation of philosophers who pretend to an 
 abstracted notion of identity, then according to their sundry 
 definitions of this notion (for it is not yet agreed wherein 
 that philosophic identity consists), it may or may not be 
 possible for divers persons to perceive the same thing. But 
 whether philosophers shall think fit to call a thing the same 
 or no, is, I conceive, of small importance. Let us suppose 
 several men together, all endued with the same faculties, and 
 consequently affected in like sort by their senses, and who 
 have yet never known the use of language ; they would, with- 
 out question, agree in their perceptions. Though perhaps, 
 when they came to the use of speech, some regarding the 
 uniformness of what was perceived, might call it the same 
 thing; others, especially regarding the diversity of persons 
 who perceived, might choose the denomination of different 
 things. But who sees not that all the dispute is about a 
 word ? to wit, whether what is perceived by different persons 
 may yet have the term same applied to it "? Or, suppose a 
 house, whose walls or outward shell remained unaltered, the 
 
166 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 chambers are all pulled down and new ones built in their 
 place; and that you should call this the same, and I 
 should say it was not the same house ; would we not, for 
 all this, perfectly agree in our thoughts of the house, con- 
 sidered in itself 1 And would not all the difference consist 
 in a sound t If you should say, We differ in our notions ; 
 for that you superadded to your idea of the house the simple 
 abstracted idea of identity, whereas I did not ; I would tell 
 you I know not what you mean by the abstracted idea of 
 identity, and should desire you to look into your own 
 thoughts and be sure you understood yourself. Why so 
 silent, Hylas 1 Are you not yet satisfied men may dispute 
 about identity and diversity without any real difference in 
 their thoughts and opinions, abstracted from names 1 Take 
 this further reflection with you that whether Matter be 
 allowed to exist or no, the case is exactly the same as to the 
 point in hand. For the Materialists themselves acknowledge 
 what we immediately perceive by our senses to be our own 
 ideas. Your difficulty, therefore, that no two see the same 
 thing, makes equally against the Materialists and me. 
 
 Hyl. [Ay, Philonous^] But they suppose an external 
 archetype to which referring their several ideas they may 
 truly be said to perceive the same thing. 
 
 Phil. And (not to mention your having discarded those 
 archetypes) so may you suppose an external archetype on my 
 principles; external, I mean, to your own mind; though 
 indeed it must be supposed to exist in that mind which 
 comprehends all things ; but then, this serves all the ends of 
 identity, as well as if it existed out of a mind. And I am 
 sure you yourself will not say it is less intelligible. 
 
 Hyl. You have indeed clearly satisfied me either that 
 there is no difficulty at bottom in this point, or, if there be, 
 that it makes equally against both opinions. 
 
 Phil. But that which makes equally against two con- 
 tradictory opinions can be a proof against neither. 
 
Berkeley 167 
 
 Hyl. I acknowledge it. But, after all, Philonous, when 
 I consider the substance of what you advance against 
 Scepticism, it amounts to no more than this : We are sure 
 that we really see, hear, feel ; in a word, that we are affected 
 with sensible impressions. 
 
 Phil. And how are w r e concerned any further 1 ? I see 
 this cherry, I feel it, I taste it : and I am sure nothing 
 cannot be seen, or felt, or tasted ; it is therefore real. Take 
 away the sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, 
 and you take away the cherry. Since it is not a being 
 distinct from sensations; a cherry, I say, is nothing but a 
 congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various 
 senses ; which ideas are united into one thing (or have one 
 name given them) by the mind ; because they are observed 
 to attend each other. Thus, when the palate is affected with 
 such a particular taste, the sight is affected with a red 
 colour, the touch with roundness, softness, etc. Hence, 
 when I see, and feel, and taste, in sundry certain manners, 
 I am sure the chewy exists, or is real ; its reality being in 
 my opinion nothing abstracted from those sensations. But 
 if, by the word cherry, you mean an unknown nature, 
 distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by its existence 
 something distinct from its being perceived ; then, indeed, I 
 own, neither you nor I, nor anyone else, can be sure it exists. 
 
 Hyl. But what would you say, Philonous, if I should 
 bring the very same reasons against the existence of sensible 
 things in a mind, which you have offered against their 
 existing in a material substratum 1 
 
 Phil. When I see your reasons, you shall hear what I have 
 to say to them. 
 
 Hyl. Is the mind extended or unextended 1 
 
 Phil. Unextended, without doubt. 
 
 Hyl. Do you say the things you perceive are in your 
 mind? 
 
 Phil They are. 
 
168 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 Hyl. Again, have I not heard you speak of sensible 
 impressions. 
 
 Phil. I believe you may. 
 
 Hyl. Explain to me now, O Philonous \ how it is possible 
 there should be room for all those trees and houses to exist 
 in your mind. Can extended things be contained in that 
 which is unextended 1 Or are we to imagine impressions 
 made on a thing void of all solidity 1 You cannot say objects 
 are in your mind, as books in your study ; or that things are 
 imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax. In what 
 sense, therefore, are we to understand those expressions *? 
 Explain me this if you can : and I shall then be able to 
 answer all those queries you formerly put to me about my 
 substratum. 
 
 Phil. Look you, Hi/las, when I speak of objects as exist- 
 ing in the mind, or imprinted on the senses, I would not be 
 understood in the gross literal sense as when bodies are 
 said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon 
 wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or 
 perceives them ; and that it is affected from without, or by 
 some being distinct from itself. This is my explication of 
 your difficulty, and how it can serve to make your tenet of 
 an unperceiving material substratum intelligible, I would fain 
 know. 
 
 Hyl. Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use 
 can be made of it. But are you not guilty of some abuse of 
 language in this *? 
 
 Phil. None at all. It is no more than common custom, 
 which, you know, is the rule of language, hath authorised; 
 nothing being more usual than for philosophers to speak of 
 the immediate objects of the understanding as things existing 
 in the mind. Nor is there anything in this but what is 
 conformable to the general analogy of language, most part of 
 the mental operations being signified by words borrowed 
 from sensible things, as is plain in the terms comprehend. 
 
Berkeley 169 
 
 reflect, discourse, etc., which, being applied to the mind, must 
 not be taken in their gross original sense. 
 
 Hyl. You have, I own, satisfied me in this point. 13 . . . 
 
 Phil. Then as to absolute existence ; was there ever known 
 a more jejune notion than thatl Something it is so 
 abstracted and unintelligible that you have frankly owned 
 you could not conceive it, much less explain anything by 
 it. But, allowing matter to exist, and the notion of absolute 
 existence to be as clear as light, yet, was this ever known 
 to make the creation more credible 1 ? Nay, hath it not 
 furnished the atheists and infidels of all ages with the most 
 plausible arguments against a creation 1 That a corporeal 
 substance, which hath an absolute existence without the 
 minds of spirits, should be produced out of nothing, by the 
 mere will of a Spirit, hath been looked upon as a thing 
 so contrary to all reason, so impossible and absurd, that 
 not only the most celebrated among the ancients, but even 
 divers modern and Christian philosophers have thought 
 Matter coeternal with the Deity. Lay these things together, 
 and then judge you whether Materialism disposes men to 
 believe the creation of things. 
 
 Hyl. I own, Philonous, I think it does not. This of the 
 creation is the last objection I can think of ; and I must needs 
 own it hath been sufficiently answered as well as the rest. 
 Nothing now remains to be overcome but a sort of unaccount- 
 able backwardness that I find in myself towards your notions. 14 
 
 Phil. When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one 
 side of the question, can this, think you, be anything else 
 
 13 Six pages are omitted in which Berkeley refutes the objection 
 that the Mosaic account of Creation is concerned to retain the supposi- 
 tion of "Matter." We resume with what is briefly urged as to the 
 difficulty which Matter raises to the belief in "creation" at all. 
 
 14 We are now to hear of the advantages to be gained by the 
 replacement of Matter by Mind, both for human learning in general 
 and for Religion. 
 
170 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 but the effect of prejudice, which never fails to attend old 
 and rooted notions'? And indeed in this respect I cannot 
 deny the belief of Matter to have very much the advantage 
 over the contrary opinion, with men of a learned education. 
 
 Hyl. I confess it seems to be as you say. 
 
 Phil. As a balance, therefore, to this weight of prejudice, 
 let us throw into the scale the great advantages that arise 
 from the belief of Immaterialism, both in regard to religion 
 and human learning. The being of a God, and incorrupt- 
 ibility of the soul, those great articles of religion, are they 
 not proved with the clearest and most immediate evidence 1 
 When I say the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure 
 general cause of things, whereof we have no conception, but 
 God, in the strict and proper sense of the word; a Being 
 whose spirituality, omnipresence, providence, omniscience, 
 infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuous as the 
 existence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the 
 fallacious pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there 
 is no more reason to doubt than that of our own being. 
 Then, with relation to human sciences : in Natural Philo- 
 sophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, what contradictions 
 hath the belief of Matter led men into ! To say nothing of 
 the numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homo- 
 geneity, gravity, divisibility, etc., do they not pretend to 
 explain all things by bodies operating on bodies, according 
 to the law of motion 1 ? and yet, are they able to compre- 
 hend how one body should move another "? Nay, admitting 
 there was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert 
 being with a cause, or in conceiving how an accident might 
 pass from one body to another; yet, by all their strained 
 thoughts and extravagant suppositions, have they been able 
 to reach the mechanical production of any one animal or 
 vegetable body*? Can they account, by the laws of motion, 
 for sounds, tastes, smells, or colours, or for the regular 
 course of things'? Have they accounted, by physical prin- 
 
Berkeley 171 
 
 ciples, for the aptitude and contrivance even of the most 
 inconsiderable parts of the universe 1 But laying aside Matter 
 and corporeal causes, and admitting only the efficiency of 
 an All-perfect Mind, are not all the effects of nature easy 
 and intelligible 1 ? If the phenomena are nothing else but 
 ideas] God is a spirit, but Matter an unintelligent, un- 
 perceiving being. If they demonstrate an unlimited power 
 in their cause; God is active and omnipotent, but Matter 
 an inert mass. If the order, regularity, and usefulness of 
 them can never be sufficiently admired; God is infinitely 
 wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all contrivance 
 and design. These surely are great advantages in physics. 
 Not to mention that the apprehension of a distant Deity 
 naturally disposes men to a negligence in their moral actions, 
 which they would be more cautious of, in case they thought 
 Him immediately present, and acting on their minds, without 
 the interposition of Matter, or unthinking second causes. 
 Then in metaphysics : what difficulties concerning entity 
 in abstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles, plastic 
 natures, substance and accident, principle of individuation, 
 possibility of Matter's thinking, origin of ideas, the manner 
 how two independent substances so widely different as Spirit 
 and Matter, should mutually operate on each other 1 what 
 difficulties, I say, and endless disquisitions, concerning these 
 and innumerable other the like points, do we escape, by 
 supposing only Spirits and ideas'? Even the mathematics 
 themselves, if we take away the absolute existence of 
 extended things, become much more clear and easy; the 
 most shocking paradoxes and intricate speculations in those 
 sciences depending on the infinite divisibility of finite ex- 
 tension, which depends on that supposition. But what need 
 is there to insist on the particular sciences'? Is not that 
 opposition to all science whatsoever, that frenzy of the 
 ancient and modern Sceptics, built on the same foundation 1 ? 
 Or can you produce so much as one argument against the 
 
172 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 reality of corporeal things, or in behalf of that avowed utter 
 ignorance of their natures, which doth not suppose their 
 reality to consist in an external absolute existence 1 ? Upon 
 this supposition, indeed, the objections from the change of 
 colours in a pigeon's neck, or the appearance of the broken 
 oar in the water, must be allowed to have weight. But 
 these and the like objections vanish, if we do not maintain 
 the being of absolute external originals, but place the reality 
 of things in ideas, fleeting indeed, and changeable; how- 
 ever, not changed at random, but according to the fixed 
 order of nature. For, herein consists that constancy and 
 truth of things which secures all the concerns of life, and 
 distinguishes that which is real from the irregular visions 
 of the fancy. 15 
 
 HyL I agree to all you have now said, and must own 
 that nothing can incline me to embrace your opinion more 
 than the advantages I see it is attended with. I am by 
 nature lazy; and this would be a mighty abridgment in 
 knowledge. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths 
 of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean 
 of false learning may be avoided by that single notion of 
 Immaterialism ! 
 
 15 To elucidate his view of how the constancy and regularity and 
 order we find in the Universe are explained by reference to a Divine 
 Mind, Berkeley conceived the Supreme Intelligence as communicating 
 with us by a system of signs. The conception takes its root in his early 
 Theory of Visual Signs, and is by him generalised in an impressive 
 manner by referring to our study of the Universe as reading a Divine 
 Language. Two passages from the Fourth Dialogue of his Alciphron 
 (1732) illustrate his position. In the latter passage the reference to the 
 constancy and order involved in the Language being for our guidance, 
 suggests, if it does not establish, a profounder Theism than some are 
 disposed to credit to Berkeley's philosophy. 
 
 "I propound it fairly to your own conscience" (says Alciphron) 
 ' ' whether you really think that God speaks Himself every day and 
 in every place to the eyes of all men." "That is really and in 
 truth my opinion " (replies Euphranor), " and it should be yours 
 
Berkeley 173 
 
 Phil. After all, is there anything further remaining to be 
 donel You may remember you promised to embrace that 
 opinion which upon examination should appear most agree- 
 able to Common Sense and remote from Scepticism. This, 
 by your own confession, is that which denies Matter, or the 
 absolute existence of corporeal things. Nor is this all; the 
 same notion has been proved several ways, viewed in different 
 lights, pursued in its consequences, and all objections against 
 it cleared. Can there be a greater evidence of its truth 1 
 or is it possible it should have all the marks of a true 
 opinion and yet be false ? 
 
 Hyl. I own myself entirely satisfied for the present in 
 all respects. But, what security can I have that I shall 
 
 too, if you are consistent with yourself, and abide by your own 
 definition of language. Since you cannot deny that the great Mover 
 and Author of nature constantly explaineth Himself to the eyes of 
 men by the sensible intervention of arbitrary signs, which have no 
 similitude or connection with the things signified; so as, by com- 
 pounding and disposing them, to suggest and exhibit an endless 
 variety of objects, differing in nature, time, and place ; thereby in- 
 forming and directing men how to act with regard to things distant 
 and future, as well as near and present. In consequence, I say, 
 of your own sentiments and concessions, you have as much reason 
 to think the Universal Agent or God speaks to your eyes, as you have 
 for thinking any particular person speaks to your ears." 
 
 (Onto) "Some philosophers being convinced of the wisdom and 
 power of the Creator, from the make and contrivance of organised 
 bodies and orderly system of the world, did nevertheless imagine that 
 he left this system with all its parts well adjusted and put in motion, 
 as an artist leaves a clock, to go thenceforward of itself for a certain 
 period. But this Visual Language proves, not a Creator merely, but 
 a provident Governor, actually and intimately present, and attentive 
 to all our interests and motions, who watches over our conduct, and 
 takes care of our minutest actions and designs throughout the whole 
 course of our lives, informing, admonishing, and directing incessantly, 
 in a most evident and sensible manner. This is truly wonderful." 
 "And is it not so "(subjoins Euphranor), " that men should be en- 
 compassed by such a wonder without reflecting on it ? " 
 
174 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 still continue the same full assent to your opinion, and that 
 no unthought-of objection or difficulty will occur hereafter 1 
 ' . Phil. Pray, Hylas, do you in other cases, when a point 
 is once evidently proved, withhold your consent on account 
 of objections or difficulties it may be liable to 1 ? Are the 
 difficulties that attend the doctrine of incommensurable 
 quantities, of the angle of contact, of the asymptotes to 
 curves, or the like, sufficient to make you hold out against 
 mathematical demonstration] Or will you disbelieve the 
 Providence of God, because there may be some particular 
 things which you know not how to reconcile with it 1 ? If 
 there are difficulties attending Immaterialism, there are at 
 the same time direct and evident proofs of it. But for the 
 existence of Matter there is not one proof, and far more 
 numerous and insurmountable objections lie against it. But 
 where are those mighty difficulties you insist on ? Alas ! 
 you know not where or what they are; something which 
 may possibly occur hereafter. If this be a sufficient pretence 
 for withholding your full assent, you should never yield it 
 to any proposition, how free soever from exceptions, how 
 clearly and solidly soever demonstrated. 
 
 Hyl. You have satisfied me, Philonous. 
 
 Phil. But, to arm you against all future objections, do 
 but consider that which bears equally hard on two con- 
 tradictory opinions can be proof against neither. Whenever, 
 therefore, any difficulty occurs, try if you can find a solution 
 for it on the hypothesis of the Materialists. Be not deceived 
 by words ; but sound your own thoughts. And in case you 
 cannot conceive it easier by the help of Materialism, it is 
 plain it can be no objection against Iinmaterialism. Had 
 you proceeded all along by this rule, you would probably 
 have spared yourself abundance of trouble in objecting; 
 since of all your difficulties I challenge you to show one 
 that is explained by Matter : nay, which is not more un- 
 intelligible with than without that supposition, and conse- 
 
Berkeley 175 
 
 quently makes rather against than for it. You should 
 consider, in each particular, whether the difficulty arises from 
 the non-existence of Matter. If it doth not, you might as 
 well argue from the infinite divisibility of extension against 
 the Divine prescience, as from such a difficulty against 
 Immaterialism. And yet, upon recollection, I believe you 
 will find this to have been often if not always the case. 
 You should likewise take heed not to argue on a petitio 
 principii. One is apt to say, the unknown substances ought 
 to be esteemed real things, rather than the ideas in our 
 minds : and who can tell but the unthinking external 
 substance may concur as a cause or instrument in the pro- 
 ductions of our ideas 1 But is not this proceeding on a 
 supposition that there are such external substances'? And 
 to suppose this, is it not begging the question 1 But, above 
 all things, you should beware of imposing on yourself by 
 that vulgar sophism which is called ignoratio elenchi. You 
 talked often as if you thought I maintained the non-existence 
 of Sensible Things : whereas in truth no one can be more 
 thoroughly assured of their existence than I am : and it is 
 you who doubt; I should have said, positively deny it. 
 Everything that is seen, felt, heard, or any way perceived 
 by the senses, is, on the principles I embrace, a real being, 
 but not on yours. Remember, the Matter you contend for 
 is an unknown somewhat (if indeed it may be termed some- 
 tvhai), which is quite stripped of all sensible qualities, and 
 can neither be perceived by sense, nor apprehended by the 
 mind. Remember, I say, that it is not any object which 
 is hard or soft, hot or cold, blue or white, round or square, 
 etc.; for all these things I affirm do exist. Though indeed 
 I deny they have an existence distinct from being perceived ; 
 or that they exist out of all minds whatsoever. Think on 
 these points ; let them be attentively considered and still 
 kept in view. Otherwise you will not comprehend the state 
 of the question ; without which your objections will always 
 
176 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 be wide of the mark, and, instead of mine, may possibly 
 be directed (as more than once they have been) against 
 your own notions. 
 
 Hyl. I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to have 
 kept me from agreeing with you more than this same 
 mistaking the question. In denying Matter, at first glimpse 
 I am tempted to imagine you deny the things we see and 
 feel; but, upon reflection, find there is no ground for it. 
 What think you, therefore, of retaining the name Matter, 
 and applying it to sensible things'* This may be done 
 without any change in your sentiments; and, believe me, 
 it would be a means of reconciling them to some persons 
 who may be more shocked at an innovation in words than 
 in opinion. 
 
 Phil. With all my heart : retain the word Matter, and 
 apply it to the objects of sense, if you please; provided 
 you do not attribute to them any subsistence distinct from 
 their being perceived. I shall never quarrel with you for 
 an expression. Matter, or material substance, are terms 
 introduced by philosophers; and, as used by them, imply 
 a sort of independency, or a subsistence distinct from being 
 perceived by a mind : but are never used by common people ; 
 or, if ever, it is to signify the immediate objects of sense. 
 One would think, therefore, so long as the names of all 
 particular things, with the terms sensible, substance, body, 
 stuff, and the like, are retained, the word Matter should 
 be never missed in common talk. And in philosophical dis- 
 courses it seems the best way to leave it quite out : since 
 there is not, perhaps, any one thing that hath more favoured 
 and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind towards 
 Atheism than the use of that general confused term. 
 
 Hyl. Well but, Philonous, since I am content to give up 
 the notion of an unthinking substance exterior to the mind, 
 I think you ought not to deny me the privilege of using 
 the word Matter as I please, and annexing it to a collection 
 
Berkeley 17 7 
 
 of sensible qualities subsisting only in the mind. I freely 
 own there is no other substance, in a strict sense, than 
 Spirit. But I have been so long accustomed to the term 
 Matter that I know not how to part with it. To say, there 
 is no Matter in the world, is still shocking to me. Whereas 
 to say There is no Matter, if by that term be meant an 
 unthinking substance existing without the mind; but if by 
 Matter is meant some sensible thing, whose existence consists 
 in being perceived, then there is Matter : this distinction 
 gives it quite another turn; and men will come into your 
 notions with small difficulty, when they are proposed in 
 that manner. For, after all, the controversy about Matter 
 in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between you 
 and the philosophers; whose principles, I acknowledge, are 
 not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of 
 mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours. There is nothing 
 we either desire or shun but as it makes, or is apprehended 
 to make, some part of our happiness or misery. But what 
 hath happiness or misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to 
 do with Absolute Existence; or with unknown entities, 
 abstracted from all relation to us 1 ? It is evident, things 
 regard us only as they are pleasing or displeasing ; and they 
 can please or displease only so far forth as they are perceived. 
 Farther, therefore, we are not concerned ; and thus far you 
 leave things as you found them. Yet still there is some- 
 thing new in this doctrine. It is plain, I do not now think 
 with the philosophers, nor yet altogether with the vulgar. 
 I would know how the case stands in that respect ; precisely, 
 what you have added to, or altered in my former notions. 
 
 Phil. I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. 
 My endeavours tend only to unite and place in a clearer 
 light that truth which was before shared between the vulgar 
 and the philosophers : the former being of opinion, that 
 those things they immediately perceive are the real things; 
 and the latter, that the things immediately perceived are 
 
 12 
 
178 God as Eternal Mind 
 
 ideas which exist only in the mind. Which two notions put 
 together, do, in effect, constitute the substance of what I 
 advance. 
 
 Hyl. I have been a long time distrusting my senses; 
 methought I saw things by a dim light and through false 
 glasses. Now the glasses are removed and a new light 
 breaks in upon my understanding. I am clearly convinced 
 that I see things in their native forms, and am no longer 
 in pain about their unknown natures or absolute existence. 
 This is the state I find myself in at present ; though, indeed, 
 the course that brought me to it I do not yet thoroughly 
 comprehend. You set out upon the same principles that 
 Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects usually do, and 
 for a long time it looked as if you were advancing their 
 Philosophical Scepticism; but, in the end, your conclusions 
 are directly opposite to theirs. 
 
 Phil. You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how 
 it is forced upwards, in a round column, to a certain height ; 
 at which it breaks, and falls back into the basin from 
 whence it rose; its ascent as well as descent proceeding 
 from the same uniform law or principle of gravitation. 
 Just so, the same principles which, at first view, lead to 
 Scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to 
 Common Sense. 
 
 References. Eraser's editions of Berkeley's Works, with revised 
 Text, prefaces and annotations ; and his volume of Selections. For 
 a critical analysis, see Professor Pringle-Pattison's Scottish Philosophy. 
 For a general review of Materialism, ancient and modern, see Lange's 
 History of Materialism (tr. Triibner Series), and Dr. Flint in Anti- 
 Theistic Theories. In Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysics we have the 
 nearest approach to a Berkeleian philosophy ; and in Dr. Rashdall's 
 Essay in Contentio Veritatis (1901) it is a more prominent factor in 
 the Theism expounded than has been the case in recent literature even 
 in Britain. 
 
VII. 
 RELIGION IN THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 KANT (1724-1804). 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT, from whom dates the modern era of 
 philosophy, gave an impulse to metaphysical thought in every 
 department, which has lasted for more than a century, and is 
 still very far from spent. His influence has been all-pervasive, 
 and to-day no philosophical work is studied so widely, or with 
 such minute care, as the epoch-making Critique of Pure Reason. 
 Not only idealists like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, but 
 realists like Herbart and Lotze, have largely drawn their 
 inspiration from his original method and results, and in 
 various ways have contributed to develop the fruitful germs 
 of profound philosophic truth in which his system is so rich. 
 And now the modern Neo-Kantian school, both in philosophy 
 and theology (represented by such men as Lange, Duhring, 
 and Paulsen on the one side, Herrmann and Reischle on the 
 other), proclaims its theoretical Agnosticism or Positivism as 
 the consistent outcome of the authentic Kantian principles. 
 As Dr. Stirling has aptly said, "Whatever metal of 
 speculation is anywhere turned now, the ore of it is 
 Kant's." 
 
 There are four works from Kant's pen which the student 
 of Theism should have steadily in view the three great 
 Critiques of Pure Reason, of Practical Reason, and of Judg- 
 ment, while to these may be added the Religion within the 
 bounds of mere Reason. The Critique of Pure Reason, the 
 ultimate and fontal source of most modern speculative think- 
 ing, was published in 1781. It had for its occasion the 
 desire with which Kant had been fired to vindicate for the 
 principle of causality that objective and apodictic necessity 
 which Hume had analysed and explained away as the deposit 
 
 179 
 
180 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 of mere non-rational custom. In Kant's own words, " It was 
 reflection on David Hume that several years ago first broke 
 my dogmatic slumber, and gave a completely new direction 
 to my inquiries in the field of speculative philosophy." The 
 question about causality gradually shaped itself for his mind 
 into the larger one, how propositions which are based, not on 
 experience but on pure thought, can nevertheless possess 
 validity for the world of objects. His solution, in brief, 
 consisted in reversing the relation which had been supposed 
 to obtain between the mind and its objects, a revolution 
 which in a well-known passage he compares to that effected 
 by Copernicus in astronomy. Previously it had been 
 assumed that our knowledge must adapt itself to the objects. 
 " Suppose we try now," said Kant, " whether better success 
 may not attend us in the problems of metaphysics if we 
 assume objects to be under a necessity of adapting themselves 
 to the nature of our cognition." It will be observed that 
 these words are a deliberate enunciation of the principle of 
 subjective idealism. We can know nature a priori, because 
 it is in reality the work of our own mind, or, in other words, 
 because what we know is, after all, not things in themselves, 
 but appearances. This, on the whole, is the outcome of 
 Kant's argument, despite the undoubted realistic elements 
 which his system retains. 
 
 The problem which he has before him, therefore, in the 
 Critique of Pure Reason, may be stated thus : In realising an 
 act of perception, how much do we contribute from within "? 
 And the answer is to the effect that our sensibility, the 
 receptive factor in cognition, contributes space and time, as 
 the a priori pure forms of perceptive sense, innate networks 
 of sensuous intuition, as they may be called, which are cast 
 around, and embrace, the manifold of sense-elements ; while 
 understanding, the active or spontaneous factor, supplies 
 the categories, or intellectual forms of synthesis, such as 
 unity, substance, and cause, by which perceptive experience 
 as a whole is clothed upon with rational order, and objects, 
 which apart from them would be mere blurs of blind sensa- 
 tion, are shot through with intelligibility. These categories, 
 then, are constitutive in character and function, "they 
 actually enter into the composition and constitution of things 
 as these present themselves for the perception of sense." But 
 for that very reason we are forbidden to make of them any 
 
Kant 181 
 
 other than an empirical use. They are valid for objects in 
 experience, where a manifold of sense has been given which 
 they can precipitate into intelligibility ; they are not valid for 
 objects apart from experience, or for things as they are in 
 themselves, for they cannot work in a vacuum from which all 
 sense-elements have been withdrawn. In an atmosphere so 
 rarefied they are powerless. Still, the human mind has always 
 been prone to forget that, owing to the very make of our 
 faculties, experience of phenomena is our sole domain of 
 knowledge. There are certain notions which pretend to pass 
 beyond experiential limits, and to rise to a science of the 
 unconditioned. These speculative Ideas of reason are the 
 objects of rational psychology, cosmology, and theology, or 
 the ideas of the soul as a real subject, of the world as a single 
 system, and of God as a supreme being. There is nothing 
 which Kant repeats more frequently or more unambiguously 
 than the statement that these are mere ideas, yielding no 
 cognition proper, but entangling the mind in metaphysical 
 paralogisms and antinomies. Their real use is to furnish hints 
 by which we may better arrange what we know, and bring it 
 under certain supreme working conceptions. The best way to 
 simplify and systematise our multiplex experiences is to 
 proceed as though those ideas were objectively valid. They 
 have regulative but not constitutive truth. We may put 
 them as Postulates, and wonderful order will follow, but we 
 are not entitled to state them as Dogmas. 
 
 Kant's treatment of Rational Theology consists mainly 
 in his criticism of the three proofs which it was 
 usual, since Wolf, to bring forward in dogmatic form as 
 demonstrative of the existence of God. The passages in 
 question are classical in importance, and we have given 
 them below. 
 
 So far the Critique of Pure Reason. But the Critique of 
 Practical Reason (1788) strikes another note. If knowledge 
 has been removed, room has been made for belief, and what 
 has been lost in the theoretical domain is now to be amply 
 recovered. Laying what he never ceased to regard as an 
 absolutely immovable basis in the categorical moral impera- 
 tive of duty, by which the practical Ego determines its own 
 will, Kant argues, with what is manifestly unclouded con- 
 viction, that we are justified in affirming the objective reality 
 of freedom, immortality, and God. The man to whom the 
 
182 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 moral law is the supreme principle of the inner life, he 
 implies, cannot but believe in personal immortality and the 
 existence of a Personal and Moral Ruler of the universe. 
 Yet even so we are repeatedly warned that the reality we 
 thus ascribe to these objects is not such that it can be 
 confirmed by the theoretical reason. Here again we have 
 quoted the relevant passages. 
 
 Finally, in the Critique of Judgment (1798), the subject of 
 which may be described broadly as the philosophy of Feeling, 
 and of Art as its expression, Kant examines the ideas of 
 Beauty, Sublimity, and Design. Even here, though we can 
 see that he is reaching out to a deeper view which might 
 reconcile and embrace the sharp distinctions (e.g. between 
 phenomena and noumena, empirical world and intelligible 
 self) by which alone his previous results had been rendered 
 possible, Kant is unable quite to get rid of the radical dualism 
 characteristic of his system, which seems eternally fated to 
 forbid intelligence and reality to come to terms with one 
 another. Still, in this work we meet with two cognate, and, 
 in a sense, equivalent conceptions, which are of the very 
 highest moment for a constructive Theism. One is the idea 
 of an intuitive understanding, for which the whole and the 
 parts mutually and organically involve each other ; and this 
 may be said to be Kant's conception of God in its profoundest 
 form. The other is the idea of immanent adaptation, in 
 which mechanism and teleology are fused together; and 
 this is plainly the same conception, looked at from 
 the side of the world. These speculative suggestions have 
 yielded much richer results to later thought than Kant 
 himself succeeded in educing from them. They must be 
 pronounced inalienable elements in the edifice of modern 
 Theism. 
 
 The world is Kant's debtor for the infinitely fruitful seed 
 of speculative truth in which his philosophy abounds ; and 
 not for these only, but for the pure and noble morality 
 enshrined in his ethics. And if it must be held that a Deistic 
 flavour still clings about his Theism, this is but to say that 
 the greatest minds are themselves in part creatures of their 
 time. His strong individualism may have impoverished his 
 capacity for the work of philosophical construction ; his 
 criticism laid the foundation on which all later thought has 
 built. 
 
Kant 183 
 
 1. CRITICISM OF RATIONAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 Critique of Pure Reason : Transcendental Dialectic, Bk. n. 
 c. iv. 3, 4, 5, 6. 
 
 OF THE AKGUMENTS EMPLOYED BY SPECULATIVE REASON 
 IN PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF A SUPREME BEING. 1 
 
 Notwithstanding the pressing necessity which reason feels 
 to form some presupposition that shall serve the understand- 
 ing as a proper basis for the complete determination of its 
 conceptions, the idealistic and factitious nature of such a 
 presupposition is too evident to allow reason for a moment to 
 
 1 In the foregoing sections Kant had criticised Rational Psychology, 
 or the doctrine of the Soul, and Rational Cosmology, or the doctrine 
 of the "World, with the view of showing how in those supposed 
 sciences reason attempts to apply the categories to the unconditioned, 
 and thus simply entangles itself in deception. He now proceeds 
 to examine Rational Theology, or the doctrine of God, in precisely 
 the same fashion, with the object of proving that here reason, in its 
 speculative aspect, is once more operating with an empty ideal, which 
 never can elicit a content adequate to it from the only experience 
 capable of yielding knowledge proper, namely, the experience of sense. 
 
 Let it be noted that when Kant uses the word "sense," he means by 
 it something more than the special sensations which come through the 
 bodily organs ; he means the whole mental susceptibility or sensibility 
 on its outward side as well. Passivity is the signature of sense, as 
 spontaneity is of understanding. It is obvious how the term'" sense " 
 naturally, and almost inevitably, suggests " bodily sensation " alone; 
 and thus for Kant the problem of knowledge tends to be, How do 
 we know the external world ? rather than the deeper and more 
 universal question, How do we know reality (which may be described 
 in terms either of Spirit or Nature) ? This is but one aspect of the 
 truth that Kant's philosophy, after all, belongs to the eighteenth 
 century, though it was his to set the problems on which nineteenth 
 century thought, from first to last, was engaged. Once for all, the 
 student is here referred to Dr. E. Caird's The Critical Philosophy of 
 Kant (Maclehose, 1889, 2 vols.) as the standard English work on the 
 Kantian system. Cf. also Paulsen, Immanuel Kant: His Life and 
 Doctrine (Nimmo, 1902). 
 
184 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 persuade itself into a belief of the objective existence of a 
 mere creation of its own thought. But there are other con- 
 siderations which compel reason to seek out some resting-place 
 in the regress from the conditioned to the unconditioned, 
 which is not given as an actual existence from the mere 
 conception of it, although it alone can give completeness to 
 the series of conditions. And this is the natural course of 
 every human reason, even of the most uneducated, although 
 the path at first entered it does not always continue to follow. 
 It does not begin from conceptions, but from common experi- 
 ence, and requires a basis in actual existence. But this basis 
 is insecure, unless it rests upon the immovable rock of the 
 absolutely necessary. And this foundation is itself unworthy 
 of trust, if it leave under and above it empty space, if it do 
 not fill all, and leave no room for a ivhy or a ivherefore, if it 
 be not, in one word, infinite in its reality. 2 
 
 If we admit the existence of some one thing, whatever it 
 may be, we must also admit that there is something which 
 exists necessarily % For what is contingent exists only 
 under the condition of some other thing which is its cause ; 
 and from this we must go on to conclude the existence of a 
 cause which is not contingent, and which consequently exists 
 necessarily and unconditionally. Such is the argument by 
 which reason justifies its advances towards a primal being. 
 
 Now reason looks round for the conception of a being that 
 may be admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the 
 attribute of absolute necessity, not for the purpose of inferring 
 
 2 " In general we may say that [the different supposed proofs of 
 the Being of God] are all based on the connexion Avhich is supposed 
 to exist between two conceptions, the conception of an Ens realissimum, 
 and the conception of a necessary Being. A necessary Being is the 
 presupposition to which we are led by a natural and inevitable tendency 
 of our reason" (Caird, The Philosophy of Kant, 1877, p. 628). 
 
 3 For an example of this form of the Theistic argument, see 
 Locke, Essay, Bk. iv. chap, x., a passage which, of course, was 
 familiar to Kant. 
 
Kant 185 
 
 a priori, from the conception of such a being, its objective 
 existence (for if reason allowed itself to take this course, it 
 would not require a basis in given and actual existence, but 
 merely the support of pure conceptions), but for the purpose 
 of discovering, among all our conceptions of possible things, 
 that conception which possesses no element inconsistent with 
 the idea of absolute necessity. For that there must be some 
 absolutely necessary existence, it regards as a truth already 
 established. Now, if it can remove every existence incapable 
 of supporting the attribute of absolute necessity, excepting 
 one, this must be the absolutely necessary being, whether 
 its necessity is comprehensible by us, that is, deducible from 
 the conception of it alone, or not. 
 
 Now that, the conception of which contains a therefore to 
 every wherefore, which is not defective in any respect what- 
 ever, which is all-sufficient as a condition, seems to be the 
 being of which we can justly predicate absolute necessity 
 for this reason, that, possessing the conditions of all that is 
 possible, it does not and cannot itself require any condition. 
 And thus it satisfies, in one respect at least, the requirements 
 of the conception of absolute necessity. In this view it is 
 superior to all other conceptions, which, as deficient and 
 incomplete, do not possess the characteristic of independence 
 of all higher conditions. It is true that we cannot infer from 
 this that what does not contain in itself the supreme and 
 complete condition the condition of all other things, must 
 possess only a conditioned existence; but as little can we 
 assert the contrary, for this supposed being does not possess 
 the only characteristic which can enable reason to cognize by 
 means of an a priori conception the unconditioned and 
 necessary nature of its existence. 4 
 
 4 That is to say, while there is no logical inconsistency in suppos- 
 ing a limited or conditioned being to be necessary, the ens realissimum 
 (best defined as "a Being which contains all reality in itself") alone 
 is transparently necessary from its very idea. 
 
186 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 The conception of the ens realissimum is that which best 
 agrees with the conception of an unconditioned and necessary 
 being. 5 The former conception does not satisfy all the 
 requirements of the latter ; but we have no choice, we are 
 obliged to adhere to it, for we find that we cannot do without 
 the existence of a necessary being; and even although we 
 admit it, we find it out of our power to discover in the whole 
 sphere of possibility any being that can advance well-grounded 
 claims to such a distinction. 
 
 The following is therefore the natural course of human 
 reason. It begins by persuading itself of the existence of 
 some necessary being. In this being it recognises the charac- 
 teristics of unconditioned existence. It then seeks the con- 
 ception of that which is independent of all conditions, and 
 finds it in that which is itself the sufficient condition of 
 all other things in other words, in that which contains all 
 reality. But the unlimited all is an absolute unity, and is 
 conceived by the mind as a being one and supreme ; and thus 
 reason concludes that the Supreme Being, as the primal basis 
 of all things, possesses an existence which is absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
 This conception must be regarded as in some degree satis- 
 factory, if we admit the existence of a necessary being, and 
 consider that there exists a necessity for a definite and final 
 answer to these questions. In such a case, we cannot make 
 
 5 Confusion is introduced into Kant's argument all through by 
 the fact that his idea of the ens realissimum hovers between two 
 extremes : (a) the sum of all possible positive predicates, without a 
 shadow of negation (this is sheerly impossible as a conception, and 
 leads to an Absolute which is a mere featureless blank) ; and (6) a 
 perceptive or intuitive understanding, i.e. an intellectual Being whose 
 objects come into existence by the mere fact of its representing them 
 to itself, and which requires neither space nor time to conceive them. 
 The first is an inheritance from the previous abstract Wolfian philo- 
 sophy ; the second is taken up as vital and central in the post- Kantian 
 idealistic systems. Cf. infra, note, p. 223. 
 
Kant 187 
 
 a better choice, or rather we have no choice at all, but feel 
 ourselves obliged to declare in favour of the absolute unity 
 of complete reality, as the highest source of the possibility of 
 things. But if there exists no motive for coming to a definite 
 conclusion, and we may leave the question unanswered till we 
 have fully weighed both sides, in other words, when we are 
 merely called upon to decide how much we happen to know 
 about the question, and how much we merely natter ourselves 
 that we know, the above conclusion does not appear to so 
 great advantage, but, on the contrary, seems defective in the 
 grounds upon which it is supported. 
 
 For, admitting the truth of all that has been said, that, 
 namely, the inference from a given existence (my own, for 
 example) to the existence of an unconditioned and necessary 
 being is valid and unassailable ; that, in the second place, we 
 must consider a being which contains all reality, and con- 
 sequently all the conditions of other things, to be absolutely 
 unconditioned; and admitting, too, that we have thus dis- 
 covered the conception of a thing to which may be attributed, 
 without inconsistency, absolute necessity, it does not follow 
 from all this that the conception of a limited being, in which 
 the supreme reality does not reside, is therefore incompatible 
 with the idea of absolute necessity. 6 For although I do 
 not discover the element of the unconditioned in the concep- 
 tion of such a being, an element which is manifestly ex- 
 istent in the sum total of all conditions, I am not entitled to 
 conclude that its existence is therefore conditioned ; just as I 
 am not entitled to affirm, in a hypothetical syllogism, that 
 where a certain condition does not exist (in the present, 
 completeness, as far as pure conceptions are concerned), the 
 conditioned does not exist either. On the contrary, we are 
 free to consider all limited beings as likewise unconditionally 
 necessary, although we are unable to infer this from the 
 general conception which we have of them. Thus conducted, 
 6 Cf. note 4 . 
 
188 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 this argument is incapable of giving us the least notion of the 
 properties of a necessary being, and must be in every respect 
 without result. 
 
 This argument continues, however, to possess a weight and 
 an authority which, in spite of its objective insufficiency, it 
 has never been divested of. For, granting that certain 
 responsibilities lie upon us, which, as based on the ideas of 
 reason, deserve to be respected and submitted to, although 
 they are incapable of a real or practical application to our 
 nature, or, in other words, would be responsibilities without 
 motives, except upon the supposition of a Supreme Being to 
 give effect and influence to the practical laws : in such a case 
 we should be bound to obey our conceptions, which, although 
 objectively insufficient, do, according to the standard of reason, 
 preponderate over and are superior to any claims that may be 
 advanced from any other quarter. 7 The equilibrium of doubt 
 would in this case be destroyed by a practical addition ; 
 indeed, Reason would be compelled to condemn herself, if she 
 refused to comply with the demands of the judgment, no 
 superior to which we know however defective her under- 
 standing of the grounds of these demands might be. 
 
 This argument, although in fact transcendental, inasmuch 
 as it rests upon the intrinsic insufficiency of the contingent, 
 is so simple and natural, that the commonest understanding 
 can appreciate its value. We see things around us change, 
 arise, and pass away ; they, or their condition, must therefore 
 have a cause. The same demand must again be made of the 
 cause itself as a datum of experience. Now it is natural 
 that we should place the highest causality just where we place 
 supreme causality, in that being, which contains the con- 
 ditions of all possible effects, and the conception of which is 
 
 7 This points forward to a line of thought which is developed at 
 length in Kant's practical philosophy, and is his positive counter- 
 stroke to the negative conclusions forced upon reason in its purely 
 speculative capacity. 
 
Kant 189 
 
 so simple as that of an all-embracing reality. 8 This highest 
 cause, then, we regard as absolutely necessary, because we 
 find it absolutely necessary to rise to it, and do not discover 
 any reason for proceeding beyond it. Thus, among all 
 nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint 
 sparks of monotheism, to which these idolaters have been 
 led, not from reflection and profound thought, but by the 
 study and natural progress of the common understanding. 
 
 There are only three modes of proving the existence of a 
 Deity on the grounds of speculative reason. 
 
 All the paths conducting to this end begin either from 
 determinate experience and the peculiar constitution of the 
 world of sense, and rise, according to the laws of causality, 
 from it to the highest cause existing apart from the world, 
 or from a purely indeterminate experience, that is, some 
 empirical existence, or abstraction is made of all experience, 
 and the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from 
 a priori conceptions alone. The first is the physico-theological 
 argument, the second the cosmological, the third the onto- 
 logical. More there are not, and more there cannot be. 
 
 I shall show that it is as unsuccessful on the one path 
 the empirical, as on the other the transcendental, and that 
 it stretches its wings in vain, to soar beyond the world of 
 sense by the mere might of speculative thought. 9 As regards 
 
 8 This is just one form of the problem Kant is discussing all 
 along, namely, Can we raise to the absolute sphere, over and beyond 
 experience, that which, after all, is only the supreme existence as 
 manifested in experience ? 
 
 9 The exact significance of Kant's terminology is to be carefully 
 observed. An Idea of reason is transcendent in so far as it suggests 
 an object which has no existence in the reality known to us ; it is 
 transcendental in so far as it serves to bring systematic unity and 
 totality into the manifold of experience as a whole. The one, i.e>, 
 is a term of blame, the other of praise, from Kant's point of view ; 
 for a transcendent idea is useless and illusory, one that is tran- 
 scendental has a real function in knowledge. 
 
190 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 the order in which we must discuss those arguments, it will 
 be exactly the reverse of that in which reason, in the progress 
 of its development, attains to them the order in which they 
 are placed above. For it will be made manifest to the 
 reader that, although experience presents the occasion and 
 the starting-point, it is the transcendental idea of reason 
 which guides it in its pilgrimage, and is the goal of all its 
 struggles. I shall therefore begin with an examination of 
 the transcendental argument, and afterwards inquire what 
 additional strength has accrued to this mode of proof from 
 the addition of the empirical element. 
 
 OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OP AN ONTOLOGICAL PKOOF OF 
 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. IQ 
 
 It is evident from what has been said, that the conception 
 of an absolutely necessary being is a mere idea, the objective 
 
 10 Kant took this argument, and criticised it, in the shape in 
 which it had been handed down to him by Wolf. But we ought 
 to note that it can be stated in terms far more worthy of its real 
 import, which disarm most of Kant's objections. The real question 
 is whether we are not obliged to declare valid an ideal which is bound 
 up organically with the very conception of knowledge. Further, a 
 modern idealist would point to the agreement between the ideal 
 laws of our thought and the real laws of being, and would argue 
 that the only way in which this fundamental correspondence can be 
 made intelligible is by presupposing a common ground of both, in 
 which thought and being are radically one, and which as Absolute 
 Spirit manifests itself alike in objective existence and subjective 
 thinking. Cf. Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion (Eng. trans.), 
 iii. p. 272 ff. ; Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, 
 p. 124 ff. But in the form in which Kant is handling it here 
 it has never been stated better than by Hume, in a few simple 
 words: "The idea of infinite perfection implies that of actual 
 existence." As formulated by Kant the argument runs thus : God, 
 being the ens realissimum, which includes all possible positive pre- 
 dicates, must include the predicate of existence, i.e. He exists per se, 
 or necessarily. 
 
Kant 191 
 
 reality of which is far from being established by the mere 
 fact that it is a need of reason. On the contrary, this 
 idea serves merely to indicate a certain unattainable per- 
 fection, and rather limits the operations than, by the pre- 
 sentation of new objects, extends the sphere of the under- 
 standing. But a strange anomaly meets us at the very 
 threshold ; for the inference from a given existence in general 
 to an absolutely necessary existence, seems to be correct and 
 unavoidable, while the conditions of the understanding 
 refuse to aid us in forming any conception of such a being. 
 
 Philosophers have always talked of an absolutely necessary 
 being, and have nevertheless declined to take the trouble of 
 conceiving whether and how a being of this nature is 
 even cogitable, not to mention whether its existence is actually 
 demonstrable. A verbal definition of the conception is 
 certainly easy enough : it is something, the non-existence of 
 which is impossible. But does this definition throw any 
 light upon the conditions which render it impossible to 
 cogitate the non-existence of a thing conditions which we 
 wish to ascertain, that we may discover whether we think 
 anything in the conception of such a being or not 1 For the 
 mere fact that I throw away, by means of the word Un- 
 conditioned, all the conditions which the understanding 
 habitually requires in order to regard anything as necessary, 
 is very far from making clear whether by means of the con- 
 ception of the unconditionally necessary I think of some- 
 thing, or really of nothing at all. 
 
 Nay, more, this chance-conception, now become so current, 
 many have endeavoured to explain by examples, which 
 seemed to render any inquiries regarding its intelligibility 
 quite needless. Every geometrical proposition, a triangle 
 has three angles, it was said, is absolutely necessary ; and 
 thus people talked of an object which lay out of the sphere 
 of our understanding as if it were perfectly plain what the 
 conception of such a being meant. 
 
192 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 All the examples adduced have been drawn, without 
 exception, from judgments, and not from things. But the 
 unconditioned necessity of a judgment does not form the 
 absolute necessity of a thing. On the contrary, the absolute 
 necessity of a judgment is only a conditioned necessity of a 
 thing, or of the predicate in a judgment. The proposition 
 above mentioned does not enounce that three angles neces- 
 sarily exist, but, upon condition that a triangle exists, three 
 angles must necessarily exist in it. And thus this logical 
 necessity has been the source of the greatest delusions. 
 Having formed an a priori conception of a thing, the content 
 of which was made to embrace existence, we believed our- 
 selves safe in concluding that, because existence belongs 
 necessarily to the object of the conception (that is, under the 
 condition of my positing this thing as given), the existence 
 of the thing is also posited necessarily, and that it is there- 
 fore absolutely necessary merely because its existence has 
 been cogitated in the conception. 
 
 If, in an identical judgment, I annihilate the predicate in 
 thought, and retain the subject, a contradiction is the result ; 
 and hence I say, the former belongs necessarily to the latter. 
 But if I suppress both subject and predicate in thought, no 
 contradiction arises ; for there is nothing at all, and therefore 
 no means of forming a contradiction. To suppose the exist- 
 ence of a triangle and not that of its three angles, is self- 
 contradictory ; but to suppose the non-existence of both 
 triangle and angles is perfectly admissible. And so is it with 
 the conception of an absolutely necessary being. Annihilate 
 its existence in thought, and you annihilate the thing itself, 
 with all its predicates ; how, then, can there be any room for 
 contradiction 1 Externally, there is nothing to give rise to 
 a contradiction, for a thing cannot be necessary externally ; 
 nor internally, for, by the annihilation or suppression of the 
 thing itself, its internal properties are also annihilated. God 
 is omnipotent that is a necessary judgment. His omni- 
 
Kant 193 
 
 potence cannot be denied, if the existence of a Deity is 
 posited the existence, that is, of an infinite being, the two 
 conceptions being identical. But when you say, God does 
 not exist, neither omnipotence nor any other predicate is 
 affirmed; they must all disappear with the subject, and in 
 this judgment there cannot exist the least self-contradic- 
 tion. 11 
 
 You have thus seen, that when the predicate of a judgment 
 is annihilated in thought along with the subject, no internal 
 contradiction can arise, be the predicate what it may. 
 There is no possibility of evading the conclusion you find 
 yourselves compelled to declare: There are certain subjects 
 which cannot be annihilated in thought. But this is nothing 
 more than saying : There exist subjects which are absolutely 
 necessary the very hypothesis which you are called upon to 
 establish. For I find myself unable to form the slightest 
 conception of a thing which, when annihilated in thought 
 with all its predicates, leaves behind a contradiction ; 12 
 and contradiction is the only criterion of impossibility, in 
 the sphere of pure a priori conceptions. 
 
 Against these general considerations, the justice of which 
 no one can dispute, one argument is adduced, which is 
 regarded as furnishing a satisfactory demonstration from the 
 
 11 The gist of this paragraph may be put shortly as follows : 
 We may think away such a thing as a triangle, and so escape all 
 contradiction by supposing both subject and predicates non-existent ; 
 why may we not, in like manner, think away such a Being as God ? 
 
 12 This is exactly the point that Hume would have urged, draw- 
 ing his famous distinction between relations of -ideas and matters of 
 fact, which was merely an emphasised rendering of Berkeley's view 
 of the arbitrariness of natural connexions. (Cf. Hume's Inquiry, 
 sects. 4 and 7 ; Treatise, vol. i. p. 436 of Green and Grose's edition.) 
 Necessity is attributable to judgments only, as deduced from valid 
 premises, but not to things. Or as Hume puts it, "the contrary 
 of every matter of fact is possible." There is no contradiction in 
 supposing the non-existence of the object represented in any idea. 
 
 13 
 
194 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 fact. It is affirmed that there is one, and only one, con- 
 ception in which the non-being or annihilation of the object 
 is self-contradictory, and this is the conception of an ens 
 realissimum. It possesses, you say, all reality, and you feel 
 yourselves justified in admitting the possibility of such a 
 being. (This I am willing to grant for the present, although 
 the existence of a conception which is not self-contradictory 
 is far from being sufficient to prove the possibility of an 
 object.*) Now the notion of all reality embraces in it that 
 of existence; the notion of existence lies, therefore, in the 
 conception of this possible thing. If this thing is annihi- 
 lated in thought, the internal possibility of the thing is also 
 annihilated, which is self-contradictory. 
 
 I answer : It is absurd to introduce under whatever term 
 disguised into the conception of a thing, which is to be 
 cogitated solely in reference to its possibility, the conception 
 of its existence. If this is admitted, you will have ap- 
 parently gained the day, but in reality have enounced nothing 
 but a mere tautology. I ask, Is the proposition, this or that 
 thing (which I am admitting to be possible) exists, an 
 analytical or a synthetical proposition 1 If the former, 
 there is no addition made to the subject of your thought by 
 the affirmation of its existence ; but then the conception in 
 your minds is identical with the thing itself, or you have 
 supposed the existence of a thing to be possible, and then 
 inferred its existence from its internal possibility which is 
 
 * A conception is always possible, if it is not self-contradictory. 
 This is the logical criterion of possibility, distinguishing the object 
 of such a conception from the nihil negativum. But it may be, not- 
 withstanding, an empty conception, unless the objective reality of 
 this synthesis, by which it it is generated, is demonstrated ; and a 
 proof of this kind must be based upon principles of possible experience, 
 and not upon the principle of analysis or contradiction. This remark 
 may be serviceable as a warning against concluding, from the possi- 
 bility of a conception which is logical, the possibility of a thing 
 which is real. (Note by Kant.) 
 
Kant 195 
 
 but a miserable tautology. The word reality in the con- 
 ception of the thing, and the word existence in the conception 
 of the predicate, will not help you out of the difficulty. For, 
 supposing you were to term all positing of a thing, reality, 
 you have thereby posited the thing with all its predicates in 
 the conception of the subject and assumed its actual exist- 
 ence, and this you merely repeat in the predicate. But 
 if you confess, as every reasonable person must, that every 
 existential proposition is synthetical, how can it be main- 
 tained that the predicate of existence cannot be denied 
 without contradiction a property which is the characteristic 
 of analytical propositions alone. 13 
 
 I should have a reasonable hope of putting an end for ever 
 to this sophistical mode of argumentation, by a strict defini- 
 tion of the conception of existence, did not my own experi- 
 ence teach me that the illusion arising from our confounding 
 a logical with a real predicate (a predicate which aids in the 
 determination of a thing) resists almost all the endeavours of 
 explanation and illustration. A logical predicate may be 
 what you please, even the subject may be predicated of 
 itself ; for logic pays no regard to the content of a judgment. 
 But the determination of a conception is a predicate, which 
 adds to and enlarges the conception. It must not there- 
 fore be contained in the conception. 
 
 Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception 
 of something which is added to the conception of some other 
 thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain 
 determinations in it. 14 Logically, it is merely the copula 
 
 13 Or in other words, to affirm existence is not to affirm a quality 
 like other qualities ; it is the positing of a thing with all its qualities. 
 
 14 Existence expresses a relation not in our thought, but to our 
 thought, and implies that something is given, towards which we are 
 receptive. Kant's real objection is that for him our sensibility is the 
 only means by which an object can be given to the mind, and, since 
 God is not given so, we are cut off from affirming His existence. 
 
196 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 of a judgment. The proposition, God is omnipotent, contains 
 two conceptions, which have a certain object or content the 
 word is, is no additional predicate it merely indicates the 
 relation of the predicate to the subject. Now, if I take the 
 subject (God) with all its predicates (omnipotence being 
 one), and say, God is, or There is a God, I add no new 
 predicate to the conception of God, I merely posit or affirm 
 the existence of the subject with all its predicates I posit 
 the object in relation to my conception. The content of both 
 is the same ; and there is no addition made to the conception, 
 which expresses merely the possibility of the object, by my 
 cogitating the object in the expression, it is as absolutely 
 given or existing. Thus the real contains no more than the 
 possible. A hundred real dollars contain no more than 
 a possible hundred dollars. 15 For, as the latter indicate 
 the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition 
 that the content of the former was greater than that of the 
 latter, my conception would not be an expression of the 
 whole object, and would consequently be an inadequate 
 conception of it. But in reckoning my wealth there may be 
 said to be more in a hundred real dollars than in a hundred 
 possible dollars that is, in the mere conception of them. 
 For the real object the dollars is not analytically contained 
 in my conception, but forms a synthetical addition to my 
 conception (which is merely a determination of my mental 
 state), although this objective reality this existence apart 
 
 15 Are we to consent to say that God is thus upon a level with 
 things like a hundred dollars ? Are we to conceive Him as a par- 
 ticular being? Does not the fact that God is infinite, the ground 
 of the unity of the intelligible world, lift the conception of His being 
 away from this unworthy comparison with things, and compel us to 
 affirm that "the very thought of God is of that which is, and cannot 
 not-le " ? (Stirling). It is strange that Kant, of all people, should 
 sometimes appear to argue as though it were a positive defect in the 
 nature of God that His being cannot be presented as an object of 
 sense. 
 
Kant 197 
 
 from my conception, does not in the least degree increase 
 the aforesaid hundred dollars. 16 
 
 By whatever and by whatever number of predicates even 
 to the complete determination of it I may cogitate a thing, 
 I do not in the least augment the object of my conception 
 by the addition of the statement, this thing exists. Other- 
 wise, not exactly the same, but something more than what 
 was cogitated in my conception, would exist, and I could not 
 affirm that the exact object of my conception had real 
 existence. If I cogitate a thing as containing all modes of 
 reality except one, the mode of reality which is absent is 
 not added to the conception of the thing by the affirmation 
 that the thing exists ; on the contrary, the thing exists if it 
 exist at all with the same defect as that cogitated in its 
 conception ; otherwise not that which was cogitated, but 
 something different, exists. Now, if I cogitate a being as the 
 highest reality, without defect or imperfection, the question 
 still remains whether this being exists or not 1 For 
 although no element is wanting in the possible real content 
 of my conception, there is a defect in its relation to my 
 mental state, that is, I am ignorant whether the cognition of 
 the object indicated by the conception is possible a posteri- 
 ori. 17 And here the cause of the present difficulty becomes 
 
 16 An existential judgment, i.e. a judgment affirming existence, 
 is, says Kant, always synthetic (in contrast to analytic). That is, 
 though nothing is added to the content of the idea of the subject, 
 the predication of existence adds something which the idea of the 
 subject, as such, does not include, and which, consequently, cannot 
 be deduced from it by simple analysis. A modern logician would say 
 that what takes place in an existential proposition is not an internal 
 modification of the subject ; but rather the subject, as an ideal 
 complex, is referred or attributed to objective reality. In other 
 words, the contents of the subject are not modified, but it has a new 
 relation predicated of it. Cf. Bradle} T , Principles of Logic, Bk. I. ; 
 Bosanquet, The Essentials of Logic, p. 66 ff. 
 
 17 A priori means prior to all experience, and in harmony with 
 its general conditions ; a posteriori, in the light of experience as we 
 
198 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 apparent. If the question regarded an object of sense 
 merely, it would be impossible for me to confound the con- 
 ception with the existence of a thing. For the conception 
 merely enables me to cogitate an object as according with 
 the general conditions of experience ; while the existence of 
 the object permits me to cogitate it as contained in the 
 sphere of actual experience. At the same time, this con- 
 nexion with the world of experience does not in the least 
 augment the conception, although a possible perception has 
 been added to the experience of the mind. But if we 
 cogitate existence by the pure category alone, it is not to be 
 wondered at that we should find ourselves unable to present 
 any criterion sufficient to distinguish it from mere possibility. 
 Whatever be the content of our conception of an object, it 
 is necessary to go beyond it, if we wish to predicate existence 
 of the object. In the case of sensuous objects, this is 
 attained by their connexion according to empirical laws with 
 some one of my perceptions ; but there is no means of 
 cognising the existence of objects of pure thought, because it 
 must be cognised completely a priori. But all our know- 
 ledge of existence (be it immediately by perception, or by 
 inferences connecting some object with a perception) belongs 
 entirely to the sphere of experience which is in perfect unity 
 with itself ; and although an existence out of this sphere can- 
 not be absolutely declared to be impossible, it is a hypothesis 
 the truth of which we have no means of ascertaining. 18 
 
 find it to be. Thus, for Kant, space and time are the a priori 
 principles of sense; the categories, such as substance and cause, are 
 the a priori forms of understanding. The Critique of Pure Reason, 
 in short, is meant to give a complete outline of all that we can know 
 a priori, in systematic arrangement ; for there are notions embedded 
 in experience, which experience cannot justify or explain, and which 
 turn out to be provided for experience antecedently in the mind. For 
 a general treatment of Reason as giving only Postulates, see F. C. S. 
 Schiller, Humanism, 1903. 
 
 18 In this one sentence we have the principle succinctly formulated 
 
Kant 199 
 
 The notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly 
 useful idea ; but for the very reason that it is an idea, it is 
 incapable of enlarging our cognition with regard to the exist- 
 ence of things. It is not even sufficient to instruct us as to 
 the possibility of a being which we do not know to exist. 
 The analytical criterion of possibility, which consists in the 
 absence of contradiction in propositions, cannot be denied it. 
 But the connexion of real properties in a thing is a synthesis 
 of the possibility of which an a priori judgment cannot 
 be formed, because these realities are not presented to us 
 specifically; and even if this were to happen, a judgment 
 would still be impossible, because the criterion of the pos- 
 sibility of synthetical cognitions must be sought for in the 
 world of experience, to which the object of an idea cannot 
 belong. And thus the celebrated Leibnitz has utterly failed 
 in his attempt to establish upon a pi*iori grounds the pos- 
 sibility of this sublime ideal being. 19 
 
 The celebrated ontological or Cartesian argument for the 
 existence of a Supreme Being is therefore insufficient ; 2 
 
 from which spring all Kant's objections to the validity of the Theistic 
 proofs. If knowledge is indissolubly wedded to sense, of course it is 
 vain to speak of our "knowing" God. 
 
 19 In his Meditati&nts de Cognition Veritate et Ideis (1684), 
 and his Noveaux Essais, Leibnitz had adopted and amended the 
 Cartesian form of the Ontological argument. He argued that God's 
 existence can be inferred from His definition, only if it is proved that 
 His existence is possible, i.e. involves no real contradiction. This he 
 endeavoured to prove by showing that it is an idea which contains 
 nothing but realities. In rejecting here the a priori criterion of 
 possibility, Kant has Liebnitz' addition to the Cartesian argument 
 specially in view. 
 
 20 It is to be noticed carefully at this point, as Professor Orr 
 has pointed out (Christian View, p. 478), that while Kant rejects 
 every kind of inference from the idea of God to His reality, he yet 
 assigns no little importance to this "Ideal of Pure Reason" as an 
 element in Natural Theology. His own words are, "A Supreme 
 Being is, therefore, for the speculative reason, a mere ideal, though a 
 
200 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 and we may as well hope to increase our stock of knowledge 
 by the aid of mere ideas, as the merchant to augment his 
 wealth by the addition of noughts to his cash account. 
 
 OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF A COSMOLOGICAL PROOF OF 
 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 It was by no means a natural course of proceeding, but, on 
 the contrary, an invention entirely due to the subtlety of the 
 schools, to attempt to draw from a mere idea a proof of the 
 existence of an object corresponding to it. Such a course 
 would never have been pursued, were it not for that need of 
 reason which requires it to suppose the existence of a neces- 
 sary being as a basis for the empirical regress, and that, as 
 this necessity must be unconditioned and a priori, reason is 
 bound to discover a conception which shall satisfy, if possible, 
 this requirement, and enable us to attain to the a priori 
 cognition of such a being. This conception was thought to 
 be found in the idea of an ens realissimum, and thus this 
 idea was employed for the attainment of a better defined 
 knowledge of a necessary being of the existence of which we 
 
 faultless one, a conception which crowns and perfects the system of 
 cognition, but the objective reality of which can neither be proved 
 nor disproved by pure reason" (Critique of Pure Reason, Meiklejohn's 
 trans., pp. 392-393). We shall see, when we pass to his Moral Theology, 
 how persistently he holds the speculative reason to this neutral point 
 of view. 
 
 While the Ontological argument fares so badly at the hands of Kant, 
 we note with interest that in Hegel's opinion it stands highest of the 
 three. " Of the proofs," he goes so far as to say, " it alone is the true 
 one." Once reaffirm, as Hegel did, the objective validity of thought, 
 and an ideal which is inseparable from the very existence of intelligence 
 forces us to recognise its intrinsic reality. Of course, this is to trans- 
 form the notion of God with which Kant was working, and to lift it 
 clear of the Deism which still infected his theology. Cf. the Selections 
 from Anselm and Descartes. 
 
Kant 201 
 
 were convinced, or persuaded, on other grounds. Thus Reason 
 was seduced from her natural course ; and, instead of concluding 
 with the conception of an ens realissimwn, an attempt was made 
 to begin with it, for the purpose of inferring from it that idea 
 of a necessary existence which it was in fact called in to com- 
 plete. Thus arose that unfortunate ontological argument, 
 which neither satisfies the healthy common sense of humanity, 
 nor sustains the scientific examination of the philosopher. 
 
 The cosmological proof, which we are about to ex- 
 amine, retains the connexion between absolute necessity 
 and the highest reality ; but, instead of reasoning from this 
 highest reality to a necessary existence, like the preceding 
 argument, it concludes from the given unconditioned neces- 
 sity of some being its unlimited reality. 21 The track it 
 pursues, whether rational or sophistical, is at least natural, 
 and not only goes far to persuade the common understanding, 
 but shows itself deserving of respect from the speculative 
 intellect ; while it contains, at the same time, the outlines of 
 all the arguments employed in natural theology arguments 
 which always have been, and still will be, in use and 
 authority. These, however adorned, and hid under whatever 
 embellishments of rhetoric and sentiment, are at bottom 
 identical with the arguments we are at present to discuss. 
 This proof, termed by Leibnitz the argumentum a con- 
 tingentid mundi, I shall now lay before the reader, and 
 subject to a strict examination. 22 
 
 21 This argument moves in a direction opposite to that of the 
 Ontological. As stated by Kant, it runs thus : (a) contingent things 
 exist, therefore a necessary Being must exist ; (b) but, further, this 
 necessary Being must be the ens realissimum, which includes all 
 reality, for no other has the conditions of its existence in itself. This 
 second step (b), says Kant, can be taken only if the two conceptions, 
 necessary being and ens realissimum, are convertible in other words, 
 if the Ontological argument is valid. 
 
 22 By contingency is here meant the quality of not being self- 
 contained, self-explanatory, and self-sufficient. Things are contingent 
 
202 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 It is framed in the following manner : If something 
 exists, an absolutely necessary being must likewise exist. 
 Now I, at least, exist. Consequently, there exists an 
 absolutely necessary being. The minor contains an experi- 
 ence, the major reasons from a general experience to the 
 existence of a necessary being.* 23 Thus this argument 
 really begins at experience, and is not completely a priori, or 
 ontological. The object of all possible experience being the 
 world, it is called the cosmological proof. It contains no 
 reference to any peculiar property of sensuous objects, by 
 which this world of sense might be distinguished from other 
 possible worlds; and in this respect it differs from the 
 physico-theological proof, which is based upon the con- 
 sideration of the peculiar constitution of our sensuous 
 world. 
 
 The proof proceeds thus : A necessary being can be deter- 
 mined only in one way, that is, it can be determined by only 
 one of all possible opposed predicates ; consequently, it must 
 be completely determined in and by its conception. But 
 there is only a single conception of a thing possible, which 
 completely determines the thing a priori; that is, the 
 conception of the ens realissimum. It follows that 
 the conception of the ens realissimum is the only con- 
 ception by and in which we can cogitate a necessary 
 
 when they require support from something else, and depend on that 
 which is outside of themselves. 
 
 * This inference is too well known to require more detailed dis- 
 cussion. It is based upon the spurious transcendental law of causality, 
 that everything which is contingent has a cause, which, if itself 
 contingent, must also have a cause ; and so on, till the series of sub- 
 ordinated causes must end with an absolutely necessary cause, without 
 which it would not possess completeness. ( Note by Kant. ) 
 
 23 The cosmological argument, so far, yields no more than some 
 necessary being. This, however, is less than we require, which is God 
 as perfect Being. Accordingly, for this further contribution, we are 
 thrown back on the Ontological argument. 
 
Kant 203 
 
 being. 24 Consequently, a Supreme Being necessarily 
 exists. 
 
 In this cosmological argument are assembled so many 
 sophistical propositions, that speculative Reason seems to have 
 exerted in it all her dialectical skill to produce a tran- 
 scendental illusion of the most extreme character. We shall 
 postpone an investigation of this argument for the present, 
 and confine ourselves to exposing the stratagem by which it 
 imposes upon us an old argument in a new dress, and appeals 
 to the agreement of two witnesses, the one with the 
 credentials of pure Reason, and the other with those of 
 Empiricism; while, in fact, it is only the former who has 
 changed his dress and voice, for the purpose of passing him- 
 self off for an additional witness. 25 That it may possess a 
 secure foundation, it bases its conclusions upon experience, 
 and thus appears to be completely distinct from the onto- 
 logical argument, which places its confidence entirely in pure 
 a priori conceptions. But this experience merely aids 
 reason in making one step to the existence of a necessary 
 being. What the properties of this being are, cannot be 
 learned from experience ; and therefore Reason abandons it 
 altogether, and pursues its inquiries in the sphere of pure 
 conceptions, for the purpose of discovering what the pro- 
 perties of an absolutely necessary being ought to be, that 
 is, what among all possible things contain the conditions 
 (requisita) of absolute necessity. Reason believes that it 
 
 24 The necessary Being of the first part, i.e., is converted into the 
 perfect Being of the second. Hume has stated the process of thought 
 thus: "There is something necessarily existent, and what is so is 
 infinitely perfect." Kant protests that such a conversion is a logical 
 fallacy ; but is this so certain ? May we not legitimately argue a 
 necessary being must have all reality within itself, otherwise it would 
 be partially dependent for its reality on something else, i.e. it is 
 supremely, perfectly real ? 
 
 25 The causality argument proper, in the first place ; the ontological 
 argument, in the second. 
 
204 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 has discovered these requisites in the conception of an ens 
 realissimum and in it alone, and hence concludes : The ens 
 realissimum is an absolutely necessary being. But it is 
 evident that Keason has here presupposed that the conception 
 of an ens realissimum is perfectly adequate to the conception 
 of a being of absolute necessity, that is, that we may infer 
 the existence of the latter from that of the former a pro- 
 position which formed the basis of the ontological argument, 
 and which is now employed in the support of the cosmological 
 argument, contrary to the wish and professions of its in- 
 ventors. For the existence of an absolutely necessary being 
 is given in conceptions alone. But if I say the conception 
 of the ens realissimum is a conception of this kind, and in 
 fact the only conception which is adequate to our idea of 
 a necessary being, I am obliged to admit that the latter 
 may be inferred from the former. Thus it is properly the 
 ontological argument which figures in the cosmological, and 
 constitutes the whole strength of the latter; while the 
 spurious basis of experience has been of no further use than 
 to conduct us to the conception of absolute necessity, being 
 utterly insufficient to demonstrate the presence of this 
 attribute in any determinate existence or thing. 26 For 
 when we propose to ourselves an aim of this character, we 
 must abandon the sphere of experience, and rise to that of 
 pure conceptions, which we examine with the purpose of 
 discovering whether any one contains the conditions of the 
 possibility of an absolutely necessary being. But if the 
 possibility of such a being is thus demonstrated, its existence is 
 also proved ; for we may then assert that, of all possible beings 
 there is one which possesses the attribute of necessity in other 
 words, this being possesses an absolutely necessary existence. 
 
 26 It is certainly odd that Kant, whose philosophy is nothing if 
 not experiential, should here appear to be dissatisfied with this argu- 
 ment, on the ground that it is not wholly a thing of conceptions, but 
 claims to have a basis in experience. 
 
Kant 205 
 
 All illusions in an argument are more easily detected when 
 they are presented in the formal manner employed by the 
 schools, which we now proceed to do. 
 
 If the proposition, Every absolutely necessary being is 
 likewise an ens realissimum, is correct (and it is this which 
 constitutes the nervus probandi of the cosmological argument), 
 it must, like all affirmative judgments, be capable of con- 
 version the conversio per accidens, at least. It follows, then, 
 that some entia realissima are absolutely necessary beings. 
 But no ens realissimum is in any respect different from 
 another, and what is valid of some is valid of all. In this 
 present case, therefore, I may employ simple conversion, and 
 say, Every ens realissimum is a necessary being. But as this 
 proposition is determined a priori by the conceptions con- 
 tained in it, the mere conception of an ens realissimum must 
 possess the additional attribute of absolute necessity. But this 
 is exactly what was maintained in the ontological argument, 
 and not recognised by the cosmological, although it formed 
 the real ground of its disguised and illusory reasoning. 27 
 
 Thus the second mode employed by speculative reason of 
 demonstrating the existence of a Supreme Being, is not only, 
 like the first, illusory and inadequate, but possesses the 
 additional blemish of an ignoratio elenchi professing to 
 conduct us by a new road to the desired goal, but bringing us 
 back, after a short circuit, to the old path which we had 
 deserted at its call. 28 
 
 27 See note 21 . 
 
 28 It is of extreme importance to note that the cosmological argu- 
 ment, in the form of it criticised by Kant, does exhibit defects 
 which leave it open to damaging assault. Its tendency is to treat 
 God merely as " an unbeginning Something," to which we reason back 
 from the present ; and this is simply to launch us upon the infinite 
 regress from phenomenon to phenomenon, which can never end. 
 Modern Theism would state the argument in a different and more 
 philosophical form. The true cause of the world cannot be something 
 that belongs to the past, but rather ' ' the supernatural sustaining 
 
206 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 I mentioned above, that this cosmological argument con- 
 tains a perfect nest of dialectical assumptions, which tran- 
 scendental criticism does not find it difficult to expose and 
 to dissipate. 29 I shall merely enumerate these, leaving it to 
 the reader, who must by this time be well practised in such 
 matters, to investigate the fallacies residing therein. 
 
 The following fallacies, for example, are discoverable in this 
 mode of proof : 1. The transcendental principle, Everything 
 that is contingent must have a cause a principle without 
 significance, except in the sensuous world. For the purely 
 intellectual conception of the contingent cannot produce any 
 synthetical proposition, like that of causality, which is itself 
 without significance or distinguishing characteristic except 
 in the phenomenal world. But in the present case it is 
 employed to help us beyond the limits of its sphere. 2. From 
 the impossibility of an infinite ascending series of causes in 
 the world of sense a first cause is inferred; a conclusion 
 which the principles of the employment of reason do not 
 justify even in the sphere of experience, and still less when an 
 attempt is made to pass the limits of this sphere. 3. Reason 
 allows itself to be satisfied upon insufficient grounds, with 
 regard to the completion of this series. It removes all con- 
 ditions (without which, however, no conception of Necessity 
 
 Power immanent in all existence and operative in all change," and the 
 proof is thus seen to yield an ever-present Energy as the source and 
 ground of all cosmical change and happening. In this shape the 
 cosmological argument lias been developed with great impressiveness 
 by Lotze. Of. Lotze's Theistic Philosophy, by Professor H. N. 
 Gardiner. 
 
 29 On this Dr. Stirling well remarks, " the entire ' nest ' may be said 
 to be a construction of Kant's peculiar system" (Philosophy and 
 Theology, p. 315). For if we repudiate the agnostic relativism of the 
 Kantian theory of knowledge, refusing to believe that we can know 
 nothing save phenomena, or that to apply the idea of cause except 
 within the phenomenal world is essentially invalid and illusory, the 
 " nest" disappears, to trouble us no more. 
 
Kant 207 
 
 can take place) ; and, as after this it is beyond our power to 
 form any other conception, it accepts this as a completion of 
 the conception it wishes to form of the series. 4. The logical 
 possibility of a conception of the total of reality (the criterion 
 of this possibility being the absence of contradiction) is con- 
 founded with the transcendental, which requires a principle of 
 the practicability of such a synthesis a principle which again 
 refers us to the world of experience. . . . 
 
 DETECTION AND EXPLANATION OF THE DIALECTICAL ILLU- 
 SION IN ALL TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE 
 EXISTENCE OF A NECESSARY BEING. 
 
 Both of the above arguments are transcendental ; in other 
 words, they do not proceed upon empirical principles. For, 
 although the cosmological argument professed to lay a basis 
 of experience for its edifice of reasoning, it did not ground its 
 procedure upon the peculiar constitution of experience, but 
 upon pure principles of reason in relation to an exist- 
 ence given by empirical consciousness ; utterly abandoning its 
 guidance, however, for the purpose of supporting its assertions 
 entirely upon pure conceptions. 30 Now what is the cause, in 
 these transcendental arguments, of the dialectical, but 
 natural, illusion, which connects the conceptions of necessity 
 and supreme reality, and hypostatises that which cannot be 
 anything but an idea 1 What is the cause of this unavoid- 
 able step on the part of reason, of admitting that some one 
 among all existing things must be necessary, while it falls 
 back from the assertion of the existence of such a being as 
 from an abyss 1 And how does reason proceed to explain 
 this anomaly to itself, and from the wavering condition of a 
 
 80 That is to say, it does not argue from the fact that the 
 constitution of experience is of a peculiar or specific kind, purposive 
 to wit, but purely from the contingency of experience as such to its 
 producing cause. 
 
208 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 timid and reluctant approbation always again withdrawn 
 arrive at a calm and settled insight into its cause 1 
 
 It is something very remarkable that, on the supposition 
 that something exists, I cannot avoid the inference that 
 something exists necessarily. 31 Upon this perfectly natural 
 but not on that account reliable inference does the 
 cosmological argument rest. But, let me form any concep- 
 tion whatever of a thing, I find that I cannot cogitate the 
 existence of the thing as absolutely necessary, and that 
 nothing prevents me be the thing or being what it may 
 from cogitating its non-existence. I may thus be obliged to 
 admit that all existing things have a necessary basis, while I 
 cannot cogitate any single or individual thing as necessary. 
 In other words, I can never complete the regress through the 
 conditions of existence, without admitting the existence of a 
 necessary being ; but, on the other hand, I cannot make a 
 commencement from this being. 
 
 If I must cogitate something as existing necessarily as the 
 basis of existing things, and yet am not permitted to cogitate 
 any individual thing as in itself necessary, the inevitable 
 inference is, that necessity and contingency are not properties 
 of things themselves otherwise an internal contradiction 
 would result; that consequently neither of these principles 
 are objective, but merely subjective principles of reason the 
 one requiring us to seek for a necessary ground for every 
 thing that exists, that is, to be satisfied with no other 
 explanation than that which is complete a priori, the other 
 forbidding us ever to hope for the attainment of this com- 
 pleteness, that is, to regard no member of the empirical 
 world as unconditioned. In this mode of viewing them, 
 both principles, in their purely heuristic and regulative 
 character, and as concerning merely the formal interest of 
 reason, are quite consistent with each other. The one says 
 
 31 This naive remark, if pressed against Kant, really has the 
 effect so far of rehabilitating the cosmological argument. 
 
Kant 209 
 
 you must philosophise upon nature, as if there existed a 
 necessary primal basis of all existing things, solely for the 
 purpose of introducing systematic unity into your knowledge, 
 by pursuing an idea of this character, a foundation which is 
 arbitrarily admitted to be ultimate; while the other warns 
 you to consider no individual determination, concerning the 
 existence of things, as such an ultimate foundation, that is, 
 as absolutely necessary, but to keep the way always open for 
 further progress in the deduction, and to treat every deter- 
 mination as determined by some other. 32 But if all that we 
 perceive must be regarded as conditionally necessary, it is 
 impossible that anything which is empirically given should be 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 It follows from this, that you must accept the absolutely 
 necessary as out of and beyond the world, inasmuch as it is 
 useful only as a principle of the highest possible unity in 
 experience, and you cannot discover any such necessary 
 existence in the ivorld, the second rule requiring you to 
 regard all empirical causes of unity as themselves deduced. 
 . . . These remarks will have made it evident to the reader 
 that the ideal of the Supreme Being, far from being an 
 enouncement of the existence of a being in itself necessary, is 
 nothing more than a regulative principle of reason, requiring us 
 to regard all connexion existing between phenomena as if 33 
 
 32 No better passage than this paragraph could be found to illus- 
 trate what Kant means by a regulative principle of knowledge, as 
 distinct from one that is constitutive, and necessarily enters into the 
 texture of (sensible) cognition as such. The idea of God, it appears, 
 simply because incapable of being actually experienced, is strictly for 
 Kant no more than a coiryenient notion whereby our knowledge is 
 given final unity and arrangement. Indeed we may say that the Idea 
 of God is condemned before examination begins, for Kant has already 
 laid down the definition, " I understand by Idea a necessary notion of 
 reason, to which there can be given no congruent sensuous object." 
 
 33 The whole virtue of the word regulative lies in this phrase 
 "as if." 
 
210 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 it had its origin from an all-sufficient necessary cause, and 
 basing upon this the rule of a systematic and necessary 
 unity in the explanation of phenomena. We cannot, at the 
 same time, avoid regarding, by a transcendental subreptio, 
 this formal principle as constitutive, and hypostatising this 
 unity. Precisely similar is the case with our notion of space. 
 Space is the primal condition of all forms, which are properly 
 just so many different limitations of it ; and thus, although 
 it is merely a principle of sensibility, we cannot help 
 regarding it as an absolutely necessary and self-subsistent 
 thing as an object given a priori in itself. In the same 
 way, it is quite natural that, as the systematic unity of 
 nature cannot be established as a principle for the empirical 
 employment of reason, unless it is based upon the idea of an 
 ens realissimum, as the supreme cause, we should regard this 
 idea as a real object, and this object, in its character of 
 supreme condition, as absolutely necessary, and that in this 
 way a regulative should be transformed into a constitutive 
 principle. This interchange becomes evident when I regard 
 this Supreme Being, which, relatively to the world, was 
 absolutely (unconditionally) necessary, as a thing per se. In 
 this case I find it impossible to represent this necessity in or 
 by any conception, and it exists merely in my own mind, as 
 the formal condition of thought, but not as a material and 
 hypostatic condition of existence. 
 
 OP THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF A PHYSICO-THEOLOGICAL PROOF. 
 
 If, then, neither a pure conception nor the general experi- 
 ence of an existing being can provide a sufficient basis for the 
 proof of the existence of the Deity, we can make the attempt 
 by the only other mode that of grounding our argument 
 upon a determinate experience of the phenomena of the 
 present world, their constitution and disposition, and discover 
 whether we can thus attain to a sound conviction of the 
 
Kant 211 
 
 existence of a Supreme Being. 34 This argument we shall 
 term the physico-theological argument. If it is shown to be 
 insufficient, speculative reason cannot present us with any 
 satisfactory proof of the existence of a being corresponding to 
 our transcendental idea. 
 
 It is evident from the remarks that have been made in the 
 preceding sections, that an answer to this question will be far 
 from being difficult or unconvincing. For how can any 
 experience be adequate with an idea ? The very essence of 
 an idea consists in the fact that no experience can ever be 
 discovered congruent or adequate with it. 35 The tran- 
 scendental idea of a necessary and all-sufficient Being is so 
 immeasurably great, so high above all that is empirical, 
 which is always conditioned, that we hope in vain to find 
 materials in the sphere of experience sufficiently ample for 
 our conception, and in vain seek the unconditioned among 
 things that are conditioned, while examples, nay, even 
 guidance, is denied us by the laws of empirical synthesis. 
 
 If the Supreme Being forms a link in the chain of empirical 
 conditions, it must be a member of the empirical series, and, 
 like the lower members which it precedes, have its origin in 
 some higher member of the series. If, on the other hand, we 
 disengage it from the chain, and cogitate it as an intelligible 
 being, apart from the series of natural causes how shall 
 reason bridge the abyss that separates the latter from the 
 former 1 ? 36 All laws respecting the regress from effects to 
 causes, all synthetical additions to our knowledge, relate 
 
 34 The teleological argument, as we may more conveniently name 
 it, starts from empirical data, but data of a particular and determinate 
 kind, such, namely, as exhibit marks of order and purpose. 
 
 35 From this unequivocal statement it is clear that, on Kantian 
 principles, the proofs are implicitly non-suited ere the trial has begun. 
 The presupposition that an Idea is invalid which cannot be presented 
 in sense, is fatal to their claims from the first. 
 
 36 For considerations which turn the flank of this dilemma, see 
 note **. 
 
212 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 solely to possible experience and the objects of the sensuous 
 world, and, apart from them, are without significance. 
 
 The world around us opens before our view so magnificent 
 a spectacle of order, variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, 
 that whether we pursue our observations into the infinity of 
 space in the one direction, or into its illimitable divisions on 
 the other, whether we regard the world in its greatest or its 
 least manifestations, even after we have attained to the 
 highest summit of knowledge which our weak minds can 
 reach, we find that language in the presence of wonders so 
 inconceivable has lost its force, and number its power to 
 reckon, nay, even thought fails to conceive adequately, and 
 our conception of the whole dissolves into an astonishment 
 without the power of expression all the more eloquent that 
 it is dumb. 37 Everywhere around us we observe a chain of 
 causes and effects, of means and ends, of death and birth ; 
 and, as nothing has entered of itself into the condition in 
 which we find it, we are constantly referred to some other 
 thing, which itself suggests the same inquiry regarding its 
 cause, and thus the universe must sink into the abyss of 
 nothingness, unless we admit that, besides this infinite chain 
 of contingencies, there exists something that is primal and 
 self-subsistent something which, as the cause of this 
 
 37 These expressions of respect for the argument from design arc 
 made still more emphatic in the Critique of Judgment, written some 
 years later ; it is true, however, that there even more stress is laid on the 
 regulative, non-constitutive nature and validity of the idea of design. 
 In order to ensure a complete view of Kant's conclusions, the student 
 should read carefully Professor Orr's note entitled "Kant on the 
 Teleological Argument" (Christian View, p. 475), especially the 
 following valuable suggestion : " It is not always noticed that, inter- 
 mediate between full theoretic demonstration and mere opinion, Kant 
 has a form of conviction which he calls 'doctrinal faith,' distinct 
 from 'moral faith,' the characteristic of which is that it is an 
 expression of modesty from the objective point of view, but of assured 
 confidence from the subjective." 
 
Kant 213 
 
 phenomenal world, secures its continuance and preser- 
 vation. 
 
 This highest cause what magnitude shall we attribute to 
 it 1 Of the content of the world we are ignorant ; still less 
 can we estimate its magnitude by comparison with the 
 sphere of the possible. But this supreme cause being a 
 necessity of the human mind, what is there to prevent us 
 from attributing to it such a degree of perfection as to place 
 it above the sphere of all that is possible? This we can 
 easily do, although only by the aid of the faint outline of an 
 abstract conception, by representing this being to ourselves as 
 containing in itself, as an individual substance, all possible 
 perfection, a conception which satisfies that requirement of 
 reason which demands parsimony in principles, 38 which is 
 free from self-contradiction, which even contributes to the ex- 
 tension of the employment of reason in experience, by means 
 of the guidance afforded by this idea to order and system, and 
 which in no respect conflicts with any law of experience. 
 
 This argument always deserves to be mentioned with 
 respect. It is the oldest, the clearest, and that most in 
 conformity with the common reason of humanity. It 
 animates the study of nature, as it itself derives its existence 
 and draws ever new strength from that source. It introduces 
 aims and ends into a sphere in which our observation could 
 not of itself have discovered them, and extends our knowledge 
 of nature by directing our attention to a unity, the principle 
 of which lies beyond nature. This knowledge of nature 
 again reacts upon this idea its cause ; and thus our belief 
 in a Divine author of the universe rises to the power of an 
 irresistible conviction. 
 
 For these reasons it would be utterly hopeless to attempt 
 
 38 Meiklejohn adds here the note: "A reference to the meta- 
 physical dogma : Entia prceter necessitates, non sunt multiplicanda, 
 which may also be applied to logic, by the substitution 
 for entia" 
 
214 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 to rob this argument of the authority it has always en- 
 joyed. The mind, unceasingly elevated by these con- 
 siderations, which, although empirical, are so remarkably 
 powerful and continually adding to their force, will not 
 suffer itself to be depressed by the doubts suggested by 
 subtle speculation; it tears itself out of this state of un- 
 certainty the moment it casts a look upon the wondrous 
 forms of nature and the majesty of the universe, and 
 rises from height to height, from condition to condition, 
 till it has elevated itself to the supreme and unconditioned 
 author of all. 
 
 But although we have nothing to object to the reasonable- 
 ness and utility of this procedure, 39 but have rather to 
 commend and encourage it, we cannot approve of the claims 
 which this argument advances to demonstrative certainty, and 
 to a reception upon its own merits, apart from favour or 
 support by other arguments. Nor can it injure the cause of 
 morality to endeavour to lower the tone of the arrogant 
 sophist, and to teach him that modesty and moderation, 
 which are the properties of a belief that brings calm and 
 content into the mind, without prescribing to it an unworthy 
 subjection. I maintain, then, that the physico-theological 
 argument is insufficient of itself to prove the existence of a 
 Supreme Being, that it must intrust this to the ontological 
 argument to which it serves merely as an introduction, and 
 that, consequently, this argument contains the only possible 
 
 39 The service rendered by the idea of final end (teleology) to the 
 empirical investigation of living structures, its utility, that is, as a 
 heuristic principle, is more fully elaborated in the Critique of Judg- 
 ment. See Bernard's translation (1892), p. 257 ff. It is sometimes for- 
 gotten, too, that Kant rendered Theism no little service by demonstrat- 
 ing so conclusively the utter insufficiency of materialism to explain 
 the order and purpose in nature. Cf. his emphatic statement, "It is 
 quite certain that we cannot adequately cognise, much less explain, 
 organised beings and their internal possibility, according to mere 
 mechanical principles of nature " (ibid. p. 312). 
 
Kant 215 
 
 ground of pi-oof (possessed by speculative reason) for the 
 existence of this being. 
 
 The chief momenta in the physico-theological argument 
 are as follow: 40 1. We observe in the world manifest 
 signs of an arrangement full of purpose, executed with great 
 wisdom, and existing in a whole of a content indescribably 
 various, and of an extent without limits. 2. This arrange- 
 ment of means and ends is entirely foreign to the things 
 existing in the world it belongs to them merely as a 
 contingent attribute ; in other words, the nature of different 
 things could not of itself, whatever means were employed, 
 harmoniously tend towards certain purposes, were they not 
 chosen and directed for these purposes by a rational and 
 disposing principle, in accordance with certain fundamental 
 ideas. 41 3. There exists, therefore, a sublime and wise cause 
 (or several), which is not merely a blind, all-powerful nature, 
 
 40 Kant's formulation of the argument, as he had it before him, 
 must be allowed to be eminently just. 
 
 41 This element in the proof is a decided weakness ; as it has been 
 put, " it seems to make God the author of a difficulty in order that He 
 may show His skill in overcoming it." The very existence of the 
 cosmological argument should have prevented men from conceiving 
 the material on which Omnipotence had to work as unsuitable or 
 recalcitrant, and the order and purpose of the world, so far as the 
 material is concerned, as a pure accident. The material itself is the 
 product of the organising Intelligence to which all is referred. 
 Further, the conception of teleology required to be widened, as is done 
 in recent philosophy, to denote not so much particular cases of adapta- 
 tion, as rather the presence of adaptive thought in nature as a whole, 
 making ultimately for the evolution of ''persons." It is interesting 
 to observe that in his early work (1755), The Universal Natural 
 History and Theory of the Heavens, Kant gives a quite general, 
 modern, and scientific form of the argument from design. Insisting 
 upon the fact that matter, when left to its own laws, "must neces- 
 sarily bring forth beautiful combinations," he proceeds, " There is a 
 God, just because nature even in chaos cannot proceed otherwise than 
 regularly and according to order." See Kant's Cosmology, translated 
 by Hastie, p. 26. 
 
216 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 producing the beings and events which fill the world in 
 unconscious fecundity, but &free and intelligent cause of the 
 world. 4. The unity of this cause may be inferred from the 
 unity of the reciprocal relation existing between the parts of 
 the world, as portions of an artistic edifice an inference 
 which all our observation favours, and all principles of 
 analogy support. 
 
 In the above argument, it is inferred from the analogy of 
 certain products of nature with those of human art, when it 
 compels Nature to bend herself to its purposes, as in the case 
 of a house, a ship, or a watch, that the same kind of causality 
 namely, understanding and will resides in nature. It is 
 also declared that the internal possibility of this freely-acting 
 nature (which is the source of all art, and perhaps also of 
 human reason) 42 is derivable from another and superhuman 
 art, a conclusion which would perhaps be found incapable 
 of standing the test of subtle transcendental criticism. But 
 to neither of these opinions shall we at present object. We 
 shall only remark that it must be confessed that, if we are to 
 discuss the subject of cause at all, we cannot proceed more 
 securely than with the guidance of the analogy subsisting 
 between nature and such products of design these being the 
 only products whose causes and modes of origination are 
 completely known to us. Reason would be unable to satisfy 
 her own requirements if she passed from a causality which 
 she does know, to obscure and indemonstrable principles of 
 explanation which she does not know. 
 
 According to the physico-theological argument, the con- 
 nexion and harmony existing in the world evidence the 
 contingency of the form merely, but not of the matter, that 
 
 42 This line of thought, which, general as it is, Kant does not 
 follow out, may have been suggested to him by Hume's Dialogues on 
 Natural Religion, where the idea is thrown out that possibly, in our 
 search for the origin of artistic powers and qualities, we need not go 
 beyond nature, or even matter. 
 
Kant 217 
 
 is, of the substance of the world. 43 To establish the truth 
 of the latter opinion, it would be necessary to prove that all 
 things would be in themselves incapable of this harmony and 
 order, unless they were, even as regards their substance, the 
 product of a supreme wisdom. But this would require very 
 different grounds of proof from those presented by the 
 analogy with human art. This proof can at most, therefore, 
 demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose 
 efforts are limited by the capabilities of the material with 
 which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to whom 
 all things are subject. Thus this argument is utterly 
 insufficient for the task before us a demonstration of the 
 existence of an all-sufficient being. If we wish to prove the 
 contingency of matter, we must have recourse to a tran- 
 scendental argument, which the physico-theological was con- 
 structed expressly to avoid. 
 
 We infer, from the order and design visible in the universe, 
 as a disposition of a thoroughly contingent character, the 
 existence of a cause proportionate thereto. The conception 
 of this cause must contain certain determinate qualities, and 
 it must therefore be regarded as the conception of a being 
 which possesses all power, wisdom, and so on, in one word, 
 all perfection the conception, that is, of an all-sufficient 
 
 43 Cf. note 41 . Kant has two main objections to urge. First, 
 that since the form is taken to be purely external to the matter and 
 substance of the universe, the argument proves no more than a World- 
 Architect who works upon a given material from without. To this 
 the reply might surely be made that the teleological argument does 
 not stand alone, and that, in proving an Architect, it achieves all 
 that is claimed for it. 
 
 The second objection is, that from a limited effect you can 
 infer only a limited cause ; and as no one knows the world in its 
 infinitude, to affirm a perfect Being as its author is to put more into 
 the conclusion than the premises contain. Accordingly we are once 
 more thrown back on the Ontological argument, which alone can 
 bridge the gulf between the relative and the absolute. 
 
218 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 being. For the predicates of very great, astonishing, or 
 immeasurable power and excellence, give us no determinate 
 conception of the thing, nor do they inform us what the 
 thing may be in itself. They merely indicate the relation 
 existing between the magnitude of the object and the 
 observer, who compares it with himself and with his own 
 power of comprehension, and are mere expressions of praise 
 and reverence, by which the object is either magnified, or the 
 observing subject depreciated in relation to the object. 
 Where we have to do with the magnitude (of the perfection) 
 of a thing, we can discover no determinate conception, except 
 that which comprehends all possible perfection or complete- 
 ness, and it is only the total (omnitudo) of reality which is 
 completely determined in and through its conception alone. 
 
 Now it cannot be expected that anyone will be bold 
 enough to declare that he has a perfect insight into the 
 relation which the magnitude of the world he contemplates 
 bears (in its extent as well as in its content) to omnipotence, 
 into that of the order and design in the world to the highest 
 wisdom, and that of the unity of the world to the absolute 
 unity of a Supreme Being. * Physico-theology is therefore 
 incapable of presenting a determinate conception of a supreme 
 cause of the world, and is therefore insufficient as a principle 
 of theology, a theology which is itself to be the basis of 
 religion. 
 
 The attainment of absolute totality is completely impos- 
 sible on the path of empiricism. And yet this is the path 
 pursued in the physico-theological argument. What means 
 shall we employ to bridge the abyss 1 
 
 After elevating ourselves to admiration of the magnitude of 
 
 * Kant's meaning is, that no one will be bold enough to declare that 
 he is certain that the world could not have existed without an omni- 
 potent author ; that none but the highest wisdom could have produced 
 the harmony and order we observe in it ; and that its unity is possible 
 only under the condition of an absolute unity. TB. 
 
Kant 219 
 
 the power, wisdom, and other attributes of the author of 
 the world, and finding we can advance no further, we leave 
 the argument on empirical grounds, and proceed to infer the 
 contingency of the world from the order and conformity to 
 aims that are observable in it. From this contingency we 
 infer, by the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the 
 existence of something absolutely necessary; and, still 
 advancing, proceed from the conception of the absolute 
 necessity of the first cause to the completely determined or 
 determining conception thereof the conception of an all- 
 embracing reality. Thus the physico-theological, failing in its 
 undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological 
 argument ; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in 
 disguise, 44 it executes its design solely by the aid of pure 
 reason, although it at first professed to have no connexion 
 with this faculty, and to base its entire procedure upon 
 experience alone. 
 
 The physico-theologians have therefore no reason to regard 
 with such contempt the transcendental mode of argument, 
 and to look down upon it with the conceit of clear-sighted 
 observers of nature, as the brain-cobweb of obscure speculatists. 
 For if they reflect upon and examine their own arguments, 
 they will find that, after following for some time the path of 
 nature and experience, and discovering themselves no nearer 
 their object, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the 
 region of pure possibility, where they hope to reach upon the 
 wings of ideas, what had eluded all their empirical investiga- 
 tions. Gaming, as they think, a firm footing after this 
 immense leap, they extend their determinate conception 
 into the possession of which they have come, they know not 
 how over the whole sphere of creation, and explain their 
 
 44 The other two arguments, Kant maintains, have to be called 
 in to help out the teleological argument. The cosmological proof 
 supplies the notion of Creator, which the teleological had failed to 
 reach, while the ontological raises all to the absolute plane. 
 
220 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 ideal, which is entirely a product of pure Reason, by illustra- 
 tions drawn from experience though in a degree miserably 
 unworthy of the grandeur of the object, while they refuse to 
 acknowledge that they have arrived at this cognition or 
 hypothesis by a very different road from that of experience. 
 
 Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmo- 
 logical, and this upon the ontological proof of the existence 
 of a Supreme Being ; and as besides these three there is no 
 other path open to speculative Reason, the ontological proof, 
 on the ground of pure conceptions of Reason, is the only 
 possible one, if any proof of a proposition so far transcending 
 the empirical exercise of the understanding is possible at 
 all. 45 
 
 2. KANT'S ETHICAL THEISM. 
 Critique of Practical Reason, Bk. n. c. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8. 
 
 OF THE PEIMACY OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON IN ITS 
 UNION WITH THE SPECULATIVE REASON. 1 
 
 By primacy between two or more things connected by 
 reason, I understand the prerogative belonging to one, of 
 
 45 Hegel took precisely the same view ; with this difference, that he 
 regarded as uniquely valid what Kant rejects as illegitimate. Cf. note 20 . 
 
 1 On the relation between the speculative and practical parts of 
 Kant's philosophy, cf. the remark: "The unbiassed reader of his 
 Critique of Practical Reason and of his Mctaphysic of Ethics will 
 hardly gather that he is in the company of a defeated general trying 
 another method of assault : there is rather, I think, the tone of one 
 who has dislodged a pretender, and is now engaged in making good 
 the claims of the sovereign " (Caldecott, Philosophy of Religion, p. 49). 
 One noteworthy distinction between Kant and Butler, who may both 
 be called Ethieal Theists, is that Kant's speculative views are sceptical, 
 or at least agnostic, while Butler in the main held to the positive 
 rationalism of his day, using the Cosmological and Teleological proofs 
 as well as the Moral (cf. ibid. p. 207 f.). Coleridge was the first to 
 give currency to the Kantian ideas in English. 
 
Kant 221 
 
 being the first determining principle in the connexion with 
 all the rest. In a narrower, practical sense it means the 
 prerogative of the interest 2 of one in so far as the interest 
 of the other is subordinated to it, while it is not postponed 
 to any other. To every faculty of the mind we can attribute 
 an interest, that is, a principle that contains the condition 
 on which alone the former is called into exercise. Reason, 
 as the faculty of principles, determines the interest of all 
 the powers of the mind, and is determined by its own. The 
 interest of its speculative employment consists in the 
 cognition of the object pushed to the highest a priori 
 principles, that of its practical employment in the determina- 
 tion of the ivill in respect of the final and complete end. 
 As to what is necessary for the possibility of any employ- 
 ment of reason at all, namely, that its principles and 
 affirmations should not contradict one another, this con- 
 stitutes no part of its interest, but is the condition of having 
 reason at all; it is only its development, not mere con- 
 sistency with itself, that is reckoned as its interest. 
 
 If practical reason could not assume or think as given, 
 anything further than what speculative reason of itself could 
 offer it from its own insight, the latter would have the 
 primacy. But supposing that it had of itself original a priori 
 principles with which certain theoretical positions were in- 
 separably connected, while these were withdrawn from any 
 possible insight of speculative reason (which, however, they 
 must not contradict 3 ) ; then the question is, which interest 
 
 2 In a note to the Metaphysic of Morals (Abbott, p. 30), Kant gives 
 the following definition: "The dependence of a contingently deter- 
 minable will on principles of reason is called an interest." This is 
 further elucidated in the paragraph below. 
 
 3 One of the chief problems in the Kantian philosophy is to decide 
 whether, consistently with its principles, speculative reason is to be 
 viewed as sceptical or agnostic (cf. Professor Seth Pringle-Pattison, 
 Scottish Philosophy, p. 181). In the former case, it might be con- 
 tended that an insoluble antinomy obtains between Kant's speculative 
 
222 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 is the superior (not which must give way, for they are not 
 necessarily conflicting), whether speculative reason, which 
 knows nothing of all that the practical offers for its accept- 
 ance, should take up these propositions, and (although they 
 transcend it) try to unite them with its own concepts as a 
 foreign possession handed over to it, or whether it is justified 
 in obstinately following its own separate interest, and, 
 according to the canonic 4 of Epicurus, rejecting as vain 
 subtlety everything that cannot accredit its objective reality 
 by manifest examples to be shown in experience, even 
 though it should be never so much interwoven with the 
 interest of the practical (pure) use of reason, and in itself 
 not contradictory to the theoretical, merely because it 
 infringes on the interest of the speculative reason to this 
 extent, that it removes the bounds which this latter had set 
 to itself, and gives it up to every nonsense or delusion of 
 imagination 1 
 
 In fact, so far as practical reason is taken as dependent 
 on pathological 5 conditions, that is, as merely regulating 
 the inclinations under the sensible principle of happiness, 
 we could not require speculative reason to take its principles 
 
 and his ethical theology ; in the latter, practical reason might be 
 regarded as yielding theistic results to which the only attitude that 
 metaphysics can take up is one of neutrality. The latter thought is 
 certainly indicated here. Cf. infra, p. 224. The student should read 
 the important note on this point by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, Schwcgler, 
 p. 424. 
 
 4 Epicurus termed logic Canonic, as furnishing the Canons, or 
 rules, of cognition. 
 
 6 Any faculty or action which is moved by desire or inclination, 
 and not solely by reverence for the pure principles of reason, is named 
 by Kant pathological. This rigorism is the defect of his merit in 
 securing at all costs the unconditional character of obligation, a merit 
 which is too often ungratefully forgotten. On Kant's ethical strin- 
 gency, see Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 3rd ed. p. 192 ff. English 
 writers who follow Kant and Butler in this line are Newman, Mozley, 
 Martineau, M'Cosh, and, in the main, Professors Fraser and Flint. 
 
Kant 223 
 
 from such a source. Mohammed's paradise, or the absorption 
 into the Deity of the theosophists and mystics^ would press 
 their monstrosities on the reason according to the taste of 
 each, and one might as well have no reason as surrender it in 
 such fashion to all sorts of dreams. But if pure reason of 
 itself can be practical, and is actually so, as the conscious- 
 ness of the moral law proves, then it is still only one and 
 the same reason 6 which, whether in a theoretical or a 
 practical point of view, judges according to a priori 
 principles; and then it is clear that, although it is in the 
 first point of view incompetent to establish certain proposi- 
 tions positively, which, however, do not contradict it, then 
 as soon as these propositions are inseparably attached to the 
 practical interest of pure reason, then it must accept them, 
 though it be as something offered to it from a foreign 
 source, something that , has not grown on its own ground, 
 but yet is sufficiently authenticated ; and it must try to 
 compare and connect them with everything that it has in its 
 power as speculative reason. It must remember, however, 
 that these are not ^additions to its insight, but yet are 
 extensions of its employment in another, namely, a practical 
 
 6 This identification of the theoretical and practical reason, if 
 pressed, would go far to undermine the dualism between thought and 
 being which runs through so much of Kant's philosophy. But the 
 philosopher's statements are ambiguous, and force us to ask whether 
 the identification here is as genuine as the differentiation in other 
 passages, or whether it rests merely upon the use in both references of 
 the word "reason." Still, we may at least say that what reason as 
 practical is certain of, cannot be doubtful for reason as speculative, if 
 they are really "one and the same reason." This haunting dualism 
 between thought and being, freedom and nature, might have been 
 overcome had Kant worked out the implications of the great idea 
 to which he recurs again and again that of God as an archetypal 
 Intelligence, not limited by sense, but creative, and working by an 
 apprehension which is direct, like perception, and whose notions con- 
 stitute things as they are in themselves. Cf. supra, pp. 182, 186 n. 
 (Vide Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, vol. i. pp. 154, 172.) 
 
224 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 aspect ; and this is not in the least opposed to its interest, 
 which consists in the restriction of wild speculation. 
 
 Thus when pure speculative and pure practical reason are 
 combined in one cognition, the latter has the primacy, 
 provided, namely, that this combination is not contingent 
 and arbitrary, but founded a priori on reason itself, and 
 therefore necessary. For without this subordination there 
 would arise a conflict of reason with itself ; since if they 
 were merely co-ordinate, the former would close its bound- 
 aries strictly and admit nothing from the latter into its 
 domain, while the latter would extend its bounds over 
 everything, and when its needs required would seek to 
 embrace the former within them. Nor could we reverse the 
 order, and require pure practical reason to be subordinate to 
 the speculative, since all interest is ultimately practical, and 
 even that of speculative reason is conditional, and it is only 
 in the practical employment of reason that it is complete. 
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AS A POSTULATE OF 
 PURE PRACTICAL REASON.* 
 
 The realisation of the summuni bonum in the world is the 
 necessary object of a will determinate by the moral law. 
 
 7 What follows is based upon the prior postulate of moral freedom, 
 which Kant had deduced as an objective certainty from the fact of the 
 moral law. 
 
 The argument in this and the subsequent section may be briefly 
 summarised thus : The summum bonum (for its definition see Abbott, 
 p. 206) or supreme good is composed of two elements : (1) perfect virtue, 
 (2) perfect felicity. For the realisation of the first, we have to 
 postulated immortality of the soul', for the second, the existence of 
 God. 
 
 The three postulates, as Kant repeatedly claims, are the "practical" 
 equivalents of the three speculative Ideas, to which, he had argued 
 in the earlier Critique, it is impossible for pure theoretical reason to 
 attribute objective reality. It is an interesting problem whether he 
 has succeeded in proving the equivalence. 
 
Kant 225 
 
 But in this will the perfect accordance of the mind with 
 the moral law is the supreme condition of the summum 
 bonum. This then must be possible, as well as its object, 
 since it is contained in the command to promote the latter. 
 Now the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law 
 is holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the 
 sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence. 
 Since, nevertheless, it is required as practically necessary, 
 it can only be found in a progressus in inftnitum towards that 
 perfect accordance, and on the principles of pure practical 
 reason it is necessary to assume such a practical progress as 
 the real object of our will. 
 
 Now this endless progress is only possible on the suppo- 
 sition of an endless duration of the existence and personality 
 of the same rational being (which is called the immortality 
 of the soul). 8 The summum bonum, then, practically is 
 only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the 
 
 8 In the earlier work the principles of critical idealism appear to 
 have led Kant to the hypothesis that immortality may consistently 
 involve the unbeginning pre-existence of the soul as well as its endless 
 existence after death (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 473). Here, how- 
 ever, immortality is meant as the continuance of a moral development 
 which has taken its rise in this life. 
 
 It may be noted at this point that Kant's moral Theism is of an 
 exclusively individual type : he has in view always the single rational 
 being, rather than man as essentially formed and developed in a 
 social environment. So far he was but the representative of the 
 eighteenth century, with its curious insensibility to the meaning of 
 history, and its tendency to theorise about man as though he were an 
 isolated unit. The deeper and more universal relations of the indi- 
 vidual to the life of Spirit in history and in society have been 
 elaborated with the richest and most illuminating results by later 
 thinkers, especially by Hegel and Hegelians. At the same time, we do 
 find in Kant the idea of a Kingdom of Ends, a community of rational 
 beings, viewed as subject to universal objective laws, and determined 
 by universal objective ends. This notion, while not made prominent 
 in his system, has proved extremely suggestive for later philosophy. 
 
226 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 soul ; consequently this immortality, being inseparably con- 
 nected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical 
 reason (by which I mean a theoretical proposition, not 
 demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result 
 of an unconditional a priori practical law). 
 
 This principle of the moral destination of our nature, 
 namely, that it is only in an endless progress that we can 
 attain perfect accordance with the moral law, is of the 
 greatest use, not merely for the present purpose of supple- 
 menting the impotence of speculative reason, but also with 
 respect to religion. In default of it, either the moral law 
 is quite degraded from its holiness, being made out to be 
 indulgent, and conformable to our convenience, or else men 
 strain their notions of their vocation and their expectation to 
 an unattainable goal, hoping to acquire complete holiness of 
 will, and so they lose themselves in fanatical theosophic 
 dreams, which wholly contradict self-knowledge. In both 
 cases the unceasing effort to obey punctually and thoroughly 
 a strict and inflexible command of reason, which yet is not 
 ideal, but real, is only hindered. For a rational, but finite 
 being, the only thing possible is an endless progress from 
 the lower to higher degrees of moral perfection. The 
 Infinite Being, to whom the condition of time is nothing, 
 sees in this to us endless succession a whole of accordance 
 with the moral law ; and the holiness which His command 
 inexorably requires, in order to be true to His justice in the 
 share which He assigns to each in the summum bonum, is to 
 be found in a single intellectual intuition of the whole 
 existence of rational beings. 9 All that can be expected of 
 9 This is Kant's way of putting the Pauline doctrine of justification 
 by faith. We are accounted righteous or holy because God views 
 our infinite moral progress in a single intuition, and thus reckons us 
 holy in the light of the end. The existence of God, it is plain, is 
 already postulated here, in order that holiness may be predicable of 
 any human being, for to none other than God is so far-reaching an 
 intuition possible. 
 
Kant 227 
 
 the creature in respect of the hope of this participation 
 would be the consciousness of his tried character, by which, 
 from the progress he has hitherto made from the worse to 
 the morally better, and the immutability of purpose which 
 has thus become known to him, he may hope for a further 
 unbroken continuance of the same, however long his existence 
 may last, even beyond this life ; * and thus he may hope, not 
 indeed here, nor at any imaginable point of his future exist- 
 ence, but only in the endlessness of his duration (which God 
 alone can survey) to be perfectly adequate to his will (without 
 judgment or excuse, which do not harmonise with justice). 10 
 
 * It seems, nevertheless, impossible for a creature to have the 
 conviction of his unwavering firmness of mind in the progress towards 
 goodness. On this account the Christian religion makes it come only 
 from the same Spirit that_ works sanctification, that is, this firm 
 purpose, and with it the consciousness of steadfastness in the moral 
 progress. But naturally one who is conscious that he has persevered 
 through a long portion of his life up to the end in the progress to the 
 better, and this from genuine moral motives, may well have the 
 comforting hope, though not the certainty, that even in an existence 
 prolonged beyond this life he will continue steadfast in these 
 principles ; and although he is never justified here in his own eyes, 
 nor can ever hope to be so in the increased perfection of his nature, 
 to which he looks forward, together with an increase of duties, never- 
 theless in this progress which, though it is directed to a goal 
 infinitely remote, yet is in God's sight regarded as equivalent to 
 possession, he may have a prospect of a blessed future ; for this is the 
 word that reason employs to designate perfect well-being independent 
 on all contingent causes of the world, and which, like holiness, is an 
 idea that can be contained only in an endless progress and its totality, 
 and consequently is never fully attained by a creature. (Note by Kant. ) 
 
 10 It should be carefully observed that Kant elsewhere admits what 
 he calls a doctrinal faith in immortality. "In the wisdom of a 
 Supreme Being, and in the shortness of life, so inadequate to the 
 development of the glorious powers of human nature, we may find 
 equally sufficient grounds for a doctrinal belief in the future life of 
 the human soul " (Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 500, 501). But this is 
 neither a theoretical demonstration nor a moral belief, and is thus 
 wanting in stability. Cf. Orr, Christian View, p. 187. 
 
228 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AS A POSTULATE OF 
 PUKE PEACTICAL REASON. 11 
 
 In the foregoing analysis the moral law led to a 
 practical problem which is prescribed by pure reason alone, 
 without the aid of any sensible motives, namely, that 
 of the necessary completeness of the first and principal 
 element of the summum bonum, namely, Morality ; and 
 as this can be perfectly solved only in eternity, to the 
 postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead 
 us to affirm the possibility of the second element of the 
 summum bonum, namely, Happiness, proportioned to that 
 morality, 12 and this on grounds as disinterested as before, 
 and solely from impartial reason ; that is, it must lead 
 to the supposition of the existence of a cause adequate 
 to this effect; in other words, it must postulate the exist- 
 ence of God, as the necessary condition of the possibility 
 of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is 
 
 11 With this should be compared the section of the Critique of Pure 
 Reason (pp. 487-496), entitled "On the Ideal of the Summum Bonum 
 as a Determining Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason." A 
 little further down we find Kant facing the thorny question whether 
 the idea of God belongs to metaphysics or to morals, and giving the 
 reply, "the conception is one that belongs not to physics, i.e. to 
 speculative reason, but to morals" (Abbott, pp. 236-238). 
 
 12 One can hardly avoid charging Kant with inconsistency at this 
 point. We have noted above his ethical rigorism, in the stringency 
 of which he rejects every reference to happiness as a permissible 
 motive. But now, at the next stage in the argument, happiness, as 
 an element in the supreme good, becomes an object of the moral will. 
 It is an illustration of the maxim that "nature will out." The very 
 introduction of happiness here as an ethical end, though, of course, not 
 the ethical end, goes to prove the unnatural severity of the original 
 view. 
 
 The arguments which Kant used to prove that it is our duty to 
 promote the happiness of others are stated and criticised by Sidgwick, 
 Methods of Ethics, Bk. in. c. xiii. note. 
 
Kant 229 
 
 necessarily connected with the moral legislation of pure 
 reason). We proceed to exhibit this connexion in a con- 
 vincing manner. 
 
 Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world 
 with whom everything goes according to his wish and will ; it 
 rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical nature with his 
 whole end, and likewise with the essential determining prin- 
 ciple of his will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom 
 commands by determining principles, which ought to be 
 quite independent on nature and on its harmony with our 
 faculty of desire (as springs). But the acting rational being 
 in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature itself. 
 There is not the least ground, therefore, in the moral law for 
 a necessary connexion between morality and proportionate 
 happiness in a being that belongs to the world as part of it, 
 and therefore dependent on it, and which for that reason 
 cannot by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his own 
 power make it thoroughly harmonise, so far as his happiness 
 is concerned, with his practical principles. Nevertheless, in 
 the practical problem of pure reason, i.e. the necessary pursuit 
 of the summum bonum, such a connexion is postulated as 
 necessary ; we ought to endeavour to promote the summum 
 bonum, which, therefore, must be possible. Accordingly, the 
 existence of a cause 13 of all nature, distinct from nature 
 itself and containing the principle of this connexion, namely, 
 of the exact harmony of happiness with morality, is also 
 postulated. Now, this supreme cause must contain the prin- 
 ciple of the harmony of nature, not merely with a law of the 
 will of rational beings, but with the conception of this law, in 
 so far as they make it the supreme determining pi^inciple of 
 
 13 This use of the category of cause simply annuls what was said with 
 such emphatic repetition, in the earlier Critique, as to the necessary 
 limitation of the categories to the spatial and temporal world of 
 phenomena. For the application of the term cause to God, cf. supra, 
 p. 205, note. 
 
230 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 the will, 1 * and consequently not merely with the form of 
 morals, but with their morality as their motive, that is, with 
 their moral character. Therefore, the summum bonum is 
 possible in the world only on the supposition of a supreme 
 Being having a causality corresponding to moral character. 
 Now a being that is capable of acting on the conception of 
 laws is an intelligence (a rational being), and the causality of 
 such a being according to this conception of laws is his will ; 
 therefore the supreme cause of nature, which must be pre- 
 supposed as a condition of the summum bonum, is a being 
 which is the cause of nature by intelligence and will 
 consequently its author, that is, God. It follows that the 
 postulate of the possibility of the highest derived good (the 
 best world) is likewise the postulate of the reality of a highest 
 original good, that is to say, of the existence of God. Now 
 it was seen to be a duty for us to promote the summum 
 bonum ; consequently it is not merely allowable, but it is a 
 necessity connected with duty as a requisite, that we should 
 presuppose the possibility of this summum bonum; and as 
 this is possible only on condition of the existence of God, it 
 inseparably connects the supposition of this with duty ; that 
 is, it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God. 16 
 
 14 The first might be unconscious, the second must be conscious. 
 Cf. Kant's famous utterance (Metaphysic of Morals, Abbott, p. 29) : 
 "Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings 
 alone have the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that 
 is, according to principles." 
 
 15 This seems as plain and unequivocal an assertion of the personality 
 of God as could well be desired. 
 
 16 We see from this passage what is meant by charging Kant 
 with Deism. He introduces belief in a God externally related to 
 experience, in order to effect a reconciliation between happiness and 
 duty a reconciliation which cannot be more than mechanical and 
 adventitious, "a nail to hold together a morality which was falling 
 to pieces," in Herder's happy phrase. It has been remarked by 
 various writers, and the point is of interest, that Kant, as a practical 
 philosopher desirous of reconciling the moral law and nature, here 
 
Kant 231 
 
 It must be remarked here that this moral necessity is sub- 
 jective, that is, it is a want, and not objective, that is, itself a 
 duty, for there cannot be a duty to suppose the existence of 
 anything (since this concerns only the theoretical employment 
 of reason). 17 Moreover, it is not meant by this that it is 
 necessary to suppose the existence of God as a basis of all 
 obligation in general (for this rests, as has been sufficiently 
 proved, simply on the autonomy of reason itself). What 
 belongs to duty here is only the endeavour to realise and 
 promote the summum bonum in the world, the possibility of 
 which can therefore be postulated ; and as our reason finds 
 it not conceivable except on the supposition of a supreme 
 intelligence, the admission of this existence is therefore con- 
 nected with the consciousness of our duty, although the 
 admission itself belongs to the domain of speculative reason. 
 Considered in respect of this alone, as a principle of explana- 
 tion, it may be called a hypothesis, but in reference to the 
 intelligibility of an object given us by the moral law (the 
 
 accepts without demur the very hypothesis which he had rejected 
 when brought forward, in theoretical philosophy, to explain the 
 correspondence between knowledge and reality. 
 
 Modern theistic philosophy, it may be observed, would throw 
 Kant's argument into the deeper form that the presence of a 
 Moral Reason within us, charged with its categorical imperatives of 
 duty, and the existence in nature and history of what, in general terms, 
 we name " the moral order," are parallel and organically united mani- 
 festations of an Absolute Moral Reason, or God. And this is essentially 
 the idea to which we are guided by the profoundest suggestions of 
 the Critique of Judgment. Cf. Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian 
 Religion, Bk. i. c. 2. 
 
 17 As already remarked (p. 223, note 6 ), it is one great problem of the 
 Kantian philosophy to reconcile dicta of this kind with the principle, 
 enunciated ever and anon, that the speculative and the practical Reason 
 are one and the same. And it is at this point, where the dualism 
 between scientific and moral or religious knowledge is dwelt upon, that 
 we can best see with what justice the theology of Ritschl and his fol- 
 lowers (especially, perhaps, Herrmann) claims lineal descent from Kant. 
 
232 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 summum bonum), and consequently of a requirement for 
 practical purposes, it may be called faith, that is to say, a 
 pure rational faith, since pure reason (both in its theoretical 
 and its practical use) is the sole source from which it 
 springs. 18 
 
 In this manner the moral laws lead through the conception 
 of the summum bonum as the object and final end of pure 
 practical reason to religion, that is, to the recognition of all 
 duties as Divine commands, 19 not as sanctions,* that is to 
 say, arbitrary ordinances of a foreign will and contingent in 
 themselves, but as essential laws of every free will in itself, 
 which, nevertheless, must be regarded as commands of the 
 Supreme Being, because it is only from a morally perfect 
 (holy and good) and at the same time all-powerful will, and 
 consequently only through harmony with this will, that we 
 can hope to attain the summum bonum which the moral law 
 makes it our duty to take as the object of our endeavours. 
 Here again, then, all remains disinterested, and founded 
 merely on duty; neither fear nor hope being made the 
 fundamental springs, which, if taken as principles, would 
 destroy the whole moral worth of actions. The moral law 
 commands me to make the highest possible good in a world 
 the ultimate object of all my conduct. But I cannot hope to 
 effect this otherwise than by the harmony of my will with 
 
 18 A modern representative of the same temper is Professor Fraser. 
 Of. his Gifford Lectures, The Philosophy of Theism. 
 
 19 Kant develops this definition further in his Religion within 
 the bounds of mere Reason. It is clear that religion is here all but 
 swallowed up in morality, and the sense of personal fellowship 
 between God and the soul completely ignored. This has been justly 
 censured as the Moralism of Kant. For a somewhat similar position 
 see the Selection from Martineau. 
 
 * The word " sanction " is here used in the technical German sense, 
 which is familiar to students of history in connexion with the 
 " Pragmatic Sanction." (Note by Translator.) 
 
Kant 233 
 
 that of a holy and good Author of the world ; and although 
 the conception of the summum bonum as a whole, in which 
 the greatest happiness is conceived as combined in the most 
 exact proportion with the highest degree of moral perfection 
 (possible in creatures), includes my own happiness, yet it is 
 not this that is the determining principle of the will which is 
 enjoined to promote the summum bonum, but the moral law, 
 which, on the contrary, limits by strict conditions my un- 
 bounded desire of happiness. 
 
 Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we 
 should make ourselves happy, but how we should become 
 worthy of happiness. It is only when religion is added that 
 there also comes in the hope of participating some day in 
 happiness in proportion as we have endeavoured to be not 
 unworthy of it. 
 
 OF BELIEF FROM A REQUIREMENT OF PURE 
 REASON. 
 
 A want or requirement of pure reason in its speculative use 
 leads only to a hypothesis ; that of pure practical reason to a 
 postulate ; for in the former case I ascend from the result as 
 high as I please in the series of causes, not in order to give 
 objective reality to the result (e.g. the causal connexion of 
 things and changes in the world), but in order thoroughly to 
 satisfy my inquiring reason in respect of it. Thus I see 
 before me order and design in nature, and need not resort to 
 speculation to assure myself of their reality, but to explain 
 them I have to presuppose a Deity as their cause ; and then 
 since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is always 
 uncertain and doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so 
 perfectly defined as we have to conceive in God, hence the 
 highest degree of certainty to which this presupposition can 
 be brought is, that it is the most rational opinion for us 
 
234 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 men.* On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical 
 reason is based on a duty, that of making something (the 
 summum bonum) the object of my will so as to promote it 
 with all my powers ; in which case I must suppose its 
 possibility, and consequently also the conditions necessary 
 thereto, namely, God, freedom, and immortality; since I 
 cannot prove these by my speculative reason, although neither 
 can I refute them. This duty is founded on something that is 
 indeed quite independent on these suppositions, and is of 
 itself apodictically certain, namely, the moral law ; and so far 
 it needs no further support by theoretical views as to the 
 inner constitution of things, the secret final aim of the order 
 of the world, or a presiding ruler thereof, in order to bind me 
 in the most perfect manner to act in unconditional conformity 
 to the law. But the subjective effect of this law, namely, the 
 mental disposition- conformed to it, and made necessary by it, 
 to promote the practically possible summum bonum, this pre- 
 supposes at least that the latter is possible, for it would be 
 practically impossible to strive after the object of a conception 
 which at bottom was empty, and had no object. 20 Now the 
 
 * But even here we should not be able to allege a requirement of 
 reason, if we had not before our eyes a problematical, but yet inevit- 
 able, conception of reason, namely, that of an absolutely necessary 
 being. This conception now seeks to be defined, and this, in addition 
 to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective ground of a require- 
 ment of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise definition of 
 the conception of a necessary being which is to serve as the first cause 
 of other beings, so as to make these latter knowable by some means. 
 Without such antecedent necessary problems there are no requirements 
 at least not of pure reason the rest are requirements of inclination. 
 (Note by Kant.} 
 
 20 This is parallel to Kant's argument on behalf of freedom. 
 The moral law declares, "Thou canst, for thou oughtest," and thus 
 I am assured that freedom is a fact. So, to use his own words, "the 
 moral law commands me to make the highest possible good the 
 ultimate object of all my conduct," and thus assures me of the 
 objective possibility that the summum bonum may be realised. 
 
Kant 235 
 
 above-mentioned postulates concern only the physical or 
 metaphysical conditions of the possibility of the summum 
 bonum ; in a word, those which lie in the nature of things ; 
 not, however, for the sake of an arbitrary speculative purpose, 
 but of a practically necessary end of a pure rational will, 
 which in this case does not choose, but obeys an inexorable 
 command of reason, the foundation of which is objective, in 
 the constitution of things as they must be universally judged 
 by pure reason, and is not based on inclination ; for we are 
 in nowise justified in assuming, on account of what we wish 
 on merely subjective grounds, that the means thereto are 
 possible or that its object is real. 21 This then is an 
 absolutely necessary requirement, and what it presupposes is 
 not merely justified as an allowable hypothesis, but as a 
 postulate in a practical point of view ; and admitting that the 
 pure moral law inexorably binds every man as a command 
 (not as a rule of prudence), the righteous man may say : I 
 will that there be a God, that my existence in this world be 
 also an existence outside the chain of physical causes, and in 
 a pure world of the understanding, and, lastly, that my 
 duration be endless ; I firmly abide by this, and will not let 
 this faith be taken from me ; for in this instance alone my 
 interest, because I must not relax anything of it, inevitably 
 determines my judgment, without regarding sophistries, how- 
 ever unable I may be to answer them or to oppose them with 
 others more plausible. 
 
 In order to prevent misconception in the use of a notion as 
 yet so unusual as that of a faith of pure practical reason, let 
 me be permitted to add one more remark. It might almost 
 
 21 Such words show how studiously Kant would guard against 
 the intrusion of a subjective hedonistic influence in our religious 
 judgments. We may postulate only what is inseparably bound up 
 with the thought of duty. So that Kant's subjectivity is that of 
 personal and ethical conviction, not of arbitrary taste. 
 
236 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 seem as if this rational faith were here announced as itself a 
 command, namely, that we should assume the summum bonum 
 as possible. But a faith that is commanded is nonsense. Let 
 the preceding analysis, however, be remembered of what is 
 required to be supposed in the conception of the summum 
 bonum, and it will be seen that it cannot be commanded to 
 assume this possibility, and no practical disposition of mind 
 is required to admit it; but that speculative reason must 
 concede it without being asked, for no one can affirm that it 
 is impossible in itself that rational beings in the world should 
 at the same time be worthy of happiness in conformity with 
 the moral law, and also possess this happiness proportionately. 
 Now in respect of the first element of the summum bonum, 
 namely, that which concerns morality, the moral law gives 
 merely a command, and to doubt the possibility of that 
 element would be the same as to call in question the moral 
 law itself. But as regards the second element of that object, 
 namely, happiness perfectly proportioned to that worthiness, 
 it is true that there is no need of a command to admit its 
 possibility in general, for theoretical reason has nothing to 
 say against it ; but the manner in which we have to conceive 
 this harmony of the laws of nature with those of freedom has 
 in it something in respect of which we have a choice, because 
 theoretical reason decides nothing with apodictic certainty 
 about it, and in respect of this there may be a moral interest 
 which turns the scale. 22 
 
 22 Cf. the saying of Lotze that "faith is an act." A modernised 
 statement of the same position is James' The Will to Believe ; and the 
 same view is defended by the school of Voluntarism now rising into 
 prominence, and represented in the volume of Oxford essays entitled 
 Personal Idealism (1902). Cf. the Selection from Descartes, supra, 
 p. 42, note 2 . This belief is described by Kant a few lines further 
 down as "a voluntary determination of our judgment." This is 
 vitally connected with the later Kitschliau doctrine that the appre- 
 hension of moral and spiritual reality is morally and spiritually 
 conditioned, and hence that the only valid and apologetic must move 
 
Kant 237 
 
 I had said above that in a mere course of nature in the 
 world an accurate correspondence between happiness and 
 moral worth is not to be expected, and must be regarded as 
 impossible, and that therefore the possibility of the summum 
 bonum cannot be admitted from this side except on the 
 supposition of a moral Author of the world. I purposely 
 reserved the restriction of this judgment to the subjective 
 conditions of our reason, in order not to make use of it until 
 the manner of this belief should be denned more precisely. 
 The fact is that the impossibility referred to is merely subjec- 
 tive, that is, our reason finds it impossible for it to render 
 conceivable in the way of a mere course of nature a connexion 
 so exactly proportioned and so thoroughly adapted to an end, 
 between two sets of events happening according to such 
 distinct laws ; although, as with everything else in nature 
 that is adapted to an end, it cannot prove, that is, show by 
 sufficient objective reasons, that it is not possible by universal 
 laws of nature. 
 
 Now, however, a deciding principle of a different kind 
 comes into play to turn the scale in this uncertainty of 
 speculative reason. The command to promote the summum 
 bonum is established on an objective basis (in practical 
 reason); the possibility of the same in general is likewise 
 established on an objective basis (in theoretical reason, which 
 has nothing to say against it). But reason cannot decide 
 objectively in what way we are to conceive this possibility ; 
 whether by universal laws of nature without a wise Author 
 presiding over nature, or only on supposition of such an 
 Author. Now here there comes in a subjective condition of 
 reason ; the only way theoretically possible for it, of conceiv- 
 
 on the lines of St. John vii. 17, "If any man willeth to do His 
 will, he shall know of the teaching." 
 
 The whole passage may very well be taken as suggesting the 
 supreme example adducible by Kant of the power of the practical 
 Keason to decide problems which the speculative reason has left open. 
 
238 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 ing the exact harmony of the kingdom of nature with the 
 kingdom of morals, which is the condition of the possibility 
 of the summum bonum ; and at the same time the only one 
 conducive to morality (which depends on an objective law of 
 reason). 23 Now, since the promotion of this summum bonum, 
 and therefore the supposition of its possibility, are objectively 
 necessary (though only as a result of practical reason), while 
 at the same time the manner in which we would conceive it 
 rests with our own choice, and in this choice a free interest 
 of pure practical reason decides for the assumption of a wise 
 Author of the world ; it is clear that the principle that herein 
 determines our judgment, though as a want it is subjective, 
 yet at the same time being the means of promoting what is 
 objectively (practically) necessary, is the foundation of a 
 maxim of belief in a moral point of view, that is, & faith of 
 pure practical reason. This, then, is not commanded, but 
 being a voluntary determination of our judgment, conducive 
 to the moral (commanded) purpose, and, moreover, harmonis- 
 ing with the theoretical requirement of reason, to assume 
 that existence and to make it the foundation of our further 
 employment of reason, it has itself sprung from the moral 
 disposition of mind; it may therefore at times waver 
 even in the well-disposed, but can never be reduced to 
 unbelief. 
 
 23 Kant's meaning seems to be that, in the interests of morality, 
 we need to be assured not only of the possibility of the summum 
 bonum (i.e. the ultimate combination of happiness and morality in 
 perfect degree and exact proportions), but of its reality. Now theo- 
 retical Reason cannot disprove the possibility of a Moral Author of the 
 universe who will realise the summum bonum ; consequently, practical 
 Reason is entitled to postulate His existence. At the same time, only 
 those who are profoundly convinced of the infinite worth of duty can 
 win it from themselves to grant the right of practical Reason to make 
 this assumption. There remains, therefore, an inevitable element of 
 choice which cannot possibly be eliminated. The affinities of the later 
 Ritschlianism with this are obvious ; see Selection XV. 
 
Kant 239 
 
 3. GENERAL REMARK ON TELEOLOGY. 1 
 Critique of Judgment, Part II. Appendix, 91. 
 
 If the question is, what rank the moral argument, which 
 proves the Being of God only as a thing of faith for the 
 practical pure Reason, maintains among the other arguments 
 in philosophy, it is easy to count up the whole possessions 
 of this last; by which it appears that there is here no 
 choice, but that our theoretical faculty must give up all 
 its pretensions before an impartial Kritik. 2 
 
 1 The following extract, which forms the concluding part of the last 
 section of the Critique of Judgment, is one of the clearest statements of 
 his general Theistic attitude ever penned by Kant. It is eminently 
 worthy of note, and significant of much, that it was this Critique that 
 Kant's successors, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, took as the point of 
 departure in constructing their speculative systems. The problem with 
 which it is occupied may be briefly stated as the possibility of identify- 
 ing the ultimate basis of the world of nature with the world of freedom. 
 Thus " the Critique of Judgment completes the whole undertaking of 
 criticism ; its endeavour is to show that there are a, priori principles at 
 the basis of Judgment just as there are in the case of Understanding 
 and of Eeason ; that these principles, like the principles of Reason, are 
 not constitutive but only regulative of experience, i.e. that they do not 
 teach us anything positive about the characteristics of objects, but only 
 indicate the conditions under which we find it necessary to view them " 
 (Bernard in Introduction to Trans, of Critique of Judgment, p. xvi). 
 The work has two main divisions, first the philosophy of Taste the 
 Beautiful and Sublime in nature ; second, the Teleology of Nature's 
 operations. In the course of the latter discussion Kant recurs to the 
 problems of his religious philosophy, and closes with the section we 
 have given here. 
 
 2 At various points in this extract, as will be observed, Kant's invet- 
 erate caution in regard to Theistic affirmation comes out very clearly. 
 He is prepared to say that Theism is not only demanded by the 
 practical needs of morality, but is an hypothesis indispensable for the 
 guidance of scientific research, yet to the last he hesitates to claim for 
 it objective truth. We must not say dogmatically God exists ; but 
 we may say, it is* impossible for our judgment to view nature save as 
 
240 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 All belief must in the first place be grounded upon facts, 
 if it is not to be completely groundless ; and therefore the 
 only distinction in proofs that there can be is that belief 
 in the consequence derived therefrom can either be grounded 
 on this fact as knowledge for theoretical cognition, or merely 
 as faith for practical. All facts belong either to the natural 
 concept which proves its reality in the objects of sense, given 
 (or which may possibly be given) before all natural concepts ; 
 or to the concept of freedom, which sufficiently establishes 
 its reality through the causality of Reason in regard of 
 certain effects in the world of sense, possible through it, 
 which it incontrovertibly postulates in the moral law. The 
 natural concept (merely belonging to theoretical cognition) is 
 now either metaphysical and thinkable completely a priori, 
 or physical, i.e. thinkable a posteriori, and only necessary 
 through determinate experience. The metaphysical natural 
 concept (which presupposes no determinate experience) is 
 therefore ontological. 
 
 The ontological proof of the being of God from the concept 
 of an original Being is either .that which from ontological 
 predicates, by which alone it can be thought as completely 
 determined, infers absolutely necessary being ; or that which, 
 from the absolute necessity of the being somewhere of some 
 thing, whatever it be, infers the predicates of the original 
 
 implying design which has been put there by an intelligent Cause i.e. 
 God. In other words, teleology is a regulative, not a constitutive, 
 principle ; it holds good for the reflective, but not for the determinant, 
 judgment (cf. p. 209, note 32 , and p. 212, note S7 ). But why, we may 
 ask, this antinomy between the necessities of thought and the realities 
 of being ? The reason, plainly, is to be found in the subjective 
 idealism, or agnostic relativism, of Kant's doctrine of cognition. We 
 have no real knowledge of things themselves, still less, of course, of 
 the design or beauty which God may have put into them. It was by 
 sweeping away this limitation of knowledge to the subjective that 
 Hegel opened a path for those who aimed at advancing philosophy 
 further. 
 
Kant 241 
 
 Being. For there belongs to the concept of an original 
 Being, inasmuch as it is not derived from anything, the 
 unconditioned necessity of its presence, and (in order to 
 represent this) its complete determination by its (mere *) con- 
 cept. It was believed that both requirements were found 
 in the concept of the ontological Idea of a Being the most 
 real of all and thus two metaphysical proofs originated. 
 
 The proof (properly called ontological) resting upon a 
 merely metaphysical natural concept concludes from the 
 concept of the Being the most real of all, its absolutely 
 necessary existence ; for (it is said), if it did not exist, a 
 reality would be wanting to it, namely, existence. The other 
 (which is also called the met&physico-cosmological proof) 
 concludes from the necessity of the existence somewhere of 
 a thing (which must be conceded, for a being is given to us 
 in self-consciousness), its complete determination as that of 
 a Being the most real of all; for everything existing must 
 be completely determined, but the absolutely necessary (i.e. 
 that which we ought to cognise as such and consequently 
 a priori) must be completely determined by means of its 
 own concept. But this is only the case with the concept of 
 a thing the most real of all. It is not needful to expose 
 here the sophistry in both arguments, which has been already 
 done elsewhere ; f it is only needful to remark that neither 
 proof, even if they could be defended by all manner of 
 dialectical subtlety, could ever pass from the schools into 
 the world, or have the slightest influence on the mere sound 
 Understanding. 3 
 
 The proof, which rests on a natural concept that can only 
 be empirical and yet is to lead us beyond the bounds of 
 nature regarded as the complex of the objects of sense, can 
 be no other than that derived from the purposes of nature. 
 The concept of these cannot, it is true, be given a jyriori 
 
 * First edition. t In the Critique of Pure Reason. 
 
 3 Cf. supra, pp. 190-207. 
 16 
 
242 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 but only through experience; but yet it promises such a 
 concept of the original ground of nature as alone, among 
 all those which we can conceive, is suited to the super- 
 sensible, namely, that of a highest Understanding as Cause 
 of the world. This, in fact, it completely performs in 
 accordance with principles of the reflective Judgment, i.e. 
 in accordance with the constitution of our (human) faculty 
 of cognition. But whether or not it is in a position to 
 supply from the same data this concept of a supi^eme, i.e. 
 independent intelligent Being, in short of a God or Author 
 of a world under moral laws, and consequently as sufficiently 
 determined for the Idea of a final purpose of the being of 
 the world this is the question upon which everything 
 depends, whether we desire a theoretically adequate concept 
 of the Original Being on behalf of our whole knowledge of 
 nature, or a practical concept for religion. 
 
 This argument, derived from physical Teleology, is worthy 
 of respect. 4 It produces a similar effect in the way of 
 conviction upon the common Understanding as upon the 
 subtlest thinker; and a Reimarus b has acquired immortal 
 honour in his work (not yet superseded), in which he 
 abundantly develops this ground of proof with his peculiar 
 thoroughness and lucidity. But how does this proof acquire 
 such mighty influence upon the mind, especially in a 
 judgment by cold reason (for we might refer to persuasion 
 the emotion and elevation of reason produced by the wonders 
 
 4 Nothing is clearer, from repeated expressions, than that Kant 
 always cherished the most friendly and respectful consideration for the 
 argument from design, both for its own sake, and on Aristotle's ground 
 of respect for common opinion. Cf. supra, p. 212. 
 
 5 Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), a professor in Hamburg, 
 was the author of the Wolfenbiittel Fragments, a work which created a 
 sensation by its bold denial of the supernatural origin of Christianity, 
 and was first published by Lessing in 1777. Another work of the same 
 type was his Vornehmste Wahrheiten der natiirlichen Religion, and it 
 is possible that this is the book to which Kant refers. 
 
Kant 243 
 
 of nature) upon a calm and resigned assent 1 It is not the 
 physical purposes, which all indicate in the World Cause 
 an unfathomable intelligence ; these are inadequate thereto, 
 because they do not content the want of the inquiring Reason. 
 For, wherefore (it asks) are all those natural things that 
 exhibit art 1 ? Wherefore is man himself, whom we must 
 regard as the ultimate purpose of nature thinkable by us? 
 Wherefore is this collective Nature here, and what is the 
 final purpose of such great and manifold art 1 Reason cannot 
 be contented with enjoyment or with contemplation, obser- 
 vation, and admiration (which, if it stops there, is only 
 enjoyment of a particular kind) as the ultimate final purpose 
 for the creation of the world and of man himself; for this 
 presupposes a personal worth, which man alone can give 
 himself, as the condition under which alone he and his 
 being can be the final purpose. 6 Failing this (which alone 
 is susceptible , of a definite concept), the purposes of 
 nature do not satisfactorily answer our questions; especi- 
 ally because they cannot furnish any determinate concept 
 of the highest Being 7 as an all-sufficient (and therefore 
 
 6 In such a statement as this, of which there are many scattered 
 through Kant's writings, we may find one of the main sources (through 
 Lotze) of the Ritschlian theology. Kant drew a fundamental distinc- 
 tion between relative value or^ri'ce, and inner value or worthiness, and 
 declares that "that which constitutes the condition under which alone 
 anything can be an end in itself, has not merely a relative worth, i.e. 
 value, but an intrinsic worth, that is, dignity" (Mctayhysic, of Morals, 
 Abbott's trans, p. 53). Although he did not employ the term 
 "value-judgment," we find the term "taste-judgment" in his pages. 
 For the conception of the worth of personality as a religious motive, 
 see passage from Kitschl, infra, p. 450. 
 
 7 This is an important vein of criticism to which Kant returns again 
 and again. As he says a few paragraphs later (p. 247), " you arrive in 
 this way at no definite concept of an original Being available for a 
 Theology ; for this can only be found in the concept of the totality of 
 perfections compatible with intelligence, and you cannot help yourself 
 to this by merely empirical data." On the other hand, however, we 
 
244 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 unique and so properly called highest) being, and of the laws 
 according to which an Understanding is Cause of the world. 
 
 Hence that the physico-teleological proof convinces, just 
 as if it were a theological proof, does not arise from our 
 availing ourselves of the Ideas of purposes of nature as so 
 many empirical grounds of proof of a highest Understanding. 
 But it mingles itself unnoticed with that moral ground of 
 proof, which dwells in every man and influences him secretly, 
 in the conclusion by which we ascribe to the Being, which 
 manifests itself with such incomprehensible art in the 
 purposes of nature, a final purpose and consequently wisdom 
 (without, however, being justified in doing so by the per- 
 ception of the former) ; and by which therefore we arbitrarily 
 fill up the lacunas of the (design) argument. 8 In fact, it is 
 only the moral ground of proof which produces conviction, 
 and that only in a moral reference with which every man 
 feels inwardly his agreement. But the physico-teleological 
 proof has only the merit of leading the mind in its con- 
 sideration of the world by the way of purposes, and through 
 them to an intelligent Author of the world; for the moral 
 reference to purposes and the Idea of a moral legislator and 
 Author of the world, as a theological concept, seem to be 
 
 should note the service which Kant has done to Theism by his reasoned 
 and emphatic repudiation of any other theory (e.g. materialism) as 
 an explanation of what we find in nature. Cf. Critique of Judgment, 
 72, 73. 
 
 8 Compare and contrast the way in which in the first Critique the 
 cosmological argument is charged with bringing in the Ontological 
 argument to supply its own deficiencies. Earlier in this treatise Kant 
 had argued that whereas the teleological argument allows us to infer at 
 most only very great wisdom and power, these qualities in an infinite 
 degree can be justly inferred from the Moral argument ( 88). Does it 
 not suggest the essential unity of the mind's response to the thought 
 of God that the various proofs thus turn out to be dependent on one 
 another ? Cf. J. H. Kennedy, Natural Theology and Modern Science, 
 p. 240 tf. 
 
Kant 245 
 
 developed of themselves out of that ground of proof, although 
 they are in truth pure additions. 
 
 From this on we may allow the customary statement to 
 stand. For it is generally difficult (if the distinction 
 requires much reflection) for ordinary sound Understanding to 
 distinguish from one another as heterogeneous the different 
 principles which it confuses, and from one of which alone it 
 actually draws conclusions with correctness. The moral 
 ground of proof of the Being of God, properly speaking, 
 does not merely complete and render perfect the physieo- 
 teleological proof, but it is a special proof that supplies the 
 conviction which is wanting in the latter. This latter in 
 fact can do nothing more than guide Reason, in its judg- 
 ment upon the ground of nature and that contingent but 
 admirable order of nature only known to us by experience, 
 to the causality of a Cause containing the ground of the 
 same in accordance with purposes (which we by the con- 
 stitution of our cognitive faculties must think as an 
 intelligent cause) ; and thus by arresting the attention of 
 Reason it makes it more susceptible of the moral proof. 
 For what is requisite to the latter concept is so essentially 
 different from everything which natural concepts contain and 
 can teach, that there is need of a particular ground of proof 
 quite independent of the former, in order to supply the 
 concept of the original Being adequately for Theology and to 
 infer its existence. The moral proof (which, it is true, only 
 proves the Being of God in a practical though indispens- 
 able aspect of Reason) would preserve all its force, if we 
 found in the world no material, or only that which is 
 doubtful, for physical Teleology. It is possible to conceive 
 rational beings surrounded by a nature which displayed no 
 clear trace of organisation, but only the effects of a mere 
 mechanism of crude matter ; on behalf of which, and amid 
 the changeability of some merely contingent purposive forms 
 and relations, there would appear to be no ground for 
 
246 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 inferring an intelligent Author. In such case there would be 
 no occasion for a physical Teleology ; and yet Keason, which 
 here gets no guidance from natural concepts, would find in 
 the concept of freedom and in the moral Ideas founded 
 thereon a practically sufficient ground for postulating the 
 concept of the original Being in conformity with these, i.e. as 
 a Deity, and for postulating nature (even the nature of our 
 own being) as a final purpose in accordance with freedom 
 and its laws and all this in reference to the indispensable 
 command of practical Reason. However, the fact that there 
 is in the actual world for the rational beings in it abundant 
 material for physical Teleology (even though this is not 
 necessary) serves as a desirable confirmation of the moral 
 argument, as far as nature can exhibit anything analogous 
 to the (moral) rational ideas. For the concept of a supreme 
 Cause possessing intelligence (though not reaching far 
 enough for a Theology) thus acquires sufficient reality for 
 the reflective Judgment, but it is not required as the basis of 
 the moral proof ; nor does this latter serve to complete as a 
 proof the former, which does not by itself point to morality 
 at all, by means of an argument developed according to a 
 single principle. Two such heterogeneous principles as 
 nature and freedom can only furnish two different kinds of 
 proof ; and the attempt to derive one from the other is found 
 unavailing as regards that which is to be proved. 
 
 If the physico-teleological ground of proof sufficed for the 
 proof which is sought, it would be very satisfactory for the 
 speculative Reason ; for it would furnish the hope of found- 
 ing a Theosophy (for so we must call the theoretical cognition 
 of the Divine nature and its existence, which would suffice 
 at once for the explanation of the constitution of the world 
 and for the determination of moral laws). In the same way, 
 if Psychology enabled us to arrive at a cognition of the 
 immortality of the soul it would make Pneumatology 
 possible, which would be just as welcome to the speculative 
 
Kant 247 
 
 Reason. But neither, agreeable as they would be to the 
 arrogance of our curiosity, would satisfy the wish of Reason 
 in respect of a theory which must be based on a cognition 
 of the nature of things. Whether the first, as Theology, 
 and the second, as Anthropology, when founded on the 
 moral principle, i.e. the principle of freedom, and con- 
 sequently in accordance with the practical use (of Reason) 
 do not better fulfil their objective final design, is another 
 question which we need not here pursue. 
 
 The physico-teleological ground of proof does not reach 
 to Theology, because it does not, and cannot, give any 
 determinate concept, sufficient for this design, of the original 
 Being ; but we must derive this from quite another quarter, 
 or must supply its lacuna by an arbitrary addition. You 
 infer, from the great purposiveness of natural forms and 
 their relations, an intelligent Cause of the world ; but what 
 is the degree of this intelligence (Verstand) 1 Without 
 doubt you cannot assume that it is the highest possible 
 intelligence ; because for that it would be requisite that you 
 should see that a greater intelligence than that of which you 
 perceive proofs in the world, is not thinkable; and this 
 would be to ascribe omniscience to yourself. 9 In the same 
 way, if you infer from the magnitude of the world the very 
 great might of its Author, you must be content with this 
 having only a comparative significance for your faculty of 
 comprehension ; for since you do not know all that is possible, 
 so as to compare it with the magnitude of the world as far 
 as you know it, you cannot infer the almightiness of its 
 Author from so small a standard, and so on. Now you 
 arrive in this way at no definite concept of an original 
 Being available for a Theology ; for this can only be found 
 in the concept of the totality of perfections compatible with 
 intelligence, and you cannot help yourself to this by merely 
 
 9 Kant had these arguments before him, it is probable, in the form 
 in which they are given in Hume's Inquiry, vii. Cf. supra, p. 193, 
 
248 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 empirical data. But without such a definite concept you 
 cannot infer a unique, intelligent, original Being; you can 
 only assume it (with whatever motive). Now it may 
 certainly be conceded that you should arbitrarily add (for 
 Reason has nothing fundamental to say to the contrary) : 
 Where so much perfection is found, we may well assume 
 that all perfection is united in a unique Cause of the world, 
 because Reason succeeds better both theoretically and 
 practically with a principle thus definite. But then you 
 cannot regard this concept of the original Being as proved 
 by you, for you have only assumed it on behalf of a better 
 employment of Reason. Hence all lamentation or impotent 
 anger on account of the alleged mischief of rendering 
 doubtful the coherency of your chain of reasoning, is vain 
 pretentiousness, which would fain have us believe that the 
 doubt here freely expressed as to your argument is a doubt- 
 ing of sacred truth, in order that under this cover the 
 shallowness of your argument may pass unnoticed. 
 
 Moral Teleology, on the other hand, which is not less 
 firmly based than physical, which, indeed, rather deserves 
 the preference, because it rests a priori on principles 
 inseparable from our Reason, leads to that which is 
 requisite for the possibility of a Theology, namely, to a 
 determinate concept of the supreme Cause, as Cause of the 
 world according to moral laws, and, consequently, to the 
 concept of such a cause as satisfies our moral final purpose. 
 For this are required, as natural properties belonging to it, 
 nothing less than Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, 
 and the like, which must be thought as bound up with the 
 moral final purpose which is infinite and thus as adequate to 
 it. Hence moral Teleology alone can furnish the concept of a 
 unique Author of the world which is available for a Theology. 
 
 In this way Theology leads immediately to Religion, i.e. 
 the recognition of our duties as Divine commands ; * because it 
 * Of. Kritik of Practical Reason, Dialectic, c. ii. v. 
 
Kant 249 
 
 is only the recognition of our duty and of the final purpose 
 enjoined upon us by Reason which brings out with definite- 
 ness the concept of God. 10 This concept, therefore, is in- 
 separable in its origin from obligation to that Being. On 
 the other hand, even if the concept of the original Being 
 could be also found determinately by the merely theoretical 
 path (namely, the concept of it as mere Cause of nature), 
 it would afterwards be very difficult perhaps impossible, 
 without arbitrary interpolation (of elements) to ascribe to 
 this Being by well-grounded proofs a causality in accordance 
 with moral laws ; and yet without this that quasi-theological 
 concept could furnish no foundation for religion. Even if a 
 religion could be established by this theoretical path, it 
 would actually, as regards sentiment (wherein its essence 
 lies), be different from that in which the concept of God and 
 the (practical) conviction of His Being originate from the 
 fundamental Ideas of morality. For if we must suppose the 
 Omnipotence, Omniscience, etc., of an Author of the world 
 
 10 Cf. supra, p. 232, for a previous statement of this definition of 
 religion. This passage shows more clearly than any other, perhaps, 
 that in Kant's view religion is possible only when the conception of 
 God as Ruler of the World is from the first essentially bound up with 
 the conception of God as Moral Legislator. Moral Theology in the 
 first place, teleology in the second, are the fundamental motives to 
 Theistic belief by which Kant's mind was influenced and his judgment 
 decided. Perhaps his most positive statement on the subject is the 
 following: "For the theoretical reflective Judgment physical Teleo- 
 logy sufficiently proves from the purposes of Nature an intelligent 
 world-cause ; for the practical Judgment moral Teleology establishes 
 it by the concept of a final purpose, which it is forced to ascribe to 
 creation " (Critique of Judgment, 88). Yet on this there never fails to 
 follow the agnostic counterstroke that this is a matter of faith, not a 
 fact of knowledge. In order, however, that we may be fully persuaded 
 of the complete independence of faith and knowledge we should need 
 to ask the further question Can practical faith in God be combined 
 with positive theoretical disbelief in Him ? Kant's reply, in our judg- 
 ment, would probably have been in the negative. 
 
250 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 as concepts given to us from another quarter, in order 
 afterwards only to apply our concepts of duties to our 
 relation to Him, then these latter concepts must bear very 
 markedly the appearance of compulsion and forced sub- 
 mission. If, instead of this, the respect for the moral law, 
 quite freely, in virtue of the precept of our own Reason, 
 represents to us the final purpose of our destination, we 
 admit among our moral views a Cause harmonising with 
 this and with its accomplishment, with the sincerest rever- 
 ence, which is quite distinct from pathological fear ; and we 
 willingly submit ourselves thereto.* 
 
 If it be asked why it is incumbent upon us to have any 
 Theology at all, it appears clear that it is not needed for 
 the extension or correction of our cognition of nature or, in 
 general, for any theory, but simply in a subjective point of 
 view for Religion, i.e. the practical or moral use of our 
 Reason. If it is found that the only argument which leads 
 to a definite concept of the object of Theology is itself 
 moral, it is not only not strange, but we miss nothing in 
 respect of its final purpose as regards the sufficiency of 
 belief from this ground of proof, provided that it be admitted 
 that such an argument only establishes the Being of God 
 sufficiently for our moral destination, i.e. in a practical point 
 of view, and that here speculation neither shows its strength 
 in any way, nor extends by means of it the sphere of its 
 domain. Our surprise, and the alleged contradiction between 
 
 * The admiration for beauty, and also the emotion aroused by the 
 manifold purposes of nature, which a reflective mind is able to feel, 
 even prior to a clear representation of a rational Author of the 
 world, have something in themselves like religious feeling. They 
 seem, in the first place, by a method of judging analogous to moral, 
 to produce an effect upon the moral feeling (gratitude to, and venera- 
 tion for, the unknown Cause) ; and thus, by exciting moral Ideas, to 
 produce an effect upon the mind, when they inspire that admiration 
 which is bound up with far more interest than mere theoretical 
 observation can bring about. (Note by Kant. ) 
 
Kant 251 
 
 the here asserted possibility of a Theology and that which 
 the Kritik of Speculative Reason said of the Categories, 
 namely, that they can only produce knowledge when applied 
 to objects of sense, but in no way when applied to the 
 supersensible vanish, if we see that they are here used for 
 a cognition of God, not in a theoretical point of view (in 
 accordance with what His own nature, which is inscrutable 
 by us, may be), but simply in a practical. In order, then, 
 at this opportunity to make an end of the misinterpretation 
 of that very necessary doctrine of the Kritik, which, to the 
 chagrin of the blind dogmatist, refers Reason to its bounds, 
 I add here the following elucidation. 
 
 If I ascribe to a body motive force and thus think it by 
 means of the category of causality, then I at the same time 
 cognise it by that (category) ; i.e. I determine the concept of 
 it, as of an Object in general, by means of what belongs to 
 it by itself (as the condition of the possibility of that 
 relation) as an object of sense. If the motive force ascribed 
 to it is repulsive, then there belongs to it (although I do 
 not place near it any other body upon which it may exert 
 force) a place in space, and, moreover, extension, i.e. space 
 in itself, besides the filling up of this by means of the 
 repulsive forces of its parts. In addition, there is the law of 
 this filling up (that the ground of the repulsion of the parts 
 must decrease in the same proportion as the extension of the 
 body increases, and as the space, which it fills with the same 
 parts by means of this force, is augmented). On the contrary, 
 if I think a supersensible Being as the first mover, and thus 
 by the category of causality as regards its determination of 
 the world (motion of matter), I must not think it as existing 
 in any place in space, nor as extended; I must not even 
 think it as existing in time or simultaneously with other 
 beings. Hence I have no determinations whatever, which 
 could make intelligible to me the condition of the possi- 
 bility of motion by means of this Being as its 
 
252 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 ground. 11 Consequently, I do not in the very least cognise it 
 by means of the predicate of Cause (as first mover), for itself ; 
 but I have only the representation of a something containing 
 the ground of the motions in the world ; 12 and the relation 
 of the latter to it as their cause, since it does not besides 
 furnish me with anything belonging to the constitution of the 
 thing which is cause, leaves its concept quite empty. The 
 reason of this is, that by predicates which only find their 
 Object in the world of sense I can indeed proceed to the 
 being of something which must contain their ground, but not 
 to the determination of its concept as a supersensible being, 
 which excludes all those predicates. By the category of 
 causality, then, if I determine it by the concept of a first 
 mover, I do not in the very least cognise what God is. 
 Perhaps, however, I shall have better success if I start from 
 the order of the world, not merely to think its causality as 
 that of a supreme Understanding, but to cognise it by means 
 of this determination of the said concept ; because here the 
 troublesome condition of space and of extension disappears. 
 At all events the great purposiveness in the world compels 
 us to think a supreme cause of it, and to think its causality 
 as that of an Understanding; but we are not therefore 
 entitled to ascribe this to it. (E.g. we think of the eternity 
 of God as presence in all time, because we can form no other 
 concept of mere being as a quantum, i.e. as duration ; or we 
 think of the Divine omnipresence as presence in all places, in 
 
 11 As Dr. Stirling remarks (Giffard Lectures] , in another context, it 
 would almost seem as though it were a matter of disappointment to 
 Kant that the sensible determination of God is ex hyjwthesi impossible. 
 
 12 The conception of God as "the ground of the motions of the 
 world" is surely an immense advance, philosophically, on the con- 
 ception of Him as "first mover." It is just by substituting the one 
 for the other, and filling the term "ground" with sufficiently deep 
 and rich content, that the weakness of the old cosmological argument 
 can be transcended. Cf. Professor Pringle-Pattison, Mans Place in the 
 Cosmos, p. 235. Cf. the Selection from Aquinas, supra, p. 23. 
 
Kant 253 
 
 order to make comprehensible to ourselves His immediate 
 presence in things which are external to one another, without 
 daring to ascribe to God any of these determinations as 
 something cognised in Him.) If I determine the causality 
 of a man, in respect of certain products which are only 
 explicable by designed purposiveness, by thinking it as that 
 of Understanding, I need not stop here, but I can ascribe to 
 him this predicate as a well-known property, and cognise 
 him accordingly. For I know that intuitions are given to 
 the senses of men, and are brought by the Understanding 
 under a concept, and thus under a rule ; that this concept 
 only contains the common characteristic (with omission of 
 the particular ones), and is thus discursive; and that the 
 rules for bringing given representations under a consciousness, 
 in general, are given by Understanding before those intui- 
 tions, etc. I therefore ascribe this property to man as a 
 property by means of which I cognise him. However, if I 
 wish to think a supersensible Being (God) as an intelligence, 
 this is not only permissible in a certain aspect of my employ- 
 ment of Reason it is unavoidable ; but to ascribe to Him 
 Understanding, and to flatter ourselves that we can cognise 
 Him by means of it as a property of His, is in no way 
 permissible. For I must omit all those conditions under 
 which alone I know an Understanding, and thus the 
 predicate which only serves for determining man cannot be 
 applied at all to a supersensible Object ; and therefore by a 
 causality thus determined, I cannot cognise what God is. 13 
 
 13 If the objection to applying the categories (even the most ade- 
 quate categories at our disposal) to the Divine existence means that 
 the sensible data to which alone the categories are applicable, are in 
 this case lacking, may not the same objection be levelled at the 
 ascription of self-conscious reason to our fellow-men ? And if this 
 ascription is but an explanatory hypothesis which we accept as true, 
 because it enables us synthetically to interpret the facts, may we not, 
 by parity of reasoning, use the corresponding category to affirm a 
 Thcistic interpretation of the world ? That the mind inferred infinite 
 
254 Religion in the Critical Philosophy 
 
 And so it is with all Categories, which can have no 
 significance for cognition in a theoretical aspect, if they are 
 not applied to objects of possible experience. However, 
 according to the analogy of an Understanding, I can in a 
 certain other aspect think a supersensible Being, without at 
 the same time meaning thereby to cognise it theoretically, 
 namely, if this determination of its causality concerns an 
 effect in the world, which contains a design morally necessary, 
 but unattainable by a sensible being. For then a cognition 
 of God and of His Being (Theology) is possible by means 
 of properties and determinations of His causality merely 
 thought in Him according to analogy, which has all requisite 
 reality in a practical reference, though only in respect of this 
 (as moral). An Ethical Theology is therefore possible ; for 
 though morality can subsist without theology as regards its 
 rule, it cannot do so as regards the final design which this 
 proposes, unless Reason in respect of it is to be renounced. 
 But a Theological Ethic (of pure Reason) is impossible ; for 
 laws which Reason itself does not give, and whose observance 
 it does not bring about as a pure practical faculty, cannot 
 be moral. 14 In the same way, a Theological Physic would be 
 a nonentity, for it would propose no laws of nature, but 
 ordinances of a Highest Will \ while, on the other hand, a 
 physical (properly speaking, a physico-teleological) Theology 
 can serve at least as a propa3deutic to Theology proper, by 
 giving occasion for the Idea of a final purpose, which nature 
 cannot present by the observation of natural purposes, of 
 which it offers abundant material. It thus makes felt the 
 need of a Theology which shall determine the concept of 
 in the one case and infinite, in the other, implies no essential difference 
 of principle. * ' All that the Design argument undertakes to prove is 
 that mind lies at the basis of nature " (Bernard). 
 
 14 That is, Ethics furnish Kant with his punctum stans ; he feels 
 that he can use moral principles as presuppositions in Theology. But 
 he consistently declines to reverse the relation, and make theological 
 principles the basis of Ethics. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 --,- 
 
 Kant 255 
 
 God adequately for the highest practical use of Reason, but 
 it cannot develop this and base it satisfactorily on its 
 proofs. 
 
 References. -Dr. E. Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Kant, 2nd ed. 
 1889 ; Paulsen, Immanuel Kant, His Life and Doctrine (Eng. trans.) ; 
 Dr. J. H. Stirling, Philosophy and Theology (Gifford Lectures) ; 
 Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion, vol. i. ; Adanison, TJie Philo- 
 sophy of Kant ; Professor (Seth) Pringle-Pattison, Scottish Philosophy, 
 and especially Theism, two lectures, 1897 ; Dr. Watson, Kant and His 
 English Critics ; Dr. Abbott, Introduction to his edition of the Ethics ; 
 Professor Schurman, Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution ; 
 "Wallace's Kant in Blackwood's ' ' Philosophical Classics " ; and the 
 various histories of philosophy. For Kant's use of terms, see Pro- 
 fessor Royce's elaborate article, "Kant's Terminology," in Baldwin's 
 Dictionary of Philosophy (1901). 
 
VIII. 
 EOMANTICISM. 
 
 SCHLEIERMACHER (1768-1834). 
 
 FRIEDKICH Schleiermacher, whose influence in modern theology 
 has been as creative as that of Kant in philosophy, furnishes 
 a type of thought which may broadly be named mystico- 
 romantic. In the Addresses on Religion, from which our 
 extracts are taken, he stands forth as the prophet of the abiding 
 value of religion, and we can see now that he was the herald 
 of a new era in theology, offering many points of resemblance 
 to the new poetical epoch inaugurated by Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth in England. Faith had sunk to a very low ebb 
 when those speeches were written. In the arid Deism of the 
 Eighteenth Century religion had been reduced to a collection of 
 rational doctrines about God and the world, while even in 
 the impressive statement of Kant it had too much been 
 identified with a mere aspect of morality, and that of an 
 extremely rigorous, if lofty, type. The age needed to be 
 recalled to the fact that religion is experience, to be enjoyed 
 rather than explained, and with its home in man's emotional 
 life. It was to such an audience, be it remembered, that 
 those speeches were addressed. They were published for the 
 first time in 1799, and a second edition, altered in many 
 respects, appeared in 1806. 
 
 In this book Schleiermacher comes before us as the spokes- 
 man of Romanticism. That movement, in which eclectic and 
 aesthetic elements were strangely mingled, owed its being 
 chiefly to Goethe, and was a protest in every domain of life 
 against the tyranny of abstract ideas and meagrely rational 
 formulas. It sought to return to nature, to what is real and 
 immediate, to feeling and fancy and impression. Accordingly, 
 the misconceptions of religion with which Schleiermacher 
 
 256 
 
Schleiermacher 257 
 
 deals are mainly two that which views it as consisting 
 essentially in knowledge, and that which makes it purely a 
 means to morality. The one was the sin of the Eighteenth 
 Century, and was being perpetuated in a different form by the 
 idealistic school of Schleiermacher's own day, especially by 
 Schelling ; the other was traceable to Kant. The historical 
 importance of Schleiermacher's work, indeed, is in great 
 measure due to the success with which he vindicated the 
 independent reality of religion as distinct from knowledge 
 and morals. Its seat, he argues passionately, is neither in 
 reason, conscience, nor will ; religion is feeling, the feeling 
 of absolute dependence. It is the immediate consciousness of 
 all that is finite as existing in and through the Infinite, of all 
 that is temporal as existing in and through the Eternal ; it is 
 to feel, amid all becoming and change, all action and suffering, 
 that life is life only as it is in and through God. " Schleier- 
 macher never abandoned the conviction that the innermost 
 life of men must be lived in feeling, and that this, and this 
 alone, can bring men into immediate relation to the Highest " 
 (Hoffding). His view has obvious affinities with both the 
 mystic and the artistic temper. Indeed " the Universe " (in 
 his first edition a favourite name for the object of the 
 religious sentiment) is conceived as forming, by its endless 
 multiplicity of finite manifestations, an internally harmonious 
 work of art. 
 
 The second and third editions of the Reden betray a steady 
 advance towards more definitely Theistic conclusions. Pre- 
 viously there had been a tendency to place Pantheism by the 
 side of Theism, as a form of religious impressionism which 
 can plead equal justification with the other. We are even 
 told that the idea of God is irrelevant for religion, and that 
 genuine faith can exist without it. But later this is changed. 
 The distinction between God and our feeling of Him is 
 drawn ever more sharply. It is made quite clear that " God " 
 denotes, not " the Universe " (a term more and more discarded), 
 but the transcendent unity which is the ground of the 
 whole of things and of each separate existence. Nature 
 and history are now construed as a Divine revelation. But 
 while this is true, it cannot be denied that Schleiermacher 
 always leant to the view that religious feeling has no 
 primary concern with the nature of God; and some have 
 argued, not without a colour of reason, that he never did 
 
258 Romanticism 
 
 more than approximate to a clear statement of the Divine 
 personality. 
 
 We present here the most important parts of the Second 
 Address, as given in the admirable rendering by Mr. Oman 
 (Schleiermacher on Religion : Speeches to its cultured despisers, 
 translated by the Rev. J. Oman, B.D. ; Kegan Paul, London, 
 1893). The subject of the address is religion, not, however, 
 as a concrete or historical phenomenon, but rather in its 
 universal essence. As thus defined, analysed, and expounded, 
 it is only an abstraction, the generalised product of reflection. 
 Schleiermacher does not aim at describing religion exhaust- 
 ively. He is rather bent on persuading his contemporaries, 
 orthodox and rationalist alike, to visit with him the profound 
 depths in the being of man where religion takes its rise, for 
 when once its origin has been unveiled it will be impossible 
 to think of it as other than an integral element in human 
 life, indissolubly linked to all that is highest and noblest in 
 experience. And therefore, for the time, such things as 
 conduct, culture, and social environment are put aside. 
 What Schleiermacher examines and reports upon is religion, so 
 to speak, in movement the definite, momentary, pious frame 
 or experience as it arises in the soul of the religious individual, 
 a purely inward and spiritual process, chiefly characterised by 
 immediacy and passivity. Here he finds the moving force 
 which produces and sustains religion as a human, social fact. 
 For though primarily an individual thing, exhibiting an end- 
 less variety of forms and modes, religion is also a social affair, 
 because a human affair, and communicates itself through 
 contact and tradition. 
 
 The influence of Schleiermacher in religious philosophy 
 rests upon the fact that he was the first to undertake a 
 critical analysis of religion, in order to discover and to 
 vindicate that in it which is originally and authentically 
 derived from the inmost life of the human soul, and may 
 therefore be distinguished from accretions which are derivate 
 and secondary. And the problem at which he wrought cease- 
 lessly, and which he has done more, perhaps, than any other 
 modern thinker to solve, is that of mediating between experi- 
 ence and history, between the conscience of the individual 
 and the conscience of the religious society of which he forms 
 a part. 
 
Schleiermacher 259 
 
 THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 In order to make quite clear to you what is the original 
 and characteristic possession of religion, it resigns at once all 
 claims on anything that belongs either to science or morality. 
 Whether it has been borrowed or bestowed, it is now 
 returned. What then does your science of being, your 
 natural science, all your theoretical philosophy, in so far as it 
 has to do with the actual world, have for its aim 1 To know 
 things, I suppose, as they really are; to show the peculiar 
 relations by which each is what it is ; to determine for each 
 its place in the Whole, and to distinguish it rightly from all 
 else ; to present the whole real world in its mutually con- 
 ditioned necessity; and to exhibit the oneness of all phe- 
 nomena with their eternal laws. This is truly beautiful and 
 excellent, and I am not disposed to depreciate. Rather, if 
 this description of mine, so slightly sketched, does not 
 suffice, I will grant the highest and most exhaustive you are 
 able to give. 
 
 And yet, however high you go, though you pass from the 
 laws to the Universal Lawgiver, in whom is the unity of all 
 things; though you allege that nature cannot be compre- 
 hended without God, I would still maintain that religion has 
 nothing to do with this knowledge, and that, quite apart from 
 it, its nature can be known. Quantity of knowledge is not 
 quantity of piety. Piety can gloriously display itself, both 
 with originality and individuality, in those to whom this 
 kind of knowledge is not original. They may only know it 
 as everybody does, as isolated results known in connexion 
 with other things. The pious man must, in a sense, be a 
 wise man, but he will readily admit, even though you some- 
 what proudly look down upon him, that, in so far as he is 
 pious, he does not hold his knowledge in the same way as you. 
 
 Let me interpret in clear words what most pious persona 
 
260 Romanticism 
 
 only guess at and never know how to express. Were 
 you to set God as the apex of your science as the foundation 
 of all knowing as well as of all knowledge, they would 
 accord praise and honour, but it would not be their way of 
 having and knowing God. From their way, as they would 
 readily grant, and as is easy enough to see, knowledge and 
 science do not proceed. 
 
 It is true that religion is essentially contemplative. You 
 would never call anyone pious who went about in impervious 
 stupidity, whose sense is not open for the life of the world. 
 But this contemplation is not turned, as your knowledge of 
 nature is, to the existence of a finite thing, combined with 
 and opposed to another finite thing. 1 It has not even, like 
 your knowledge of God if for once I might use an old 
 expression to do with the nature of the first cause, in 
 itself and in its relation to every other cause and operation. 
 The contemplation of the pious is the immediate conscious- 
 ness of the universal existence of all finite things, in and 
 through the Infinite, and of all temporal things in and 
 through the Eternal. 2 Keligion is to seek this and find it 
 in all that lives and moves, in all growth and change, in all 
 doing and suffering. It is to have life and to know life in 
 immediate feeling, only as such an existence in the Infinite 
 
 1 The single or finite thing stirs feeling or religious emotion, not 
 qud finite, but only in so far as it is a revelation of the Infinite. 
 
 2 In the first edition the terms most commonly employed to 
 denote the object of religion are such as "the Universe," "the 
 Infinite," "the World- All." Here the close affinity between certain 
 aspects of Schleiermacher's theory and Spinozism is obvious, for what 
 he designates thus is simply Spinoza's natura naturans. But in 
 the later texts, while these earlier terms do not wholly disappear, 
 "God," "Godhead," and "the Divine" more and more take their 
 place. For Schleiermacher had in the interval come to draw a 
 growingly clear distinction between God and the totality of the world 
 God had become for him the highest unity whereby all things are 
 constituted a whole. 
 
SchleiemnacJier 261 
 
 and Eternal. 3 Where this is found religion is satisfied, 
 where it hides itself there is for her unrest and anguish, 
 extremity and death. Wherefore it is a life in the infinite 
 nature of the Whole, in the One and in the All, in God, 
 having and possessing all things in God, and God in all. 
 Yet religion is not knowledge and science, either of the 
 world or of God. Without being knowledge, it recognises 
 knowledge and science. In itself it is an affection, a revelation 
 of the Infinite in the finite, God being seen in it and it in God. 
 Similarly, what is the object of your ethics, of your science 
 of action 1 4 Does it not seek to distinguish precisely each 
 part of human doing and producing, and at the same time to 
 combine them into a whole, according to actual relations'? 
 But the pious man confesses that, as pious, he knows nothing 
 about it. He does, indeed, contemplate human action, but it 
 is not the kind of contemplation from which an ethical 
 
 3 Schleiermacher's purpose in laying so marked a stress on the 
 element of immediacy in religious feeling was to secure the independ- 
 ence of piety as distinct from science and morality. The question 
 later thinkers have discussed is whether he has not made feeling so 
 exclusively "immediate" as to shut religion up in the dungeon of 
 subjectivity. Might it not be held that the life of feeling develops 
 beyond itself, mediated by thought and action, and so returns to 
 feeling again, but clarified and intensified by the process ? 
 
 4 Throughout this address Schleiermacher has in view the Kantian 
 ethics as developed by Fichte. Kant had practically absorbed 
 religion in morality by his definition of it a definition meant to be 
 exhaustive as the recognition of all our duties as Divine com- 
 mands. To Schleiermacher, on the other hand, the separate self- 
 sufficiency of both piety and morality is an intense conviction. 
 Piety is not a cause, it is a concomitant, of moral action; still, not 
 only must every one who is religious be moral, but no one can be 
 moral without being religious. The relations of piety and science 
 are analogous. Religion is "an indispensable third " to science and 
 moral action, and without it the spiritual nature of man is in- 
 complete. Their common roots spring from the unity of the 
 subject ; while knowing, acting, and feeling correspond respectively 
 to science, morals, and religion. 
 
262 Romanticism 
 
 system takes its rise. Only one thing he seeks out and 
 detects, action from God, God's activity among men. If 
 your ethics are right, and his piety as well, he will not, it is 
 true, acknowledge any action as excellent which is not 
 embraced in your system. But to know and to construct 
 this system is your business, ye learned, not his. If you will 
 not believe, regard the case of women. You ascribe to them 
 religion, not only as an adornment, but you demand of them 
 the finest feeling for distinguishing the things that excel : do 
 you equally expect them to know your ethics as a science 1 
 
 It is the same, let me say at once, with action itself. The 
 artist fashions what is given him to fashion, by virtue of 
 his special talent. These talents are so different that the 
 one he possesses another lacks; unless someone, against 
 heaven's will, would possess all. But when anyone is 
 praised to you as pious, you are not accustomed to ask 
 which of these gifts dwell in him by virtue of his piety. 
 The citizen taking the word in the sense of the ancients, 
 not in its present meagre significance regulates, leads, and 
 influences in virtue of his morality. But this is something 
 different from piety. Piety has also a passive side. While 
 morality always shows itself as manipulating, as self- 
 controlling, piety appears as a surrender, a submission to 
 be moved by the Whole that stands over against man. 5 
 Morality depends, therefore, entirely on the consciousness of 
 freedom, within the sphere of which all that it produces 
 
 5 This is an early adumbration of the theory, elaborated in Schleier- 
 macher's great work on Systematic Theology, Der christliche Glaube 
 (1821, 4ff.), that religion is at bottom the feeling of absolute 
 dependence. (It is perhaps in reaction from the exaggerated emphasis 
 placed on this dependence, that we find Ritschl, Schleiermacher's 
 greatest successor in constructive theology, laying so marked stress 
 on the fact that religion confers on man true freedom.) But as this 
 later work or Olaulenskhre was dogmatic in character, while the Reden 
 were essentially apologetic, it is not surprising that the expressions used 
 in 1821 should be much more consistently Thcistic. 
 
Schleiewmcher 263 
 
 falls. Piety, on the contrary, is not at all bound to this 
 side of life. In the opposite sphere of necessity, where 
 there is no properly individual action, it is quite as active. 
 Wherefore the two are different. Piety does, indeed, linger 
 with satisfaction on every action that is from God, and 
 every activity that reveals the Infinite in the finite, and yet 
 it is not itself this activity. Only by keeping quite outside 
 the range both of science and of practice can it maintain 
 its proper sphere and character. Only when piety takes 
 its place alongside of science and practice, as a necessary, 
 an indispensable third, as their natural counterpart, not less 
 in worth and splendour than either, will the common field 
 be altogether occupied, and human nature on this side 
 complete. 
 
 But pray understand me fairly. I do not mean that one 
 could exist without the other, that, for example, a man 
 might have religion and be pious, and at the same time be 
 immoral. That is impossible. But, in my opinion, it is 
 just as impossible to be moral or scientific without being 
 religious. But have I not said that religion can be had 
 without science 1 Wherefore, I have myself begun the 
 separation. But remember, I only said piety is not the 
 measure of science. Just as one cannot truly be scientific 
 without being pious, the pious man may not know at all, 
 but he cannot know falsely. 6 His proper nature is not of 
 that subordinate kind, which, according to the old adage 
 that like is only known to like, knows nothing except 
 semblance of reality. 
 
 His nature is reality which knows reality, and where it 
 encounters nothing it does not suppose it sees something. 
 And what a precious jewel of science, in my view, is ignor- 
 ance, for those who are captive to semblance. If you have 
 
 6 For, in so far as he is pious, he has no concern with the 
 reciprocal relations of finite phenomena, but views each separate 
 object as a partial representation of the infinite whole. 
 
264 Romanticism 
 
 not learned it from my Speeches or discovered it for your- 
 selves, go and learn it from your Socrates. Grant me 
 consistency at least. With ignorance your knowledge will 
 ever be mixed, but the true and proper opposite of knowledge 
 is presumption of knowledge. By piety this presumption is 
 most certainly removed, for with it piety cannot exist. 
 
 Such a separation of knowledge and piety, and of action 
 and piety, do not accuse me of making. 7 You are only 
 ascribing to me, without my deserving it, your own view 
 and the very confusion, as common as it is unavoidable, 
 which it has been my chief endeavour to show you in the 
 mirror of my Speech. Just because you do not acknowledge 
 religion as the third, knowledge and action are so much 
 apart that you can discover no unity, but believe that right 
 knowing can be had without right acting, and vice versd. 
 I hold that it is only in contemplation that there is division. 
 There, where it is necessary, you despise it, and instead 
 transfer it to life, as if in life itself objects could be found 
 independent one of the other. Consequently you have no 
 living insight into any of these activities. Each is for you a 
 part, a fragment. Because you do not deal with life in a 
 living way, your conception bears the stamp of perishableness, 
 and is altogether meagre. True science is complete vision 
 
 7 Knowledge and action are divergent manifestations of conscious- 
 ness ; in the one case the object imposes itself on us, in the other we 
 impose ourselves on the object. Their unity in one experience despite 
 this difference Schleiermacher traces back to the fact that both 
 spring from the original identity of the Ego and the world, the 
 "mystic moment" in which sense and object are one, and out of 
 which knowledge and action are born. This immediate unity of 
 subjective and objective consciousness, however, is simply feeling in 
 its primordial form. So that feeling is seen to be the higher and 
 more comprehensive bond between knowledge and action, i.e. they 
 are related to one another, not directly, but mediately, through their 
 common relation to this basal experience of the subject. For a 
 description of this "inmost sanctuary of life," see p. 267. 
 
Schleiermacher 265 
 
 true practice is culture and art self -produced ; true religion is 
 sense and taste 8 for the infinite. To wish to have true 
 science or true practice without religion, or to imagine it is 
 possessed, is obstinate, arrogant delusion, and culpable error. 
 It issues from the unholy sense that would rather have a 
 show of possession by cowardly purloining than have secure 
 possession by demanding and waiting. What can man 
 accomplish that is worth speaking of, either in life or in art, 
 that does not arise in his own self from the influence of this 
 sense for the Infinite 1 Without it, how can anyone wish to 
 comprehend the world scientifically, or if, in some distinct 
 talent, the knowledge is thrust upon him, how should he 
 wish to exercise it ? What is all science, if not the existence 
 of things in you, in your reason ? what is all art and culture 
 if not your existence in the things to which you give measure, 
 form, and order 1 And how can both come to life in you 
 except in so far as there lives immediately in you the eternal 
 unity of Reason and Nature, the universal existence of all 
 finite things in the Infinite 1 
 
 Wherefore, you will find every truly learned man devout 
 and pious. Where you see science without religion, be sure 
 it is transferred, learned up from another. It is sickly, if 
 indeed it is not that empty appearance which serves neces- 
 
 8 "Sense" (Sinn), or, as we should say, "inward sensibility," is the 
 specific organ of religion, and may be viewed either as a faculty 
 which uses intuition (Anschauung) and feeling (Gcfiihl) as its instru- 
 ments, or as their combination. In regard to "taste" (Geschmack) 
 the following explanation is given by Schleiermacher, in a note to the 
 third edition: "Taste includes liking, as well as mere faculty, and 
 it is by this liking, this desire to find not merely the finite thing, but 
 to be conscious through it of the Infinite, that the pious person finds 
 that the existence of the finite in the infinite is universal." This 
 thought, that a love and desire for the Divine must pre-exist ere it will 
 reveal itself to us, may perhaps be regarded as an element in Schleier- 
 macher's system which receives fuller development in the Ritschlian 
 doctrine of the value-judgments of religion. See Selection XV. 
 
266 Romanticism 
 
 sity and is no knowledge at all. And what else do you 
 take this deduction and weaving together of ideas to be, 
 which neither live nor correspond to any living thing 1 ? Or 
 in ethics, what else is this wretched uniformity that thinks 
 it can grasp the highest human life in a single dead formula 1 
 The former arises because there is no fundamental feeling 
 of that living nature which everywhere presents variety and 
 individuality, and the latter because the sense fails to give 
 infinity to the finite by determining its nature and bound- 
 aries only from the Infinite. Hence the dominion of the 
 mere notion ; hence the mechanical erections of your systems 
 instead of an organic structure ; hence the vain juggling 
 with analytical formulas, in which, whether categorical or 
 hypothetical, life will not be fettered. Science is not your 
 calling, if you despise religion and fear to surrender your- 
 self to reverence and aspiration for the primordial. Either 
 science must become as low as your life, or it must be 
 separated and stand alone, a division that precludes success. 
 If man is not one with the Eternal, in the unity of intui- 
 tion and feeling which is immediate, he remains, in the 
 unity of consciousness which is derived, for ever apart. 
 
 What, then, shall become of the highest utterance of the 
 speculation of our days, complete rounded idealism, if it do 
 not again sink itself in this unity, if the humility of religion 
 do not suggest to its pride another realism than that which 
 it so boldly, and with such perfect right, subordinates to 
 itself 1 It annihilates the Universe, while it seems to aim 
 at constructing it. It would degrade it to a mere allegory, 
 to a mere phantom of the one-sided limitation of its own 
 empty consciousness. Offer with me reverently a tribute 
 to the manes of the holy, rejected Spinoza. The high 
 World-Spirit pervaded him ; the Infinite was his beginning 
 and his end ; the Universe was his only and his everlasting 
 love. In holy innocence and in deep humility he beheld 
 himself mirrored in the eternal world, and perceived how 
 
Schleiermacher 267 
 
 he also was its most worthy mirror. He was full of religion, 
 full of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, he stands there alone 
 and unequalled; master in his art, yet without disciples 
 and without citizenship, sublime above the profane tribe. 
 
 Why should I need to show that the same applies to 
 artl Because, from the same causes, you have here also a 
 thousand phantoms, delusions, and mistakes. In place of 
 all else I w r ould point to another example which should be 
 as well known to you all. I would point in silence for 
 pain that is new and deep has no words. It is that superb 
 youth, who has too early fallen asleep, with whom every- 
 thing his spirit touched became art. His whole contem- 
 plation of the world was forthwith a great poem. Though 
 he had scarce more than struck the first chords, you must 
 associate him with the most opulent poets, with those select 
 spirits who are as profound as they are clear and vivacious. 
 See in him the power of the enthusiasm and the caution 
 of a pious spirit, and acknowledge that when the philosophers 
 shall become religious and seek God like Spinoza, and the 
 artists be pious and love Christ like Novalis, the great 
 resurrection shall be celebrated for both worlds. 
 
 But, in order that you may understand what I mean by 
 this unity and difference of religion, science, and art, we 
 shall endeavour to descend into the inmost sanctuary of 
 life. There, perhaps, we may find ourselves agreed. There 
 alone you discover the original relation of intuition and 
 feeling from which alone this identity and difference is to 
 be understood. 9 But I must direct you to your own selves. 
 
 9 This paragraph is supremely important for the understanding of 
 Schleiermacher's terminology. The description he gives of the actual 
 process through which the soul passes in a complete experience of 
 religious feeling, is evidently modelled on what he supposes to take 
 place at the awakening of human consciousness. In this ' ' mysterious " 
 and " indescribable " moment, the mind and the object, not yet being 
 clearly differentiated, must be conceived as merged in each other. 
 Out of this fusion of both these arise ^1) a representation of the 
 
268 Romanticism 
 
 You must apprehend a living movement. You must know 
 how to listen to yourselves before your own consciousness. 
 At least you must be able to reconstruct from your con- 
 sciousness your own state. What you are to notice is the 
 rise of your consciousness, and not to reflect upon something 
 already there. Your thought can only embrace what is 
 sundered. Wherefore, as soon as you have made any given 
 definite activity of your soul an object of communication 
 or of contemplation, you have already begun to separate. 
 It is impossible, therefore, to adduce any definite example ; 
 for, as soon as anything is an example, what I wish to 
 indicate is already past. Only the faintest trace of the 
 original unity could then be shown. Such as it is, however, 
 I will not despise it, as a preliminary. 
 
 Consider how you delineate an object. Is there not both 
 a stimulation and a determination by the object, at one 
 and the same time, which for one particular moment forms 
 your existence? The more definite your image, the more, 
 in this way, you become the object, and the more you lose 
 yourselves. But just because you can trace the growing 
 
 object working on the mind, i.e. an intuition ; (2) a change in the inner, 
 state of the subject, i.e. & feeling. Similarly, each religious act has 
 as its basis a moment of immediate contact and fusion between the 
 self and the Divine, out of which arise an intuition of the Divine as 
 acting upon the self (through some particular object or event), and 
 a consequent excitation of the inner life of the soul, or feeling. Of 
 this feeling the Divine is the cause, but what is felt is the inner 
 state of the subject. Schleiermacher's mysticism finds its most con- 
 centrated expression here. It ought to be noted that the psycho- 
 logical hypothesis just set forth has its roots in Schelling's Philosophy 
 of Identity, which taught the essential oneness and homogeneity of 
 spirit and nature. In the first edition "intuition" had rather pre- 
 dominated over "feeling" in importance; later, in order still more 
 strongly to underline the radical distinction between philosophy and 
 religion, Schleiermacher threw all the emphasis upon feelin?, as the 
 less intellectual of the two, and the better fitted to express the 
 immediacy of piety. 
 
Schleiermacher 269 
 
 preponderance of one side over the other, both must have 
 been one and equal in the first, the original moment that 
 has escaped you. Or sunk in yourselves, you find all that 
 you formerly regarded as a disconnected manifold compacted 
 now indivisibly into the one peculiar content of your being. 
 Yet when you give heed, can you not see, as it disappears, 
 the image of an object, from whose influence, from whose 
 magical contact, this definite consciousness has proceeded 1 ? 
 The more your own state sways you the paler and more 
 unrecognisable your image becomes. The greater your 
 emotion, the more you are absorbed in it, the more your 
 whole nature is concerned to retain for the memory an 
 imperishable trace of what is necessarily fleeting, to carry 
 over to what you may engage in, its colour and impress, 
 and so unite two moments into a duration, the less you 
 observe the object that caused it. But just because it grows 
 pale and vanishes, it must before have been nearer and 
 clearer. Originally it must have been one and the same 
 with your feeling. But, as was said, these are mere traces. 
 Unless you will go back on the first beginning of this con- 
 sciousness, you can scarcely understand them. 
 
 And suppose you cannot? Then say, weighing it quite 
 generally and originally, what is every act of your life in 
 itself and without distinction from other acts? What is it 
 merely as act, as movement ? Is it not the coming into being 
 of something for itself, and at the same time in the Whole 1 
 It is an endeavour to return into the Whole, and to exist 
 for oneself at the same time. These are the links from 
 which the whole chain is made. Your whole life is such 
 an existence for self in the Whole. How now are you in 
 the Whole 1 By your senses. And how are you for your- 
 selves? By the unity of your self -consciousness, which is 
 given chiefly in the possibility of comparing the varying 
 degrees of sensation. How both can only rise together, if 
 both together fashion every act of life, is easy to see. 
 
270 Romanticism 
 
 You become sense and the Whole becomes object. Sense 
 and object mingle and unite, then each returns to its place, 
 and the object rent from sense is a perception, and you rent 
 from the object are, for yourselves, a feeling. It is this 
 earlier moment I mean, which you always experience yet 
 never experience. The phenomenon of your life is just the 
 result of its constant departure and return. It is scarcely in 
 time at all, so swiftly it passes ; it can scarcely be described, 
 so little does it properly exist. Would that I could hold 
 it fast and refer to it your commonest as well as your 
 highest activities. 10 
 
 Did I venture to compare it, seeing I cannot describe it, 
 I would say it is fleeting and transparent as the vapour 
 which the dew breathes on blossom and fruit, it is bashful 
 and tender as a maiden's kiss, it is holy and fruitful as a 
 bridal embrace. Nor is it merely like, it is all this. It 
 is the first contact of the universal life with an individual. 
 It fills no time and fashions nothing palpable. It is the 
 holy wedlock of the Universe with the incarnated Reason 
 for a creative, productive embrace. It is immediate, raised 
 above all error and misunderstanding. You lie directly on 
 the bosom of the infinite world. In that moment you are 
 its soul. Through one part of your nature you feel, as 
 your own, all its powers and its endless life. In that 
 moment it is your body; you pervade, as your own, its 
 muscles and members, and your thinking and forecasting 
 set its inmost nerves in motion. In this way every living, 
 original movement in your life is first received. Among 
 the rest it is the source of every religious emotion. But 
 
 10 A vivid, almost passionate, description of an immediate experi- 
 ence of the Eternal. What Schleiermacher means is no ecstatic 
 rapture, but the emotional consciousness of the Infinite as awakened 
 through the finite, i.e. a warm and intimate awareness of an eternal 
 essence and significance in all being and becoming around us. A 
 classical passage for the mysticism of these Addresses. 
 
Schleiermacher 271 
 
 it is not, as I said, even a moment. The incoming of 
 existence to us, by this immediate union, at once stops as 
 soon as it reaches consciousness. Either the intuition dis- 
 plays itself more vividly and clearly, like the figure of the 
 vanishing mistress to the eyes of her lover ; or feeling issues 
 from your heart and overspreads your whole being, as the 
 blush of shame and love over the face of the maiden. At 
 length your consciousness is finally determined as one or 
 other, as intuition or feeling. Then, even though you have 
 not quite surrendered to this division and lost consciousness 
 of your life as a unity, there remains nothing but the 
 knowledge that they were originally one, that they issued 
 simultaneously from the fundamental relation of your nature. 
 Wherefore, it is in this sense true what an ancient sage 
 has taught you, that all knowledge is recollection. 11 It is 
 recollection of what is outside of all time, and is therefore 
 justly to be placed at the head of all temporal things. 
 
 And as it is with intuition and feeling on the one hand, so 
 it is with knowledge, which includes both, and with activity 
 on the other. Through the constant play and mutual 
 influence of these opposites, your life expands and has its 
 place in time. Both knowledge and activity are a desire 
 to be identified with the Universe through an object. If 
 the power of the objects preponderates; if, as intuition or 
 feeling, it enters and seeks to draw you into the circle of 
 their existence, it is always a knowledge. If the preponder- 
 ating power is on your side, so that you give the impress 
 and reflect yourselves in the objects, it is activity in the 
 narrower sense, external working. Yet it is only as you 
 are stimulated and determined that you can communicate 
 yourselves to things. In founding or establishing anything 
 in the world you are only giving back what that original 
 
 11 An allusion to Plato's doctrine of di/d/i^ts : cf. Afeno, 82 ; 
 Phcedo, 73. See Wordsworth's "Ode," with prefatory note ; and 
 Tennyson's "The Two Voices." 
 
272 Romanticism 
 
 act of fellowship has wrought in yon, and similarly every- 
 thing the world fashions in you must be by the same act. 
 One must mutually stimulate the other. Only in an inter- 
 change of knowing and activity can your life consist. A 
 peaceful existence, wherein one side did not stimulate the 
 other, would not be your life. It would be that from which 
 it first developed, and into which it will again disappear. 
 
 There then you have the three things about which my 
 Speech has so far turned perception, feeling, and activity, 
 and you now understand what I mean when I say they 
 are not identical and yet are inseparable. Take what belongs 
 to each class and consider it by itself. You will find that 
 those moments in which you exercise power over things and 
 impress yourselves upon them, form what you call your 
 practical, or, in the narrower sense, your moral life; again 
 the contemplative moments, be they few or many, in which 
 things produce themselves in you as intuition, you will 
 doubtless call your scientific life. Now, can either series 
 alone form a human life 1 Would it not be death ? If each 
 activity were not stimulated and renewed by the other, 
 would it not be self -consumed 1 Yet they are not identical. 
 If you would understand your life and speak comprehensibly 
 of it, they must be distinguished. As it stands with these 
 two in respect of one another, it must stand with the third 
 in respect of both. How then are you to name this third, 
 which is the series of feeling 1 What life Mill it form 1 The 
 religious as I think, and as you will not be able to deny, 
 when you have considered it more closely. 
 
 The chief point in my Speech is now uttered. This is 
 the peculiar sphere which I would assign to religion the 
 whole of it, and nothing more. Unless you grant it, you 
 must either prefer the old confusion to clear analysis, or 
 produce something else, I know not what, new and quite 
 wonderful. Your feeling is piety, in so far as it expresses, 
 in the manner described, the being and life common to you 
 
Schleiermacher 273 
 
 and to the All. Your feeling is piety in so far as it is the 
 result of the operation of God in you by means of the 
 operation of the world upon you. This series is not made 
 up either of perceptions or of objects of perception, either of 
 works or operations or of different spheres of operation, but 
 purely of sensations and the influence of all that lives and 
 moves around, which accompanies them and conditions them. 
 These feelings are exclusively the elements of religion, and 
 none are excluded. There is no sensation that is not pious, 12 
 except it indicate some diseased and impaired state of the 
 life, the influence of which will not be confined to religion. 
 Wherefore, it follows that ideas and principles are all foreign 
 to religion. 13 This truth we here come upon for the second 
 time. If ideas and principles are to be anything, they must 
 belong to knowledge, which is a different department of life 
 from religion. 
 
 RELIGION AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 From within, in their original, characteristic form, the 
 emotions of piety must issue. They must be indubitably 
 your own feelings, and not mere stale descriptions of the 
 feelings of others, which could at best issue in a wretched 
 imitation. 
 
 Now the religious ideas which form those systems can and 
 
 13 By this is meant, as Schleiermacher explains in a note, that no 
 natural and moral feeling, e.g. wedded love, can be inconsistent with 
 piety. 
 
 13 Here is raised in an acute form the question whether, if ideas 
 are foreign to religion, there can be any real meaning in the words 
 "religious truth." Is it sufficient to reply, as Schleiermacher does, 
 that religion as such must be rigidly distinguished from what merely 
 belongs to it, and that while ideas are not in themselves an element 
 in the religious act, they are yet required to propagate religion in 
 other minds? See p. 129 n., and of. James, op. eft. Leot. xviii. 
 18 
 
274 Romanticism 
 
 ought to be nothing else than such a description, for religion 
 cannot and will not originate in the pure impulse to know. 14 
 What we feel and are conscious of in religious emotions is 
 not the nature of things, but their operation upon us. What 
 you may know or believe about the nature of things is far 
 beneath the sphere of religion. The Universe is ceaselessly 
 active and at every moment is revealing itself to us. Every 
 form it has produced, everything to which, from the fulness 
 of its life, it has given a separate existence, every occurrence 
 scattered from its fertile bosom is an operation of the 
 Universe upon us. Now religion is to take up into our 
 lives and to submit to be swayed by them, each of these 
 influences and their consequent emotions, not by themselves 
 but as a part of the Whole, not as limited and in opposition 
 to other things, but as an exhibition of the Infinite in our life. 
 Anything beyond this, any effort to penetrate into the nature 
 and substance of things, is no longer religion, but seeks to be 
 a science of some sort. 
 
 On the other hand, to take what are meant as descriptions 
 of our feelings for a science of the object, in some way the 
 revealed product of religion, or to regard it as science and 
 religion at the same time, necessarily leads to mysticism 15 
 and vain mythology. For example, it was religion when 
 the Ancients, abolishing the limitations of time and space, 
 regarded every special form of life throughout the whole 
 
 14 A protest against both the older Dogmatism and the newer 
 intellectual Idealism. Ritschl also maintains the secondary and 
 derivative place of knowledge in religion. For him religion springs, 
 not from subjective feeling, but from the practical necessities of man ; 
 the absolute worth of personality demands such a supernatural 
 government of the world as shall preserve and develop personal 
 life. 
 
 15 The mysticism which Schleiennacher rejects is that which Har- 
 nack has defined as "rationalism applied to a sphere above reason." 
 But that his own view is in another, and a true, sense mystical, we 
 have seen above. 
 
SMeiermacher 275 
 
 world as the work and as the kingdom of a being who in 
 this sphere was omnipresent and omnipotent, because one 
 peculiar way in which the Universe operates was present as 
 a definite feeling, and they described it after this fashion. 
 It was religion when they assigned a peculiar name and 
 built a temple to the god to whom they ascribed any helpful 
 occurrence whereby in an obvious, if accidental, way the 
 laws of the world were revealed, because they had com- 
 prehended something as a deed of the Universe, and after 
 their own fashion set forth its connexion and peculiar 
 character. It was religion when they rose above the rude 
 iron age, full of flaws and inequalities, and sought again the 
 golden age on Olympus in the joyous life of the gods, 
 because beyond all change and all apparent evil that results 
 only from the strife of finite forms, they felt the ever-stirring, 
 living and serene activity of the World and the World-Spirit. 
 But when they drew up marvellous and complex genealogies 
 of the gods, or when a later faith produced a long series of 
 emanations and procreations, it was not religion. Even 
 though these things may have their source in a religious 
 presentation of the relation of the human and the Divine, of 
 the imperfect and the perfect, they were, in themselves, vain 
 mythology, and, in respect of science, ruinous mysticism. 
 The sum total of religion is to feel that, in its highest unity, 
 all that moves us in feeling is one ; to feel that aught single 
 and particular is only possible by means of this unity ; to 
 feel, that is to say, that our being and living is a being and 
 living in and through God. But it is not necessary that the 
 Deity should be presented as also one distinct object. To 
 many this view is necessary, and to all it is welcome, yet it 
 is always hazardous and fruitful in difficulties. It is not easy 
 to avoid the appearance of making Him susceptible of suffer- 
 ing like other objects. It is only one way of characterising 
 God, and, from the difficulties of it, common speech will 
 probably never rid itself. But to treat this objective concep- 
 
276 Romanticism 
 
 tion of God just as if it were a perception, as if apart from 
 His operation upon us through the world the existence of 
 God before the world, and outside of the world, though for 
 the world, were either by or in religion exhibited as science 
 is, so far as religion is concerned, vain mythology. What is 
 only a help for presentation is treated as a reality. It is 
 a misunderstanding very easily made, but it is quite outside 
 the peculiar territory of religion. 16 
 
 From all this you will at once perceive how the question, 
 whether religion is a system or not, is to be treated. It 
 admits of an entire negative, and also of a direct affirmative, 
 in a way that perhaps you scarce expected. Religion is 
 certainly a system, if you mean that it is formed according 
 to an inward and necessary connexion. That the religious 
 sense of one person is moved in one way, and that of another 
 in another, is not pure accident, as if the emotions formed 
 no whole, as if any emotions might be caused in the same 
 individual by the same object. Whatever occurs anywhere, 
 whether among many or few, as a peculiar and distinct kind 
 of feeling is in itself complete, and by its nature necessary. 
 What you find as religious emotions among Turks or Indians, 
 cannot equally appear among Christians. The essential one- 
 ness of religiousness spreads itself out in a great variety of 
 provinces, and again, in each province it contracts itself, and 
 the narrower and smaller the province there is necessarily 
 more excluded as incompatible and more included as charac- 
 teristic. Christianity, for example, is a whole in itself, but 
 so is any of the divisions that may at any time have appeared 
 
 16 An interesting comparison with Spinoza may be suggested at 
 this point. For the earlier thinker, intellectual love of the Divine 
 Substance is in contrast to the imaginative representations of ordinary 
 religion. For Schleiermacher the highest region, not the lower, is 
 religion, though he strenuously denies that religion is to be called 
 knowledge. Hegel, with his contrast between the Begriff of the 
 philosopher and the Vorstellung of the plain man, sides rather with 
 Spinoza. Cf. p. 112 n. 
 
Schleiermacher 277 
 
 in it, down to Protestantism and Catholicism in modern 
 times. Finally, the piety of each individual, whereby he is 
 rooted in the greater unity, is a whole by itself. It is a 
 rounded whole, based on his peculiarity, on what you call his 
 character, of which it forms one side. Religion thus fashions 
 itself with endless variety, down even to the single person- 
 ality. 
 
 Each form again is a whole, and capable of an endless 
 number of characteristic manifestations. You would not 
 have individuals issue from the Whole in a finite way, each 
 being at a definite distance from the other, so that one 
 might be determined, construed, and numbered from the 
 others, and its characteristics be accurately determined in a 
 conception ? Were I to compare religion in this respect with 
 anything it would be with music, which indeed is otherwise 
 closely connected with it. Music is one great whole ; it is a 
 special, a self-contained revelation of the world. Yet the 
 music of each people is a whole by itself, which again is 
 divided into different characteristic forms, till we come to 
 the genius and style of the individual. Each actual instance 
 of this inner revelation in the individual contains all these 
 unities. Yet while nothing is possible for a musician, except 
 in and through the unity of the music of his people, and the 
 unity of music generally, he presents it in the charm of sound 
 with all the pleasure and joyousness of boundless caprice, 
 according as his life stirs in him, and the world influences 
 him. In the same way, despite the necessary elements in its 
 structure, religion is, in its individual manifestations whereby 
 it displays itself immediately in life, from nothing farther 
 removed than from all semblance of compulsion or limitation. 
 In life, the necessary element is taken up, taken up into 
 freedom. Each emotion appears as the free self-determination 
 of this very disposition, and mirrors one passing moment of 
 the world. 
 
278 Romanticism 
 
 RELIGION AND MORALITY. 
 
 Seers of the Infinite have ever been quiet souls. They 
 abide alone with themselves and the Infinite, or if they do 
 look around them, grudge to no one who understands the 
 mighty word his own peculiar way. By means of this wide 
 vision, this feeling of the Infinite, they are able to look 
 beyond their own sphere. There is in religion such a capacity 
 for unlimited many-sidedness in judgment and in contempla- 
 tion, as is nowhere else to be found. I will not except even 
 morality and philosophy, not at least so much of them as 
 remains after religion is taken away. Let me appeal to your 
 own experience. Does not every other object whereto man's 
 thinking and striving are directed, draw around him a narrow 
 circle, inside of which all this highest for him is enclosed, and 
 outside of which all appears common and unworthy'? The 
 man who only thinks methodically, and acts from principle 
 and design, and will accomplish this or that in the world, 
 unavoidably circumscribes himself, and makes everything 
 that does not forward him an object of antipathy. Only 
 when the free impulse of seeing and of living is directed 
 towards the Infinite and goes into the Infinite, is the mind 
 set in unbounded liberty. Religion alone rescues it from the 
 heavy fetters of opinion and desire. For it, all that is is 
 necessary, all that can be is an indispensable image of the 
 Infinite. In this respect it is all worthy of preservation and 
 contemplation, however much, in other respects, and in itself, 
 it is to be rejected. To a pious mind religion makes every- 
 thing holy, even unholiness and commonness, whether he 
 comprehends it or does not comprehend it, whether it is 
 embraced in his system of thought or lies outside, whether it 
 agrees with his peculiar mode of acting or disagrees. Religion 
 is the natural and sworn foe of all narrow-mindedness and of 
 all one-sidedness. 
 
 These charges, therefore, do not touch religion. They rest 
 
Schleiermacher 279 
 
 upon the confusion between religion and that knowledge 
 which belongs to theology. It is a knowledge, whatever be 
 its value, and is to be always distinguished from religion. 
 Just as inapplicable are the charges you have made in respect 
 of action. Something of this I have already touched upon, 
 but let us take a general glance at it in order to set it entirely 
 aside, and to show you exactly what I mean. Two things 
 must be carefully distinguished. In the first place, you 
 charge religion with causing not infrequently in the social, 
 civil, and moral life, improper, horrible, and even unnatural 
 dealings. I will not demand proof that these actions have 
 proceeded from pious men. I will grant it provisionally. But 
 in the very utterance of your accusation, you separate religion 
 and morality. 17 Do you mean then that religion is immorality, 
 or a branch of it 1 Scarcely, for your war against it would 
 then be of quite another sort, and you would have to make 
 success in vanquishing religion a test of morality. With the 
 exception of a few who have shown themselves almost mad 
 in their mistaken zeal, you have not yet taken up this posi- 
 tion. Or do you only mean that piety is different from 
 morality, indifferent in respect of it, and capable therefore 
 of accidentally becoming immoral 1 Piety and morality can 
 be considered apart, and so far they are different. As I have 
 already admitted and asserted, the one is based on feeling, 
 the other on action. But how, from this opposition, do you 
 come to make religion responsible for action ? Would it not 
 be more correct to say that such men were not moral enough, 
 and had they been, they might have been quite as pious 
 without harm 1 If you are seeking progress as doubtless 
 you are where two faculties that should be equal have 
 
 17 Schleiermacher's claim is that, while distinguishing religion and 
 morality, he does not separate them. Their point of union, how- 
 ever, is to found, not by direct inspection, but indirectly by follow- 
 ing each up into that "inner unity of life and being" which is the 
 home of feeling, and from which moral action issues autonomously. 
 
280 Romanticism 
 
 become unequal, it is not advisable to call back the one in 
 advance. It would be better to urge forward the laggard. 
 
 Lest you should think I am merely quibbling, consider 
 that religion by itself does not urge men to activity at all. 18 
 If you could imagine it implanted in man quite alone, it 
 would produce neither these nor any other deeds. The man, 
 according to what we have said, would not act, he would only 
 feel. Wherefore, as you rightly complain, there have been 
 many most religious men in whom the proper impulses to 
 action have been wanting, and morality been too much in the 
 background, who have retired from the world and have betaken 
 themselves in solitude to idle contemplation. Religion, when 
 isolated and morbid, is capable of such effects, but not of 
 cruel and horrible deeds. In this way, your accusation can 
 be turned into praise. 
 
 However different the actions you blame may be, they have 
 this in common, that they all seem to issue immediately from 
 one single impulse. Whether you call this special feeling 
 religious or not, I am far from disagreeing with you when 
 you so constantly blame it. Rather I praise you the more 
 thorough and impartial you are. Blame also, I pray you, 
 not only where the action appears bad, but still more where 
 it has a good appearance. When action follows a single 
 impulse, it falls into an undue dependence, and is far too much 
 under the influence of the external objects that work upon 
 this one emotion. Feeling, whatever it be about, if it is not 
 dormant, is naturally violent. It is a commotion, a force to 
 which action should not be subject and from which it should 
 not proceed. Quiet and discretion, the whole impress of our 
 
 18 An unqualified assertion of the quietistic nature of religion .per sc. 
 We must connect this with Schleiermacher's early association with the 
 Moravians, and the influence of the theology of the Brethren, as well 
 as with his intense aversion to a utilitarian view of piety. Morality 
 which stands in need of the props supplied by religion is no true mor- 
 ality, and to make religion the handmaid of morals is to degrade it. 
 
Sckleiermacher 281 
 
 nature should give action birth and character, and this is as 
 much required in common life as in politics and art. But 
 this divergence could only come because the agent did not 
 make his piety sufficiently evident. Wherefore, it would 
 rather appear that, if he had been more pious he would have 
 acted more morally. The whole religious life consists of two 
 elements, that man surrender himself to the Universe and 
 allow himself to be influenced by the side of it that is turned 
 towards him is one part, and that he transplant this contact 
 which is one definite feeling, within, and take it up into the 
 inner unity of his life and being, is the other. The religious 
 life is nothing else than the constant renewal of this proceed- 
 ing. When, therefore, anyone is stirred, in a definite way, by 
 the World, is it his piety that straightway sets him to such 
 working and acting as bear the traces of commotion and 
 disturb the pure connexion of the moral life 1 ? Impossible. 
 On the contrary, his piety invites him to enjoy what he has 
 won, to absorb it, to combine it, to strip it of what is 
 temporal and individual, that it may no more dwell in him 
 as commotion, but be quiet, pure, and eternal. From this 
 inner unity, action springs of its own accord, as a natural 
 branch of life. As we agreed, activity is a reaction of feeling, 
 but the sum of activity should only be a reaction of the sum 
 of feeling, and single actions should depend on something 
 quite different from momentary feeling. Only when each 
 action is in its own connexion and in its proper place, and 
 not when, dependency and slavishly, it corresponds to one 
 emotion, does it exhibit, in a free and characteristic way, the 
 whole inner unity of the spirit. 
 
 Consequently your charge does not touch religion. And, 
 if you are speaking of a morbid state of it, you are speaking 
 of what is quite general and is not in any way original to 
 religion nor specially seated in it, and from which con- 
 sequently nothing is to be concluded against religion in 
 particular. Religion is, of course, finite, and therefore subject 
 
282 Romanticism 
 
 to imperfections ; but it must be apparent to you that, in a 
 healthy state, man cannot be represented as acting from 
 religion or being driven to action by religion, but piety and 
 morality form each a series by itself and are two different 
 functions of one and the same life. But while man does 
 nothing from religion, he should do everything with religion. 
 Uninterruptedly, like a sacred music, the religious feelings 
 should accompany his active life. 
 
 NATURE THE VESTIBULE OF THE DIVINE TEMPLE. 
 
 We have now, I hope, firm ground beneath us. We have 
 attached ourselves to that moment, which is never directly 
 observed, but in which all the different phenomena of life 
 fashion themselves together, as in the buds of some plants 
 blossom and fruit are both enclosed. 19 When, therefore, we 
 have asked where now among all it produces is religion 
 chiefly to be sought, we have found only one right and con- 
 sistent answer. Chiefly where the living contact of man with 
 the world fashions itself as feeling. These feelings are the 
 beautiful and sweet-scented flowers of religion, which, after 
 the hidden activity opens, soon fall, but which the Divine 
 growth ever anew produces from the fulness of life. A 
 climate of paradise is thus created in which no penuriousness 
 disturbs the development, and no rude surrounding injures the 
 tender lights and fine texture of its flowers. To this I would 
 now conduct you, your vision having been purified and prepared. 
 
 First of all, 20 then, follow me to outward nature, which 
 
 19 The " mystical " moment in which sense and object are one ; see 
 note 9 . 
 
 20 All that is finite is a manifestation of the Infinite. But we can 
 behold the Infinite more perfectly in certain forms of the finite than 
 in others. Consequently, Schleiermacher now draws a series of con- 
 centric circles, each revealing the Infinite more adequately than the 
 
RMeiermacher 283 
 
 is to many the first and only temple of the Godhead. 21 In 
 virtue of its peculiar way of stirring the heart, it is held to 
 be the inmost sanctuary of religion. At present, however, 
 this outward nature, although it should be more, is little else 
 than the outer court, for the view with which you next 
 oppose me is utterly to be repudiated. The fear of the 
 powers which rule in nature, which spare nothing, which 
 threaten the life and works of man, is said to give the first 
 feeling of the Infinite, or even to be the sole basis of religion. 
 Surely in that case you must admit, that if piety came with 
 fear it must go with fear. 
 
 MAN MUST FIND GOD FIRST IN HIMSELF. 
 
 But is it so easy to find original in nature the love and 
 resistance, the unity and peculiarity, whereby it is a Whole 
 for us 1 Just because our sense tends in quite another direc- 
 tion, is there so little truly religious enjoyment of nature. 
 The sense of the Whole must be first found, chiefly within 
 our own minds, and from thence transferred to corporeal 
 nature. Wherefore the spirit is for us not only the seat of 
 religion but its nearest world. The Universe portrays itself 
 in the inner life, and then the corporeal is comprehensible 
 from the spiritual. 22 If the mind is to produce and sustain 
 
 last. These are Nature, the Individual's inner life, Humanity, 
 History, and, beyond all these, further forms of the Infinite's self- 
 manifestation which religious presentiment (Ahnung) can dimly 
 perceive. The "circles" are successively described in the brief 
 extracts which follow. 
 
 31 First Circle. The sublime rather than the beautiful in nature 
 is regarded as of importance for religion. Anomalies in the course 
 of the natural world are meant to suggest to us t the existence of a 
 higher law or system in which they disappear. 
 
 22 Second Circle. Once more we come upon the principle that what 
 is felt and contemplated in religion is the Infinite as individualised. 
 
284 Romanticism 
 
 religion it must operate upon us as a world and as in a 
 world. 
 
 Let me reveal a secret to you that lies almost hidden in 
 one of the oldest sources of poetry and religion. As long as 
 the first man was alone with himself and nature, the Deity 
 ruled over him and addressed him in various ways ; but he did 
 not understand, and answered nothing. His paradise was 
 beautiful, the stars shone down on him from a beautiful 
 heaven, but there awoke in him no sense for the world. 
 Even from within, this sense was not developed. Still his 
 mind was stirred with longing for a world, and he collected 
 the animal creation before him, if perhaps out of them a 
 world might be formed. Then the Deity recognised that the 
 world would be nothing, as long as man was alone. He 
 created a helpmate for him. At length the deep-toned 
 harmonies awoke in him, and the world fashioned itself before 
 his eyes. In flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, he 
 discovered humanity. In this first love he had a foretaste of 
 all love's forms and tendencies in humanity he found the 
 world. From this moment he was capable of seeing and 
 hearing the voice of the Deity, and even the most insolent 
 transgression of His laws did not any more shut him out 
 from intercourse with the Eternal Being. 
 
 The history of us all is related in this sacred legend. All 
 is present in vain for those who set themselves alone. In 
 order to receive the life of the World-Spirit, and have re- 
 ligion, man must first, in love, and through love, have found 
 humanity. 23 Wherefore, humanity and religion are closely 
 
 In this Address Schleiermacher appears to take an ambiguous view 
 of personality. It was, throughout, a characteristic of his thought 
 to lay stress on individuality ; accordingly, on the one hand, each 
 self is regarded as an indispensable reflection of the Infinite. On 
 the other hand, the conclusions on the subject of personal immortality 
 arrived at in the final paragraphs are at best dubious. 
 
 23 Third Circle. The life of the individual is incomplete without 
 the wider world of society. Though Schleiermacher gave some 
 
Schleiermcwher 285 
 
 and indissolubly united. A longing for love, ever satisfied 
 and ever again renewed, forthwith becomes religion. Each 
 man embraces "most warmly the person in whom the world 
 mirrors itself for him most clearly and purely ; he loves most 
 tenderly the person who he believes combines all he lacks of 
 a complete manhood. Similarly the pious feelings are most 
 holy that express for him existence in the whole of humanity, 
 whether as blessedness in attaining or of need in coming 
 short. 
 
 Wherefore, to find the most glorious elements of religion, 
 let us enter upon the territory where you are in your peculiar, 
 your most loved home. Here your inner life had its birth, 
 here you see the goal of all your striving and doing before 
 your eyes, and here you feel the growth of your powers 
 whereby you are evermore conducted towards it. Humanity 
 itself is for you the true universe, and the rest is only added 
 in so far as it is related to it or forms its surroundings. Even 
 for me, this point of view suffices. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 From these wanderings through the whole territory of 
 humanity, pious feeling returns, quickened and educated, into 
 its own Ego, and there finds all the influences that had 
 streamed upon it from the most distant regions. If, on 
 returning with the consecration of intercourse with the world 
 still fresh upon us, we give heed how it is with us in this 
 feeling, we become conscious that our Ego vanishes, not only 
 into smallness and insignificance, but into one-sideduess, in- 
 sufficiency, and nothingness. What lies nearer to mortal man 
 
 prominence to the idea of the kingdom of God, to him the individual is 
 primary, the society secondary. In particular, we miss from the Reden 
 the thought that religion must view humanity as organised for a great 
 moral end, to he realised in them and through them by CJod. 
 
286 Romanticism 
 
 than unaffected humility 1 . . . You not only find at times all 
 the manifold degrees of human powers within you, but when 
 self-love is quite submerged in sympathy, all the countless 
 mixture of human tendencies that you have ever seen in the 
 characters of others appears simply arrested impulses of your 
 own life. There are moments when, despite all distinction of 
 sex, culture, or environment, you think, feel, and act as if you 
 were really this or that person. In your own order, you have 
 actually passed through all those different forms. You are a 
 compendium of humanity. In a certain sense your single 
 nature embraces all human nature. 24 Your Ego, being 
 multiplied and more clearly outlined, is in all its smallest and 
 swiftest changes immortalised in the manifestations of human 
 nature. As soon as this is seen, you can love yourselves with 
 a pure and blameless love. Humility, that never forsakes 
 you, has its counterpart in the feeling that the whole 
 of humanity lives and works in you. Even contrition is 
 sweetened to joyful self-sufficiency. This is the completion of 
 religion on this side. It works its way back to the heart, and 
 there finds the Infinite. The man in whom this is accom- 
 plished, is no more in need of a mediator for any sort of 
 intuition of humanity. Rather he is himself a mediator for 
 many. 
 
 But there is not merely the swinging of feeling between the 
 world and the individual, in the present moment. Except as 
 something going on, we cannot comprehend what affects us, 
 and we cannot comprehend ourselves, except as thus pro- 
 gressively affected. Wherefore, as feeling persons, we are 
 ever driven back into the past. The spirit furnishes the chief 
 nourishment for our piety, and history immediately and 
 
 24 The importance which Sehleiermacher attached to individuality 
 is seen in this emphatic passage. This is a subject which received 
 still further attention in his ethics, in which he argues that each 
 person acquires moral value only in so far as he expresses human 
 nature with independence and idiosyncrasy. 
 
SchUiermacher 287 
 
 especially is for religion the richest source.- 5 History is 
 not of value for religion, because it hastens or controls in any 
 way the progress of humanity in its development, but because 
 it is the greatest and most general revelation of the deepest 
 and holiest. In this sense, however, religion begins and ends 
 with history. Prophecy and history are for religion the same 
 and indistinguishable, and all true history has at first had a 
 religious purpose, and has taken its departure from religious 
 ideas. 
 
 What is finest and tenderest in history, moreover, cannot 
 be communicated scientifically, but can only be comprehended 
 in the feeling of a religious disposition. The religious mind 
 recognises the transmigration of spirits and souls, which to 
 others is but graceful fiction, as, in more than one sense, a 
 wonderful arrangement of the Universe for comparing the 
 different periods of humanity according to a sure standard. 
 
 RELIGION AS THE SENSE OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 Some prominent emotions of religion connected with nature 
 and humanity, I have now sketched in vague outline. I have 
 brought you to the limits of your horizon. Here is the end 
 and summit of religion for all to whom humanity is the whole 
 world. But consider that in your feeling there is something 
 that despises these bounds, something in virtue of which you 
 cannot stay where you are. Beyond this point only infinity 
 is to be looked into. I will not speak of the presentiments 
 which define themselves and become thoughts which might 
 by subtilty be established, that humanity, being capable of 
 motion and cultivation, being not only differently manifested 
 in the individual, but here and there really being different, 
 
 25 Fourth Circle. Humanity must be viewed not only as it is, but 
 in its process of becoming ; and this is History. The stamp of 
 Romantic influence on this passage is plain. 
 
288 Romanticism 
 
 cannot possibly be the highest, the sole manifestation of the 
 unity of spirit and matter. As the individual is only one 
 form of humanity, so humanity may be only one form of this 
 unity. Beside it many other similar forms may exist, bound- 
 ing it and standing over against it. 26 But in our own feeling 
 we all find something similar. The dependence of our earth, 
 and therefore of the highest unity it has produced, upon 
 other worlds, has been impressed upon us both by nature and 
 by education. Hence this ever active but seldom understood 
 presentiment of some other marriage of spirit and matter, 
 visible and finite, but above humanity, higher and closer and 
 productive of more beautiful forms. 27 But any sketch that 
 could be drawn would be too definite. Any echo of the 
 feeling could only be fleeting and vague. Hence it is exposed 
 to misconception, and is so often taken for folly and super- 
 stition. 
 
 - This is sufficient reference to a thing so immeasurably far 
 from you. More would be incomprehensible. Had you only 
 the religion that you could have ! Were you but conscious 
 of what you already have ! Were you to consider the few 
 
 26 In these words, it has very plausibly been argued, Schleiermacher 
 is suggesting, or at least playing with, the idea that there may be 
 some truth in the instinct which pleads that mankind cannot be the 
 sole, or the highest, form of spiritual existence with which the bound- 
 less material universe is peopled. May not, lie seems to ask, the 
 angels and world-spirits of which the history of religion is so full, 
 be but stages on the way to the Infinite, ever more perfect forms of 
 the union of the Infinite and the finite? (Cf. Aquinas, p. 16.) In 
 his Glaubenslehre ( 43) his final conclusion on the subject of angels is 
 stated thus : " The one doctrine we can formulate regarding angels is 
 that the question whether they exist ought not to have any influence 
 on our action, and that revelations of their existence are no longer to 
 be looked for." 
 
 27 Otto (the son of Albrecht) Ritschl thinks that there is a veiled 
 reference in these words to the Person of Christ. What Schleiermacher 
 appears to have in his mind, however, is not a single figure, but 
 rather a multiplicity of possible examples. 
 
Sclileiei^macher 289 
 
 religious opinions and feelings that I have so slightly 
 sketched, you would be very far from finding them all 
 strange to you. Something of the same kind you must have 
 had in your thoughts before. But I do not know whether to 
 lack religion quite, or not to understand it, is the greater 
 misfortune. In the latter case also it fails of its purpose, and 
 you impose upon yourselves in addition. 
 
 Two things I would specially blame in you. Some things 
 you select and stamp as exclusively religious, other things 
 you withdraw from religion as exclusively moral. Both you 
 apparently do on the same ground. Religion with you is 
 the retribution which alights on all who resist the Spirit 
 of the Whole, it is the hatred everywhere active against 
 haughtiness and audacity, the steady advance of all human 
 things to one goal. 28 You are conscious of the feeling that 
 points to this unfailing progress. After it has been purified 
 from all abuses, you would willingly see it sustained and ex- 
 tended. But you will then have it that this is exclusively 
 religion, and you would exclude other feelings that take their rise 
 from the same operation of the mind in exactly the same way. 
 
 How have you come to this torn off fragment 1 I will tell 
 you. You do not regard it as religion but as an echo of 
 moral action, and you simply wish to foist the name upon it 
 in order to give religion the last blow. What we have agreed 
 to acknowledge as religion does not arise exclusively in the 
 moral sphere, not at least in the narrow sense in which you 
 understand the word. Feeling knows nothing of such a 
 limited predilection. If I direct you specially to the sphere 
 of the spirit and to history, it does not follow that the moral 
 world is religion's Universe. In your narrow sense of it the 
 moral world would produce very few religious emotions. The 
 pious man can detect the operation of the World-Spirit in 
 all that belongs to human activity, in play and earnest, in 
 
 28 I.e. you recognise the presence in history of an eternal and 
 purposive government of all human things. 
 19 
 
290 Romanticism 
 
 smallest things and in greatest. Everywhere he perceives 
 enough to move him by the presence of this Spirit, and with- 
 out this influence nothing is his own. Therein he finds a 
 Divine Nemesis that those who, being predominantly ethical 
 or rather legal, w r ould, by selecting from religion only the 
 elements suited to this purpose, make of it an insignificant 
 appendage to morals, do yet, purify religion as they may, 
 irrecoverably corrupt their moral doctrine itself and sow in it 
 the seed of new errors. When anyone succumbs in moral 
 action, it sounds well to say it is the will of the Eternal, and 
 that what does not succeed through us will sometime, by 
 others, come to pass. But if this high assurance belonged to 
 moral action, moral action would be dependent on the degree 
 of receptivity for this assurance in each person at any moment. 
 Morality cannot include immediately aught of feeling without 
 at once having its original power and purity disturbed. 29 
 
 With all those feelings, love, humility, joy, and the others 
 that I pictured as the undulation of the mind between the 
 two points of which the world is one, and your Ego the other, 
 you deal in another way. The ancients knew what was right. 
 They called them all piety. For them those feelings were an 
 essential part of religion, the noblest part. You also recog- 
 nise them, but you try to persuade yourselves that they are 
 an essential section of your moral action. You would justify 
 these sentiments on moral principles, and assign them their 
 place in your moral system. But in vain, for, if you remain 
 true to yourselves, they will there neither be desired nor 
 endured. If action proceed directly from the emotions of 
 love or affection, it will be insecure and thoughtless. Moral 
 action should not proceed from such a momentary influence 
 of an outward object. Wherefore your doctrine of morals, 
 when it is strict and pure, acknowledges no reverence except 
 
 29 For otherwise the autonomy of the moral will would be invaded 
 by the entrance of motives drawn from other sources than reverence 
 for the right as such. 
 
Schleiermacher 291 
 
 for its own law. Everything done from pity or gratitude it 
 condemns as impure, almost as selfish. 30 It makes light of, 
 almost despises, humility. If you talk of contrition, it speaks 
 of lost time being needlessly increased. Your own feeling 
 must assure you that the immediate object of all these senti- 
 ments is not action. They are spontaneous functions of your 
 deepest and highest life, coming by themselves and ending 
 by themselves. Why do you make such an ado, and begging 
 for grace for them, where they have no right to be 1 Be con- 
 tent to consider them religion, and then you will not need to 
 demand anything for them except their own sure rights, and 
 you will not deceive yourselves with the baseless claims 
 which you are disposed to make in their name. Return 
 them to religion : the treasure belongs to it alone. As the 
 possessor of it, religion is for morality and all else that is 
 an object of human doing, not the handmaid, but an in- 
 dispensable friend and sufficient advocate with humanity. 
 This is the rank of religion, as the sum of all higher feelings. 
 That it alone removes man from one-sidedness and narrow- 
 ness I have already indicated. Now I am in a position to be 
 more definite. In all activity and working, be it moral or 
 artistic, man must strive for mastery. But when man 
 becomes quite absorbed, all mastery limits and chills, and 
 makes one-sided and hard. The mind is directed chiefly to 
 one point, and this one point cannot satisfy it. Can man, 
 by advancing from one narrow work to another, really use 
 his whole power 1 Will not the larger part be unused, and 
 turn, in consequence, against himself and devour him 1 How 
 many of you go to ruin because you are too great for your- 
 selves 1 A superfluity of power and impulse that never issues 
 
 so This is the ethical rigorism of Kant in its severest form. Kant 
 taught that an action is good only when done from a good motive, 
 while this motive must never be derived from the sphere of natural 
 inclination, but always and only from the good will itself; that duty is 
 duty only as done exclusively for duty's sake. 
 
292 Romanticism 
 
 in any work, because there is no work adequate, drives you 
 aimlessly about, and is your destruction. 
 
 To resist this evil would you have those who are too great 
 for one object of human endeavour, unite them all art, 
 science, life, and any others you may know of 1 This would 
 simply be your old desire to have humanity complete every- 
 where, your ever-recurring love of uniformity. But is it 
 possible? Those objects, as soon as they are attended to 
 separately, all alike strive to rouse and dominate the mind. 
 Each tendency is directed to a work that should be com- 
 pleted, it has an ideal to be copied, a totality to be embraced. 
 This rivalry of several objects of endeavour can only end by 
 one expelling the others. Nay, even within this one sphere, 
 the more eminent a mastery a man would attain, the more he 
 must restrict himself. But if this pre-eminence entirely 
 occupy him, and if he lives only to attain it, how shall he 
 duly participate in the world, and how shall his life become 
 a whole 1 Hence most virtuosos are one-sided and defective, 
 or at least, outside of their own sphere, they sink into an 
 inferior kind of life. 
 
 The only remedy is for each man, while he is definitely 
 active in some one department,' to allow himself, without 
 definite activity, to be affected by the Infinite. In every 
 species of religious feeling he will then become conscious of 
 all that lies beyond the department which he directly culti- 
 vates. The Infinite is near to everyone, for whatever be the 
 object you have chosen for your deliberate technical working, 
 it does not demand much thought to advance from it to find 
 the Universe. In it you discover the rest as precept, or in- 
 spiration, or revelation. The only way of acquiring what lies 
 outside the direction of the mind we have selected, is to enjoy 
 and comprehend it thus as a whole, not by will as art, but by 
 instinct for the Universe as religion. 
 
 Even in the religious form these objects again fall into 
 rivalry. This result of human imperfection causes, religion 
 
Schleiermacher 293 
 
 to appear dismembered. Religion takes the form of some 
 peculiar receptivity and taste for art, philosophy, or morality, 
 and is consequently often mistaken. Oftener, I say, it 
 appears thus than freed from all participation in one-sided- 
 ness, than completed, all-embracing. Yet this complete form 
 of religion remains the highest, and it is only by it that, with 
 satisfactory result, man sets alongside of the finite that he 
 specially concentrates on, an Infinite ; alongside of the con- 
 tracting endeavour for something definite and complete, 
 expansive soaring in the Whole and the Inexhaustible. In 
 this way he restores the balance and harmony of his nature, 
 which would be lost for ever, if, without at the same time 
 having religion, he abandon himself to one object, were it the 
 most beautiful, most splendid. A man's special calling is the 
 melody of his life, and it remains a simple, meagre series of 
 notes unless religion, with its endlessly rich variety, accom- 
 pany it with all notes, and raise the simple song to a full- 
 voiced glorious harmony. 
 
 If then this, that I trust I have indicated clearly enough 
 for you all, is really the nature of religion, I have already 
 answered the questions, Whence do those dogmas and doc- 
 trines come that many consider the essence of religion 1 ? 
 Where do they properly belong 1 And how do they stand 
 related to what is essential in religion 1 They are all the 
 result of that contemplation of feeling, of that reflection and 
 comparison, of which we have already spoken. 31 The con- 
 
 31 This is the first indication of a view which came to possess ever 
 greater prominence and influence in Schleiermacher's system. Doc- 
 trinal propositions, he holds, are not judgments about what is ob- 
 jectively known, but only descriptions of pious states of consciousness. 
 Doctrines, accordingly, are not religion, but the secondary products of 
 reflection upon religion. An application of this principle may be seen 
 in the closing section of this Address, where he discusses the doctrines 
 of God and immortality, and argues that they possess but a secondary 
 and inferior value, since they belong to the sphere of ideas rather than 
 to feeling and immediate consciousness. 
 
294 Romanticism 
 
 ceptions that underlie these propositions are, like your 
 conceptions from experience, nothing but general expressions 
 for definite feelings. They are not necessary for religion 
 itself, scarcely even for communicating religion, but reflection 
 requires and creates them. Miracle, inspiration, revelation, 
 supernatural intimations, much piety can be had without the 
 need of any one of these conceptions. But when feeling is 
 made the subject of reflection and comparison they are 
 absolutely unavoidable. In this sense all these conceptions 
 do certainly belong to the sphere of religion, and indeed 
 belong without condition or the smallest limit to their 
 application. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Remember, in the first place, that any feeling is not an 
 emotion of piety because in it a single object as such affects 
 us, but only in so far as in it and along with it, it affects us 
 as revelation of God. 32 It is, therefore, not an individual or 
 finite thing, but God, in whom alone the particular thing is 
 one and all, that enters our life. Nor do we stand over 
 against the World and in it at the same time by any one 
 faculty, but by our whole being. The Divine in us, therefore, 
 is immediately affected and called forth by the feeling. See- 
 ing then that I have presented nothing but just this im- 
 mediate and original existence of God in us through feeling, 
 how can anyone say that I have depicted a religion without 
 God ? Is not God the highest, the only unity 1 Is it not 
 God alone before whom and in whom all particular things 
 disappear ? And if you see the world as a Whole, a Universe, 
 
 32 Cf. note \ To interpret this passage rightly we must allow for 
 Schleiermacher's contention that religion is interested not so much in 
 the objective reality of God as in His subjective presence. Pious 
 feeling, he sometimes seems to say, might almost be said to be God. 
 
Schleiermacher 295 
 
 can you do it otherwise than in God 1 If not, how could you 
 distinguish the highest existence, the original and eternal 
 Being, from a temporal and derived individual 1 Otherwise 
 than by the emotions produced in us by the world we do not 
 claim to have God in our feeling, and consequently I have not 
 said more of Him. 
 
 If you will not admit that this is to have God, and to be 
 conscious of Him, I can neither teach nor direct you further. 
 How much you may know I do not judge, for it does not at 
 present concern me, but in respect of feeling and sentiment, 
 you would be for me godless. Science, it is true, is extolled 
 as giving an immediate knowledge about God, that is the 
 source of all other knowledge : only we are not now speaking 
 of science, but of religion. This way of knowing about God 
 which most praise and which I also am to laud, is neither the 
 idea of God as the undivided unity and source of all, that is 
 placed by you at the head of all knowledge nor is it the 
 feeling of God in the heart, of which we boast ourselves. It 
 lags far behind the demands of science, and is for piety some- 
 thing quite subordinate. It is an idea compounded from 
 characteristics, from what are called attributes of God. These 
 attributes correspond to the different ways in which the unity 
 of the individual and the Whole expresses itself in feeling. 
 Hence I can only say of this idea, what I have said of ideas 
 generally, in reference to religion, that there can be much 
 piety without it, and that it is first formed when piety is 
 made an object of contemplation. 
 
 Yet this idea of God, as it is usually conceived, is different 
 from the other ideas before adduced ; for though it seeks to be 
 the highest and to stand above all, God, being thought of as 
 too like us, as a thinking and willing Person, is drawn down 
 into the region of opposition. It therefore appears natural 
 that the more like man God is conceived, the more easily 
 another mode of presentation is set over against it. Hence 
 we have an idea of the Highest Being, not as personally 
 
296 Romanticism 
 
 thinking and willing, but exalted above all personality, as the 
 universal, productive, connecting necessity of all thought and 
 existence. 33 
 
 Nothing seems to me less fitting than for the adherents of 
 the former view to charge with godlessness those who, in 
 dread of this anthropomorphism, take refuge in the other, or 
 for the adherents of this latter view to make the humanness 
 of the idea of God a ground for charging the adherents of the 
 former with idolatry, or for declaring their piety void. 
 
 It matters not what conceptions a man adheres to, he can 
 still be pious. 34 His piety, the Divine in his feeling, may be 
 better than his conception, and his desire to place the essence 
 of piety in conception, only makes him misunderstand him- 
 self. Consider how narrow is the presentation of God in the 
 one conception, and how dead and rigid in the other. Neither 
 corresponds to its object, and thus cannot be a proof of piety, 
 except in so far as it rests on something in the mind, of 
 which it has come far short. Rightly understood, both pre- 
 sent, at least, one element of feeling ; but, without feeling, 
 neither is of any value. Many believe in and accept a God 
 presented in conception, and yet are nothing less than pious ; 
 and in no case is this conception the germ from which their 
 piety could ever spring, for it has no life in itself. Neither 
 conception is any sign of a perfect or of an imperfect religion, 
 but perfection and imperfection depend upon the degree of 
 cultivation of the religious sense. As I know of nothing 
 more that could bring us to an understanding on this subject 
 of conceptions, let us now go on to consider the development 
 of the religious sense. 
 
 88 On the possibility of a personal Absolute, see the argument of 
 Lotze, Selection XII. 
 
 34 In a later explanation Schleiermacher points out that his purpose 
 here is to urge that as belief in the existence of a personal God does 
 not necessarily connote real piety, so belief in an impersonal God does 
 not necessarily exclude it. 
 
Schleiermacher 297 
 
 As long as man's whole relation to the world has not 
 arrived at clearness, this feeling is but a vague instinct, the 
 world can appear to him nothing but a confused unity. 35 
 Nothing of its complexity is definitely distinguishable. It is 
 to him a chaos, uniform in its confusion, without division, 
 order, or law. Apart from what most immediately concerns 
 the subsistence of man, he distinguishes nothing as individual 
 except by arbitrarily cutting it off in time and space. Here 
 you will find but few traces of any conceptions, and you will 
 scarcely discern to which side they incline. You will not set 
 much value on the difference, whether a blind fate, only to be 
 indicated by magic rites, exhibits the character of the Whole, 
 or a being, alive indeed, but without definite characteristics, 
 an idol, a fetich, one, or, if many, only distinguishable by the 
 arbitrarily appointed limits of their sphere. 
 
 As we advance the feeling becomes more conscious. Cir- 
 cumstances display themselves in their complexity and defin- 
 iteness. The multiplicity of the heterogeneous elements and 
 powers, by whose constant and determined strife phenomena 
 are determined, becomes more prominent in man's conscious- 
 ness of the world. In the same degree the result of the 
 contemplation of this feeling changes. The opposite forms of 
 the idea stand more distinctly apart. Blind fate changes 
 into a higher necessity, in which, though unattainable and 
 unsearchable, reason and connexion rest. Similarly, the idea 
 of a personal God becomes higher, but at the same time 
 divides and multiplies, each power and element becomes 
 animate, and gods arise in endless number. They are now 
 
 35 Man's religious sense of the Whole, we learn here, advances 
 through the following stages : the Infinite (of which the finite is the 
 manifestation) is felt first as a confused chaos (Fetichism), next as an 
 inharmonious multiplicity (Polytheism), and, finally, as a unity in 
 variety, as system (Theism). How this feeling mirrors itself in idea or 
 thought is another and a secondary question. On the historical order 
 here stated, cf. p. 319 n. 
 
298 Romanticism 
 
 distinguishable by means of the different objects of their 
 activity, and different inclinations and dispositions. A 
 stronger, fairer life of the Universe in feeling you must 
 acknowledge is here exhibited. It is most beautiful when 
 this new won complexity and this innate highest unity are 
 most intimately bound together in feeling, as, for example, 
 among the Greeks, whom you so justly revere. Both forms 
 then unite in reflection, one being of more value for thought, 
 the other for art ; one showing more of the complexity, the 
 other of the unity. But this stage, even without such a 
 union, is more perfect than the former, especially if the idea of 
 the Highest Being is placed rather in the eternal unattainable 
 necessity than in single gods. 
 
 Let us now mount higher where opposing elements are 
 again united, where existence, by exhibiting itself as totality, 
 as unity in variety, as system, first deserves its name. Is not 
 the man who perceives existence both as one and as all, who 
 stands over against the Whole, and yet is one with it in feel- 
 ing, to be accounted happier in his religion, let his feeling 
 mirror itself in idea as it may 1 There as elsewhere, then, the 
 manner in which the Deity is present to man in feeling is 
 decisive of the worth of his religion, not the manner, always 
 inadequate, in which it is copied in idea. Suppose there is 
 someone arrived at this stage who rejects the idea of a 
 personal God. I will not decide on the justice of the names 
 you are accustomed to apply to him, whether Pantheist or 
 Spinozist. This rejection of the idea of a personal Deity 
 does not decide against the presence of the Deity in his feel- 
 ing. The ground of such a rejection might be a humble 
 consciousness of the limitation of personal existence, and 
 particularly of personality joined to consciousness. He might 
 stand as high above a worshipper of the twelve gods whom 
 you would rightly name after Lucretius, as a pious person at 
 that stage would be above an idolater. 
 
 But we have here the old confusion, the unmistakable sign 
 
Schleiermacher 299 
 
 of defective culture. Those who are at the same stage, only 
 not at the same point, are most strongly repudiated. The 
 proper standard of religiousness, that which announces the 
 stage to which a man has attained, is his sense for the Deity. 
 But to which idea he will attach himself depends purely on 
 what he requires it for, and whether his imagination chiefly 
 inclines towards existence and nature or consciousness and 
 thought. 
 
 You will not, I trust, consider it blasphemy or incongruity 
 that such a matter should depend on the direction of the 
 imagination. 36 By imagination I do not mean anything sub- 
 ordinate or confused, but the highest and most original faculty 
 in man. All else in the human mind is simply reflection 
 upon it, and is therefore dependent on it. Imagination in 
 this sense is the free generation of thoughts, whereby you 
 come to a conception of the world ; such a conception you 
 cannot receive from without, nor compound from inferences. 
 From this conception you are then impressed with the feeling 
 of omnipotence. The subsequent translation into thought 
 depends on whether one is willing in the consciousness of his 
 own weakness to be lost in the mysterious obscurity, or 
 whether, first of all, seeking definiteness of thought, he cannot 
 think of anything except under the one form given to us, 
 that of consciousness or self -consciousness. Recoil from the 
 obscurity of indefinite thought is the one tendency of the 
 imagination, recoil from the appearance of contradiction in 
 transferring the forms of the finite to the Infinite is the other. 
 
 Now, cannot the same inwardness of religion be combined 
 with both 1 Would not a closer consideration show that the 
 two ways of conceiving are not very wide apart 1 But the 
 pantheistic idea is not to be thought of as death, and no effort 
 
 36 Imagination means here not capricious fancy, but that ideal 
 faculty in man which reaches out beyond the immediate datum of 
 sense, and creates the object as a whole, furnishing us, e.g., with the 
 conception of the world as a unity. 
 
300 Romanticism 
 
 is to be spared to surpass in thought the limits of the personal 
 idea. 
 
 So much I have thought it necessary to say, not so much 
 in explanation of my own position, as to prevent you from 
 thinking that all are despisers of religion who will not accept 
 the personality of the Highest Being as it is usually set forth. 
 And I am quite convinced that what has been said will not 
 make the idea of the personality of God more uncertain for 
 anyone who truly has it; nor will anyone more easily rid 
 himself of the almost absolute necessity to acquire it, for 
 knowing whence this necessity comes. Among truly religious 
 men there have never been zealots, enthusiasts, or fanatics for 
 this idea. Even when timidity and hesitation about it is 
 called atheism, truly pious persons will leave it alone with 
 great tranquillity. Not to have the Deity immediately 
 present in one's feeling has always seemed to them more 
 irreligious. They would most unwillingly believe that any- 
 one could in point of fact be quite without religion. They 
 believe that only those who are quite without feeling, and 
 whose nature has become brutish, can have no consciousness 
 of the God that is in us and in the world, and of the Divine 
 life and operation whereby all things consist. But whosoever 
 insists, it matters not how many excellent men he excludes, 
 that the highest piety consists in confessing that the Highest 
 Being thinks as a person and wills outside the world, cannot 
 be far travelled in the region of piety. Nay, the profoundest 
 words of the most zealous defenders of his own faith must 
 still be strange to him. 
 
 The number who would have something from this God, 
 that is alien to piety, is only too great. He is to give an 
 outward guarantee of their blessedness and incite them to 
 morality. 37 They want to have it before their eyes. They 
 
 37 Schleiermacher has here in view the Kantian tenet that the 
 existence of God must be postulated in order to secure (even though it 
 be in a future life) the combination of virtue and happiness. 
 
Schleiermacher 301 
 
 would not have God working on man by freedom, but in the 
 only way in which one free being can work on another, by 
 necessity, by making Himself known either by pain or by 
 pleasure. But this cannot incite us to morality. Every 
 external incitement is alien to morality, whether it be hope 
 or fear. To follow it where it concerns morality is unfree, 
 therefore unmoral. But the Highest Being, particularly 
 when he is thought of as free, cannot wish to make freedom 
 itself not free, and morality not moral. 
 
 This now brings me to the second point, to immortality. 38 I 
 cannot conceal that in the usual manner of treating this sub- 
 ject there is still more that seems to me inconsistent with the 
 nature of piety. I believe I have just shown you in what 
 way each one bears in himself an unchangeable and eternal 
 nature. If our feeling nowhere attaches itself to the in- 
 dividual, but if its content is our relation to God wherein all 
 that is individual and fleeting disappears, there can be nothing 
 fleeting in it, but all must be eternal. In the religious life 
 then we may well say we have already offered up and dis- 
 posed of all that is mortal, and that we actually are enjoying 
 immortality. But the immortality that most men imagine 
 and their longing for it, seem to me irreligious, nay, quite 
 opposed to the spirit of piety. Dislike to the very aim of 
 religion is the ground of their wish to be immortal. Recall 
 how religion earnestly strives to expand the sharply cut out- 
 lines of personality. Gradually they are to be lost in the 
 Infinite that we, becoming conscious of the Universe, may as 
 much as possible be one with it. But men struggle against 
 this aim. They are anxious about their personality, and do 
 not wish to overstep the accustomed limit, or to be anything 
 else but a manifestation of it. The one opportunity that 
 
 38 A later explanation informs us that what the author is discussing 
 here is whether the hope of immortality is so essential to a pious 
 direction of the mind that the two stand or fall together. Cf. 
 note . 
 
302 Romanticism 
 
 death gives them of transcending it, they are very far from 
 wishing to embrace. On the contrary, they are concerned as 
 to how they are to carry it with them beyond this life, and 
 their utmost endeavour is for longer sight and better limbs. 
 But God speaks to them as it stands written, " Whosoever 
 loses his life for My sake, the same shall keep it ; and whoso- 
 ever keeps it, the same shall lose it." The life that they 
 would keep is one that cannot be kept. If their concern is 
 with the eternity of their single person, why are they not as 
 anxious about what it has been as about what it is to be 1 
 What does forwards avail when they cannot go backwards 1 
 They desire an immortality that is no immortality. They are 
 not even capable of comprehending it, for who can endure the 
 effort to conceive an endless temporal existence 1 Thereby 
 they lose the immortality they could always have, and their 
 mortal life in addition, by thoughts that distress and torture 
 them in vain. Would they but attempt to surrender their 
 lives from love to God ! Would they but strive to annihilate 
 their personality and to live in the One and in the All ! 
 Whosoever has learned to be more than himself, knows that 
 he loses little when he loses himself. Only the man who 
 denying himself sinks himself in as much of the whole 
 Universe 39 as he can attain, and in whose soul a greater and 
 holier longing has arisen, has a right to the hopes that death 
 gives. With him alone it is really possible to hold further 
 converse about the endlessness to which, through death, we 
 infallibly soar. 
 
 This, then, is my view of these subjects. The usual con- 
 ception of God as one single being outside of the world and 
 behind the world is not the beginning and the end of religion. 
 It is only one manner of expressing God, seldom entirely pure 
 and always inadequate. Such an idea may be formed from 
 mixed motives, from the need for such a being to console and 
 
 39 A striking instance of the older pantheistic language which 
 Schleiermacher had gradually come to discard. 
 
Schleiermacher 303 
 
 help, and such a God may be believed in without piety, at 
 least in my sense, and I think in the true and right sense. 
 If, however, this idea is formed, not arbitrarily, but somehow 
 by the necessity of a man's way of thinking, if he needs it for 
 the security of his piety, the imperfections of his idea will not 
 cumber him nor contaminate his piety. Yet the true nature 
 of religion is neither this idea nor any other, but immediate 
 consciousness of the Deity as He is found in ourselves and in 
 the world. 40 Similarly, the goal and the character of the 
 religious life is not the immortality desired and believed in by 
 many or what their craving to be too wise about it would 
 suggest pretended to be believed in by many. It is not the 
 immortality that is outside of time, behind it, or rather after 
 it, and which still is in time. It is the immortality which we 
 can now have in this temporal life ; it is the problem in the 
 solution of which we are for ever to be engaged. In the 
 midst of finitude to be one with the Infinite and in every 
 moment to be eternal is the immortality of religion. 41 
 
 References. The most useful English account of Schleiermacher's 
 thought is probably to be found in Adams Brown's The Essence of 
 Christianity (1902), chap, v., where a good bibliography is given. 
 The student should not fait to read the admirable introduction which 
 Mr. Oman has prefixed to his translation of the Reden ; it contains 
 also a sketch of Schleiermacher's life. Cf. too the works by Pfleiderer, 
 
 40 No better description of religion, as Schleiermacher conceived it, 
 is to be found in the Addresses. 
 
 41 It has already been said that the theological influence of Schleier- 
 macher was epoch making. In the first place, he revived in theology 
 the art of systematic thinking ; secondly, he drew firmly the distinction 
 between religion and dogma, between piety and the theory of it, and 
 to this distinction he was the first to give full effect in the construction 
 of a system of doctrine ; thirdly, he insisted that religion is an historical 
 phenomenon, and that apart from history its meaning cannot be 
 understood. For the various schools of theological thought which 
 trace their chief impulse to Schleiermacher, see Pfleiderer, Development 
 of Theology since Kant ; Frank, Gcschichte der neueren Theologic ; and 
 Kattenbusch, Von Schleiermacher zu Ritschl, 
 
304 Romanticism 
 
 Frank, and Kattenbusch, mentioned in the last note, and very 
 specially Lichtenberger's History of German Theology in the Nineteenth 
 Century (T. & T. Clark, 1889). For more detailed study of the 
 Reden, see A. Ritschl, Schleiermacher's Reden uber die Religion; 
 Lipsius, "Schleiermacher's Keden"(in Jahrbilcher fur prot. Theol. 
 1875) very important ; and Huber, Die Entwicklung des Religions- 
 bcgriffs von Schleiermacher. 
 
IX. 
 
 GOD SEEN IN THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 COUSIN (1792-1867). 
 
 AN " argument " for Theism based on man's delight in the 
 beauties of nature, and his sentiment of pure admiration for 
 nobility of virtuous deeds and characters, would seem to lie at 
 hand parallel to the arguments from Truth and Goodness. 
 Yet not only has its admission to an independent position 
 been very rare, but recognition has been faint and hesitating 
 even when rejection has been avoided, both among theologians 
 and philosophers. 1 Meanwhile, many poets and artists have 
 been religious in their own way, and a gulf has opened 
 between philosophy and science, as representing knowledge 
 and ethics on the one hand, and poetry and the arts as 
 seeking the worship of the Beautiful on the other. If only 
 Beauty could be established as co-ordinate with the True and 
 the Good, it would seem as if there would not be much 
 difficulty about the inference to Theism in the one case being 
 as valid as in the others. 
 
 In illustration of this, the most effective reference would be 
 to such poets and artists as have explicitly explained their 
 religion. We were inclined to resort to Wordsworth as a poet 
 in whom the love of Beauty was a potent factor for religion, 
 and who gave close attention to the genesis and development 
 of this sentiment in his own personal history. From the 
 Prelude, where this autobiography is given, and from certain 
 other poems, the " argument " could be exhibited copiously. 2 
 
 1 For some account of such treatment as is found in English writers, 
 see Caldecott, Philosophy of Religion, p. 56 and pp. 187-196. 
 
 2 See Seeley's vindication of the right of poets and artists to be 
 regarded as, in their way, devoted to religion (Natural Religion, by the 
 
 20 
 
306 God seen in the Beautiful 
 
 But it is more congruous with our other selections to resort 
 to a philosophical work, and we give the leading passages of 
 the argument as set forth by Cousin. 
 
 Victor Cousin's lectures at the Sorbonne formed a prominent 
 feature in the philosophical teaching at the French Universities 
 during the first half of the nineteenth century ; Renan, for 
 example, always acknowledged their influence on himself. 
 They were chiefly critical and historical, his own views being 
 what is known as eclectic, selected from various systems. 
 The most vigorous expression of them is in the volume entitled 
 Du Vrai, Du JSeau, et Du ien, made up in 1853 from 
 lectures actually delivered more than thirty years before. 
 
 In the section on Le eau, Cousin is chiefly occupied in 
 establishing the datum that Beauty is a specific quality of 
 things and persons, giving rise to a specific sentiment in the 
 beholder ; from this he moves to the inference that there is a 
 supreme Beauty which is an attribute of the Divine Being. 
 
 He commences with a reference to the history of the 
 subject : 
 
 It is the eighteenth century which has introduced, or 
 rather has restored, to philosophy those researches on the 
 Beautiful and on Art which were so familiar to Plato and 
 Aristotle, but which had been slighted by the Schoolmen, 3 
 
 author of Ecce Homo) ; and compare Mr. Balfour on our passing 
 beyond Naturalism in spite of failure to prove that the Beautiful 
 is "a necessary and unchanging element in the scheme of things" 
 (Foundations of Belief). Wordsworth gives full expression both 
 to his appreciation of Beauty and to his Theistic interpretation of 
 it. His appreciation was not confined to Beauty in external nature ; 
 as his mind developed he came more and more to value it in human 
 character and human life, especially in private and domestic scenes. 
 But others have touched profounder chords of Moral Beauty, and 
 Wordsworth's eminence among poets is due to the enthusiasm for 
 External Beauty, in itself and as a symbol of Divinity, which possessed 
 him at the epoch of his life when his powers of poetic expression were 
 at their zenith. 
 
 3 Cousin was familiar with the Schoolmen, and his epithet ' ' slighted " 
 is accurate. The recognition of Beauty was not wholly missing in the 
 comprehensive mind of Aquinas, and what he says shows discernment, 
 
Cousin 307 
 
 and had remained almost foreign to the great philosophers of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 Of course, no one would look to the Empirical School for 
 the revival of this noble branch of philosophy. Neither Locke 
 nor Condillac allowed a single chapter for it, nay, not even 
 a page. Their successors treated it with the same disdain ; 
 since they did not find it easy to bring it under their 
 system, the most convenient course was to ignore it. It is 
 true that Diderot was enthusiastic for the Beautiful and 
 for its expression in Art, even to the possession of flashes of 
 genius in this direction ; but in his head everything fermented 
 but nothing ripened, as Voltaire said. Hints upon it appear 
 in his writings, ingenious enough, but often contradictory ; 
 and there are no principles, all is but transitory impression ; 
 he cannot make up his mind what the ideal is, he is satisfied 
 with a crude and affected naturalness such as we expect from 
 the author of L' Interpretation de la nature, the Pere defamille, 
 the Neveu de Rameau, and Jacques le Fataliste. Diderot is 
 a materialist in art as he is in philosophy ; he is of his age 
 and school, with a tincture of poetry, sensibility, and imagin- 
 ation. It was worthy of the Scottish school, and of Kant, 
 
 but he does not bring it to the front for Theism. The Beautiful and the 
 Good, he says, are identical as to subject-matter, for both are founded 
 upon Form, and therefore both receive our praise ; but they differ in 
 their reference : the Good is related to desire, that is good which we 
 desire, and it moves us as a final cause ; while the Beautiful is related 
 to Knowledge, pulchradicuntur quce visa, placent, and it moves us a 
 formal cause (S. Th. pt. i. q. v. art. iv.). But even here he does not 
 give it an article to itself, but is treating it in the article De Bono. And 
 Thomists are not accustomed to bring it into separate evidence. Dr. 
 Boedder in his Natural Theology, however, does this, taking Truth, 
 Goodness, and Beauty as the three "Transcendental Attributes," and 
 giving a clear though much condensed statement, appreciative of this 
 Theistic argument. And Heinrich Krug has recently published, at 
 Freiburg, a volume, De pulchritudine divina, in the preface to which 
 he remarks, " Ex innumcris proprietatibus Dei vix est ulla, quae adeo 
 ncglecta a thcologis videtur, ut pulchritudo Divina. 
 
308 God seen in the Beautiful 
 
 that they both gave to the Beautiful a place in their 
 teaching. 4 
 
 They studied it both in the mind and in nature, but they 
 did not even approach the difficult question of its expression 
 by human genius. We propose to treat the subject in its 
 whole extent, and to offer at least an outline of a regular and 
 complete theory of Beauty and of Art. 
 
 The Beautiful can be studied in two ways : either outside 
 ourselves, i.e. in itself and in the objects, whatever they may 
 be, which offer an image of it ; or else in the spirit of man, 
 in the faculties which grasp it, in the ideas or the sentiments 
 which it excites in us. Now the true method which should 
 be familiar to you to-day is that of proceeding from the 
 study of man to the study of things. 5 Our starting-point will 
 therefore be a psychological analysis : we shall study the soul 
 in presence of the Beautiful, and thence proceed to the 
 consideration of the Beautiful in itself and in its objects. 
 
 The results of the inquiry as to the Datum are : 
 In the Soul. Agreeableness of sensations is an accompani- 
 ment of the higher sentiment, but it is not indispensable, 
 though disagreeableness must be absent. But the truly 
 Beautiful has its source in Reason, it is of universal scope, 
 and before it all men are in accord : it is ideal and absolute. 
 
 4 In English philosophy Shaftesbmy (d. 1713) was the great excep- 
 tion to the contemners of Esthetic : in the Scottish School, Hutclieson 
 (d. 1746) made it prominent, and ensured for it respect by the succeed- 
 ing leaders of the School, Reid, Adam Smith, Stewart. It was this 
 side of philosophy that Burke chose for mental refreshment. For the 
 history of Esthetic we have three recent reviews : Sully in the Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica ; Bosanquet's History of ^Esthetic, 1892 ; and 
 Knight's Philosophy of the Beautiful, 1891-1893. 
 
 6 The wording reminds us that our selection is from a course of 
 lectures. Cousin was one of those who boldly carried rhetorical art 
 into their academic teaching : his free employment of oratory extended 
 his influence over circles far wider than his university classes, and con- 
 tributed to the revival of a spiritualistic philosophy in French thought 
 during the middle of the nineteenth century. 
 
Cousin 309 
 
 As a sentiment it must not be confounded with desire, which 
 implies deficiency. It is a specific sentiment, giving a pleasure 
 of its own, austere in tone. It becomes a stimulus to the play 
 of imagination, which, agaiu, reacts on the sentiment. But 
 it is imagination under the control of Reason which imposes 
 upon it unity, harmony of parts, just proportion, measure, 
 simplicity. Taste is the full appreciation of the Beautiful ; 
 Art is Taste set in action. The kinds of ^Esthetic sentiment 
 are two : the Beautiful and the Sublime. 6 
 
 In objects. Utility gives no clue to Beauty. Adjustment 
 of means to ends goes further, but is inadequate. Proportion 
 is a condition of it, and must be present : order, and unity in 
 variety, similarly. The kinds of objective Beauty are three : 
 Physical, Intellectual, Moral. These culminate in Moral or 
 Spiritual Beauty. Beyond all actual Beauty is the Beauty 
 which is Ideal. 7 He resumes : 
 
 All the forms of the Beautiful which we have enumerated 
 
 6 The reader would do well to call into his service, before taking into 
 account this aspect of mind and nature and its capacity for constitut- 
 ing a broad basis for Theism, other terms than the two which have been 
 selected in treatises on ^Esthetic. Some terms of a technical kind were 
 required, and the Beautiful and the Sublime law passed into recog- 
 nised use. But it is not meant that the varied richness of languages 
 should be reduced to these, and in the religious reference we should 
 resort to all the wealth which poetic diction offers to us. ./Esthetic 
 Theism ponders over the soul as it rejoices in God, is satisfied, marvels, 
 is glad, gives honour, sings praises, delights daily in His name, walks 
 in the light of His countenance. It thinks of the glory of the Lord, 
 of the splendour of His majesty, of His fair beauty ; of His judgments 
 as more to be desired than gold, as sweet, as loved exceedingly, as the 
 soul's delight. We ought to spend a few moments with the Psalmists, 
 and with, say, Milton, in order to be in a position to appreciate the 
 spirit which animates those for whom the religious sentiment is, 
 primarily, the adoration and the love of God. 
 
 7 For other theories of the Beautiful than the one here propounded, 
 see the histories referred to in note 4 . Professor Tufts in Baldwin's 
 Dictionary of Philosophy (1901) gives an historical resumt of some 
 principal theories. See, especially, Kant's Critique of Judgment, 
 Bernard's edition, and J. H. Kennedy's examination of Kant's position 
 (Natural Theology and Modern Thought}. 
 
310 God seen in the Beautiful 
 
 and related to one another constitute what we designate 
 actual Beauty. But beyond these is another order, Ideal 
 Beauty. The Ideal resides neither in the individual nor 
 in a collection of individuals. Nature or experience provides 
 the occasion of our conceiving it, yet Beauty is essentially 
 a distinct thing. The man who has once conceived it finds 
 all natural figures, beautiful as they may be, only images of 
 a Beauty which is not realised in them. Show me a noble 
 action, and I will imagine an action more noble still. The 
 Belvidere Apollo can be criticised in more points than one. 
 The Ideal recedes as we approach it ; its last term is in the 
 Infinite, that is to say, in God ; or to express it better still, 
 the true and absolute Ideal is no other than God Himself. 
 
 As we have found God to be the principle of all things, 
 He must be the principle of perfect Beauty, and consequently 
 of all those natural forms of Beauty which express it with 
 more or less of imperfection. He is the principle of the 
 Beautiful, both as Author of the physical, and as Father 
 of the intellectual and the moral worlds. 
 
 It is simply to be a slave of the senses and of appearances 
 if a man stops at the movements, forms, sounds, and colours, 
 which by their harmonious combinations produce the Beauty 
 of the visible universe, and fails to conceive behind this 
 scene, magnificent and well ordered as it is, the author of 
 order, the Geometer, the Artist supreme. 
 
 The physically Beautiful serves as an envelope for the 
 intellectually and morally Beautiful. The intellectually 
 Beautiful, that splendour of the True, what else can be its 
 principle, if not that which is the principle of all Truth? 
 Moral Beauty, as we shall see farther on, comprises two 
 distinct elements, equally but differently beautiful, Justice and 
 Charity, respect for men and love of men. He who expresses in 
 his conduct Justice and Charity accomplishes the noblest of 
 works ; the good man is in his way the greatest of Artists. 
 
 But what are we to say of Him who is the substance 
 
Cousin 311 
 
 of Justice and the inexhaustible source of Love*? If our 
 nature is noble, what must be the nobility of the Author 
 of our nature 1 His justice and His kindness are everywhere, 
 within us and outside us. His justice is that moral order 
 which no human law has made, but which all human laws 
 strive to express, which persists and maintains itself in the 
 world by its own force. When we look into ourselves our 
 conscience attests the Divine justice in the peace and satis- 
 faction which accompany virtue through all the troubles 
 and distractions which are the inexorable penalties of vice 
 and crime. How often and with what ever fresh eloquence 
 we celebrate the untiring solicitude of Providence, its benefits 
 everywhere evident in the most minute as "in the most 
 superficial phenomena of nature, easily forgotten by us only 
 because of their very familiarity, but filling us in moments 
 of reflection with admiration and gratitude, and proclaiming 
 a surpassing Divinity, abounding in love for all His creatures. 
 
 Thus God is the principle of all the three orders of the 
 Beautiful which we have distinguished physical, intellectual, 
 and moral. 
 
 Further, it is in God that the Beautiful and the Sublime, 
 those great forms of the Beautiful which we have found 
 spread abroad in all the three orders, combine. God is 
 perfect Beauty : for what object can better satisfy all our 
 faculties, Reason, Imagination, Sentiment 1 ? He presents to 
 our Reason the most elevated Idea beyond which there is 
 nothing, to our Imagination the most attractive Contempla- 
 tion, to our Sentiment an object supremely lovely. He is 
 therefore perfectly the Beautiful; but is He not also the 
 perfect Sublime 1 If He extends the horizon of our thought, 
 it is to confound us in the abyss of His magnificence. If 
 the soul expands before the spectacle of His goodness, does 
 it not at the same time feel awe when it thinks on His 
 justice, as it stands before the soul with no less clearness 
 than His goodness 1 God is both gentle and awful. At 
 
312 God seen in the Beautiful 
 
 the same time that He is life, light, movement, and all the 
 ineffable grace in visible and finite nature, He is also called 
 the Eternal, Invisible, Infinite, Immeasurable, the absolute 
 Unity and Being of beings. These august attributes, as 
 certainly as the tender graces of Beauty, must produce in our 
 soul in the very highest degree that sombre emotion we 
 call the Sublime. Yes, God is for us the type and the 
 source of these two great forms, because He is also an 
 enigma which we cannot penetrate, and yet the clearest key 
 we can find to all other enigmas. Beings finite as we are 
 can grasp nothing which is free from limits, yet we can 
 explain nothing without reference to that which is free from 
 limits altogether. By our own nature we have some idea of the 
 infinite nature of God, by the void which is in us we lose our- 
 selves in the being of God. Thus forced to have recourse to 
 Him in order to explain anything at all, and always driven 
 back upon ourselves under the weight of His infinitude, we 
 experience at times, or even in a single moment, for the Deity 
 who at once raises us and overwhelms us, a sentiment irresistibly 
 attracting us ; which yet also causes a stupor, not to say an in- 
 surmountable terror, which He alone can pacify because He 
 alone is the unity of the Sublime and the Beautiful. 8 
 
 8 As examples of the refusal to allow Beauty to be conjoined with 
 Duty as basis for Theism, we may take two great writers who were 
 themselves endowed highly with the faculty of Taste : 
 
 Martineau (Types of Ethical Theory, bk. i. branch i.) : " (In Greek 
 ethics) the notion of Duty retreats into the background, and in its 
 place they investigate the Highest Good, a more comprehensive object, 
 including, along with Morality, Beauty also and Wisdom, a combina- 
 tion which, though fitted to dignify and adorn it (Morality), misses its 
 peculiar and paramount authority, and changes it from a matter of 
 universal obligation into the monopoly of philosophers." 
 
 Newman (Grammar of Assent, pt. i. chap. v. 1): "As we hare 
 naturally a sense of the beautiful and graceful in nature and Art, 
 though tastes proverbially differ, so we have a sense of duty and 
 obligation, whether we all associate it with the same actions in par- 
 
Cousin 313 
 
 Thus the absolute Being who is at once absolute unity 
 and absolute variety is necessarily the final reason, the 
 primary foundation, the fulfilled ideal of all Beauty. In 
 Him we have that Eternal Beauty of which Deotimus had 
 glimpses, and which he thus depicts to Socrates in the 
 Symposium : 9 - 
 
 ticular or not. Here, however, Taste and Conscience part company ; 
 for the sense of beautifulness, as indeed the Moral Sense, has no special 
 relations to persons, but contemplates objects in themselves. . . . And, 
 further, taste is its own evidence, appealing to nothing beyond its own 
 sense of the beautiful or the ugly, and enjoying the specimens of the 
 beautiful simply for their own sake ; but conscience does not repose on 
 itself, but vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and 
 dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its decisions, as is 
 evidenced in that keen sense of obligation and responsibility which 
 informs them. And hence it is that we are accustomed to speak of 
 conscience as a voice, a term which we should never think of applying 
 to the sense of the Beautiful." 
 
 9 The insistence on rb KoK&v permeates Plato's treatment of the 
 Highest Good: in the Republic and Phcedo it is very definitely 
 marked ; in the Symposium it rises to its highest point in the dis- 
 cussion which is closed with the splendid passage here cited. 
 
 It is hardly fair to any writer to place any utterance in close 
 proximity to this classical paean in praise of the Beautiful. But lest 
 it should appear that for appreciation of this aspect of Theism we have 
 to resort either to the Greek or the French mind, we append three 
 citations from a very different quarter, the great Calvinist divine, 
 Jonathan Edwards (d. 1758). In his treatise on the Religious Affec- 
 tions (pt. iii. 2) : "Men do not first see that God loves them and 
 then see that He is lovely ; but they first see that God is lovely, and 
 that Christ is excellent and glorious, and their hearts are captivated 
 with this view, and the exercises of their love are wont from time to 
 time to begin here ; and then, consequentially, they see God's love 
 and favour to them. In the love of the true saint God is the lowest 
 foundation." And "the first foundation of a true love for God is 
 that whereby He is in Himself lovely or worthy to be loved, in the 
 supreme loveliness of His nature. This is certainly what chiefly 
 makes Him amiable. What chiefly makes a man or any creature 
 lovely is his excellency ; and so what chiefly renders God lovely, and 
 must undoubtedly be the chief ground of true love, is His excellency. 
 
314 God seen in the Beautiful 
 
 "Eternal Beauty, ungenerated and imperishable, exempt 
 from decay as from increase, which is not beautiful in one 
 point of view and unlovely in another, not beautiful only 
 in fair weather, in certain places, in certain relations; not 
 beautiful for some persons, but forbidding for others ; Beauty 
 which has neither sensible figure, nor countenance, nor hands, 
 nor anything corporal ; which is neither any particular thought 
 nor any particular science ; which resides in no being different 
 from itself, whether animal, earth or sky, or any other thing ; 
 which is absolutely identical with itself and invariable, in 
 which all other beautiful things participate, yet in such 
 manner that their birth or their destruction bring to it 
 neither diminution nor increase nor any mode of change. 
 ... To arrive at this Perfect Beauty, we must begin with 
 the forms of beauty we see down here, and, with our eyes 
 fixed on the Beauty Supreme, unceasingly raise ourselves 
 as we pass, so to speak, through all the degrees of the scale, 
 from a single beautiful bodily form to two such forms, from 
 two to all the others, from beautiful bodily forms to beautiful 
 sentiments, from beautiful sentiments to noble knowledge; 
 until from knowledge to knowledge we arrive at a perfected 
 knowledge, which has no other object than the Beautiful 
 itself, and we end by knowing it in its own nature. O my 
 dear Socrates, continued the stranger from Mantinea, it is 
 
 God's nature or divinity is infinitely excellent ; yea, it is infinite 
 beauty, brightness, and glory itself. But how can that be true love 
 of this excellent and lovely nature, which is not built on the founda- 
 tion of its true loveliness ? How can that be true love of beauty and 
 brightness, which is not for beauty and brightness' sake ? " And 
 " true saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased 
 and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature 
 of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights and 
 the cream of all their pleasures : it is the joy of their joy." 
 
 And it was a German contemporary, Winckelmann (d. 1768), who 
 wrote : " I cast my eyes down before Beauty, as did those to whom the 
 Highest appeared, believing that I saw the Highest in this vision." 
 
Cousin 315 
 
 the spectacle of the Eternal Beauty which alone can give value 
 to this life of ours. . . . What would not be the destiny of 
 a mortal to whom it might be given to contemplate Beauty 
 without alloy in its purity and its simplicity, clothed no 
 longer in human flesh and human colours, and all those 
 perishable and vain charms ; but permitted to see it in reality, 
 in its own perfect form, Beauty Divine ! " 
 
 References. Mozley makes an important contribution to the 
 philosophy of Beauty in relation to Theism (University Sermons), but 
 it deals only with External Beauty and its place in Teleological Proof ; 
 Dean Church in a volume of Sermons, Human Life and its Conditions, 
 takes a wider range, treating of External Nature, Human Life, and 
 Human History. Dr. Kennedy, of Dublin, Natural Theology and 
 Modern Thought, 1889, criticises Kant's treatment in the Critique of 
 Judgment, and himself incorporates the ^Esthetic with the general 
 Teleological Proof. See also Mr. Sturt, Essay VI. in Personal Idealism. 
 Oxford, 1902. 
 
X. 
 KELIGION AS SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857). 
 
 THE existence of National religions is so familiar a fact that 
 the student of history feels some surprise when he finds how 
 much of Theology is written with only the individual believer 
 in immediate view. He finds the individual placed on a 
 Bench of Judgment, and allowed plenary power of hearing 
 and determining the cause, and deciding whether a man 
 should be religious, and of what kind his religion should be. 
 Knowing as historian the incalculable variations which dis- 
 tinguish individuals from one another, he is obliged to seek 
 some presumption underlying the surface; this he finds in 
 the supposition of an ideal manhood at the centre of each 
 individual life, by virtue of which both thought and feeling 
 and ethical principle enjoy supreme authority, and are pre- 
 sumably invariable in all men. This presumption he finds 
 alike in the Theology which is Rationalist and that which 
 is Ethical, and he finds that it underlies also a great part of 
 the Theology of Christianity. But he is surprised, because 
 the religions he has been studying present themselves rather 
 as the outcome of tribal and national life and thought. They 
 bear signs of complexity which suggest that their genesis is 
 due to the operation of many minds carried on through many 
 generations; and the sanction by which they operate upon 
 individuals does not act directly within the individual's own 
 convictions so much as through the influence of the tribe or 
 nation to which he belongs. Explanations of religion, there- 
 fore, seem to him to move in some other region than that 
 of interpretation of fact ; they seek power to explain religion 
 by carrying thought away into an ideal region. He is 
 quite prepared, accordingly, when presently there appears an 
 
 316 
 
Comte 317 
 
 attempt to account for religion without rising into any ideal 
 region at all ; to treat it as a natural phenomenon explained 
 adequately when it is adequately described. Such an attempt, 
 inspired by the sense of the sufficiency of fact as seen in 
 the nineteenth century, is sure : to pay small regard to the 
 individual, who as an isolated being is so very far from being 
 a fact; and therefore the student of history finds it quite 
 natural when presently the world is offered a theory of religion 
 as the -expression and product not of the individual at all, 
 but of society. Such Sociological theories are now before 
 the world ; for these the best theory for an introductory study 
 is, we think, that of Auguste Comte. There may be other 
 thinkers who have included the Social factor, and have really 
 a more profound or more accurate estimate of its character 
 and its function ; but Comte looms prominently as one who 
 took his stand upon it, as he understood it, and made it the 
 corner-stone of his system. Defective as his sociology may 
 be, it is at least deep enough and wide enough to give us a 
 platform from which we may survey the problem of Religion 
 as a fabric constructed by mankind as a Society. 
 
 Before studying Comte's theory it must be noted that it 
 is Sociological in two aspects : (1) Society is the Subject of 
 religion : it is man in Society who believes and worships : it 
 is mankind which produces religious beliefs, ceremonies, in- 
 stitutions; and (2) it is Society which is also the Object of 
 religion : it is mankind which is believed in and worshipped, 
 which is the goal of action, and the supreme object both of 
 thought and of veneration. We shall not be introducing an 
 unjustifiable prejudice, we trust, in saying that it is in the 
 first of these aspects that Comte's system is of permanent 
 value to the philosophy of religion, as contributing a theory 
 which has won a place among leading theories. In the second 
 aspect his position amounts to a denial that religion is con- 
 cerned with a something over against and above the believing 
 community, and therefore he might have been content to call 
 it an Ethics or a Sociology rather than a Religion. How far 
 his appeal to the Social subject carries with it his positivist 
 restriction of the object of worship must be left to the judgment 
 of students after seeing Comte's position stated by himself. 
 
 Comte's two principal works are his Cours de Philosophic 
 Positive (1830-1842), and his Systeme de Politique Positive 
 (1851-1854). In the latter, which; we take as a fair de- 
 
318 Religion as Sociology 
 
 velopment from the former (against the view of J. S. Mill 
 and Harriet Martineau, but in agreement with Lewes, Mr. 
 Harrison, and Mr. John Morley), he expounds his view of 
 Social Order and Social Progress. The elements of Social 
 Order (volume ii.) he takes to be Religion, Property, the 
 Family, Language, Social organisation, and Social functions. 
 He commences, therefore, with Religion as the primary 
 element in Social Order. We print from Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison's translation (Longman's edition, 1875, out of 
 print). The selected passages are from chapter i. pp. 7-22, 
 51-53, 53-56, 58-66. 
 
 THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELIGION; OR THE 
 POSITIVE THEORY OF HUMAN UNITY. 
 
 Religion, originally Spontaneous, then Inspired, and after- 
 wards Revealed, has at length found its ground in Demon- 
 stration. In its full maturity it must satisfy at once the 
 feelings, the imagination, and the reason, as each of these 
 was in turn the source of one of its three earlier forms. 
 But over and above this it must govern directly the active 
 powers of Man, powers which neither Fetichism, nor even 
 Polytheism, nor least of all Monotheism, could adequately 
 control. Now that its ultimate requirements are ascertained, 
 and its preliminary phases are completed, a sound general 
 theory of Religion is possible, which could not begin so 
 long as narrow views and exclusive sympathies prevailed. 
 The aggregate of the history of the race supplies us now 
 with materials amply sufficient for this task. For the three 
 provisional systems of religion are so contrasted with each 
 other, that the leading features they all contain in common 
 will go to make up the ultimate system; whilst the law 
 by which these systems have supplanted each other will 
 give to that ultimate system its true characteristics. To this 
 general Theory of Religion, therefore, the first chapter of this 
 volume will be devoted ; and thus our abstract study of the 
 
Comte 319 
 
 social system will start with a systematic inquiry, into that 
 institution, which forms the universal basis of all society. 1 
 
 In the first place, we must remedy the want of clearness 
 and precision which hangs over the term jReligion. Very 
 careful thinkers are perpetually mixing up its essential pur- 
 pose with its temporary means. Its main function, in fact, 
 is far from being determined; and Religion is referred at 
 one time to the feelings, at another to the intellect. Besides, 
 the constant use of this term in the plural number shows 
 that its primary meaning has never been exactly under- 
 stood. 
 
 Throughout this treatise the term Religion will be used 
 to express that state of complete harmony peculiar to human 
 life, in its collective as well as in its individual form, when 
 
 1 In these opening sentences we find the outline of Cointe's psycho- 
 logy of religion, and of his history also. The psychology is, that 
 Feeling, Imagination, and Reason must all combine. The history is 
 guided by his famous " Law of the Three Stages," which he applies 
 to religion as to all other departments of life. 
 
 In the first stage (Theological) Feeling predominated, and imagina- 
 tion gave man Fetichism, then Polytheism, then Monotheism ; in the 
 second (Metaphysical) Reason came to the front, and, starting from 
 Monotheism, which was personal, set up abstractions, e.g. the Infinite, 
 Substance, First Cause ; then came Comte's opportunity to relinquish 
 all these, and in the third Stage (Positive) to insist that the time had 
 come for seeing that facts and their connexions suffice for Religion as 
 for all the rest of Man's life. The "positive" is the actual, useful, 
 certain, precise, as opposed to the negative, vain, dubious, indefinite ; 
 it is also the relative as opposed to the absolute. In this stage he 
 claims that all the psychological factors operate in due proportion. 
 It should be remembered that Comte is not reproaching mankind 
 for the defects of the two earlier stages : he hopes that he is leading 
 thought forward. For criticism of this "Law," see especially Dr. 
 Caird's Social Philosophy of Comte ; and for a defence, Levy Bruhl's 
 recent work. On the historical relation of Monotheism to other 
 forms, see Dr. Jevons, op. cit. c. xxv. The other key to Comte's Philo- 
 sophy is his Classification of the Sciences, culminating in Sociology. 
 See note 6 . 
 
320 Religion as Sociology 
 
 all the parts of Life are ordered in their natural relations 
 to each other. This definition, which alone embraces equally 
 all the different phases of Religion, applies equally to the 
 heart and to the intellect, for both of these must concur 
 to produce any true unity of life. Religion therefore gives 
 a natural harmony to the soul exactly analogous to that 
 which Health gives to the Body. The union of the moral 
 and the physical nature is so close, and the relation which 
 these two states hold to one another is so intimate, that we 
 may regard the Harmony of the Soul as virtually embracing 
 the health of the Body. Such a notion would be quite in 
 accordance with the practice of the primitive theocracies, 
 in which every direction respecting health was attributed to 
 a religious sanction. The gradual separation of the two sets 
 of rules, as to moral and physical health, was only a passing 
 consequence of the natural dissolution which the ancient 
 systems underwent. But since in the definitive System of 
 Life the connexion of these two institutions will be much 
 increased, it will be more appropriate for Religion in that 
 system to assume this comprehensive authority over all life 
 than it was in primitive times. 2 
 
 This definition excludes the use of the plural; it makes 
 it as impossible to speak of several religions as of several 
 healths. In each case, moral or physical, there are only 
 different degrees in the attainment of the true harmony. 
 The natural development of the human race, like that of 
 
 2 This is his definition. From this it is obviously idle to ask 
 whether or not we have religion, or whether or not there is an object 
 of religion ; for in this sense religion is identical with what we have 
 in our mind, and the object of religion is just what we find when all 
 the factors of our mind are in operation ; just that, and nothing more. 
 "Whatever Humanity ultimately thinks and feels is its religion ; and 
 conversely, whatever ultimate object of thought and feeling it dis- 
 covers and venerates is the object of its religion. La iheorie gfrierale 
 de la religion se confond pour Auguste Comte avec la iheorie positive de 
 VuniU humaine. (Brunetiere.) 
 
Comte 321 
 
 the entire animal series, exhibits as a whole a Harmony 
 which grows more and more complete in proportion as it 
 rises into the higher types. But the character of this unity 
 remains always the same, in spite of all the irregularities 
 through which it may actually be worked out. 3 
 
 The sole distinction which must be constantly maintained 
 is that which relates to the two different phases of our life, 
 individual and collective. Although more and more closely 
 connected, these two forms will never be united in one, and 
 each implies a special quality in religion. To establish a 
 state of complete unity, its task must consist both in 
 regulating each personal life, no less than in combining 
 different individual lives. Still, however important this 
 distinction is, it must not affect the intimate relation which 
 these two Functions of Religion bear to each other. The 
 conception of their thorough agreement is the first general 
 notion required by the Positive theory of Religion, which 
 never could be reduced to system at all, if these two great 
 ends of human existence did not coincide in fact. 4 
 
 In truth, the natural convergence between them springs 
 from the radical identity of the various elements of these 
 two forms of life. The personal and the social life of man 
 can only differ seriously, in extent or duration, or it may 
 be in rate of speed, never in principle nor in object, and 
 
 3 Religion, not Religions. This anticipates Comte's statement of 
 National Religions as preparatory for the Universal religion, their 
 obvious office while Nations occupied the scene in preparation for the 
 unified Human race. 
 
 4 To Comte it is fundamental that there is harmony between the 
 welfare of the Individual and that of Society ; he refers this homo- 
 geneous character to the nature of man as essentially social. The 
 term Altruism is Comte's own, as is Sociology. Those who are aware 
 how difficult it is to get a new word into currency will see that the 
 adoption of two leading terms in our present vocabulary indicates the 
 extent of the influence which Comte has exercised. Comte said 
 that he learnt his Altruism from Hume, Adam Smith, and Gall. 
 
 21 
 
322 Religion as Sociology 
 
 consequently not in means. This would be far from being 
 the case with a race inherently unsocial in nature, in which 
 the unity of the individual life and the harmony of collective 
 life might require conditions very distinct and even opposed. 
 Such is the case, in fact, with many of the carnivorous species, 
 where the unity of the personal powers depends upon an 
 habitual state of mere selfishness, as we had occasion to 
 explain in the former volume. Man, on the other hand, 
 more than any other of the social animals, tends more and 
 more to realise a unity strictly unselfish, one, moreover, which 
 is not so easy to attain as the unity of selfishness, but which 
 is superior in completeness and also in permanence. In his 
 instance, for we need now consider no other, to regulate and 
 to combine invariably require conditions essentially the same. 5 
 
 5 In his zeal for Sociology, Comte made no separate sphere for Psycho- 
 logy regarding the individual mind as not a phenomenon which gives 
 rise to a Science ; and yet there are places where the Individual crops 
 up somewhat awkwardly for him. In his attempt to regard religion 
 as regulating the individual experience and as combining the indi- 
 viduals into a unity, he seems to be in confusion, for the individuals 
 seem to have some independent status and value, and the total unity 
 seems to be a combination of them. Wundt, for example, thinks that 
 Comte did not get beyond the view of ' ' the revolutionary moralists 
 of the previous century, to whom Society was a sum of individuals 
 governed by an authority which reconciles conflicting interests " 
 (Ethical Systems, chap. iv.). But Sidgwick considered that Comte 
 was more successful in suppressing all trouble from the part of Egoism 
 (History of Ethics, p. 255). Hoffding also takes Comte to have 
 suppressed the individual both in politics and in religion (History of 
 Philosophy, vol. ii. ). Le Bon takes Comte as an instance of the Latin 
 disdain of liberty in contrast with Mr. Spencer (Psychologie de Social- 
 isme, tr. 1899). If we distinguish between Comte's intention and his 
 accomplishment, we shall not be surprised to find the Individual mak- 
 ing difficulties for him at times, especially as his later view of human 
 nature is so highly charged with that individualistic phenomenon, 
 Feeling. It is very difficult to read in any but an individualistic sense 
 the paragraphs next following, where the combination of men is 
 treated of, effected as it is by means of Veneration, Affection, Attach- 
 
Comte 323 
 
 With respect to the intellect, this natural coincidence 
 between the individual and the social form of unity shows 
 itself especially when we consider that the differences 
 amongst individuals are not greater than those between the 
 successive states through which each mind passes under the 
 various conditions, external and internal, which affect it. 
 Every doctrine capable of thoroughly regulating any single 
 understanding becomes, thereby alone, capable of gradually 
 combining other minds. The number of these can only 
 affect the greater or less rapidity with which the agreement 
 is effected. This natural test has been the true source of 
 that innate confidence which different reformers in philo- 
 sophy have felt in the ultimate ascendancy over mankind of 
 their own system, a system invested with full sanction in 
 their own minds by virtue of this personal experience. 
 The firmness of their own convictions gave them positive 
 proof that their doctrines would find ultimate acceptance 
 amongst men. 
 
 But the agreement natural to these two functions of 
 religion, the individual and the social, is still more direct 
 and obvious in the sphere of Feeling than in that of Thought. 
 I have already shown in Biology how in all the races 
 capable of social life the predominance of those feelings 
 which combine several individuals is also the best adapted 
 to regulate each individual separately. The personal effici- 
 ency of every animal race, not adapted for social existence, 
 can, indeed, only result from a full and habitual subordina- 
 tion of the nature to some self-regarding instinct. Hence 
 moral harmony is with them ordinarily very imperfect and 
 very uncertain, owing to the natural antagonism between the 
 various selfish instincts, each of which requires imperatively 
 
 ment, Benevolence, and Love, of which the Individual is the seat. In 
 his later life Cornte was inclining to lay more stress on the Individual ; 
 as is seen in his devising an Ethics beyond Sociology, though he did 
 not live to work it out. 
 
324 Religion as Sociology 
 
 to be gratified. True control over all the affections, to be 
 complete and at the same time permanent, can only be 
 formed, and certainly can only be developed, by the uniform 
 subordination of all these personal feelings to the feelings 
 which relate to society. This is the ground on which such 
 a harmony is possible in its full measure to man alone. 
 
 In the sphere of the activity the same connexion between 
 combining and regulating is a consequence of that tendency 
 to converge which we perceive both in the inclinations which 
 determine our conduct and in the opinions which modify it. 
 The activity of every social animal can only be maintained 
 so long as it remains considerate towards others. With the 
 races not capable of social life, action is always devoid of 
 unity, and is too inconsistent to permit any real provision. 
 It is only capable of control when the various instincts are 
 concentrated into a single passion, and that is only possible 
 in very inferior animals. 6 
 
 6 Man's place in the Cosmos is quite clear to Comte ; he is the 
 highest of beings ; the human race and its welfare give the highest 
 term in the Statical order of the Universe, the highest attainment of 
 Progress. This is simply on the positive, ground that we know of 
 nothing beyond Mankind ; that all else is fictional, and need no longer 
 occupy attention. This position of Man in the hierarchy of being is 
 expressed on the side of knowledge by Comte's order of the Sciences, 
 which proceeds from Mathematics to Astronomy, thence to Physics, 
 and onward to Chemistry, Biology, and Sociology. 
 
 In his later work Comte, finding that there is a lower and a higher 
 range in Sociology, draws out Ethics and Religion, and sets them up 
 as the ultimate spheres of knowledge. (For criticism of his scheme of 
 the Sciences, with a counter-scheme, see Spencer's Essays ; for pre- 
 ference for Comte's, Mill's Comte and Positivism ; and Levy Bruhl ; 
 and for further criticism, Professor K. Pearson, Grammar of Science.) 
 
 Comte is free from the trouble caused to some minds by the con- 
 sideration that Man is a creature dwelling in a corner of space : the 
 dimensions of the habitation do not for him affect the worth of the 
 inhabitant. 
 
 Comte's Positivism is therefore not to be described by the term 
 Agnosticism if we take "knowledge" as he means it; he is quite 
 
Comte 325 
 
 Now that the intimate connexion between these two 
 Functions of Religion has been established, we shall be free 
 to employ in turn either one or the other to explain the 
 unity of man. Their essential agreement is, no doubt, only 
 fully developed under the final form of Positive Religion, 
 towards which the highest members of the human family 
 are gradually tending. During the transitional era of 
 Theology one Function was supreme over the other, according 
 as the prevalent belief was more or less social in its 
 character. Polytheism was much more capable of combining 
 than of regulating ; whereas Monotheism only combined men 
 so far as it succeeded in regulating their lives. Still these 
 temporary differences only brought out in stronger light the 
 natural agreement between the two functions of Religion - } for 
 each thus becomes the collateral support of the other. 
 
 This leading idea forms the starting-point of a general 
 theory of Religion. It shows a natural agreement between 
 the two permanent conditions which are equally characteristic 
 of a state of harmony. It now becomes necessary to con- 
 tinue the task by one which is more difficult, and for 
 which the ground is less prepared, namely, the examination 
 of the two conditions, the one external, the other internal, 
 the complete harmony of which alone makes it possible to 
 regulate or to combine. 
 
 To constitute any true religious state there must be a 
 concurrence of two primary elements ; the one objective and 
 essentially intellectual, the other subjective and essentially 
 moral. Thus Religion exerts an influence at once over the 
 understanding and the feelings, neither of which separately 
 
 satisfied with what knowledge can give, its object is positive and real 
 in his sense. It is Agnostic to those who hold that Metaphysics and 
 Theology carry us beyond the Natural Sciences. As to the term 
 "Naturalism," the current use too often implies the absence of 
 reference to Mind or Spirit : in that sense Positivism is quite in 
 opposition to it. 
 
326 Religion as Sociology 
 
 would suffice to establish a true unity either for individual 
 or collective life. On the one hand, it is requisite that our 
 minds should conceive a Power without us, so superior to 
 ourselves as to command the complete submission of our 
 entire life. But, on the other hand, it is equally indispens- 
 able that our moral nature should be inspired within by one 
 affection, capable of habitually combining all the rest. 
 These two essential conditions naturally tend to work as 
 one, since the sense of submission to a Power without 
 necessarily seconds the discipline of the moral nature 
 within ; and this in turn prepares the way for the spirit of 
 submission. 
 
 The extreme difficulty which the mental condition of 
 modern times presents to unity leads us frequently to suppose 
 it possible only in the field of morals. It is, no doubt, only 
 in the moral nature that any agreement at all is consistently 
 sustained in the midst of the prevailing anarchy. But the 
 too obvious imperfection of this as a basis of Order, public 
 or private, is a very good proof of the inherent weakness of 
 this principle by itself, either to combine or to regulate. 
 
 Even if the nature of the human brain permitted, more 
 completely than it does, the supremacy of the higher 
 instincts, still their constant ascendancy would not establish 
 any true unity within us, especially in the sphere of action, 
 without an objective basis without us, which the intellect 
 only can supply. So long as this belief in an external 
 Power remains incomplete or unsteady, the loftiest emotions 
 are no check against infinite extravagance and profound 
 disagreement. What would be the consequence of supposing 
 the life of man entirely independent of the external world 1 
 In this preposterous hypothesis not only would the activity 
 of our race be at once deprived of any substantial object, but 
 the benevolent emotions also would at the same time lose all 
 character of consistency, and would ultimately be wasted in 
 barren and aimless effusion. 
 
Comte 327 
 
 In order, then, to regulate or to combine mankind, 
 Religion must, in the first instance, place man under the 
 influence of some external Power possessed of superiority so 
 irresistible as to leave no sort of uncertainty about it. 
 This great principle of social science is at bottom merely 
 the full development of that primary notion of sound 
 Biology the necessary subordination of every Organism to 
 the Environment in which it is placed. At the opening of 
 the century this truth, of the close dependence of organism 
 on environment, remained still completely misunderstood by 
 the most eminent thinkers. Its gradual acceptance forms 
 the principal advancement in science during our times, 
 although till now it has not been viewed in a manner 
 sufficiently systematic. For its right conception it should, 
 in the first place, be confined to the Vegetative existence, 
 the primary basis of all the higher types of life. Here it is 
 impossible to mistake that the continued operation of the 
 surrounding conditions is, in three ways, indispensable to 
 every being first, in furnishing the materials of food ; 
 secondly, in exciting the vital power ; thirdly, in regulating 
 its exercise. Now the same eternal influences apply alike 
 to the strictly Animal life, in which the powers of sensation 
 and motion are equally determined by the force without. 
 Lastly, passing to the higher functions of man, we find them 
 also equally dependent on the external world, either as 
 supplying sustenance or stimulus, or as regulating the action 
 of the brain. Thus man's Moral nature, besides that it 
 rests upon the two lower functions of life, is, no less than 
 they are, directly under the limitations of the world without. 
 A sound theory of Biology thus furnishes the Positive theory 
 of Religion with a foundation wholly unassailable, for it 
 proves the general necessity for the constant supremacy of an 
 external Power as a condition of unity for man, even in his 
 individual life. 
 
 At the same time this reasoning drawn from Biology is 
 
328 Religion as Sociology 
 
 useful as proving that the moral conditions required by the 
 state of unity are of more importance than the intellectual. 
 In fact, the intellectual must be always more or less com- 
 pletely fulfilled in all races of animals capable of comprehend- 
 ing the first conditions of their life. For the unvarying 
 dependence of the being on its environment has nothing of 
 an accidental character about it, and does not admit at any 
 moment of the slightest doubt. This truth so completely 
 forms part of the life of every organism that it would 
 require a greater intellectual effort to reject it than to 
 acquiesce in it. Even in the human species the most 
 presumptuous dreamer could never seriously go so far as to 
 deny in direct terms a subjection to the World without, by 
 which his daily conduct is determined. On the other hand, 
 the moral conditions of true unity, though not less indispens- 
 able than the intellectual conditions, are such as are by 
 their very nature more liable to collapse. This moral 
 nature, indeed, is so little an essential element of living 
 beings as to be absolutely wanting in a great number of 
 races. Without doubt it is always found wherever there is 
 a capacity for social existence. But as collective life can 
 only be developed in a high form, in our own kind, it is 
 only in man that Religion can control the feelings in such a 
 way as to lead to real action. Yet the requisite intellectual 
 belief in a dominant Power may be distinctly seen in some 
 of the higher animals. Thus, though the importance of the 
 moral unity is not less than that of intellectual, it presents 
 greater difficulties to a scientific explanation, and none, in 
 fact, has been given by any school of theologians or meta- 
 physicians. 
 
 That we may understand this more clearly, let us for the 
 moment recall the point of view which more or less prevailed 
 until the very recent period when Biology sufficiently 
 established that the Benevolent Affections were a real part of 
 human nature. On that assumption moral unity could 
 
Comte 329 
 
 only exist as the result of an egoistic principle. Now the 
 utter inefficiency of any such influence as a regulating 
 force has been sufficiently shown. The feeling of depend- 
 ence on a Power without cannot really supply its place. 
 However deep this conviction may be, it inspires at most 
 an enforced resignation, if the Power without is one which 
 obviously offers an insuperable resistance. But this painful 
 moral condition is far removed from a true discipline of the 
 feelings, which must always be free, to possess real vitality. 
 The difference is seen at once when we compare the moral 
 condition of the dog in a domestic state with that of the lion 
 in captivity. Although long experience inspires the wild 
 brute with a passive sense of resignation, moral unity does 
 not exist within him. He gives way in turn to impotent 
 struggles and to ignoble torpor. On the other hand, the 
 moral life of the dog becomes direct and continuous the 
 moment that he has learnt to submit his egoistic cravings 
 to his sympathetic instincts. The contrast is yet clearer 
 between the ancient slave and the modern proletary. 
 Although in material matters both present a personal 
 existence, whether active or passive, nearly the same, the 
 liberty of the workman renders him alone capable of true 
 moral unity, for it permits free action to his benevolent 
 feelings. The bitterest circumstance of ancient slavery to all 
 the higher spirits must have been the impossibility of living 
 truly for others, all their tasks being compulsory, or at any 
 rate supposed to be so. It is, moreover, evident that an 
 habitual belief in a subjection to an external Power is far 
 from sufficing to establish unity in man, although it is in- 
 dispensable for it to a certain degree. For when this sense 
 of dependence becomes too intense it prevents even the 
 discipline of the affections, which is the result of the spon- 
 taneous action of the altruistic instincts. The happiness and 
 the dignity of every animate being require, therefore, the 
 constant action and reaction of an acknowledged external 
 
330 Religion as Sociology 
 
 Power without, with free play for the Sympathetic Instincts 
 within. 
 
 To complete our estimate of the second condition necessary 
 to religion, its Moral unity, we must regard it as the principal 
 means of establishing indispensable harmony with the first, or 
 Intellectual unity. This is by its nature invariable, at least 
 in all essential laws ; and thus the mutual agreement between 
 them must in the main be due to the moral element, which 
 alone can dispose the being to voluntary submission. We 
 have hitherto not properly distinguished submission from a 
 degrading servility, for want of a sound moral theory. Of 
 the three organs of the brain devoted to the altruistic in- 
 stincts, as we have seen in the former volume, the religious 
 sentiment depends principally on the intermediate one, that of 
 Veneration. This is the disposition which accords best with 
 feelings of devotion towards a superior Power. But beside 
 the vital reaction of this intermediate organ upon the two 
 extremes which surround it, these also must share directly, 
 although in a less degree, in originating that composite feeling 
 of which Religion is the product. In fact, to make submission 
 complete, Affection must unite with respect; and this com- 
 bination of feelings is, indeed, effected spontaneously by the 
 sense of gratitude, which has its origin in the union of 
 dependence and respect. This relation at first seems limited 
 to the most special of the sympathetic instincts, that which 
 we especially call Attachment. But it extends also to the 
 highest organ of the altruistic feelings, that of universal 
 Benevolence, on which the complete unity of the affections 
 more especially depends. To this end it is enough that the 
 same disposition be observed in the external Power, which by 
 its superiority demands our submission. This similarity of 
 feeling between the external Power and those subject to its 
 influence has nothing of the fortuitous about it; it is a 
 consequence of the thorough universality of the benefits con- 
 ferred. This is such that no one of the various beings whose 
 
Comte 331 
 
 submission is supposed can claim them for itself exclusively. 
 In the second place, the profound respect inspired by the 
 Supreme Power awakens also a mutual sentiment of benevo- 
 lence in all who join in devotion to the same great Object. 
 This last characteristic again of the religious spirit leads us to 
 comprehend a further attribute of the external Power. We 
 must suppose in fact that the Supreme Power admits of a 
 real attachment on our part, an idea which presumes in it a 
 faculty by which its natural Goodness controls the exercise of 
 its Authority. By this further condition of the religious state 
 we get a more complete union between its two principal 
 conditions : Conviction and Affection. This existed very 
 thoroughly in the earliest form of human religion; but in 
 later forms the desire of satisfying this want tended to retard 
 the establishment of the final phase of Unity, as will be here- 
 after explained. 
 
 Having thus completed our systematic analysis of the 
 religious emotion we can better do justice to the sagacity, 
 deep although empirical as it was, which in spite of the 
 difficulty of his task guided the original author of the true 
 theory of the brain. Gall, when his genius led him to 
 suppose the organ of veneration to be the proper seat of the 
 religious instincts, fell into important error only in that he 
 regarded as simply moral a disposition which is in the same 
 degree intellectual. 7 But this philosophical misconception, 
 though not of great importance in Biology, leads in Sociology 
 to immense aberration. By withdrawing attention from the 
 objective base of human Unity, it renders any real history of 
 the entire range of Religion impossible ; for it overlooks the 
 
 7 The reference to Gall reminds us of Comte's weakness for Phren- 
 ology ; but this is, as Wundt says, only an "external " matter. Mill 
 regarded it as Comte's substitute for the Introspection which, as used 
 by French contemporaries at least, he rejected. Comte had no affinity 
 for Materialism : behind neither of the two parallel series, physical 
 and mental, was there any metaphysical substance. 
 
332 Religion as Sociology 
 
 unfailing source of all varieties in Religion, that is, that we 
 are ever modifying our views respecting the order of the 
 external World. The result is that this vicious assumption 
 leads us to regard as Absolute, conceptions which are Relative 
 by their very nature. 
 
 The religious state, therefore, has for its basis the per- 
 manent combination of two conditions equally essential 
 Love and Belief ; these, though profoundly distinct, must 
 conspire to one natural end. Each of them, beside that it is 
 itself indispensable, adds to the other an element, without 
 which its complete efficacy would not be exerted. Such is the 
 instability of our cerebral organisation that Belief would not 
 be perfect without Love, however high might be the degree 
 of demonstration reached. But, conversely, the best heart 
 would fail in due Love for any external Power, whose very 
 existence admitted of continual doubt. And thus, whilst 
 Love stimulates Conviction by overcoming pride, Conviction 
 prepares the way for Love by counselling submission. 8 
 
 These are, broadly, the respective parts which fall to the 
 feelings and to the reason in that supreme task of human 
 skill the formation by a series of efforts, at first instinctive 
 and then systematic, of some principle of Unity to govern the 
 active life of man, individual or collective. Harmony in the 
 moral sphere results from the subjection of the egoistic to the 
 altruistic feelings; mental unity is derived from the pre- 
 dominance of an external Order over us. On the one hand, 
 all our instincts are concentrated under one Affection, which 
 alone can reduce them to order ; on the other hand, all our 
 
 8 The later stage in which Comte wrote the Polity is marked by its 
 dominant reference to Feeling, which had been almost ignored in the 
 Philosophy : in the development the great Positivist becomes almost a 
 Mystic. In fact, Comte, Positivist as he was, showed a remarkable 
 appreciation of true Mysticism : he says of the Mystics of the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, ' ' Their first empirical efforts prepared the 
 way for the more comprehensive and systematic agency of Positivism." 
 
Comte 333 
 
 ideas group themselves round the contemplation of Force 
 external to us. At the same time this Economy of external 
 nature furnishes us with a direct guide to Action, which 
 consists in accepting this order of nature with dignity, or in 
 modifying it with wisdom. Our being is thus knit together, 
 within and without, by a complete convergence both of the 
 Feelings and of the Thoughts, towards that Supreme Power 
 which controls our Acts. At that point there arises Religion 
 in its true sense, that is, a complete unity, whereby all the 
 motives of conduct within us are reduced to a common object, 
 whilst our conduct as a whole submits with freedom to the 
 Necessity imposed by a power without. The mere com- 
 position of this admirable word will henceforth serve to 
 suggest the leading idea of this theory ; it recalls the fact of 
 two states of unity in succession ; the first, the combination 
 of the powers within ; the second, the connexion with the 
 Force without. This is the issue in which terminates the 
 grand dualism of positive Thought between the organism and 
 its environment ; or rather between Man and the World ; or, 
 better still, between Humanity and the Earth. 
 
 But in order to complete the fundamental conception of 
 Unity, we must further suppose that the state of harmony 
 requires for its maintenance the continuous union of the two 
 principal elements, affective and speculative. Now, notwith- 
 standing their natural affinity, the harmonious action of 
 Thought and Feeling must often be disturbed by the tempests 
 which arise in the complicated system of human existence, 
 individual and collective. Sometimes this goes so far as to 
 change for a time the natural state of coalition into one of 
 antagonism more or less violent. This struggle between the 
 Intellect and the Heart is the principal feature of all the great 
 revolutions, whether in the individual or in society. The 
 greatest of these revolutions is specially distinguished by that 
 unmeasured anarchy, both mental and moral, which tortures 
 the West of Europe, since the irrevocable collapse of the last 
 
334 Religion as Sociology 
 
 provisional system. Thus the natural co-operation of Love 
 with Faith does not affect a complete equilibrium, but a state 
 of continuous movement, tending ever by the law of its action 
 to a better union. The degree of completeness, to which by 
 successive steps this combination of the elements of our nature 
 may be brought, will be treated in this work as the chief 
 measure of perfection attained by man. Human nature then, 
 individual as well as collective, tends to grow more and more 
 religious, however strange such a law may seem to our present 
 ideas. 
 
 Having now sufficiently examined, first, the twofold 
 Function of Religion, secondly, the two Conditions which 
 united form its Basis, to complete the theory of Religion in 
 the abstract, it remains to define the leading Elements of 
 which it is composed. 
 
 The third branch of the inquiry into Religion, to analyse 
 its Elements, has fewer difficulties than the second, to deter- 
 mine its Conditions; and follows from it. Since Religion 
 deals at once with the Intellect and the Heart, it must always 
 consist of an intellectual part and of a moral part. The 
 former constitutes the dogma, properly so called, which 
 explains the aggregate of that external Order to which our 
 unity is necessarily subordinate. In accordance with the 
 principle of classification by means of increasing dependence, 
 this order of nature will require explanation, first by Cosmo- 
 logy, then by Biology, lastly by Sociology. The Supreme 
 Power is thus sufficiently manifested by this ascending series 
 of conceptions ; and we proceed in due course from the first 
 portion of Religion to the second, and follow the same 
 cardinal rule of progression from the World Without to that 
 Within. 9 The Intellect having been reduced to order, order 
 must be established also in the Heart. From the reign of 
 
 9 The object being the World, we have the advantage of the whole 
 chain of the Sciences to tell us what the object is. Metaphysics Comte 
 repudiates, of course. 
 
Comte 335 
 
 Faith we pass to that of Love. Such, at least, is the chain of 
 systematic reasoning by which Philosophy would constitute a 
 final state of human unity, collective and social. Still in 
 Society, as with each one of us, the ordinary and spontaneous 
 course of development is the reverse. Naturally, we proceed 
 from the internal to the external, from Love to Faith. 
 
 Without stopping to consider the difference between these, 
 the objective and the subjective methods, we may note that 
 the two essential portions of Religion remain always widely 
 distinguished. The only proper subdivisions of Doctrine are 
 due to the succession, both in logic and in science, of the 
 three grand stages of Philosophy, Cosmology, Biology, and 
 Sociology. But indispensable though these be for purposes 
 of classification, we must never lose sight of the fundamental 
 Unity of the whole Economy of Nature, which Religion com- 
 prehends always as a whole. This is not the same with the 
 moral part of Religion, in which the radical distinction 
 between feelings and acts requires a separation of the com- 
 ponent Elements. 
 
 Love must alike control Feelings and ^influence Acts. But 
 these two direct duties of the governing Principle of life must 
 not be confounded; since the former relates only to the 
 internal, the latter relates also to the external World. In 
 their widest extension these two functions furnish Religion, 
 the first, with its worship properly speaking ; the second, with 
 its government, moral as well as political. 10 Viewing Religion 
 as a whole, both are necessarily subordinate to the doctrine 
 which supplies them at once with the conditions and the laws by 
 which Worship must control the feelings and Government the 
 conduct, private and public. Nevertheless in its turn Affection, 
 with its twofold domain, reacts powerfully upon Conviction, 
 with its single domain ; and ever recalls Thought to the sub- 
 jective end, which its objective spirit is constantly forgetting. 
 
 10 Worship is the expression of Feeling : Government is the expres- 
 sion of ordered Activity. 
 
336 Religion as Sociology 
 
 Such, systematically viewed, are the constituent parts of 
 Religion, which, undertaking to reduce human life to unity, 
 brings within its sphere the three chief sides of our nature, 
 Thought, Feeling, Action. In commencing with the first it 
 is especially objective ; the second is mainly subjective ; the 
 last partakes equally of both characters. This progression of 
 ideas from the external to the internal serves as a crucial 
 example of true scientific classification. The Doctrine thus 
 forms the groundwork for the Worship, and the Worship for 
 the Government. This, the natural arrangement of the three 
 elements, shows the propriety of the universal rule that a 
 religion must be characterised by its worship. The worship, 
 which holds a middle place, is dependent on the doctrine, and 
 instrumental to the government, and thus is entitled in prin- 
 ciple to represent them both. Taking the worship and the 
 government together, we have the true twofold division of 
 Religion into the sphere of Faith and that of Love. Taking, 
 on the other hand, the worship with the doctrine, we have 
 another combination, that of the theoretic element and of the 
 practical element. Although the latter analysis of Religion 
 is in accordance with the custom of instruction, the former 
 analysis is much more valuable for purposes of teaching. The 
 principal practical distinction is due to the fact that human 
 action, individual or collective, relates sometimes to our 
 external condition; sometimes to our own physical, intel- 
 lectual, or moral nature. Now this threefold internal sphere, 
 the human, the necessary object of our highest activity, is the 
 special field of Worship understood in its fullest sense. If 
 we are to regard Religion as composed of two elements only, 
 we must therefore take it as a combination of Worship and 
 Government. The other combination of Worship with 
 Doctrine has been mentioned only to bring out more clearly 
 the natural fitness of the second element of Religion, the 
 Worship, to represent both. But the analysis which I finally 
 choose as the best to express the true series of parts, is that 
 
Comte 337 
 
 which makes Religion to consist of three essential elements, 
 Doctrine, Worship, and Government. Thus Religion in its 
 complete form resumes in itself the entirety of man's real 
 existence, and is equally scientific, aesthetic, and practical. 
 It thus combines in their sources the three great creations of 
 man, Philosophy, Poetry, and Politics. This universal Syn- 
 thesis begins by giving system to the study of the True ; 
 next it idealises the instinct for the Beautiful ; and, finally, it 
 realises the attainment of the Good. 11 
 
 This completes the Theory of Religion in the abstract ; its 
 Functions, its Nature, and its component Elements having 
 each been duly considered. But the great subject of Religion 
 will hardly be sufficiently worked out, unless by an explana- 
 tion of the general Character of the true unity. Taking the 
 three orders of ideas together, we shall be in a position to 
 show what is the synthetic method best adapted to attain the 
 double End of religion, to supply its two primary Conditions, 
 and to develop all its essential Elements. This task naturally 
 forms the leading purpose of the present chapter, which will 
 serve as a basis common to all subsequent inquiries into the 
 problems of society. My preceding remarks are designed 
 only to secure a systematic basis for this all-important 
 construction. 
 
 The importance and the difficulty of this scientific demon- 
 stration appear more strongly when we see that even this 
 would be insufficient without a justification from history. 
 The true Religion could not have come into existence without 
 a preparation of vast length, scarcely yet concluded even 
 amongst the first of the nations. The principle which 
 governs the final state of Synthesis would be but very 
 imperfectly defined, unless we were to follow up our direct 
 analysis of it, by a general sketch of the provisional phases, 
 
 11 Here Comte sets himself in accord with the threefold analysis of 
 the Object of Religion as the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. (Cf. 
 the Selection from Cousin. ) 
 22 
 
338 Religion as Sociology 
 
 which prepared the way for the complete attainment of 
 Unity. 
 
 At first sight it might appear that this double method of 
 inquiry trenches upon the subjects of the two volumes which 
 are to succeed one of which will embrace the actual course 
 of the development of mankind, the other the true character 
 of the final system. Further consideration, however, will 
 show that this is quite in accordance with the regular con- 
 nexion of the various branches of Sociology, as stated in the 
 Introduction to this volume, and in the whole of the General 
 View. What I am about to do is only to give special import- 
 ance in this, the chief statical theory, to the law stated 
 therein, the law of constant subordination of the study of 
 Progress to that of Order. The evolution of man can result 
 only from the continuous development of the fundamental 
 organism Humanity, and this may be defined in the natural 
 type, assumed, in the first instance, to be complete. Thus a 
 statical treatment of the subject will serve as a universal 
 basis for the dynamical explanation reserved for the third 
 volume ; wherein will be drawn out the necessary course of 
 progress through which the human race had to pass in its 
 path to Unity. The same is true of the relation of this 
 volume to the concluding volume. In fact, the Future of 
 mankind can only exhibit the state of Order most con- 
 formable to our nature, the germ of which was contained 
 in the earliest state. This is therefore the place to con- 
 sider the general Character of the final system; whilst my 
 fourth volume will treat its ultimate expansion, upon the 
 termination of my volume upon History, or its indispensable 
 preparation. 
 
 This outline of the plan of this work will, I hope, show that 
 the course adopted does not involve any real repetition. The 
 method which I am here employing for Keligion will be 
 followed in the consideration of all the essential elements of 
 the social system, such as the Family, Language, etc., the 
 
Comte 339 
 
 subjects of the following chapters. 12 Each of these will be 
 treated here with reference first to the general Elements of 
 its fundamental constitution ; secondly, to the gradations 
 necessary for its complete realisation. The next two volumes 
 will treat : the one the actual course which this Development 
 has taken ; the other, the normal Type which that development 
 will finally assume. Thus the statical basis I now commence 
 will facilitate the working out of both these subjects, though 
 it will not render them superfluous. 
 
 This distinction in method is, lastly, to reduce it to system ; 
 an illustration of the contrast between the concrete and the 
 abstract which, far from being absolute, admits of various 
 degrees. In this volume each essential Element of the great 
 organism is studied separately from the rest, first in its own 
 nature, and then in its historical development. On the other 
 hand, in social Dynamics, the study will always be concerned 
 with the whole of these different elements together, so as to 
 show first their general evolution, and then their ultimate 
 harmony. Thus all the leading subjects of the social science 
 will be treated first separately without references to time, 
 secondly, in combination and in order of succession. The 
 treatise when complete will have considered Society, first as 
 existing in space, then as existing in time, but so as not to 
 involve the errors either of repetition or of anticipation. 
 This great principle of logic applies to every case where 
 statical study can be contrasted with the dynamical. It 
 bears a strong analogy to the relation drawn by Bichat 
 between the primary theory of the Organism and the direct 
 theory of Life. The constant use of this method, which in 
 subsequent chapters does not require to be justified, will give 
 no serious difficulty to readers who are duly prepared. 
 
 12 Here Religion is taken as parallel with Family and Language as 
 Social phenomena. Max Miiller, Matthew Arnold, and Jowett were 
 fond of using the genesis of Language as a parallel to the genesis of 
 religion. 
 
340 Religion as Sociology 
 
 Abstract Anatomy, when treating of the vital properties of 
 the various tissues and the evolution of each, is not encroach- 
 ing on the proper sphere of Physiology, where the tissues are 
 treated only as combined in organs properly so called. In 
 the same way, in social Statics the study in the abstract of 
 the existence of each primary element, and its development as 
 a whole, leaves to social Dynamics its special task, that of 
 combining into a whole these varying conceptions, and 
 thereby determining the character of the successive phases of 
 Humanity. 
 
 Comte then proceeds to examine the Basis of Religion, the 
 order within and without, Man and the World. The study 
 of the order of Nature occupies the Intellect of Man, and 
 gives the Intellectual basis of religion : this awakens 
 Emotion, or rather it fosters and directs what would 
 spontaneously arise, and we have the Moral basis. 
 
 We pass now to a brief statement of how the conception 
 of Humanity itself becomes the conception of the object of 
 Religion. 
 
 The Positive Belief thus attains its true unity both 
 objectively and subjectively by that which is only a necessary 
 consequence of its own normal evolution. The laws of 
 thought in fact lead to the grouping of all the laws of 
 nature round that aggregate Being which is the direct 
 controller of man's destiny; submitting itself to the condi- 
 tions to which it exists, but modifying them by its own 
 wisdom. When such a point is reached, this belief becomes 
 thorough in harmony with the affections ; for it directs 
 towards this Great Being, whose property is sympathy, all 
 the homage which is due to the beneficent control of the 
 Order of nature. 13 This Being, it is true, vast and relatively 
 
 13 It is of the first importance to notice this. Comte uses the 
 expression "Order of Nature " ; and when we ask what this means to 
 him, his answer is quite anthropoceutric. All kinds of natural 
 phenomena outside Human Nature are stages of being leading up to 
 
Comte 341 
 
 eternal as it is, has not really created the materials which in 
 its sagacious activity it employs, nor the laws by which its 
 results are determined. But an absolute view of facts is still 
 less natural to the feelings than it is to the mind. The 
 Order of nature is certainly so imperfect that its benefits are 
 only dispensed to us in an indirect way, by means of the 
 loving ministry of that active and intelligent Being, but for 
 whom our existence would be scarcely tolerable. Now this 
 belief alone would justify us in offering the whole of our 
 dutiful feelings of gratitude to Humanity; even although 
 there did exist a still higher Providence, the source of all the 
 powers of our common mother. The consensus of positive 
 philosophy essentially excludes this last hypothesis. But, 
 strictly speaking, this particular problem has become just as 
 idle with respect to the Heart as it is for the Head ; or rather 
 it implies similar risks to both. Our true intellectual wants, 
 both theoretical and practical, are satisfied by the simple 
 understanding of the general Order of nature to which we 
 have to submit, and which we are enabled to modify. If the 
 authorship of it were indeed within the reach of our under- 
 standings, we should still be right in abstaining from the 
 search after its creation ; for our duty is to reserve the whole 
 force of our speculative powers for their true task, the 
 perpetual improvement of our condition, and of our nature. 
 It is the same with the moral question, and that in a still 
 higher degree. Our gratitude, whether in our individual or 
 collective capacity, for the benefits which we receive from the 
 Order of nature, should be restricted to their immediate 
 Author ; and this is one whose existence and whose activity 
 are constantly before our eyes. Thus regulated, our gratitude 
 would inspire in us that high moral improvement which this 
 tribute of duty involves. Even supposing that our general 
 
 Humanity, and placed more or less completely at the disposal of 
 Humanity ; so that it is frequently a convenient ellipsis to say the 
 order of Man when we mean the whole order of Nature. 
 
342 Religion as Sociology 
 
 parent, Humanity, were to find in the Order of nature a 
 Providence still higher than its own, yet it would not belong 
 to us to offer up our worship to that Providence directly. 
 Nay, such a great violation of moral continuity, apart from 
 its manifest injustice, would prove at once contrary to the 
 main object of our worship, for it diverts us from the act of 
 direct adoration, which is alone thoroughly natural to our 
 emotional nature. The intermediate religion which we see in 
 its decline, has shown only too distinctly how serious this 
 danger is, since the thanksgivings it addressed to an 
 imaginary Being for the most part were simply acts of 
 ingratitude towards Humanity, the only real author of the 
 benefits received. In a word, our gratitude should be 
 awakened by productions, not by materials ; which latter have 
 hardly ever a value worthy of our praises. Even in the 
 Order of realities it is of still greater importance to the heart 
 than it is to the intellect, that no essential intermediate 
 element in the series should be passed over. It is even more 
 necessary to preserve our affections from working towards a 
 chimerical object than it is to preserve our thoughts, now 
 that their true object has become visible. If the adoration 
 of imaginary powers was morally indispensable so long as the 
 true Great Being was unknown, now that its existence is 
 proved manifest, it would only serve to turn us from the one 
 Worship which is capable of improving us. Those, therefore, 
 who strive to prolong it in our day are unconsciously turning 
 it against its legitimate purpose, which was to regulate for a 
 time the expansion of our higher feelings under the Regency 
 of God, during the long minority of Humanity. 14 
 
 14 Comte's grounds for taking Humanity as the object of Religion 
 are here briefly outlined. Laying it down as a preliminary that, 
 whether it is satisfactory to us or not, there is no object beyond, 
 "by the consensus of positive philosophy," he proceeds to claim for 
 Humanity that it does really satisfy our Intellect, our Emotions, and 
 our Moral needs ; and that it is therefore qualified to take the place 
 
Comte 343 
 
 Thus real Faith harmonises entirely with true Love 
 directly that the Positive Doctrine is complete, and is reduced 
 to a system. The unity of man rests solely on a sound 
 general conception of our condition and our nature. A 
 deeper study of the great universal Order reveals to us at 
 length the ruling power within it of the true Great Being, 
 whose destiny it is to bring that Order continually to perfec- 
 tion by constantly conforming to its laws, and which thus 
 best represents to us that system as a whole. This undeniable 
 Providence, the supreme dispenser of our destinies, becomes 
 in the natural course the common centre of our affections, our 
 thoughts, and our actions. Although this Great Being 
 evidently exceeds the utmost strength of any, even of any 
 collective, human force, its necessary constitution and its 
 peculiar function endow it with the truest sympathy towards 
 all its servants. The least amongst us can and ought 
 constantly to aspire to maintain and even to improve this 
 Being. This natural object of all our activity, both public 
 and private, determines the true general character of the rest 
 of our existence, whether in feeling or in thought, which 
 must be devoted to love, and to know, in order rightly to 
 serve, our Providence by a wise use of all the means which it 
 furnishes to us. Reciprocally this continued service, whilst 
 strengthening our true unity, renders us at once happier and 
 better. The last result which is its property is that it finally 
 incorporates us into the Great Being, in the development of 
 which we have had a part to bear. 
 
 hitherto occupied by the ideas of God put forward by Theology and, 
 later, by Metaphysics, which are now discharged from further service 
 by the enlightened Positivist. The use of the term "Positive" in 
 this sense Comte took over from the French Socialist, St. Simon, with 
 whom he had associated himself for some years. Within Humanity 
 Cornte assigns the first place to "Woman as the more highly endowed 
 with the primary quality, Feeling. Unsparing criticisms of Humanity 
 as object of Worship abound in the controversial literatiire which the 
 claim has evoked. 
 
344 ^Religion as Sociology 
 
 Then follows Comte's view of what he means by Humanity : 
 
 Such, then, is the general spirit of the true religion which 
 I have already indicated in my General View of Positivism. 
 I must reserve for the fourth volume its direct and special 
 explanation, having prepared the way for it in the third by 
 an historical basis as the ground of a comparative judgment. 
 I must, however, still more accurately define the fundamental 
 conception which crowns the entire system of positive thought ; 
 and I must still further set forth the composite and relative 
 character of the highest existence we know. 
 
 This vast and eternal organism is peculiarly distinguished 
 above all others by reason of its being formed of separable 
 elements, each of which is conscious of its own co-operation, 
 and consequently can give or withhold it, at least so far as its 
 co-operation is direct. Its essential attributes as well as its 
 necessary conditions are both alike the consequence of this 
 partial independence ; for it admits of combination on a 
 great scale, but at the same time of profound antagonism. 
 In a word, the chief superiority of the Great Being consists 
 in this, that its organs are themselves beings, individual or 
 collective. All the functions belonging to it, whether those 
 of the affections, of the intellect, or the activity, are therefore 
 ultimately exercised by certain individuals whose free inter- 
 vention is indispensable, although the refusal of any single 
 individual will generally be compensated by the assent of 
 others. But to illustrate this point we will now consider 
 separately the two existences belonging to each individual 
 human unit, which in the General View were considered 
 together, without any difficulty thereby arising. 
 
 The Supreme Power is the continuous result of all the 
 forces capable of voluntarily taking part in the amelioration 
 of the race, even without excepting our worthy helpmates 
 amongst the animals. Each individual member of this great 
 whole has two successive existences, the one objective, and 
 
Comte 345 
 
 always transitory, in which he serves directly the Great 
 Being by using the entire series of the previous labours of 
 our race ; the other subjective, and of its essence perpetual, 
 in which his service is indirectly prolonged by the results 
 which he leaves to his successors. Strictly speaking, scarcely 
 any man becomes an organ of Humanity until his second life 
 has begun. The first really forms nothing but a trial of his 
 worthiness for the final incorporation, which ordinarily 
 should not be recognised until the objective existence has 
 been completely ended. Thus the individual is not yet a real 
 organ of the Great Being, though he aspires to become so by 
 his services as a distinct being. His relative independence 
 exists only in his first life, during which he remains 
 immediately subject to the Order of nature, to the laws of 
 matter, of life, and of society. Once incorporated with the 
 Supreme Being he becomes truly inseparable from it. 
 Thenceforth he is removed from the influence of all physical 
 laws, and remains only subject to the higher laws which 
 directly govern the development of Humanity. 
 
 It is by means of this passage to a subjective life that the 
 chief extension of the great organism is maintained. Other 
 beings increase only by the law of the renovation of their 
 elements, by the preponderance of absorption over exhalation. 
 But besides this source of expansion, the Supreme Power 
 increases especially, by virtue of the subjective eternity to 
 which its worthy objective servants rise. Thus the subjective 
 existences are necessarily more and more in preponderance, 
 both in number and in duration, in the total composition of 
 Humanity. It is on this ground that its power always 
 exceeds that of any collection of individuals. Even the 
 insurrection of almost the entire living population against the 
 combined subjective influence of the past, would not prevent 
 the evolution of the race from following its course. Those 
 servants of Humanity who remained loyal could easily over- 
 come this revolt, by basing their efforts upon the old 
 
346 Religion as Sociology 
 
 principles, which, in spite of anarchy, would be left in all 
 hearts and intellects from the labours of all former genera- 
 tions, they only being the genuine successors. In a word, 
 the living are always more and more ruled by the dead. 
 But to meet the metaphysical error which would result from 
 too abstract a conception, we must never lose sight of the 
 real nature of this preponderance of the subjective organs of 
 Humanity. Each subjective organ is the product of a 
 previous objective existence, and it requires the alliance of 
 another objective existence for its exercise. Thus man serves 
 Humanity as a being during his life strictly so called, and as 
 an organ after his death, which finally transforms his objective 
 into a subjective life. In his first existence he freely receives 
 and spontaneously employs the resources of all kinds 
 accumulated by the Great Being. In the second, if his 
 personal office has been worthily filled, he takes part in the 
 work of directing the continual use of the collective material of 
 mankind. His individuality is at once the essential condition, 
 and yet the principal danger of his objective co-operation ; for 
 the problem is, how to place the egoism which is unavoidable 
 under the guidance of the altruism which is indispensable. 
 When his service has become subjective, the constant ascend- 
 ancy of the sociable over the personal faculties is a spontan- 
 eous consequence. For, not only is Humanity composed 
 only of existences capable of assimilation, but it assimi- 
 lates only from each that portion of his life which is 
 capable of being incorporated, and rejects every individual 
 shortcoming. 
 
 In this general sketch I cannot hope to explain entirely, 
 even to minds already well prepared, the most extensive and 
 most difficult of the positive conceptions, the sum of the 
 whole system of real doctrine. Still it will be proper to 
 define exactly this, the essential centre of the true religion. 
 All the rest of this treatise will illustrate still further this 
 radical notion, and show its application in a manner more or 
 
Comte 347 
 
 less explicit. The last volume will complete the theory as 
 the general basis of the final system. 
 
 It is obvious that it is the leading characteristic of the true 
 religion, that everything in it relates to Humanity. But 
 the composite nature of the Great Being produces a difficulty 
 which, whilst applying chiefly to the worship, affects the 
 doctrine, and even the regimen. In fact this centre of 
 human unity seems incapable of receiving any personal 
 representation. This point, which will be hereafter dealt 
 with, I will at once endeavour to clear up. 
 
 This objection is removed by reflecting on the nature of 
 the true Supreme Being. Although it is really composed .of 
 subjective existences, it can act directly only by means of 
 objective agents. These are individual beings, of the same 
 nature as itself, though less eminent, and not so permanent. 
 Each of these personal organs becomes therefore capable of 
 representing the Great Being in many ways, when duly incor- 
 porated therein. Thus the veneration of men of real great- 
 ness forms an essential part of the veneration of Humanity. 
 Even during his objective life, each of them forms a sort of 
 personification of the Great Being. It is, however, essential 
 to this representation that they be conceived as free from the 
 serious imperfections which often obscure the best characters. 
 The variety of the individual types, and the connexion be- 
 tween their social duties, make this essential point of concep- 
 tion easy ; especially when a sound education enables the true 
 qualities of Humanity to be universally understood. 15 
 
 15 We have here Comte's doctrine of "Subjective Humanity," best 
 known through its component doctrine of Subjective Immortality and 
 familiar in English literature especially through George Eliot's ex- 
 pression of sympathy. Each individual in the present life plays a part 
 which Comte dignifies with the term objective existence : on his decease 
 he bequeaths his record as a contribution to the common stock. This 
 common record is Humanity, and in his contribution to it the indi- 
 vidual finds immortality. But this total Humanity requires a sub- 
 jective side, i.e. a subject by whom it is to be maintained in objective 
 
348 Religion as Sociology 
 
 Now he exhibits Humanity as the Object of Religion. 
 
 I have now adequately set forth the only system of human 
 Unity which thoroughly fulfils all its conditions. To complete 
 my sketch, I must consider this system, first, as regards the 
 object of religion, and then as regards its composition. 
 
 The object aimed at by religion is twofold : it is the 
 unity of the individual, and the unity of the society. Now, 
 in both of these it is easy to see that the Synthesis which 
 
 existence : the thoughts of the living as repositories of the total record 
 are considered to constitute this subject. In this office all are not 
 equally competent to bear the record, but there are individuals of high 
 gifts who are representative personifications of great stretches of the 
 past experience of the Race ; hence his Priests of Humanity, liis 
 Calendar of Great Men ; and here also comes in one of his peculiar 
 aberrations, his assignment of special function in this respect to 
 Woman, whom he does not hesitate to designate Guardian Angels for 
 men ; without, however, assigning any personages for a similar bene- 
 ficent function for women themselves. 
 
 In setting up this view of Humanity as the object of religious 
 worship, we find Comte's positivism give way. The Ideal element 
 invades his closed circle. Foi^ he distinguishes between worthy men 
 and unworthy; the latter drop back into non-existence; in the 
 permanent Humanity which is worshipful, only those secure their 
 immortality who have in some way deserved remembrance and grati- 
 tude. There is an Election to life, though it operates spontaneously 
 and not by the fiat of an overruling Power ; the result is the same as 
 that of ultra -Calvinism, though the reference to Divine control is 
 absent ; or it is parallel with the limitation of Salvation to the Church ; 
 and the Positivist Society of Comte lias been described as une laiciza- 
 tion du Catholicisme. On the other hand, men like Littre* repudiated 
 this development; J. S. Mill deemed it "ridiculous" and "ludi- 
 crous " ; and Mr. Morley (Encyclopedia Britannica) regards it as a 
 fantastic decoration, crowning what he considers to be Comte's real 
 merit, his humanitarian sympathy and philanthropic utilitarianism. 
 As Comte presents his system of Worship, the appearance is given of 
 a revival of at least the mood and habit of that First Stage which he 
 had declared to belong to primitive man, but now finds to be still 
 indispensable at the culmination of human Progress. 
 
Comte 349 
 
 has Humanity for its base is the only one that is complete 
 and durable ; for it is the only one in true conformity with 
 our nature. 
 
 No other principle could establish an equal degree of 
 harmony between the three essential elements of our existence. 
 When everything refers to Humanity, the affections, the 
 intellect, and the activity at once assume their natural 
 relations. The activity, directly devoted to the service of 
 the Great Being, is kept in due subordination to the feelings. 
 At the same time the intelligence fully accepts its true 
 office, that of enlightening the activity. Thus the heart 
 is supreme both over the mind and the character, in a way 
 far more simple and systematic than under any other mode. 
 
 And from this harmony of the whole, harmony of the 
 parts equally results; whereby the different powers of our 
 various faculties are confirmed and developed. 
 
 It establishes the discipline of the affection when it secures 
 a direct and continual appeal to the nobler instincts ; which 
 although, in themselves, the less active, are at once the 
 most delightful to experience, and the most capable of a 
 great expansion. Without doubt this form of discipline 
 implies a constant struggle against the ascendancy of the 
 personal instincts. But this conflict within would be far 
 more desperate, and far less capable of conclusion, under a 
 system of personal gratification. For beside the constant 
 effort to repress the benevolent emotions, it would be 
 necessary to restrain the antagonism of the various lower 
 inclinations. Even when one of the personal instincts had 
 succeeded in effectively crushing the benevolent within, the 
 energy of the individual would still fail in the vain task 
 of resisting the world without, against which the ascendancy 
 of egoism necessarily forms a permanent rebellion. On the 
 contrary, the altruistic system of discipline, .which holds a 
 continual rein upon the personal instincts, is the only one 
 destined to true success in the task. Beside the important 
 
350 Religion as Sociology 
 
 help which the world without supplies, it is far from re- 
 quiring the sacrifice of personality, but requires only its 
 due subordination to sociability. The religion of Humanity 
 ennobles indeed our lower instincts ; even whilst training 
 them to discipline. For the cares of every description, 
 required day by day for the preservation of the individual, 
 find in this religion a sanction, as the means which enables 
 each to accomplish better his social duties; so long as they 
 are not pushed beyond the natural limits, which men are 
 too ready to neglect. Sound religion especially condemns 
 all habitual austerities ; which, however respectable in 
 intention, would lessen the general force of every servant of 
 Humanity, and hamper the exercise of his ordinary duties. 
 It must be said also for the system of altruism, that not 
 only does it sanction all reasonable regard for the person, 
 but it largely assists such regard when treated in the whole ; 
 for it does much to strengthen the physical health, as several 
 physicians have judiciously remarked. The entire freedom 
 from anxiety, and the sweet sense of expansiveness, which 
 invariably follow the active cultivation of the nobler feelings, 
 have a direct part in producing a balance in the physical 
 nature. When I come to develop further the connexion in 
 the nervous system, as indicated in the preceding volume, 
 between the vegetative organs of our body and the emotional 
 region of the brain, I shall reduce to a system this unques- 
 tionable reaction, and found thereon new modes of improving 
 the mutual influence of the moral and the physical nature. 
 
 With respect to intellectual harmony, it might at first 
 sight appear that the altruistic system was not favourable 
 to it, if we argue hastily from the long insurrection of the 
 mind against the heart in modern Europe. But this dis- 
 astrous conflict is far from implying a permanent incom- 
 patibility between the two; for it is the reason itself which 
 has discovered a regular method of conciliation, by carrying 
 the positive study of the external world to the point at 
 
Comte 351 
 
 which Belief becomes the immediate fellow - worker with 
 Affection. The Keligion of Humanity arose originally as 
 nothing but a system of philosophy, with no other object 
 but that of founding a real and durable harmony, throughout 
 the entire series of our positive notions, whether logical or 
 scientific. If it recalls the intellect to the due control of 
 the heart, whilst respecting its freedom, it does so after amply 
 satisfying all the reasonable demands which the intellect 
 has put forth in its struggle for freedom in modern times. 
 Indeed, the indispensable preponderance of the heart, far 
 from restraining the legitimate exercise of the speculative 
 faculties, strengthens and improves them whilst subjecting 
 them to discipline. Thus preserved from wasting itself in 
 hopeless problems and idle disquisitions, our entire capacity 
 for meditation or contemplation is free to satisfy our true 
 speculative wants, whether to organise our knowledge or to 
 extend it. Logical harmony is finally established upon the 
 direct agreement between the objective and the subjective 
 method, in accordance with the twofold nature of the Positive 
 Unity, which is at the same time within and without the 
 individual mind. For, objectively, the Great Being is as 
 much external to each of us as another real existence, whilst 
 subjectively we form part of it, at least in hope. This Unity 
 co-ordinates in their natural way all our scientific theories; 
 since the social order evidently supposes an anterior vital 
 order, and that in turn supposes a pre-existent material 
 order. The altruistic system directly recalls our intelligence 
 to the constant pursuit of the most valuable and most difficult 
 speculations; though without neglecting the lower studies, 
 which are not less indispensable both for method and for 
 doctrine. Lastly, this continued exercise of the reason 
 harmonises perfectly with the free play of the imagination. 
 Art is profoundly incorporated with the essence of the 
 religion of Humanity; it serves to idealise and ennoble its 
 doctrine, its worship, and even its discipline. When devoted 
 
352 Religion as Sociology 
 
 to the animated expression of our highest feelings, which 
 alone are capable of habitual expression, this idealisation 
 in Art will form the intellectual exercise best adapted to 
 the sum of our composite nature. Our religion sanctions 
 its assiduous cultivation by all in unison, as the means of 
 moral improvement, which, though indirect, is full of power. 
 It supplies the mind with the best mode of preserving it 
 from, or correcting in it, that unloveliness inherent in all 
 scientific speculations, however carefully we seek to purge 
 them from the spirit of vainglory. 
 
 Turning finally to the activity, it is evident that the 
 altruistic system is more capable than any other of giving 
 it grandeur. Practical life necessarily eluded the grasp of 
 all the provisional systems of religion, by reason of the 
 reality which is the characteristic of action. On the con- 
 trary, it was from the practical life that the Positive prin- 
 ciple first arose, and was then extended to the contemplative, 
 and lastly to the affective life. Under the true religious 
 discipline, the activity forms the connecting link between 
 belief and affection, as being the object of the former and 
 the result of the latter. The smallest actions are ennobled 
 when they are referred to Humanity. The reaction which 
 they exert over the moral nature naturally seconds the 
 familiar expansion of the good feelings; for an intimate 
 connexion necessarily exists between all kinds of progress. 
 It is only thus that to live for others can really become 
 for all the supreme happiness; since the ordinary labours 
 of each are thus essentially destined for the good of others, 
 so that each servant of Humanity may attain to happiness 
 when he feels that he is filling his own duty worthily. 
 But beside that each in his vocation will be naturally 
 working towards this common end, there will be cultivated 
 in all the same spirit of eagerness to help forward the work 
 of general advancement. Although the grander services in 
 this Cause require systematic organs, each joins himself to 
 
Comte 353 
 
 this supreme part of human life, taking thought first towards 
 himself, then towards others. Thus the activity which has 
 its source originally in the affections, tends at length to 
 awaken the affections. At the same time it forms the best 
 means of regulating the intellect; for it ever impels the 
 intellect to study the Order of nature with a view to bring 
 it to perfection. 
 
 On all three sides it thus appears, even looking to per- 
 sonal unity alone, how blessed a thing to us is that external 
 Necessity which imposes on us the altruistic discipline as 
 the sole basis of a harmony at once real and stable ; for 
 this discipline for others becomes the sole guarantee of true 
 happiness for any individual. A rational philosophy sanctions 
 and perpetuates those vague yearnings that arose in the last 
 provisional system of religion, and marks as the highest boons 
 that man can know the three grand conditions of all social 
 life Love, Faith, Hope. The first of these forms the inward 
 impulse of unity; the second supplies us with its external 
 basis ; the last, closely connected with the activity, becomes 
 at first the result, and then the stimulant of each of the 
 other two. This simple order seems indeed disturbed on 
 occasions of anarchy in public or private life ; and it would 
 then appear that Hope only is left behind; without which 
 indeed any life is impossible. But a more careful study 
 shows us how, even in these cases, Hope is then dependent 
 on an earlier system of Affection and Belief, a discipline of 
 life which insensibly remains after its foundations have been 
 removed. Besides, the too common tendency to despair in 
 nations or in men proves how much, in such exceptional 
 cases, Love and Faith are indispensable to Hope. In every 
 case, however, the union of these three qualities is the dis- 
 tinctive mark of our true unity, be it affective, speculative, 
 or active. As Order is gradually restored in the West, it 
 will be felt, even better than it was felt in the Middle 
 Age, how completely these three essential conditions of all 
 2 3 
 
354 Religion as Sociology 
 
 public good furnish also the chief sources of our individual 
 happiness. 
 
 If it be admitted that the Religion of Humanity alone can 
 adequately produce any true personal unity, its superiority is 
 still clearer when we turn to social unity. For its power to 
 restore harmony in society is a consequence of its Principle of 
 affection and its Basis of speculation ; both of which tend 
 equally to reunite men universally in the same feeling and in 
 the same belief. Both the Positive theory of human nature 
 and the historical analysis of human progress forbid us to look 
 to any other system of discipline as being able to establish 
 any practical communion of Love and Faith amongst all the 
 members of the human race. Children of the same Great 
 Being, we all become at first His objective servants in life, 
 and then His subjective organs after death. The communion 
 of this vast whole is far from being confined to the present : 
 Intellect and Feeling combine in comprehending in the same 
 circle, the entire sum of the Past, the entire sum of the Future 
 of mankind ; the Past being the source, the Future being the 
 aim, of the vast consensus of Man. It is this spirit of con- 
 tinuity^ or communion between successive generations in 
 time, which is more characteristic of the true Religion even 
 than the solidarity or union of the whole living race now 
 contemporary in space. It is here that we gather most 
 distinctly the true purpose of our objective existence in life ; 
 which is, to transmit, improved to those who shall come after, 
 that increasing heritage we received from those who went 
 before. Thus regarded as a whole, the service of Humanity 
 appears to be in its essence truly gratuitous. Each genera- 
 tion is bound to restore freely to the succeeding that which 
 itself has freely received from the preceding. The improve- 
 ment which it adds to the sum total itself forms never more 
 than a trifling fraction of the worth of the whole ; and it is, 
 moreover, a constantly decreasing fraction. We must extend 
 this notion of the collective transmission of each age to the 
 
Comte 355 
 
 personal co-operation of each individual. In stating, in the 
 second chapter of this volume, the Positive theory of wages, 
 I shall be able to show that wages never recompense the 
 essential part of the service given, but merely the material 
 part. Every act of human labour uses up certain material 
 which require to be continually renewed, whether to replace 
 the provisions consumed, or to restore the instruments worn 
 out. Wages form the fund whence this twofold restoration 
 takes place, and have no relation with the service given : a 
 service that could only be recompensed worthily by means of 
 complete reciprocity between the producer and him who 
 enjoys his product. This notion, which is already recognised 
 for all the higher social functions, is extended by the Religion 
 of Humanity to real labour of every kind. The new view of 
 labour will tend to remove those moral evils of industry, the 
 result of the egoist system ; evils which would seriously 
 embarrass the altruistic system also, were it to suffer 
 appeals to the selfish instincts in place of steadily restraining 
 them. 
 
 Such is the social affinity of the true Religion, that every 
 durable association of men has always spontaneously tended 
 towards this form of union. It is only the higher Feelings 
 which can unite men ; and common interests have never 
 secured permanent bonds of community, even in small spheres. 
 We thus find everywhere that consecration of individual 
 efforts under the sanction of an ultimate purpose in human 
 good, at once collective and continuous. Thus arose the 
 notion which, widened by successive generalisation, has 
 gradually led up to the conception and sentiment of the 
 Great Being. Even where the association has only destruc- 
 tion as its object, it still rests on mutual attachment ; only 
 this attachment is then limited to a special population. At 
 the same time this military activity is directly opposed to 
 moral unity ; because it constantly arouses feelings of enmity 
 towards the greater part of the human race. For this reason 
 
356 Religion as Sociology 
 
 it is still more necessary for the heart than for the head to 
 conceive the community of mankind as coextensive with the 
 entire race. Any sense of national antagonism between the 
 different servants of Humanity is totally incompatible with 
 true conception of, and certainly with true feeling for, the 
 Great Being. Nevertheless the Order of nature is such as 
 always to prevent any absolute empire in the altruistic system. 
 For the broadest sense of union can never extend beyond the 
 limits of our race, except to such of the animal races as can 
 really be associated with us. Outside the circle of this vast 
 confederacy, whose destiny it is to improve the earth as its 
 domain, our planet possesses a variety of animate beings who 
 cannot be assimilated. Towards them our activity will always 
 remain one of destruction, and no sophistry should blind us 
 to the reality of this cruel necessity we acknowledge. This 
 bond of Unity in a common attachment must therefore always 
 remain a relative conception; although it is true that its 
 sphere is continually widening. Even when our personal 
 have been thoroughly subordinated to our sociable faculties, 
 the egoism imposed by facts on the totality of Man must 
 forbid the feelings of Love to embrace all Nature. Necessary 
 as such limits to Love may be, they should in no way impair 
 our enthusiasm ; whilst we ought fairly to admit their force, 
 as a good check on indulgence in absolute ideas. We can 
 only regret that the imperfections natural to the Order of 
 nature bar us from unlimited expansion of affections, which of 
 themselves would desire to embrace all things alike in their 
 Love. 
 
 To complete our view of the social efficacy of the true 
 Synthesis, we must turn to its power to unite without coercing. 
 For a sound conception of the Great Being makes the in- 
 dependence no less sacred than the co-operation of the 
 members ; both are equally necessary to the essential service, 
 since the parts performed by an aggregate are impossible 
 without individual organs. It can only be an unintelligent, 
 
Gomte 357 
 
 and even a narrow, view of social duty which can ever lead 
 an honest social reformer to undervalue personal liberty. The 
 supposed antagonism between individual liberty and social 
 combination comes from a crude attempt to found an altruistic 
 Unity, with only one mental and moral condition. These 
 socialist visionaries thought only of the solidarity of living 
 men, and forgot the continuity of ages. We need apprehend 
 little from this misconception, which is directly contrary to the 
 ideas and the feelings which characterise the systematic 
 Religion of Humanity. As regards the Great Being, the sub- 
 jective service after death constantly becomes more and more 
 important, compared with the objective service in life. Now 
 subjectivity invariably supposes individuals as its authors; 
 and their free co-operation alone can endue them with an 
 aggregate influence. Far from lowering the freedom of the 
 individual, the Positive religion sanctifies and develops it 
 afresh ; for it supplies it with a noble destination. This 
 freedom is a condition indispensable to personal dignity ; it is 
 in no less degree indispensable to every service of society, 
 which any form of oppression would paralyse. True co- 
 operation ought always to be wholly voluntary; allowance 
 being made for the motives which cause it to be withheld. 
 In a w r ord, the altruist regimen supposes and produces the 
 spirit of trust, as it exacts and increases the habit of respon- 
 sibility. On the other hand, it directly sanctions every real 
 form of superiority, be it natural or be it acquired; for it 
 devotes on system the strong to the service of the weak. Far 
 from breaking up and subdividing Power, whether spiritual or 
 temporal, the Religion of Humanity habitually concentrates 
 Power, to enable it better to fulfil its social function. In its 
 judgment on the Past, it gives the amplest honour to the 
 illustrious characters, each of whom has done so much to 
 influence the destinies of men. The Positive Religion inspires 
 all the servants of the Great Being with a sacred zeal to 
 represent that Being as fully as possible. It invokes the 
 
358 Religion as Sociology 
 
 veneration of all towards every truly worthy individual. The 
 full acceptance of this Religion alone can check that spirit of 
 blindness or of envy which in our day would seek to crush 
 out the real inequalities which exist amongst men, instead 
 of turning the inequalities to account. A healthy sense 
 of individual merit should invariably sustain our Positive 
 morality, and dispose us to combat all those miserable attempts 
 to discredit the power of individuals a power for ever con- 
 secrated to the service of the Great Being. 
 
 This closes the general treatment. The remainder of 
 chapter i. is occupied with detailed exposition of the three 
 elements of religion, Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline ; and 
 with his Theory of the history of Religion. The latter shows 
 in a summary way the Law of the Three Stages at work, 
 preparatory to its full treatment in vol. iii. Comte con- 
 cludes the chapter in the tone of one who has achieved a 
 great result, and in 1855 he expressed his feeling as to what 
 he had accomplished : " Je puis maintenant espe"rer que les 
 ames vraiment religieuses, disposers a la synthese par la 
 sympathie, sauront bientot surmonter les discordances dogma- 
 tiques pour encourager le seul effort de notre siecle envers la 
 religion universelle." 
 
 References. Mr. Frederic Harrison's writings generally ; J. S. 
 Mill's Auguste Comte and Positivism ; James Martineau in Types of 
 Ethical Theory ; Dr. E. Caird, Social Philosophy of Comte ; Dr. Flint 
 in Anti-Thcistic Theories; Professor J. "Watson's Comte, Mill, and 
 Spencer ; Prof. R. Mackintosh, From Comte to Benjamin Kidd (1899). 
 In French literature reference should be made to De Maistre's Du 
 Pape (1819) for the view of Catholicism which was in Comte's mind ; 
 to Guyau's L'Irreligion de I'Avenir for a Comtian view of the future ; 
 to Brunetiere, "La Religion comme Sociologie" (Revue des deux 
 Mondes, February 15, 1903), for an estimate of Comte by a French 
 Catholic; and especially to LeVy Bruhl's La Philosophic d' Auguste 
 Comte (1900 ; tr. 1903). Hoffding (History of Modern Philosophy, tr. 
 1900) allots a greater proportionate space to Comte than has usually 
 been assigned in histories from Germanic quarters. On Social authority 
 as source of religious belief, with strong opposition to taking Humanity 
 as its object, see Mr. Balfour's Foundations of Belief] for treatment 
 
Comte 359 
 
 of religion as a Social "sanction," see Professor Baldwin, Social and 
 Ethical Interpretations, 1899 ; cf. also Mr. T. B. Saunders, The Quest 
 of Faith, 1899. For the Sociological character of Christian Theology, 
 see the selections from Schleiermacher and Ritschl ; Dr. Stanton, The 
 Place of Authority in Religious Belief, 1891 ; and Professor King's 
 Theology and the Social Consciousness, 1902 ; and for a general history 
 of this aspect, Bishop Robertson's Regnum Dei (1901). 
 
 As Longman's standard edition of the Polity is out of print it may 
 be mentioned that Harriet Martineau's translation (Bohn Library), 
 though "free and condensed," was approved and adopted by Comte, 
 but it is of his earlier phase, the Philosophy. Comte's own summary 
 of his final doctrine is given in the Catechism (tr. Congreve). 
 
XL 
 
 AGNOSTICISM. 
 
 MANSEL (1820-1871). 
 
 HENRY LONGUEVILLE MANSEL comes before us as a conspicuous 
 example of those thinkers who find in Revelation a refuge 
 from the incapacities of Reason. His unsparing criticism of 
 man's rational powers is deduced from the fundamental 
 principle of his master in philosophy, Sir William Hamilton 
 (who interpreted Kant in a strictly subjectivistic sense; 
 see Hamilton's Discussions, and cf. supra, p. 206, n. 29), that 
 the Infinite cannot be known, because to know is to 
 condition, and what is conditioned is finite. We cannot 
 think an object without discriminating it from all else; 
 every object, therefore, is relative to other objects. We 
 cannot think an object without distinguishing it from 
 ourselves; every object, therefore, is relative to the 
 thinking subject. In other words, knowledge is relative 
 and limited by its very nature; terms like Absolute and 
 Infinite signify nothing that can be known ; and it follows 
 that the object of religion is utterly inaccessible to thought. 
 
 In his Bampton Lectures (1858), entitled Limits of 
 Religious Thought, Mansel argued powerfully from these 
 premises that a demonstrable Theology is impossible. Still, 
 he contended, this gives rationalism no right to cast stones 
 at orthodoxy, for the fundamental concepts of Reason with 
 which every religious philosophy works are equally infected 
 with radical contradiction. Nay, he goes further, and, out- 
 stripping Kant in the fervour of his agnosticism, holds that 
 neither human logic nor human ethics are applicable to the 
 Divine Being, while "Personality," as a mere reflection of 
 our limited consciousness, is absolutely incompatible with an 
 infinite nature. Religious belief, whether intellectual or 
 
 360 
 
Hansel 361 
 
 moral, is necessarily a tissue of contradictions, our only 
 solace being the presence of like antinomies in any scheme 
 of unbelief. Nevertheless, we are told that, casting our- 
 selves on Revelation, "it is our duty to think of God as 
 personal ; and it is our duty to believe that He is infinite." 
 
 This sudden and inconsequent resort to Revelation drew 
 steady and severe criticism of Hansel's views from a 
 multitude of controversial writers. Philosophical sceptics 
 declined to be forced into acceptance of Revelation ; Christian 
 theologians declined to abandon Reason. It is obvious that 
 any such theory as Mansel's makes Revelation impossible ; 
 for God could not, ex hypothesi, make Himself intelligible 
 to minds such as ours are. We have no knowledge, and 
 we can have no knowledge, of any language He might use. 
 Mansel, it is clear, was operating with a negative and 
 spurious conception of the Infinite, which he regarded not 
 as inclusive, but as exclusive, of the finite and its relations. 
 Presuppositions of this kind make impossible from the 
 outset any real unity of God and man, whether of know- 
 ledge or of will. 
 
 The passages which we have cited below are taken from 
 the Bampton Lectures III. and IV. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS INCAPACITY OF REASON. 1 
 
 The results, to which an examination of the facts of 
 consciousness has conducted us, may be briefly summed up 
 as follow : Our whole consciousness manifests itself as 
 
 1 Throughout this passage, in which Mansel sets himself to prove 
 the essentially self-contradictory nature of the basal conceptions of 
 rational theology, we must mark closely the notions he is analysing. 
 His Absolute, e.g., is a purely negative idea; it denotes that which 
 has no relation to anything else, and as applied to God, involves 
 Acosmism. And his Infinite is equally negative ; for as the simply 
 unlimited it excludes all that is finite. Once define the terms so, and 
 inevitable antinomies crowd upon you. Mansel was apparently 
 unwilling to recognise that on this subject an altogether different line 
 of argument can be developed, that, namely, which construes Infinite 
 and finite, Absolute and relative, as inseparable correlatives for 
 thought, intrinsically bound up together, "one of the two giving UK 
 
862 Agnosticism 
 
 subject to certain limits, which we are unable, in any act 
 of thought, to transgress. 2 That which falls within these 
 limits, as an object of thought, is known to us as relative 
 and finite. The existence of a limit to our powers of 
 thought is manifested by the consciousness of contradiction, 
 which implies at the same time an attempt to think and an 
 inability to accomplish that attempt. But a limit is 
 necessarily conceived as a relation between something within 
 and something without itself ; and thus the consciousness of 
 a limit of thought implies, though it does not directly 
 present to us, the existence of something of which we do 
 not and cannot think. When we lift up our eyes to that 
 blue vault of heaven, which is itself but the limit of our own 
 
 the constant and ontological ground, the other the phenomenal 
 manifestation." Idealism has elaborated the conception of an Absolute 
 which embraces the relative as a living element of itself, an Infinite 
 which fills the finite with meaning, and takes it up organically into its 
 own nature, a Cause which is not so much first in time, as rather the 
 eternal ground of all changes and events. Mansel would probably 
 have urged that we cannot think these ideas ; but this means only that 
 we cannot picture them to our imagination, not that their content is 
 not genuinely rational. 
 
 Herbert Spencer accepted from Mansel the purely relative theory of 
 knowledge on which this argument is based, and carried it to its logical 
 results. See First Principles, chap. iv. 
 
 Huxley (Essay on Agnosticism, 1889) said that it was Hamilton's 
 Philosophy of the Unconditioned (from which Mansel drew) which early 
 in life "stamped on his mind the strong conviction that . . . the 
 imitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders real 
 answers to such questions not merely actually impossible, but 
 theoretically inconceivable." 
 
 On the whole subject of agnosticism, especially in its religious 
 aspect, the student should refer to Professor Flint's exhaustive work, 
 Agnosticism (Blackwood, 1903). 
 
 2 This is criticised with much aeuteness and persistence by Idealistic 
 thinkers, who urge that knowledge of a limit is implicitly knowledge of 
 that which is beyond the limit. Of., e.g., J. Caird's Introduction to the 
 Philosophy of Jtetigion, chap. i. 
 
Hansel 363 
 
 power of sight, we are compelled to suppose, though we 
 cannot perceive, the existence of space beyond, as well as 
 within it ; we regard the boundary of vision as parting the 
 visible from the invisible. And when, in mental contempla- 
 tion, we are conscious of relation and difference, as the 
 limits of our power of thought, we regard them, in like 
 manner, as the boundary between the conceivable and the 
 inconceivable ; though we are unable to penetrate, in thought, 
 beyond the nether sphere, to the unrelated and unlimited 
 which it hides from us. The Absolute and the Infinite are 
 thus, like the Inconceivable and the Imperceptible, names 
 indicating, not an object of thought or of consciousness at 
 all, but the mere absence of the conditions under which 
 consciousness is possible. 3 The attempt to construct in 
 thought an object answering to such names, necessarily 
 results in contradiction, a contradiction, however, which we 
 have ourselves produced by the attempt to think, which 
 exists in the act of thought, but not beyond it, which 
 destroys the conception as such, but indicates nothing 
 concerning the existence or non-existence of that which we 
 try to conceive. It proves our own impotence, and it proves 
 nothing more. Or rather it indirectly leads us to believe in 
 the existence of that Infinite which we cannot conceive, for 
 the denial of its existence involves a contradiction no less 
 than the assertion of its conceivability. We thus learn that 
 the provinces of Reason and Faith are not coextensive, 
 that it is a duty, enjoined by Reason itself, to believe in that 
 which we are unable to comprehend. . . . 4 
 
 a When estimating the real worth of Mansel's argument we must 
 not forget that these difficulties are the same after revelation as before, 
 unless it confers upon man wholly new faculties, which Mansel does 
 not suppose it to do. 
 
 4 Is it legitimate for Mansel to use such a phrase at all ? How can 
 Reason enjoin any positive duty towards an Infinite which Reason 
 itself enables us to prove to be a mere subjective negation ? 
 
364 Agnosticism 
 
 It is our duty, then, to think of God as personal ; and it 
 is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It is true that 
 wo cannot reconcile these two representations with each 
 other, as our conception of personality involves attributes 
 apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. 5 But it 
 does not follow that this contradiction exists anywhere but 
 in our own minds, it does not follow that it implies any 
 impossibility in the absolute nature of God. 6 The apparent 
 contradiction, in this case, as in those previously noticed, is 
 the necessary consequence of an attempt on the part of the 
 human thinker to transcend the boundaries of his own 
 consciousness. It proves that there are limits to man's 
 power of thought, and it proves no more. 
 
 The preceding considerations are equally conclusive against 
 both the methods of metaphysical theology described in my 
 last lecture, that which commences with the Divine to reason 
 down to the human, and that which commences with the 
 human to reason up to the Divine. For though the mere 
 abstract expression of the infinite, when regarded as indicat- 
 ing nothing more than the negation of limitation, and 
 therefore of conceivability, is not contradictory in itself, it 
 becomes so the instant we attempt to apply it in reasoning 
 to any object of thought. A thing an object an attribute 
 a person or any other term signifying one out of many 
 possible objects of consciousness, is by that very relation 
 necessarily declared to be finite. An infinite thing, or object, 
 or attribute, or person, is therefore in the same moment 
 
 & On the alleged incompatibility of Infinity and Personality, cf. 
 Selection from Lotze, infra, pp. 368 ff. 
 
 6 If this is seriously meant, and we can actually criticise the 
 imperfect and inconsistent conceptions of our own mind by reference 
 to the absolute nature of God, in which such inconsistencies are 
 resolved in a deeper harmony, then a rational Theism is not from the 
 nature of things impossible, and Mansel's theory of nescience is under- 
 mined. 
 
Hansel 365 
 
 declared to be both finite and infinite. We cannot, there- 
 fore, start from any abstract assumption of the Divine 
 infinity to reason downwards to any object of human 
 thought. And, on the other hand, if all human attributes 
 are conceived under the conditions of difference, and 
 relation, and time, and personality, we cannot represent in 
 thought any such attribute magnified to infinity, for this 
 again is to conceive it as finite and infinite at the same 
 time. AVe can conceive such attributes, at the utmost, only 
 indefinitely ; thac is to say, we may withdraw our thought, 
 for the moment, from the fact of their being limited, but we 
 cannot conceive them as infinite, that is to say, we cannot 
 positively think of the absence of the limit, for the instant we 
 attempt to do so the antagonist elements of the conception 
 exclude one another and annihilate the whole. . . . 
 
 There are two modes in which we may endeavour to 
 contemplate the Deity the one negative, based on a vain 
 attempt to transcend the conditions of human thought and 
 to expand the religious consciousness to the infinity of its 
 Divine Object ; the other positive, which keeps within its 
 proper limits, and views the object in a manner accommodated 
 to the finite capacities of the human thinker. The first 
 aspires to behold God in His absolute nature ; 7 the second is 
 content to view Him in those relations in which He has 
 been pleased to manifest Himself to His creatures. The 
 first aims at a speculative knowledge of God as He is, but, 
 bound by the conditions of finite thought, even in the 
 attempt to transgress them, obtains nothing more than a 
 tissue of ambitious self-contradictions, which indicate only 
 
 7 One of the most vulnerable points in Hansel's argument shows 
 here. An Absolute, which is by definition out of all relation, cannot 
 enter into cognisable relations with us ; nor can we, with minds such 
 as ours, apprehend His self-manifestation. But his conclusion is 
 merely an inference from his definition, and affects no one who rejects 
 that definition. 
 
366 Agnosticism 
 
 what He is not. The second, abandoning the speculative 
 knowledge of the infinite as only possible to the Infinite 
 Intelligence itself, is content with those regulative 8 ideas 
 of the Deity which are sufficient to guide our practice but 
 not to satisfy our intellect ; which tell us, not what God is 
 in Himself, but how He wills that we should think of Him. 
 In renouncing all knowledge of the Absolute, it renounces 
 at the same time all attempts to construct a priori schemes 
 of God's Providence as it ought to be ; it does not seek to 
 reconcile this or that phenomenon, whether in nature or 
 in revelation, with the absolute attributes of Deity, but 
 confines itself to the actual course of that Providence as 
 manifested in the world, and seeks no higher internal 
 criterion of the truth of a religion than may be derived 
 from its analogy to other parts of the Divine government. 9 
 
 8 In an interesting note Mansel points out that his usage of the 
 terms speculative and regulative in this connexion is the exact 
 opposite of Kant's. Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 394, Meikle- 
 john's trans.) held that the ideas of the absolute or unconditioned, 
 which reason supplies, are merely regulative in their function, i.e. 
 they enable us to organise our experience by giving direction and 
 systematic unity to the work of the understanding, though they 
 really do not give us a knowledge of ultimate being, but only point 
 the way. Their use, accordingly, is regulative or heuristic, not specu- 
 lative or constitutive. Mansel prefers to reverse this terminology, 
 and to say that the finite conceptions are regulative, the infinite 
 speculative, and therefore worthless : " In the philosophy of religion, 
 the true regulative ideas which are intended to guide our thoughts are 
 the finite forms under which alone we can think of the infinite God." 
 Cf. supra, p. 209, note 32 . 
 
 9 So Butler in his Analogy of Religion, natural and revealed, 
 to tfie constitution and course of nature. But it may be noted 
 that Mansel pushed the elder thinker's argument a great many steps 
 further, finding complete difference where Butler had rejoiced to find 
 analogy. Butler's argument is, in brief, that whatever difficulties 
 there may be in the proof of revelation, equal difficulties meet us in 
 the proof of natural religion. But for Mansel the difficulties are 
 not in the world, they are in our mind, and flow from a radical 
 
Mansel 367 
 
 Guided by this, the only true Philosophy of Religion, man 
 is content to practise where he is unable to speculate. He 
 acts as one who must give an account of his conduct ; he 
 prays, believing that his prayer will be answered. He does 
 not seek to reconcile this belief with any theory of the 
 Infinite ; for he does not even know how the Infinite and 
 the Finite can exist together. But he feels that his several 
 duties rest upon the same basis ; he knows that, if human 
 action is not incompatible with Infinite Power, neither is 
 human worship with Infinite Wisdom and Goodness, though 
 it is not as the Infinite that God reveals Himself in His 
 moral government, nor is it as the Infinite that He pro- 
 mises to answer prayer. 
 
 disqualification for knowledge of Divine things inherent in the very 
 structure of our faculties. And as, in his opinion, every religious 
 philosophy, believing or unbelieving, is under the same logical 
 disability, he recommends us to take refuge in Revelation. 
 
 A survey of the literature of speculative theology during the last 
 forty years is enough to show how many have taken Hansel's negative 
 counsel to distrust Reason, without accepting his positive substitute 
 for it. 
 
 The close affinity between Hansel's scheme of thought and that of 
 Pascal or Newman is obvious. A modern and lighter rendering of the 
 same thesis is given in Mr. Mallock's pleasantly written Religion as 
 a Credible Doctrine (1903). Points of contact with it are also to be 
 found in Mr. Balfour's Foundations of Belief (1895), though in the 
 latter case we find likewise a partial approach to the general position 
 of Kant, and even, in some respects, of Hegel. Above all, the student 
 should compare Herbert Spencer's First Principles, the book which 
 has conveyed Hansel's agnostic views to an even wider circle than 
 he himself reached. For criticism of Spencer, see Dr. Edward 
 Caird's Evolution of Religion (2 vols., 1892) ; Professor Iverach, 
 Theism in the Light of Present Science and Philosophy, Lect. ix. ; and 
 Professor Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism. 
 
XII. 
 THE PEESONALITY OF GOD. 
 
 LOTZE (1817-1881). 
 
 HERMANN LOTZE, the latest of the great philosophers of Ger- 
 many, stands as a realist in line with Leibnitz and Herbart. 
 That is to say, he sets out from the presupposition of indi- 
 vidualism or monadism, though his inquiry into the idea of 
 causality leads him ultimately to a spiritual Monism, or the 
 doctrine of one universal Substance in which all things live and 
 act, and their relation to which explains their unity and mutual 
 influence. Lotze's theory of knowledge must in strictness be 
 placed beside that of Kant. He teaches the purely phenomenal 
 range of cognition ; yet this is more than balanced by the 
 metaphysical assumption which he makes on the strength of 
 the faith inherent in knowledge that things, in order to be 
 centres of action and to be experienced by us, must share in 
 varying degrees the quality of selfhood, must be modes, that is, 
 of the absolute Substance which enjoy their own states. Thus 
 the genuine affinity of reality and intelligence is reaffirmed, and 
 the objectivity of knowledge is saved. His system of philosophy 
 was obviously built up with a constant polemical reference 
 on the one hand to Hegelianism, and on the other to the 
 materialistic dogmas promulgated by the science of his day. 
 In view of Hegelianism, he protests against the sacrifice of 
 the individual's spiritual needs and instincts to any exclusively 
 abstract and intellectual considerations whatsoever. Urging 
 that in any case human thought can never constitute reality, but 
 at best represent it inadequately, he reasserts and vindicates 
 the part played by feeling, the ethical, aesthetic, and religious 
 demands of the spirit, alike in the structure of experience 
 and our estimate of its meaning. As against materialistic 
 science, while defending with eager conviction the mechanical 
 view of nature even in the domain of organic life, he argues 
 
Lotze 369 
 
 that the function of mechanism in the universe is entirely 
 subordinate, and "must be regarded philosophically as the 
 instrument of purpose." His system may therefore be 
 described as a teleological idealism, which ultimately rests for 
 him upon judgments of worth, in which ethics and religion, 
 and even the interpretative work of knowledge, take their rise. 
 " It is only the Good which has in itself the complete right to 
 be, and this is recognised in a judgment or postulate of value, 
 which carries us beyond the merely intellectual region into 
 the domain of feeling." His Theism is uncompromising, and 
 the one infinite real Being to which his ontological inquiries 
 conduct is viewed unambiguously as personal. 
 
 The extract we have given is a masterly defence of the 
 position that the Absolute combines in itself the attributes of 
 Infinitude and Personality, and it will be seen that the 
 argument follows thoroughly original lines. It is taken from 
 Bk. ix. chap. iv. of his Microcosmus (Eng. trans, by Miss 
 E. E. C. Jones, 2 vols., 1886). Modelled on the pattern of 
 Herder's Ideen, this work, published 1856-1864, and described 
 by himself as an "attempt at an anthropology," contains a 
 psychology elaborated in close connexion with physiological 
 results and with the progress of culture, and in its later 
 sections develops the author's ideas on cosmology and religious 
 philosophy all presented in an attractive and semi-popular 
 style. Lotze's views on questions of religious belief are set 
 forth with admirable conciseness also in his Outlines of tlie 
 Philosophy of Religion, notes of his later Lectures, of which 
 two versions are published in English (by G. T. Ladd, 
 Boston, 1886, and F. C. Conybeare, 1892). An added 
 touch of reality is given to Lotze's disquisitions by his 
 genuine eminence in psychology, a sphere in which he is best 
 known by his brilliant and original doctrine of " local signs " 
 (in the perception of space), and his assertion of the basal 
 importance of feeling as a factor in mental life. 
 
 IMPERSONAL FORMS OF THE SUPREME BEING. 
 
 EGO AND NON-EGO OBJECTIONS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF THE INFINITE. 
 
 Two distinct series of attributes through which man tries 
 to comprehend the being of God recall to us the two impulses 
 
 24 
 
370 The Personality of God 
 
 from which arose the notion of God and belief in Him. 
 Metaphysical attributes of Unity, Eternity, Omnipresence, 
 and Omnipotence determine Him as the ground of all finite 
 reality ; ethical attributes of Wisdom, Justice, and Holiness 
 satisfy our longing to find in that which has supreme reality, 
 supreme worth also. 1 We have no need to give a complete 
 account of these attributes, or to touch doubtful questions as 
 to their reciprocal limits ; the only really important point for 
 us is to reach a conviction as to the mode of existence that is 
 to give a definite form to this essence of all perfection, 
 determining also at the same time the special significance of 
 several of the attributes referred to. If these reflections, 
 which are now struggling to a conclusion, were allowed once 
 more to run into the prolixity of systematic completeness, it 
 would be easy to develop from the preceding investigations as 
 to the nature of existence the answer which we should have 
 to give to this last question as to the nature of that Infinite 
 which we have there discovered. But just because it is easy 
 for the reader to supply this transition, we will regard the 
 goal to which it would lead, the notion of a Personal God, as 
 being already reached, and endeavour to defend this against 
 doubts as to its possibility, as being the only logical con- 
 clusion to which our considerations could come. 
 
 The longing of the soul to apprehend as reality the 
 Highest Good which it is able to feel, cannot be satisfied by 
 or even consider any form of the existence of that Good 
 except Personality. So strong is its conviction that some 
 living Ego, possessing and enjoying Self, is the inevitable 
 presupposition, and the only possible source and abode of all 
 goodness and all good things, so filled is it with unspoken 
 contempt for all existence that is apparently lifeless, that we 
 
 1 The proof that what is real and what has worth are one, or as he 
 elsewhere expresses it, the proof of the undivided unity of the world of 
 forms and the world of values is for Lotze the ultimate, and perhaps 
 insoluble, problem of philosophy. Of. the Selection from Ritschl. 
 
Lotze 371 
 
 always find the myth-constructing beginnings of religion 
 busied in transforming natural to spiritual reality ; but never 
 find them actuated by any desire to trace back living 
 spiritual activity to unintelligent Realness as to a firmer 
 foundation. From this right path the progressive develop- 
 ment of reflection turned off for a time. With increasing 
 cosmic knowledge, it grew more clear what must be required 
 in the notion of God, if He were not only to contain in 
 Himself all that is greatest and most worthy, but also to 
 contain it after such a fashion as to appear at the same time 
 as the creative and formative ground of all reality ; and, on 
 the other hand, in more refined observation of spiritual life, 
 the conditions became clear to which in us finite beings 
 the development of personality is attached; both trains of 
 thought seemed to combine in showing that the form of 
 spiritual life is incompatible with the notion of the Supreme 
 Being, or that the form of personal existence is incompatible 
 with the notion of the Infinite Spirit. And there arose 
 attempts to find more satisfying forms of existence for the 
 Highest Good in ideas of an Eternal World-Order, of an 
 Infinite Substance, of a Self -developing Idea, 2 and to 
 depreciate the form of personal existence which had previously 
 seemed to the unsophisticated mind to be the only one that 
 was worthy. . . . 
 
 There is given at this point a brief examination of the 
 three typical impersonal forms of the Supreme Being to which 
 lie has just referred. On this follows his independent 
 exposition. It is objected, he says, that 
 
 . . . An Ego (or Self, Ich) is not thinkable without the 
 contrast of a Non-Ego or Not-Self ; hence personal existence 
 cannot be asserted of God without bringing even Him down 
 to that state of limitation, of being conditioned by something 
 
 2 The reference is to the systems of Fichte, Schelling, and 
 Hegel. 
 
372 The Personality of God 
 
 not Himself, which is repugnant to Him. 3 The objections that 
 speculative knowledge makes to the personality of God fall back 
 upon this thought ; in order to estimate their importance, we 
 shall have to test the apparently clear content of the proposition 
 which they take as their point of departure. For unambiguous 
 it is not ; it may be intended to assert that what the term Ego 
 denotes can be comprehended in reflective analysis only by 
 reference to the Non-Ego ; it may also mean that it is not con- 
 ceivable that this content of the Ego should be experienced 
 without that contrasted Non-Ego being experienced at the 
 same time ; finally, it may point to the existence and active 
 influence of a Non-Ego as the condition without which the 
 being upon which this influence works could not be an Ego. 
 
 The relations which we need in ideation for making clear 
 the object ideated, are not in a general way decisive as to its 
 nature; they are not conditions of the possibility of the 
 thing as they are for us conditions of the possibility of its 
 presentation in idea. 4 But the special nature of the case 
 before us seems to involve something which is not generally 
 included for it is just in the act of ideation that Selfhood 
 (Ichheit) consists, and hence what is necessary for carrying 
 out such an act is at the same time a condition of the thing. 
 
 :J What is here in view is apparently the formulation of this objec- 
 tion by Strauss (Die christl. Glaubenslehre, i. p. 504), " Personality is 
 that selfhood which shuts itself up against everything else, which it 
 thereby excludes from itself ; the Absolute, on the other hand, is the 
 comprehensive, the unlimited, which excludes nothing from itself but 
 just the exclusivity which lies in the conception of personality." (It 
 has been truly said by Ritschl that this idea of the Absolute is simply 
 that of space.) The same line is taken by Mansel and Spencer, so 
 that for them the conception of personality is a portion of our know- 
 ledge with which the Unknowable inconsistently enough is known 
 to be in contradiction. 
 
 4 It is a favourite and, perhaps, in some of its developments, a dubious 
 principle of criticism with Lotze that movements of our thought must 
 always, as such, be distinguished from real processes of Being. Of. 
 Metaph. i. p. 95. 
 
Lotse 373 
 
 Hence the first two interpretations which we gave of the 
 proposition referred to seem to run together into the assertion 
 that the Ego has significance only as contrasted with thfe 
 Non-Ego, and can be experienced only in such contrast. 
 Whether we agree with this assertion will depend in part 
 upon the significance attached to the words used. We see in 
 the first place that at any rate Ego and Non-Ego cannot be 
 two notions of which each owes its whole content only to its 
 contrast with the other ; if this were so they would both 
 remain without content, and if neither of them apart from 
 the contrast had a fixed meaning of its own, not only would 
 there be no ground for giving an answer one way or the 
 other to the question which of the two members of the con- 
 trast should take the place of the Ego and which that of the 
 Non-Ego, but the very question would -cease to have any 
 meaning. Language has given to the Ego alone its own 
 independent name, to the Non-Ego only the negative deter- 
 mination which excludes the Ego without indicating any 
 positive content of its own. Hence every being which is 
 destined to take the part of the Ego when the contrast has 
 arisen, must have the ground of its determination in that 
 nature which it had previous to the contrast, although before 
 the existence of the contrast it is not yet entitled to the 
 predicate which in that contrast comes to belong to it. 5 Now 
 if this is to remain the meaning of the term, if the being is 
 to be Ego only at the moment when it is distinguished from 
 the Non-Ego, then we have no objection to make to this 
 mode of expression, but we shall alter our own. For it is 
 
 5 We may illustrate this by the correlative pair of concepts, right 
 and left. These directions are what they are independently of our 
 comparing them, otherwise when AVC did compare them we should 
 have no ground for deciding which was which. So the Ego and 
 Non-Ego are distinct realities before they are contrasted by reflective 
 thought, and the contrast is only possible on the ground of their 
 previous distinction. 
 
374 The Personality of God 
 
 our opponents' opinion and not ours that personality is to be 
 found exclusively where, in ideation (or presentation), Self- 
 consciousness sets itself as Ego in opposition to the Non-Ego ; 
 in order to establish the selfhood (Selbstheit) which we 
 primarily seek, that nature is sufficient in virtue of which, 
 when the contrast does arise, the being becomes an Ego, and 
 it is sufficient even before the appearance of the contrast. 
 Every feeling of displeasure or of dislike, every kind of self- 
 enjoyment (Selbstgenuss), does in our view contain the primary 
 basis of personality, that immediate self -existence which all 
 later developments of self-consciousness may indeed make 
 plainer to thought by contrasts and comparisons, thus also 
 intensifying its value, but which is not in the first place 
 produced by them. 6 It may be that only the being who in 
 thought contrasts with himself a Non-Ego from which he also 
 distinguishes himself, can say / (Ich) to himself ; but yet in 
 order that in thus distinguishing he should not mistake and 
 confound himself with the Non-Ego, this discriminating 
 thought of his must be guided by a certainty of self which is 
 immediately experienced by a self -existence which is earlier 
 than the discriminative relation by which it becomes Ego as 
 opposed to Non-Ego. A different consideration has already 
 (cf. i. p. 241 seq.) led us by an easier path to the same 
 result, and we may refer the reader to this passage for 
 explanation and completion of what is said here. The 
 discussion referred to showed us that all self-consciousness 
 rests upon the foundation of direct sense of self, 7 which can 
 
 6 I.e. the basal characteristic of the Self, which makes it to be a Self 
 and is the foundation of all later development, is not a mere intel- 
 lectual intuition, but a feeling of interest, of pleasure and pain which 
 is absolutely unique, immediately experienced, and incommunicable. 
 The absence of this from such a definition as Spinoza's marks the 
 difference between the personal and impersonal systems. 
 
 7 The supreme instance of what is with Lotze a fundamental prin- 
 ciple, namely, that it is in direct Perception, whether inner or outer, 
 that we are in immediate contact with Reality. 
 
Lotze 375 
 
 by no means arise from becoming aware of a contrast with the 
 external world, but is itself the reason that this contrast can 
 be felt as unique, as not comparable to any other distinction 
 between two objects. Self-consciousness is only the subsequent 
 endeavour to analyse with the resources of cognition this ex- 
 perienced fact to frame in thought a picture of the Ego that 
 in cognition apprehends itself with the most vivid feeling, and 
 in this manner to place it artificially among the objects of 
 our consideration, to which it does not really belong. So we 
 take up our position with regard to the first two interpretations 
 of the proposition of which we are speaking, thus, we admit 
 that the Ego is thinkable only in relation to the Non-Ego, but 
 we add that it may be experienced previous to and out of every 
 such relation, and that to this is due the possibility of its 
 subsequently becoming thinkable in that relation. 
 
 But it is not these two interpretations but the third that 
 is most obstructive to that faith in the Personality of God 
 which we are seeking to establish. In one form, indeed, in 
 which it sometimes occurs we need not make it an object 
 of renewed investigation ; for we may now consider it as, in 
 our view, established that no being in the nature of which 
 self-existence was not given as primary and underived, could 
 be endowed with selfhood by any mechanism of favouring 
 circumstances however wonderful. Hence we may pass over 
 in complete silence all those attempts which think to show 
 by ill-chosen analogies from the world of sense how in a 
 being as yet selfless an activity originally directed entirely 
 outwards is, by the resistance opposed to it by the Non-Ego 
 (comparable to that which a ray of light encounters in a 
 plane surface), thrown back upon itself and thereby trans- 
 formed into the self-comprehending light of self -consciousness. 8 
 
 8 Lotze, it is obvious, is thinking of Fichte, and his well-known 
 theory of the Anstoss or shock of collision (with the Xou-Ego) in which 
 self-consciousness arises. Cf. Prof. Pringle-Pattison, Hegelianism and 
 Personality, p. 53. 
 
376 The Personality of God 
 
 In such ideas everything is arbitrary, and not a single feature 
 of the image employed is applicable to the actual case which 
 it is intended to make clear : that outgoing activity is an 
 unmeaning imagination, the resistance which it is to meet 
 with is something that cannot be proved, the inference that 
 that activity is by that resistance turned back along the 
 path by which it came is unfounded, and it is wholly incom- 
 prehensible how this reflection could transform its nature, 
 so that from blind activity it should turn into the selfhood 
 of self-existence. 
 
 Setting aside these follies which have influenced philo- 
 sophic thought to an unreasonable extent, we find a more 
 respectable form of the view which we are combating occupied 
 in proving that though that self-existence cannot be produced 
 by any external condition in a being to which it does not 
 belong by nature, yet it could never be developed even in 
 one whose nature is capable of it, without the co-operation 
 and educative influences of an external world. For [it is held] 
 (i.) that from the impressions which we must receive from the 
 external world, there comes to us not only all the content 
 of our ideas, but also the occasion of all these feelings in 
 which the Ego, existing for self, can enjoy self without as 
 yet being conscious of a relation of contrast to the Non-Ego, 
 (ii.) That all feeling 9 must be conceived as (in some definite 
 form of pleasure or displeasure) interested in some definite 
 situation of the being to which it belongs, some particular 
 phase of its action and its passion; but that neither is 
 passion possible without some foreign impression which calls 
 it forth, nor activity possible without an external point of 
 attraction which guides it, and at which it aims, (iii.) That 
 
 a "Feeling" is here used more narrowly than in the older English 
 meaning, in which it includes not only pleasure and pain, but sensa- 
 tions, e.g. of colour and sound. The allocation of the term " feeling " 
 to the whole pleasure and pain side of life, and to that only, is now 
 accepted in German and English psychology. 
 
Latze 377 
 
 in any single feeling the being which is self-existent is only 
 partially self -possessing ; that whether it has self -existence 
 truly and completely depends upon the variety of the external 
 impulses which stimulates by degrees the whole wealth of its 
 nature, making this wealth matter of self-enjoyment; that 
 thus the development of all personality is bound up with 
 the existence and influence of an external world, and the 
 variety and succession of those influences; and that such 
 development would be possible even for God only under 
 similar conditions. 
 
 It is not sufficient to lessen the weight of this objection 
 by the assertion that this educative stimulation is necessary 
 only for finite and changing beings, and not for the nature 
 of God, which, as a self-cognisant Idea, eternally unchange- 
 able, always possesses its whole content simultaneously. 
 Though this assertion grazes the truth, yet in this form it 
 would be injurious in another respect to our idea of God, 
 for it would make the being of God similar to that of an 
 eternal truth, a truth indeed not merely valid, but also 
 conscious of itself. But we have a direct feeling of the wide 
 difference there is between this personification of a thought 
 and living personality ; not only do we find art tedious 
 when it expects us to admire allegorical statues of Justice 
 or of Love, but even speculation rouses our opposition forth- 
 with, when it offers to us some self -cognisant Principle of 
 Identity, or some self-conscious Idea of Good, as completely 
 expressing personality. Either of these is obviously lacking 
 in an essential condition of all true reality in the capacity 
 of suffering. Every Idea by which in reproductive cognition 
 we seek to exhaust the nature of some being, is and remains 
 nothing more than the statement of a thought-formula by 
 which we fix, as an aid to reflection, the inner connexion 
 between the living activities of the Real; the real thing 
 itself is that which applies this Idea to itself, which feels 
 contradiction to it as disturbance of itself, and wills and 
 
378 The Personality of God 
 
 attempts as its own endeavour the realisation of the Idea. 
 The only living subject of personality is this inner core, 
 which cannot be resolved into thoughts, the meaning and 
 significance of which we know in the immediate experience 
 of our mental life, and which we always misunderstand 
 when we seek to construe it; hence personality can never 
 belong to any unchangeably valid truth, but only to some- 
 thing which changes, suffers, and reacts. 10 We will only 
 briefly point out in passing the insurmountable difficulties 
 which the attempt to personify Ideas thus would encounter 
 if there were any question of determining the relation 
 between the Ideas so personified and the changing course 
 of the world ; it would immediately appear that these could 
 as little do without the additions necessary to transform 
 them into suffering and acting beings as the World-Order to 
 which we have before referred. 
 
 Yet the transference of the conditions of finite personality 
 to the personality of the Infinite is not justified. For we 
 must guard ourselves against seeking in the alien nature of 
 the external world, in the fact that it is .^Tow-Ego, the source 
 or the strength with which it calls out the development of 
 the Ego; it operates only by bringing to the finite mind 
 stimuli which occasion the activity which that mind cannot 
 produce from its own nature. 11 It is involved in the notion 
 
 10 A good instance of Lotze's intense realism. Elsewhere (Metaph. 
 Eng. trans, vol. i. p. 89 ff.) he refuses to make Law a separate entity 
 superior to things, and assigns it reality only in things and their 
 actions ; similarly, he argues here that no universal truth can ever 
 constitute personality, for the truth itself has existence only in and 
 through personal life. The Absolute is not only Intellect but Will. 
 
 11 Here, and in what follows, he is arguing that external stimuli are 
 essential for the development of human personality, not qud per- 
 sonality, but qud limited personality, which does not contain within 
 itself the conditions of its existence. Personality, that is, as we 
 experience it, is only realised through the consciousness of difference 
 from something other than itself. In the case of the Absolute this 
 
Lotze 379 
 
 of a finite being that it has its definite place in the whole, 
 and thus that it is not what any other is, and yet that at 
 the same time it must as a member of the whole in its 
 whole development be related to and must harmonise with 
 that other. Even for the finite being the forms of its 
 activity flow from its own inner nature, and neither the 
 content of its sensations nor its feelings, nor the peculiarity 
 of any other of its manifestations, is given to it from without ; 
 but the incitements of its action certainly all come to it from 
 that external world to which, in consequence of the finite- 
 ness of its nature, it is related as a part, having the place, 
 time, and character of its development marked out by the 
 determining whole. The same consideration does not hold 
 of the Infinite Being that comprehends in itself all that is 
 finite, and is the cause of its nature and reality ; this Infinite 
 Being does not need as we sometimes, with a strange per- 
 version of the right point of view, think that its life should 
 be called forth by external stimuli, but from the beginning 
 its concept is without that deficiency which seems to us to 
 make such stimuli necessary for the finite being, and its 
 active efficacy thinkable. The Infinite Being, not bound by 
 any obligation to agree in any way with something not itself, 
 will, with perfect self-sufficingness, possess in its own nature 
 the causes of every step forward in the development of its 
 life. An analogy which though weak yet holds in some 
 important points, and is to some extent an example of the 
 
 qualification falls away, and therefore also the need for external 
 stimuli. The importance of this line of reasoning can hardly be 
 exaggerated, for it makes clear that those who object to conceiving the 
 Supreme Power as Personal include as essential in their idea of per- 
 sonality what is really to be excluded as irrelevant. Cf. Professor 
 Eraser's Philosophy of Theism (Gifford Lectures, Secona Series), pp. 149, 
 150 ; Illingworth, Personality Human and Divine, chaps, ii.-iv. 
 This argument has recently been subjected to an extremely acute and 
 suggestive criticism by Mr. J. E. M'Taggart in his Studies in Hegelian 
 Cosmology. 
 
380 The Personality of God 
 
 thing itself, is furnished to us by the course of memory in 
 the finite mind. The world of our ideas, though certainly 
 called into existence at first by external impressions, spreads 
 out into a stream which, without any fresh stimulation from 
 the external world, produces plenty that is new by the con- 
 tinuous action and reaction of its own movements, and 
 carries out in works of imagination, in the results reached 
 by reflection, and in the conflicts of passion, a great amount 
 of living development as much, that is, as can be reached 
 by the nature of a finite being without incessantly renewed 
 orientation, by action and reaction with the whole in which 
 it is comprehended; hence the removal of these limits of 
 finiteness does not involve the removal of any producing 
 condition of personality which is not compensated for by 
 the self-sufficingness of the Infinite, but that which is only 
 approximately possible for the finite mind, the conditioning 
 of its life by itself, takes place without limit in God, and 
 no contrast of an external world is necessary for Him. 
 
 Of course there remains the question what it is that in 
 God corresponds to the primary impulse which the train of 
 ideas in a finite mind receives from the external world? 
 But the very question involves the answer. For when 
 through the impulse received from without there is imparted 
 to the inner life of the mind an initiatory movement which 
 it subsequently carries on by its own strength, whence comes 
 the movement in the external world which makes it capable 
 of giving that impulse 1 A brief consideration will suffice 
 to convince us that our theory of the cosmos, whatever it 
 may be, must somehow and somewhere recognise the actual 
 movement itself as an originally given reality, and can never 
 succeed in extracting it from rest. 12 And this indication 
 
 13 Here also we have a principle which constantly recurs in Lotze's 
 discussions, and is of profound significance for the interpretation of 
 modern psychology and metaphysics as a whole, namely, that we have 
 not to ask how being and reality including change are made, but 
 
Lotze 381 
 
 may suffice for the present, since we wish here to avoid 
 increasing our present difficulties by entering upon the 
 question as to the nature of time. When we characterise 
 the inner life of the Personal God, the current of His 
 thoughts, His feelings, and His will, as everlasting and 
 without beginning, as having never known rest, and having 
 been roused to movement from some state of quiescence, 
 we call upon imagination to perform a task no other and 
 no greater than that which is required from it by every 
 materialistic or pantheistic view. Without an eternal un- 
 caused movement of the World's Substance, or the assumption 
 of definite initial movements of the countless world-atoms, 
 movements which have to be simply recognised and accepted, 
 neither materialistic nor pantheistic views could attain to any 
 explanation of the existing cosmic course ; and all parties will 
 be at last driven to the conviction that the splitting up of 
 reality into a quiescent being and a movement which subse- 
 quently takes hold of it, is one of those fictions which, while 
 they are of some use in the ordinary business of reflection, 
 betray their total inadmissibility as soon as we attempt to 
 rise above the reciprocal connexion of cosmic particulars to 
 our first notions of the cosmos as a whole. 
 
 The ordinary doubts as to the possibility or the personal 
 existence of the Infinite have not made us waver in our con- 
 viction. But in seeking to refute them, we have had the 
 feeling that we were occupying a standpoint which could only 
 be regarded as resulting from the strangest perversion of all 
 natural relations. The course of development of philosophic 
 thought has put us who live in this age in the position of 
 being obliged to show that the conditions of personality which 
 we meet with in finite things, are not lacking to the Infinite ; 
 
 to explain them as given ; not to create the world, but to understand 
 it. This principle may be found admirably exemplified in Professor 
 Ward's article on Psychology in the Encyclopedia Brita/nwica, and in 
 the psychological works of Professor Stout. 
 
382 The Personality of God 
 
 whereas the natural concatenation of the matter under dis- 
 cussion would lead us to show that of the full personality 
 which is possible only for the Infinite a feeble reflection is 
 given also to the finite ; 13 for the characteristics peculiar to 
 the finite are not producing conditions of self-existence, but 
 obstacles to its unconditioned development, although we are 
 accustomed, unjustifiably, to deduce from these characteristics 
 its capacity of personal existence. The finite being always 
 works with powers with which it did not endow itself, and 
 according to laws which it did not establish, that is, it 
 works by means of a mental organisation which is realised not 
 only in it but also in innumerable similar beings. Hence in 
 reflecting on self, it may easily seem to it as though there 
 were in itself some obscure and unknown substance some- 
 thing which is in the Ego though it is not the Ego itself, and 
 to which, as to its subject, the whole personal development is 
 attached. And hence there arises the questions never to be 
 quite silenced What are we ourselves 1 What is our soul ? 
 What is our self that obscure being, incomprehensible to 
 
 13 This is a further step in the argument. The Infinite is not only 
 personal, but is the sole example of full and perfect personality. The 
 qualities of limitation which, as some hold, constitute the very defin- 
 ition of personality, are really disabilities and imperfections, which, 
 far from contributing to reveal, only conceal and hamper the de- 
 velopment of true personal life. Cf. Ritschl, Justification and Recon- 
 ciliation (Eng. trans, pp. 226-238), where this argument is practically 
 reproduced, and see the closing words of this extract. Lotzc was 
 always in too complete sympathy with the instincts of piety to hold 
 ambiguous language on the question of the personality of God. How 
 close this sympathy was may be gathered from the three propositions 
 in which he sums up what he designates "the characteristic con- 
 victions of every religious mind " : 
 
 (1) Moral laws embody the will of God. 
 
 (2) Individual finite spirits are not products of nature, but are 
 
 children of God. 
 
 (3) Reality is more and other than the mere course of nature, it is a 
 
 kingdom of God (Outlines of Phil, of Eel., Eng. trans, p. 159). 
 
Lotze 383 
 
 ourselves, that stirs in our feelings and our passions, and 
 never rises into complete self -consciousness 1 The fact that 
 these questions can arise shows how far personality is from 
 being developed in us to the extent which its notion admits 
 and requires. It can be perfect only in the Infinite Being 
 which , in surveying all its conditions or actions, never finds 
 any content of that which it suffers or any law of its working, 
 the meaning and origin of which are not transparently plain 
 to it, and capable of being explained by reference to its own 
 nature. Further, the position of the finite mind, which 
 attaches it as a constituent of the whole to some definite 
 place in the cosmic order, requires that its inner life should be 
 awakened by successive stimuli from without, and that its 
 course should proceed according to the laws of a psychical 
 mechanism, in obedience to which individual ideas, feelings, 
 and efforts press upon and supplant one another. Hence the 
 whole self can never be brought together at one moment, our 
 self-consciousness never presents to us a complete and perfect 
 picture of our Ego not even of its whole nature at any 
 moment, and much less of the unity of its development in 
 time. We always appear to ourselves from a one-sided point 
 of view, due to those mental events which happen to be 
 taking place within us at the time, a point of view which 
 only admits of our surveying a small part of our being ; we 
 always react upon the stimuli which reach us, in accordance 
 with the one-sided impulses of this accidental and partial 
 self-consciousness ; it is only to a limited extent that we can 
 say with truth that ive act ; for the most part action is carried 
 on in us by the individual feelings or groups of ideas to which 
 at any moment the psychical mechanism gives the upper 
 hand. Still less do we exist wholly for ourselves in a 
 temporal point of view. There is much that disappears from 
 memory, but most of all individual moods, that escape it by 
 degrees. There are many regions of thought in which while 
 young we were quite at home, which in age we can only 
 
384 The Personality of God 
 
 bring before our minds as alien phenomena ; feelings in 
 which we once revelled with enthusiasm we can now hardly 
 recover at all, we can now hardly realise even a pale reflection 
 of the power which they once exercised over us ; endeavours 
 which once seemed to constitute the most inalienable essence 
 of our Ego seem, when we reach the path along which later 
 life conducts us, to be unintelligible aberrations, the incen- 
 tives to which we can no longer understand. In point of 
 fact we have little ground for speaking of the personality of 
 finite beings ; it is an ideal, which, like all that is ideal, 
 belongs unconditionally only to the Infinite, but like all that is 
 good appertains to us only conditionally and hence imperfectly. 
 The more simple content of this section hardly needs the 
 brief synoptical repetition in which we now proceed to gather 
 up its results and to add them to those already reached. 
 
 (a) Selfhood, the essence of all personality, does not depend 
 upon any opposition that either has happened or is happening 
 of the Ego to a Non-Ego, but it consists in an immediate self- 
 existence which constitutes the basis of the possibility of 
 that contrast wherever it appears. Self-consciousness is the 
 elucidation of this self-existence which is brought about by 
 means of knowledge, and even this is by no means necessarily 
 bound up with the distinction the Ego from a Non-Ego which 
 is substantially opposed to it. 
 
 (b) In the nature of the finite mind as such is to be found 
 the reason why the development of its personal consciousness 
 can take place only through the influences of that cosmic 
 whole which the finite being itself is not, that is, through 
 stimulation coming from the Non-Ego, not because it needs 
 the contrast with something alien in order to have self- 
 existence, but because in this respect, as in every other, it 
 does not contain in itself the conditions of its existence. We 
 do not find this limitation in the being of the Infinite ; hence 
 for it alone is there possible a self-existence, which needs 
 neither to be initiated nor to be continuously developed by 
 
Lotze 385 
 
 something not itself, but which maintains itself within itself 
 with spontaneous action that is eternal and had no beginning, 
 (c) Perfect Personality is in God only, to all finite minds 
 there is allotted but a pale copy thereof ; the finiteness of the 
 finite is not a producing condition of this Personality, but a 
 limit and a hindrance of its development. 
 
 References. The Philosophy of Lotze, by Professor Henry Jones, 
 1895 ; La Mttaphysique de Hermann Lotze, by Henri Schoen, 1902 ; 
 Personality Human and Divine, 1894, and Reason and Revelation, 
 1902, by Mr. J. 11. Illingworth ; the article "Lotze" in the Ency- 
 clopeedia Britannica by Dr. Merz, with references in vol. ii. of his 
 Scientific Thought in the XlXth Century ; and cf. a pamphlet pub- 
 lished by Professor H. Gardiner under the title Lotze 's Theistic Philo- 
 sophy, and an article in the Critical Review for July 1902, entitled 
 "Lotze's Philosophy and its Theological Influence," by H. R. 
 Mackintosh. Cf. also the Selection from Ritschl. The influence of 
 Lotze has been considerable on Professor Ward of Cambridge, Pro- 
 fessor (Seth) Pringle-Pattison of Edinburgh, Professor Davidson of 
 Aberdeen, Dr. J. Lindsay, the Oxford essayists who contributed to the 
 volume entitled Personal Idealism (1902), and on Professors Royce, 
 Howison, and Bowne in the United States. For a masterly discussion, 
 on lines that recall Lotze, see Father Dalgairns' paper, "The Per- 
 sonality of God," in the Contemporary Review, vol. xxiv. p. 321. Cf. 
 also Dr. Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion. 
 
XIII. 
 ETHICAL THEISM. 
 
 MARTINEAU (1805-1899). 
 
 AMONG modern British writers on the philosophy of Theism 
 none takes a higher place than James Martineau, alike 
 from his gifts of speculative analysis and his rare mastery 
 of English style. Some difference of opinion exists as 
 to how his Theistic philosophy is to be classed (cf. C. B. 
 Upton in Martineau's Life and Letters, p. 476 ; Caldecott, 
 Philosophy of Religion, p. 343), an uncertainty due in 
 some measure to the inaccurate description he gives of his 
 own theory. On the one hand, he explicitly claims that 
 the bases of Theistic faith are two, and two only the 
 rational need to infer an adequate spiritual Cause of the 
 world, and the sense of dependence on a superhuman moral 
 Authority revealed by conscience. These two intuitive con- 
 ceptions, Causality and Obligation, " unite and culminate in 
 the apprehension of God " ; they disclose to us, i.e., God as 
 Cause and God as Perfection. For Martineau the meaning 
 of Cause, the objective validity of which he rescued from 
 phenomenalistic scepticism, is given by the experience of 
 exercising our own will, and even when construed in its 
 theistic and cosmic relations, implies consciousness and a 
 choice between alternatives. The causality argument is 
 supplemented by the teleological. Still, for a writer 
 who describes Obligation as "the fundamental ethical 
 fact," the sentiment of "oughtness" could not but be the 
 chief point of vital connexion between morals and religion. 
 Free will and Ethical Theism, in his view, stand and fall 
 together. 
 
 So far his method appears to be inferential ; he proceeds 
 logically from certain elements of consciousness, rational and 
 
 386 
 
Martineau 38*7 
 
 moral, to the positing of a Personal and Almighty God, in 
 whom are united all moral perfections. On the other hand, 
 this Intellectual and Ethical Rationalism, as has been pointed 
 out, reposes at bottom on a fundamental intuitive percep- 
 tion of the being and character of God, and in his last 
 work (The Seat of Authority in Religion, 1890) he declares 
 that "in the very constitution of the human soul there is 
 provision for an immediate apprehension of God." He 
 distinguishes the faculty of Reverence, accordingly, as par 
 excellence " the religious sense." But this aspect of his 
 theory was never fully worked out. Isolated expressions 
 could also be quoted to suggest that for him the sense of 
 Beauty was one of the " confluent intuitions " which meet 
 in the thought of God; but neither did this receive any 
 adequate recognition in his formal philosophy. He is 
 greatest, unquestionably, when expounding what he would 
 have called the ethical aspect of God's self-revelation to 
 humanity, and therefore it is fitting that the extract we 
 have given should represent, in its maturest form, his 
 statement of the moral theistic proof. 
 
 RIGHT, AS UNIVERSALLY VALID. 5 
 
 (A Study in Religion, Bk. n. c. ii. 1.) 
 
 As the Causal aspect of the Divine nature is opened to us 
 by our own will, 1 and carried out into the sphere of nature, 
 so must we expect the Moral aspect to be disclosed to us by 
 our Conscience, 2 and applied to the relations of human 
 
 1 For Martineau real causality of necessity involves consciousness, 
 and a choice between alternatives. There are in strictness no uncon- 
 scious "second causes," the only real causes in the universe being God, 
 and rational agents who receive their existence from God through 
 His self-individuation. 
 
 2 Conscience is definable, for Martineau, as the faculty which dis- 
 criminates motives according to their ethical rank, and recognises the 
 obligation to obey the higher as imposed on us by a Supreme Authority : 
 see Types of Ethical Theory, pt. ii. bk. i. chapters 1 and 4, where his 
 position is stated at length. 
 
388 Ethical Theism 
 
 life. 3 It is Mind only that can read mind : it is Character 
 only that can construe character ; and in suffering our ethical 
 intuitions to speak as religious interpreters, we invest them with 
 no other prerogative than they already exercise in revealing to 
 us the inward springs of action in our fellow-men. Our order 
 of inference, therefore, is still the same, from self-knowledge 
 to Divine knowledge ; 4 only that we shall now measure a 
 different part of the base from which we work. Against the 
 frequent objection that this is anthropomorphic logic I hope 
 an adequate defence has already been made. The objection 
 is in fact a piece of sheer idealistic scepticism, requiring us to 
 treat our whole inner life as merely so many personal pheno- 
 mena, and to deny that they can teach us anything beyond 
 themselves as egoistic changes. If there be a world beyond 
 the Ego material for Perception, moral and spiritual for the 
 Conscience, evidently it can be apprehended only through 
 its relation to these powers : if it is there to speak at all, it is 
 to them that it must speak ; and to insist on its relativity to 
 them as a reason for discharging it from existence, to distrust 
 its voice because it is only their hearing, is to treat its self- 
 proclamation as sufficient evidence of its non-existence, and 
 render it impossible for it to report itself to our faculties, 
 however real its being or intimate its presence. If you prefer 
 to suppose that your nature deceives you, and in presenting 
 you with what is " other than yourself," entertains you with 
 dreams which are a part of yourself, there is certainly no 
 guarantee against the possibility of such illusion : in order 
 
 3 This sentence makes it clear how the Dualism of Perception has 
 its counterpart in the Dualism of Conscience. As the one, in revealing 
 the external world, presents a metaphysical reality lower than our- 
 selves, so the other gives a metaphysical reality higher than ourselves, 
 because a rightful Authority. 
 
 4 Martineau consistently claims to interpret God and nature through 
 Self, and above all, through Will, rather than vice versd. As he puts 
 it, "In the one case we obtain a volitional theory of nature ; in the 
 other, a naturalistic theory of volition." 
 
Martineau 389 
 
 that you should seem to be in a universe of things, surrounded 
 by persons, and in presence of God, it is only necessary that 
 you should be what you are, and think as you do : this would 
 secure the semblance to you, though there were no such 
 reality, and you were alone in space. All your self -conscious- 
 ness is relative, and postulates the otherness of the objective 
 term of the relation : if you arbitrarily deny that postulate, 
 I have nothing to say for it except that it is natural, in- 
 herently involved in the very law of thought itself. We 
 have to trust something, before we can know anything ; and 
 to assume the unveracity, instead of the veracity, of the 
 primary relations of thought is to proclaim universal Agnosti- 
 cism, and reduce all intellectual procedure to the analysis of 
 personal phenomena. For reasons already assigned we take 
 the opposite course, and accept what each faculty reports as 
 to its correlative term. That report is what we call an intui- 
 tion. We have seen what it gives us in the case of volitional 
 experience, namely, an objective causality : by a parallel 
 presentation, in the case of moral experience, we shall find 
 that it gives us an objective authority ; both alike being 
 objects of immediate knowledge, on the same footing of 
 certainty as the apprehension of the external material 
 world. 5 This statement, however surprising to those who 
 are unaccustomed to look into the ultimate ground of 
 human cognition, is deliberately made. I know of no 
 logical advantage which the belief in finite objects around us 
 can boast over the belief in the infinite and righteous Cause 
 of all. 
 
 The fundamental form which the Moral Intuition assumes 
 has been fully expounded in a previous treatise on the theory 
 
 5 This is one of the passages which might be called in evidence 
 that Martineau does recognise in our moral consciousness a direct 
 apprehension of God's presence and character. But there are passages 
 which tell in favour of a different view. Cf. what is said in the 
 Introduction. 
 
390 Ethical Theism 
 
 of Ethics, and can here only be recalled by a few words of 
 recapitulation. Whenever two incompatible springs of action 
 simultaneously urge us, there is an attendant consciousness of 
 superior excellence in one of them ; an excellence, not in 
 point of pleasure or advantage which it were wise to take ; 
 not in respect to seemliness and beauty which it were tasteless 
 to decline ; but in the scale of right, which, in carrying our 
 assent, commands our obedience. All these kinds of superior- 
 ity it is open to us to disregard, but at the cost, in the first 
 two cases, merely of personal inferiority ; in the third, of a 
 mysterious and haunting disloyalty. Accusing ourselves of 
 this, we are aware that our offence is not a private mistake to 
 be settled with in our home accounts, but looks beyond our- 
 selves, and infringes rights that are not our own ; and we are 
 visited by more than shame at failure or regret at folly ; we 
 are cast down in severe compunction under the very different 
 sense of guilt. The element of value which differentiates the 
 springs of action to the Conscience, being totally unlike either 
 the hedonistic or the aesthetic, has made a language for itself, 
 which can be translated into no other : the superior terms in 
 the scale do not court us by their charms and graces, but 
 claim us by their authority ; tell us that we ought to follow 
 them ; that they are binding on us ; that they are offered to 
 our option by a higher than we ; and that in neglecting them 
 we sin. To conform our voluntary life to the preferential 
 scale of obligation, as its parts emerge into consciousness, is 
 our Duty, for the observance of which we are responsible. 
 This is the circle of ideas in which the Conscience lives and 
 moves, and which supplies the moral nature with a sphere of 
 cognition special to itself. They are intelligible to all men : 
 they flow into every language, and give it half its force and 
 fire; they are the preamble of all Law, and the pervading 
 essence of the higher religions. . . . 
 
 These ideas, then, are uniform in all men ; the seeming dis- 
 crepancies of ethical judgment clearing themselves away as we 
 
Martineau 391 
 
 push back the comparison from external actions to the internal 
 springs, and see that the same problem is really present to the 
 differing minds. In proportion as the springs of action have 
 strength within us, according to their worth, are we at peace 
 with ourselves and conscious of a secret harmony. And by 
 the same rule it is that we estimate each other ; pouring 
 indignation on the man whom no call of compassion can 
 snatch from his selfish ease ; watching with enthusiasm the 
 hero from whose lips no terror can extract a betrayal or a lie ; 
 looking up with reverence to the saintly mind in which all 
 discords cease and the higher affections reign without 
 dispute. 
 
 Now what means this scale of relative excellence, which 
 gives an order of rank to our impulses, and frames them into 
 a hierarchy 1 Why cannot they change places, or take turn and 
 turn about 1 Since they exist, have they not, one and all, a 
 right to be 1 and are they not then all on a footing 1 What 
 entitles any of them to put on airs towards its companions, 
 and show them the door 1 Is not this a usurpation *? And if 
 not, what is the nature of the right 1 
 
 One step in the determination of this question can be taken 
 without challenge. The moral order is not arbitrary, in the 
 sense of being a personal accident, an individual prejudice, 
 got up by the subject himself and alterable fortuitously or at 
 will. When you read of a tyrant who, travelling in winter 
 and afraid of frost-bite, cut open a horse to warm his feet in 
 him, your abhorrence of the wretch for preferring his comfort 
 to his humanity is not a matter of taste, like your preference 
 of pheasants' feathers to peacocks', or of peaches to pine-apple : 
 it is neither, like these, contingent in yourself on sensible 
 conditions, nor reversed or absent in others' minds : it exists 
 irremovably in each, and with consensus in all ; attended by 
 the feeling, which belongs to no personal judgment, that to 
 think otherwise would involve an unspeakable shame, the 
 guilt of taking sides against an everlasting Right. It is the 
 
392 Ethical Theism 
 
 peculiarity of all properly moral verdicts that they are not 
 the expression of individual opinions which we work out for 
 ourselves by sifting of evidence ; but the enunciation of what 
 is given us ready-made and has only to pass through us into 
 speech. 6 We may indeed debate within ourselves the claims 
 presented in this or that example of outward conduct, because 
 the choice of action has to be determined not only by the 
 principle that issues it, but by the effects that follow it : these 
 are amenable to the calculus of the understanding, without 
 resort to which the action cannot be rational ; but so long 
 as the prior problem is before us, of securing the right spring 
 of conduct, we have nothing to seek by logical process, but 
 only to give forth what we find. Here, where alone truly 
 moral judgment resides, we are but organs of what is de- 
 posited in us; to pretend that we are concerned with its 
 fabrication and must speak diffidently of its probability, 
 is quite out of place : the real arrogance lies in mixing 
 ourselves up with it, and delivering it as our opinion; the 
 true humility, in simply repeating the sentence which it has 
 been given us to know. In other words, the Moral Law 
 (for such is the " Canon of principles " taken as a whole) 
 is imposed by an authority foreign to our personality, 7 
 and is open, not to be canvassed, but only to be obeyed or 
 disobeyed. 
 
 6 Here Martineau appears to state the truth of Ethical Intuitionalism 
 in an extreme form, which justly calls forth the dissent of moralists 
 more adequately conscious than he of the progressive nature of human 
 morality, as revealed by the comparative study of different ages and 
 tribes. Nowhere in his works does he give a cordial welcome to the 
 idea of Evolution. 
 
 7 On this the comment has been passed that it is "an expression so 
 forbidding that were it not for the fact that it is italicised one would 
 have ignored it as a lapsus " (Caldecott, op. cit. p. 346). It is the 
 sternest and severest phrase used by Martineau to emphasise the 
 complete parallelism between the external Authority in Moral experi- 
 ence, and the external world in Perception. 
 
Martineau 393 
 
 RIGHT AS THE DIVINE IN THE HUMAN. 
 (A Study in Religion, Book n. c. ii. 3.) 
 
 Whither, then, must we turn to find our informant 1 How 
 do we come to know the scale of moral differences 1 
 
 It is not enough for us simply to have the springs of action 
 operative within us. The brutes have several of them 
 without attaining to any moral knowledge. And we might 
 remain equally in the dark, though subject to them all, if 
 they occupied us one at a time, so as to challenge no com- 
 parison ; or if, being present together, they stood related to our 
 feeling only by their intensity. But this is not all that they 
 have to say to us : while affected by their degree of intensity, 
 we are also conscious of their competitive worth. This is a 
 perfectly distinct relation to our feeling : a concomitant 
 immediate apprehension or intuition which it is equally 
 impossible to escape and to explain. Am I told that this 
 is not philosophy, but mystery? I reply, It is both', and 
 the mystery is no more than w r e have to encounter in dealing 
 with any other mode of communication between an object 
 and the subject. The cognitions we gain through the 
 ordinary exercise of the Senses are perfectly analogous, in 
 their mode of origin, to those which come to us through the 
 moral faculty. In the act of Perception, we are immediately 
 introduced to an other than ourselves that gives us what we 
 feel : in the act of Conscience we are immediately introduced 
 to a Higher than ourselves that gives us what we feel : the 
 externality in the one case, the authority in the other, the 
 causality in both, are known upon exactly the same terms, 
 and carry the same guarantee of their validity. I grant that 
 that guarantee resolves itself, as it must in all cases of first- 
 hand knowledge, into the postulate of the veracity of our 
 faculties, but I affirm that nothing more is needed for this 
 moral revelation than the same fundamental faith on which 
 
394 Ethical Theism 
 
 all our physical knowledge rests. The dualism of percep- 
 tion which sets ourselves in the face of an objective world, 
 and the dualism of Conscience which sets us in the face of 
 an objective higher mind, are perfectly analogous in their 
 grounds. The religious intimation is not contained in the 
 mere fact that there is a graduated worth among our inward 
 springs of action, but in the further fact that the superiors 
 among them lay claim to our will with an authority that is 
 above us, and that presents them as mere delegates of itself. 
 For our aesthetic faculty also there is given a differential 
 scale of beauty, higher and lower; but here the gradations 
 remain upon the level of ideal facts, and do not rise into 
 imperative law, subjecting us to a transcendent relation 
 that asks the sacrifice of ourselves. It is the specific sense 
 of Duty that constitutes a dual relation and cannot belong 
 to a soul in vacuo, and must be for ever a disconsolate and 
 wandering illusion, till it rests with Him to whom the 
 allegiance is due. In other words, the Moral Law first 
 reaches its integral meaning when seen as impersonated in a 
 Perfect Mind, which communicates it to us, and lends it 
 power over our affections sufficient to draw us into Divine 
 communion. How else could it transcend our whole 
 personality as it does, and haunt us with tones from 
 beyond and above 1 ? If our humanity were at the summit, 
 and, in passing further, we emerged into blank silence, how 
 could these subduing voices flow thence upon the heart 1 ? 
 They attest a speaking nature there, that bids us feel as it 
 feels and become the organ of its thought, a nature that, 
 appealing to us from a superhuman height, cannot be less 
 than a conscious will, but simply a personal and holy Mind ; 
 and that, reporting to us a law which holds for all thinking 
 and voluntary beings, is universal and supreme. Here at 
 last, and here alone, does the objective authority of what 
 the inward conscience tells find its explanation and its 
 home ; and hither it is that we are brought, in proportion as 
 
Martineau 395 
 
 our self-knowledge is deep and our moral ideal is lofty and 
 complete. I care not whether this be called an immediate 
 vision of God in the experiences of conscience, or whether 
 it be taken as an inference drawn from the data they supply. 8 
 It is the truth contained in them : with one man, it may 
 be only implicitly felt in their solemn and mystic character ; 
 with another, explicitly and immediately seen emerging 
 from them as they come, and making him the Seer of God 
 rather than the reasoner about Him. In any case, the 
 constitution of our moral nature is unintelligible, except as 
 living in response to an objective Perfection pervading the 
 universe with Holy Law. 
 
 There are certain aspects of our inward and outward 
 experience which are so accordant with this interpretation of 
 our conscience, that it may gain some fresh light by being 
 brought into their presence. 
 
 For our true moral life and education, we are dependent 
 on the presence of some nature higher than our own ; without 
 which the mere subjective feeling of relative worth among 
 the springs of action would rarely pass from knowledge 
 into power. All the Dynamics of character are born of 
 inequality, and lie asleep amid unbroken equilibrium. To 
 mingle only with those on the same level with ourselves and 
 encounter nothing but ethical self-repetitions, is the surest way 
 to stunt the possibilities of growth ; nor does any activity of 
 the retired and solitary mind, though given to subjects deep 
 and high, avail to carry its affections to greater altitudes. If 
 
 8 The "immediate vision of God in the experience of conscience," 
 which is here regarded as an admissible interpretation of the moral 
 consciousness, is to be carefully distinguished from the "immediate 
 apprehension of God," which Martineau elsewhere asserts as one of 
 the original and intuitive powers of the soul. The first comes to be 
 ours through a certain interpretation of experience ; the other is in- 
 dependent of the moral and the intellectual consciousness it is direct 
 and mystical. Cf. Upton, Crawfurd, and Caldccott, op. tit. 
 
396 Ethical Theism 
 
 your whole past could be laid open, where would you find its 
 moments of purest consecration, of fresh insight into duty, 
 and willing love to follow it 1 Not, I believe, when you 
 were criticising a creed or constructing a philosophy, 
 though with the simplest aim at truth : not when working 
 out the contents of some comprehensive precept, though 
 you owned its obligation : not when some crisis of danger 
 brought you face to face with the alternatives of an eternal 
 state, though you deemed them solemn and at hand : but 
 when first there stood near you some transparent nature, 
 nobler, simpler, purer than yourself, that fixed your eye and 
 compelled you to look up. This loving wonder at some 
 impersonated goodness is the sole attraction to which we 
 rise : this it is which sprinkles us with a wave of true 
 regeneration. Let me privately watch one who healthily 
 does what, in sickness of will, I ignominiously neglect, and 
 he becomes to me as a glance of heaven, pursuing me with a 
 just severity. Or let me sit by some worn-out sufferer, 
 from whose features the lines of pain cannot efface their 
 sweet composure, and listen to the tones of settled trust, 
 passing like music across the fretfulness of happier lives; 
 and it is in vain, when I go home, to hide myself from the 
 Omniscient look : the inner meaning of existence has burst 
 upon me : the meanness of my selfish cares astonishes me 
 with shame : and I sink upon the compassion of God to 
 make my own mind nobler, and my brother's cross more 
 light. Nor, for the exercise of such influence, need it be a 
 greater, if only it be a better, spirit that appeals to us. 
 Even the guileless suggestions of a child's conscience, or 
 the reverential efforts of his will, have often extorted 
 penitential tears from parents who had forgotten such 
 simplicity and truth. Among those who have had any deep 
 moral history at all, there are probably few who, on looking 
 back to the sources of their first faith, do not see the 
 sainted image of some companion or guide, whose like they 
 
Martineau 397 
 
 never think to meet again, and through whose spirit, to the 
 end, they will not cease to gaze at life. To others, less 
 happy in their living friendships, the new birth may have 
 come from some image of ideal excellence in the pages of 
 biography or fiction ; for though here the voices and stir of 
 reality do not beat upon the ear, conception does the work 
 of the eye, and the story tells upon the heart, like scenery 
 still speaking, though silent, to the deaf. In all these 
 cases the same principle holds, that the inward suggestions 
 of conscience remain dreamlike suspicions and do but cleave 
 the air, so long as they play around our own centre; and 
 first start upon their feet and go forth to conquer when 
 they come to us in their objective power, and so step 
 before us in the conflict. We need this assurance that 
 the moral differences we feel have their verification in 
 reality, ere we commit ourselves freely to them. The per- 
 sonal consciousness of them is not, simply as such, an 
 integral knowledge, but only the sign that points to some- 
 thing signified ; and the faith of conscience hovers with us, 
 meaningless and incomplete, till it rests upon a realised 
 Righteousness. 
 
 The contents of this fact are not, I think, adequately 
 appreciated by those who see in them no more than the 
 " force of example." The operation of example is mechanical 
 only : the subduing influence of which I speak is spiritual. 
 Example plays upon the tendency to imitation : the ascend- 
 ancy of the greater soul over the less is won by touching the 
 springs of reverence. Example acts downwards as well as 
 upwards, and enables the evil to contaminate the good : the 
 attraction with which we have here to do ever lifts us above 
 ourselves, and taken in reverse becomes a mere repulsion. 
 Example operates piecemeal upon the habits : while the 
 enthusiasm awakened by a loftier mind is a universal energy 
 flooding the whole soul. If you live with a family orderly, 
 temperate, and frugal, you insensibly acquire their ways, with 
 
398 Ethical Theism 
 
 perhaps no active moral conviction even on those very points, 
 and without disturbance to any selfishness or irritability that 
 may have characterised you before. But if you are intimately 
 thrown with one in whom you recognise a greater spirit than 
 your own, to whose gentle or majestic excellence you go into 
 captivity, his power over you takes no single line of direction, 
 but speaks through all the dimensions of your nature : it does 
 not set you on copying him, but bends you low before the 
 Holiest of all ; so clearing away the whole film of conscience, 
 that duty stands with all its obligations before your eye at 
 once, and life is seen no longer in section only, but in its deep 
 moral perspective. It is here perhaps that the main difference 
 lies between the Will ethically obeying and the heart spiritu- 
 ally surrendered between morality and religion. 9 Morality 
 applies itself successively to several points of duty ; religion, 
 fairly awakened, seizes all at once. Morality, intent on one 
 obligation, is apt to be betrayed upon another ; religion, 
 demanding harmony above everything, achieves the whole 
 more easily than a part, and takes the discords out of 
 opposites. Morality proceeds from action towards the soul ; 
 religion issues with the soul into action. Thus the inspiring 
 power of mind over mind goes far beyond the moral contagion 
 of example : it rests upon the reciprocal correspondence 
 of the inner and the outer moral world, in the verifying 
 response of real truth to the ideal foreshadowings of the 
 conscience. 
 
 V Consider then what is implied in this fact of moral 
 dynamics, that, unless acted upon by a higher nature, we 
 never rise. It will perhaps be said, this is the gospel of 
 
 " In Types of Ethical Theory (pt. ii. bk. i. chap. vi. sect. 9) the 
 sentiment of Reverence is assigned the supreme place. It ranks as 
 the specially religious sense, which brings us to look upward, and 
 makes us aware of a goodness that is transcendent. The intuitive 
 and mystical side of Martineau's Theistic philosophy breaks into 
 partial expression here. 
 
Martineau 399 
 
 " hero-worship," and only shows that admiration of the 
 greater by the less in indefinite gradations is the main lever 
 of character that lifts the elementary masses of society and 
 forms its shapely pyramid. To bring the law into play, all 
 that is needed is a certain range of inequality in human 
 minds, conducting into the weak the power of the strong, and 
 holding all together by the magnetism of natural dependence : 
 we are carried no further by all this than the story of our 
 humanity. Be it remembered, however, that this law applies, 
 not to our particular selves alone, not merely along the 
 ascending steps of moral and mental elevation, but just as 
 much, nay, even with intenser force, at the summit levels 
 where the culminating saints and heroes stand. They, too, 
 are human ; and are they then cut off by their position from 
 all dependence 1 Do they never look up, or, if they do, only 
 to grow dizzy with the empty space 1 Is their sympathy all 
 downward 1 and do they spread their hands dispensing, as 
 gods, their self-created or self-existent goodness on a venerat- 
 ing world 1 ? On the contrary, to none is such an attitude 
 more repugnant, and even odiously false. That they are 
 what they are, because they are carried out of themselves by 
 that which transcends their will, is their profoundest con- 
 sciousness ; of all dependence, theirs is the deepest and the 
 most clinging ; of all faces, theirs the most habitually 
 upturned; and the less they encounter any higher visible 
 righteousness, the more flows in upon them from an invisible 
 Highest of all.* And thus, through the hierarchy of moral 
 ranks, we are led up to a supreme objective, Perfection, with- 
 out which these grandest and loveliest natures could never be. 
 We cannot leave the climax incomplete : for even angels to 
 
 * Nor are minds of a different order unvisited by such experience. 
 Amiel says: " J'eprouve avec iutensite que 1'homme, dans tout ce 
 qu'il fait ou peut faire de beau, de grand, de bon, n'est que 1'organe 
 et le vehicule de quelque chose ou de quelqu'un de plus haut que lui." 
 Journal Intime, t. ii. p. 221. (Author's Note.) 
 
400 Ethical Theism 
 
 pass up and down the ladder which has its foot on earth must 
 have its point of rest in heaven. Even on the testimony of 
 the sensational philosophy it is no unexampled process by 
 which we are thus inevitably conducted from finite experi- 
 ences to transcendent beliefs ; for the method by which it 
 conducts us to the idea of immeasurable space is not dis- 
 similar. It is true, we are told, that we have no experience 
 of an infinite line : but we have experience of a longer and a 
 longer, with always a possibility of a longer still ; and this, 
 worked out in all directions, suffices to assure us of the in- 
 finitude of space. Similarly, from the indefinite experience 
 in moral life of a better and a better, with yet a possibility of 
 a better still, we rise into the assurance of an infinite perfec- 
 tion. 10 And as in the one case the infinite space is the 
 condition of all the quantities limited from it, so in the other 
 is the infinite perfection the cause of all the partial and broken 
 reflections of it in created minds. 
 
 But are the indications of an objective Divine Holiness 
 communicating with our nature confined to men of superlative 
 nobleness ? and, below this height, is it only man that acts 
 on man through the force of admiration 1 This momentary 
 concession I must now withdraw. Large as the operation is 
 
 10 Martineau rejects the Ontological argument as "scholastic and 
 artificial," but the argument here developed really implies the accept- 
 ance of its ethical counterpart. The logical saltus from "the indefinite 
 experience of a better and a better" to "the assurance of an infinite 
 perfection" is what Lotze would have called a value-judgment, rather 
 than the issue of a strict process of reasoning (cf. p. 454, note 8 ). 
 Throughout this section Martineau is tacitly working with attributes 
 of the Divine, such as Goodness, Beauty, and Attractiveness, which 
 really transcend the idea of Supreme Authority, though this is the 
 only notion of God that he will consent to accept from the moral 
 consciousness. We can see that he wavered between regarding 
 Imperativeness and Attractiveness (Holiness, Perfection) as the 
 central quality of the Divine Nature. The former is his usual point 
 of vieAv, the latter appears only intermittently. 
 
Martineau 401 
 
 of some leader's mind upon the led, it is by no means co- 
 extensive with the advance of character ; and many a 
 struggle upwards, whether by patient steps or by some flight 
 of conversion, takes place, where no visible master-touch 
 infuses the needful energy. Nay, it is not uncommon in such 
 cases to iind a strong aversion to what is called " hero- 
 worship," a jealousy of all pretensions set up for human 
 excellence, and a scrupulous guarding of the heart from 
 fervent admiration, as an idolatry : the mind, protecting 
 itself from too much sympathy by a zone of loneliness around 
 it, seems to gain an unborrowed consecration. This, however, 
 is simply the history of those who, though far down, it may 
 be, on the scale of Goodness, yet resort with their aspirations 
 straight to the same source that draws and lifts the summit 
 minds : they pass by the intermediary aids, and fly at once 
 to the supremely holy. The principle is still the same : they 
 find in their religion the living and realised ideal which 
 presents itself to others within nearer and human distance : 
 but if to them it were a mere ideal, if it were not living, if it 
 were not real, if its presence did not touch and penetrate 
 them with new light and love, do you think it would snatch 
 them from their low level and plant them in the air of a 
 higher lif e 1 No, nothing is so sickly, so paralytic, so 
 desolate, as " Moral Ideals " that are nothing else : like a 
 pale and beautiful estatica that can only look down and 
 whisper dreams, and show the sacred stigmata, they cannot 
 will or act or love ; and their whole power is in abeyance till 
 they present themselves in a living personal being, who 
 secures the righteousness of the universe and seeks the 
 sanctification of each heart. The whole difference on which 
 I have dwelt between morality and religion hangs upon this 
 conviction of an Eternal Holiness in correspondence with the 
 individual conscience. 11 Not infrequently, indeed, it is 
 
 11 "Heart" must be added to "conscience," it full justice is to be 
 done to all that the author has been urging here. 
 26 
 
402 Ethical Theism 
 
 admitted that this conviction exercises an unrivalled moral 
 power with which perhaps it would be dangerous to dispense ; 
 but it is added that from the efficacy of a belief we cannot 
 legitimately infer its truth. That depends, I should say, 
 entirely upon the nature of the belief. In the case of a 
 derivative doctrine, which has found its way into some 
 elaborate system of philosophy or theology, it would cer- 
 tainly be absurd to judge it by its apparent practical opera- 
 tion, instead of by its logical chain of connexion with 
 undeniable premisses : here, where the tests of correct 
 reasoning are at command, we must hold its goodness to be 
 conditional upon its truth. But in the case of an intuitive 
 belief, the implicit contents of which admit of more meagre 
 or full interpretation, the conditions of judgment are different. 
 If, when you spread out all that the natural consciousness 
 finds in it, it performs a great and healthy part in life ; while, 
 on being reduced to the minimum that will save its name at 
 all, it is palsied, and, trembling itself, moves nothing else ; 
 surely it is allowable to prefer the version of common sense, 
 and leave the pulseless analysis to its fate ; and let its good- 
 ness be the determining condition of its truth. In the sphere 
 of the " Practical Keason," where we have to do with the 
 postulates of conduct rather than with the axioms of the 
 intellect, it is impossible to avoid a teleological principle of 
 judgment. The primary moral ideas, the fundamental data 
 of conscience, are not there on their own account, but are 
 invested with & function : they are for the sake of right action 
 and right character ; and if, when construed in one way, they 
 win their end, while, construed in another, they lose it, we 
 gain assurance at once that the former is the true one : just 
 as, in settling the meaning of a doubtful element in a machine, 
 we at once accept that which proves alone consistent with 
 the instrument's effective work. On this principle, we are 
 entitled to say that conscience reveals the living God, because 
 it finds neither content to its aspirations nor victory in its 
 
Martineau 403 
 
 strife till it touches His infinitude and goes forth from His 
 embrace. 12 
 
 Nor is it only in its forward pressure and ideal aims that 
 the conscience leads us to Him. In its retrospect also, nay, 
 in its very failures, it brings us to His presence ; no longer, it 
 is true, under the inspiring aspect of Infinite Perfection, but 
 in the solemn character of our Moral Governor and Judge. 
 According to the complexion of our voluntary acts, so 
 variously right and wrong, we are conscious of good or ill 
 desert ; or, if we exclude the former, as possible only in 
 relation to men, at least of different degrees of ill desert. 
 These words, however, express relative conceptions : deserve 
 what ? for merit, reward, or at least approving recognition ; 
 for demerit, a retribution of pain and displeasure. Whence 
 then are these to come? for they are not phenomena of 
 physical nature, but transitive acts or expressions of beings 
 related to us and owning the same rule of righteousness ; and 
 if we have incurred these acts or expressions, we have thereby 
 invested someone with the right to direct them upon us. The 
 execution of the penalty naturally vests, you will say, in the 
 recipient of the wrong. And no sooner, accordingly, does 
 the boy disobey his parents or the servant deceive his 
 employer, than he knows himself subject to their indignation, 
 and expects or flies their retributive justice; they are his 
 superiors, and with the word of judgment carry also the arm 
 of power. Even when the injury passes from equal to equal, 
 the penal sentence still takes effect; for evil-doing makes 
 cowards of us all ; and the offender, unmanned by his fault, 
 cowers before the victim whom he has made fearless with 
 resentment. In these cases our nature itself is armed with 
 
 12 In the paragraphs that follow, dealing with the retrospect of 
 conscience, the inferential character of the argument is more obvious. 
 In such passages as this Martineau is anticipating in practice, so to 
 say, modes of religious knowledge which Ritschl afterwards reduced to 
 theory in his system of value-judgments. 
 
404 Ethical Theism 
 
 adequate force to vindicate the equities of which it is 
 conscious. But if, betrayed by some passion, we insult or 
 wrong the weak, who have the right to strike but are bound 
 hand and foot before us, the captive that hangs upon our 
 mercy, the child that can reproach us only with the flush of 
 wonder and the burst of tears, the faithful dog that licks the 
 hand that smites him, here, there is at once the keenest 
 demand and the utmost miscarriage of justice ; and the 
 moment of deepest shame is that of most complete impunity. 
 This anomaly suffices to show that the phenomenon is a 
 fragment, a relation, of which one half is presented and the 
 other hid. Our compunction assures us that, the demerit 
 being a hideous reality, the correlative penal power can be 
 no empty fiction ; and that the answer which cannot come 
 from the visible victim is but held in reserve by an invisible 
 witness. Was there ever a guilty conscience that believed in 
 the flatteries of success, and sincerely expected to escape 1 
 Such delusion may belong to the torpid and blind who are 
 not yet born into the true moral life, but not to the contrite 
 who read themselves aright ; no false peace can chase away 
 the divine shadow that haunts them ; haste as they may, it 
 overtakes them : " the wicked fleeth, though no man pur- 
 sueth." Thus the very consciousness of justice unsatisfied 
 gives rise to a faith that we see not the whole ; that the 
 Righteousness obviously meant and largely embodied in the 
 constitution of the world has yet to complete itself in the 
 unseen, where silent watch is kept over the rights of them 
 that have none to help them. Did we wrong only our equals 
 and our superiors who could bring us to account, the Moral 
 Law might (in this relation) have seemed to us complete, 
 within the limits of human life, and have carried us to nothing 
 that is divine. But the dependents whom we dare to injure 
 have power, by their dumb looks, to call up for themselves 
 an Almighty Protector, and reveal to us an Eternal Equity. 
 It is in the exercise of our trust over inferior natures that we 
 
Martineau 405 
 
 feel the presence of a superior, and discover that we are in 
 a system where the meanest being has sympathy from the 
 Highest, and every insult to the smallest creature becomes 
 a defiance of a Supreme Providence. 
 
 That the divine secret of life, its relation to One infinitely 
 Holy, is really wrapped up in these moral experiences, is 
 confirmed by the marvellous eft'ect of* a bold and penetrating 
 appeal to them. Stories of religious conversion may be 
 ridiculous to the cynic, and mistrusted by the philosopher ; 
 they are, however, indubitably true, not only of scattered 
 instances, as of an Augustine and a Loyola, but of rude 
 masses of unawakened men, suddenly lifted out of dis- 
 ordered dreams into the clear light of heavenly reality, and 
 the enthusiasm of a devoted will. And how are these 
 wonders wrought 1 Is Reasoning the exorcist whom the 
 evil spirits obey 1 ? Are they frightened out by the lash of 
 disproof? Or do they slowly retreat before the persuasion 
 of self-interest, and the pressure of better tastes ? In order 
 to effect the change, must we believe that things are as 
 they look, that nothing is present but animalism, no sense 
 of right and wrong, no susceptibility except to the momentary 
 impulse, and only hopeless blindness to invisible relations'? 
 If we thus begin at the beginning, it will never have an 
 end. But it is notorious that if, with faith intense enough, 
 you will assume the "sense of sin," and speak to its agony 
 of shame, you will not only find a conscience there, but 
 fling it down at the feet of a God never seen before; the 
 same moment which brings the inward moral history into 
 its true light, throws it also off the merely human stage, 
 and makes it part of a divine drama. Whoever gives full 
 credence to the consciousness of guilt finds himself estranged, 
 not only from the just sympathy of men, but from an ever 
 living Righteousness that searches their hearts and his. This 
 is exactly what we should expect, if our life were under 
 the Divine Moral Government, and our nature framed for 
 
406 Ethical Theism 
 
 responsive communion with an Infinite Perfection, but would 
 be wholly unintelligible if the conscience were as strictly 
 limited to social uses as the laws of economy, and the con- 
 ventions of speech. 13 
 
 For consider, finally, what is the alternative, if there be 
 no objective Divine Authority of which the Moral Law is the 
 expression. That it is not any human authority which hides 
 itself behind an awful mask and speaks to us, we have 
 already seen. And there is no third superior power that 
 can overshadow our personality and prescribe our duty. 
 Nothing then remains but to pronounce the sense of respon- 
 sibility a mere illusion ; the fiduciary aspect of life must 
 disappear; there is no trust committed to us, no eye to 
 watch, no account to render; we have but to settle terms 
 with our neighbours, and all is well. Purity within, faithful- 
 ness when alone, harmony and depth in the secret affections, 
 are guarded by no cautionary presence and aided by no 
 sacred sympathy : it may be happy for us if we keep them ; 
 but if we mar them, it is our own affair, and there is none 
 to reproach us or put us to shame. Nay, not even can we 
 reproach ourselves; for our moral freedom stands or falls 
 with our relation to a supernatural mind; 14 and, in the 
 absence of this, we lie, no less than the winds and waves, 
 under nature's necessity, and can never be other than we 
 are : so that the remorse that racks the guilty conscience must 
 be discharged as a "superseded" and "fallacious feeling."* 
 
 13 The immediately preceding section of this chapter has been 
 devoted to repudiating the view of conscience which explains it as 
 merely the developed response to a social demand. 
 
 14 Belief in Free Will and Moral Theism are, in Martineau's judg- 
 ment, inseparably knit together. A full discussion of Determinism 
 and Free Will is given in bk. iii. chap. ii. On Martineau's doctrine 
 of freedom, vide Prof. Pringle-Pattison's article in the Hibbert Journal 
 for April 1903. 
 
 * Belsham's Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind and of Moral 
 Philosophy, 1801, p. 284. 
 
Martineau 407 
 
 The measure also which the natural conscience takes of 
 wrong acts and dispositions must be discarded; for when 
 they drop out of relation to a Divine Perfection, and take 
 their place among facts' that could not be otherwise, moral 
 evil merges into natural, and sums itself up in the sufferings 
 it entails, and wears itself out when these are spent, like 
 sickness for the convalescent. To add to the intensity, or 
 prolong the duration, of the inevitable pains, still more to 
 introduce others that fictitiously swell the amount, is a 
 gratuitous enlargement of ill. When the conscience there- 
 fore shivers in the returning shadow of old sins; when, not 
 having suffered enough at the hands of circumstances, it 
 plunges into self-inflicted penances ; when, oppressed for half 
 a life by the secret of an unsuspected crime, it makes 
 spontaneous confession at last, that it may not miss its 
 righteous retribution; these superfluities of anguish must 
 be flung away in contempt as mere superstitions. Yet surely 
 they are among the most pathetic and solemn of human 
 experiences ; not as pitiable infirmities, but precisely because 
 they are the outburst of a truth, and the self- vindication of a 
 moral law, which resolution cannot suppress or weakness defy. 
 We rest, therefore, in the conclusion that, both in the 
 aspirations of conscience which lift us upwards, and in its 
 recoil of horror that arrests our fall, we are under the action 
 of an Infinite Objective Perfection that would win us to 
 sympathy with itself. 15 
 
 References. The literature cited in the notes: and cf. Professor 
 Davidson, Theism and Human Nature, 1893 ; for the Mystical element 
 in Martineau, see Caldecott, op. cit. p. 343, Mr. Upton in the Life and 
 Letters, Mr. Crawfurd in Recollections of Martineau, and Professor 
 Pringle-Pattison, Hibbert Journal, April, 1903. 
 
 15 In the following section the author goes on to deduce such Divine 
 qualities, or attributes, as Benevolence, Justice, Amity, and Headship 
 of a Theocratic Society. Thereafter comes the proof that God as 
 Cause and God as Perfection are one. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 JANET, PAUL (i823-i899). 
 
 IT is not the proper business of Natural Theology to include 
 a demonstration of the teleological constitution of the 
 universe ; its office is to interpret the datum presented to it. 
 But few theological writers are content to remit the task to 
 scientific and philosophical workers, and we therefore find the 
 teleological inquiry occupying an inordinate proportion of 
 theological treatises. For our purpose, however, it is the 
 argument, the interpretation, which concerns us. If it has 
 been demonstrated that the world is not teleologically con- 
 structed, there is no question ; but if a teleological character 
 has been proved we must ask, Does a teleological world lead 
 to, and require, the inference to a Divine Mind 1 For the 
 study of this inference we select the chapter on " Finality and 
 Intention " from Janet's work on Final Causes* 
 
 In 1876 Janet (then Professor at the Sorbonne) devoted a 
 whole treatise to the consideration of Final Causes : in some 
 two-thirds of its space he is re-examining the Datum, and, in 
 the remainder, the Inference. His results as to the datum 
 are (i.) " the differences which exist between human art and 
 the art of nature do not weaken in any way the force of the 
 principle " of final causes ; (ii.) Science as such gives no 
 reason for dispensing with them; (iii.) the principle of 
 mechanical concordance is only a rudimentary and obscure 
 form of the principle of teleological concordance, and requires 
 the latter for its explanation; (iv.) the objections and 
 difficulties which are found are not inexplicable ; and (v.) 
 
 * Final Causes, by Paul Janet. Translated by W. Affleck, B.D. 
 Second edition, 1883 ; T. & T. Clark. 
 
 408 
 
Janet 409 
 
 Evolution is reconcilable with final causes, and indeed cannot 
 be explained without reference to them. 
 
 His second investigation, "much more arduous than the 
 first," is as to the inference : accepting the teleological char- 
 acter of the universe, how does it stand with the inference 
 that its Cause is " a Divine Understanding " ? He examines 
 the ordinary statements of Physico-theological proof, in the 
 light of Kant's criticism especially, and concludes that it is 
 only some accessories which are untenable, and that the essential 
 inference, 'Order implies intelligence,' is intact. He then 
 examines the solution offered by Kant in the Critique of 
 Judgment, that the inference is only of subjective validity, 
 and finds this inadequate. Then he rejects the views that the 
 true inference is to an immanent Cause without reference 
 to a transcendent one ; that the Cause is of the nature of 
 instinct rather than of intelligence; that it is all the 
 unfolding of a pure intelligence "(Hegel) ; and concludes against 
 both these latter views for a Mind of which ours is the analogue. 
 He closes with a reversion to the Datum; asking whether 
 there is a su^reme_end disclosed, and concludes that there is, 
 and that it is Morality. 
 
 The chapter on the question of immanence or transcend- 
 ence or both, would have been printed had our space allowed : 
 but we agree with Janet that the most pressing controversy 
 among teleologists lies in the inquiry as to the inference to 
 Mind. We therefore print chap. iii. of Book n., " Instinctive 
 /and Intentional Finality." 
 
 INSTINCTIVE AND INTENTIONAL FINALITY. 
 
 " One ought not to conceive the end," says Hegel, " under 
 the form it assumes in consciousness, that is to say, under 
 the form of a representation." * According to this principle, 
 the end is not an effect realised according to a preconceived 
 idea : it is the eternal conformity of things to their idea or 
 essence. Finality is thus not merely immanent, it is uncon- 
 scious. 1 
 
 * Logic, 104. 
 
 1 The chapter opens with some statements of writers who accept 
 Finality but regard it as not involving consciousness, and therefore as 
 
410 The Teleologicol Argument 
 
 We find a striking instance of unconscious finality in the 
 instinct of animals. 
 
 " The obscurity in which instinct is enveloped," says Hegel, 
 " and the difficulty of laying hold of it, arise entirely from 
 this, that the end can only 'be understood as an internal 
 notion (innere Begriff\ whence it follows that all explana- 
 tions and relations that are only founded on the understand- 
 ing are inadequate to instinct. What chiefly causes the 
 difficulty is that the relation of finality is usually conceived 
 as an external relation, and that it is thought that finality 
 only exists where there is consciousness. But instinct is the 
 activity that acts without consciousness in order to an end 
 (die auf bewusstlose Weise ivirkende Zweckthdtigkeit). The 
 animal does not know its ends as ends ; but this activity that 
 unconsciously acts in pursuit of ends is what Aristotle calls 
 <f>u'<ris.t 
 
 "This artistic instinct," says he elsewhere,! "appears as an 
 intentional and wise act of nature (ah ziveckmdssiges Thun, 
 als Weisheit der Natur), and it has always been regarded as a 
 surprising faculty, because it has been the habit only to see 
 reason in an external finality. Plastic instinct is, in fact, 
 analogous to the conscious mind ; but one should not, there- 
 fore, conceive the final activity of nature as a mind that is 
 self-conscious. As artistic instinct, the notion is only the 
 internal virtuality of the animal (das Innere an sich, the 
 
 giving no ground for inference to a Mind like ours. It is to be noticed 
 that in this chapter the reference is not directed to any inference to an 
 infinite mind ; all that is asked is, Is the legitimate inference to a 
 Mind, and a Mind like our own ? 
 
 As to the Datum, the teleological conception of the universe, the 
 reader who is shaken by current assertions that it has fallen with 
 Paley and eighteenth-century methods, may be reassured by remem- 
 bering that its opponents must reckon with Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, 
 Hartmann, Lotze, and Zeller. 
 
 t Philosophy of Nature, 360. 
 
 J Ibid. 366. 
 
Janet 411 
 
 internal in itself), an unconscious worker. It is only in 
 thought, in the human artist, that the notion exists for itself." 
 
 Thus, according to Hegel, instinct presents us with the 
 type of an unconscious finality, and shows us the possibility 
 of it, and this is the true notion of nature. Consciousness is 
 only one of the forms of finality ; it is not its adequate and 
 absolute form. It need not be supposed, however, that, in 
 Hegel's view, instinct itself should be the last word in 
 finality. Before all, in his thought, finality is notion, concept, 
 or at least an element of the notion, and instinct is only a 
 form of it. It is only in the Hegelian Left that finality has 
 been more and more confounded with the blind activity of 
 nature. 2 
 
 But the school that has most decidedly adopted and de- 
 fended the doctrine of instinctive finality is that of Schopen- 
 hauer. This school has insisted much on the principle of 
 finality; but, like the Hegelian school, it asserts an uncon- 
 scious finality, and finds in instinct the type of it. 
 
 " There is no contradiction whatever," says Frauenstadt, 3 
 
 2 The comprehensiveness of Hegel's philosophy led to a wide 
 divergence amongst the thinkers who, without being his formal 
 "disciples," unquestionably owed to him their principal starting- 
 point. In Germany they were distinguished into a Right wing, 
 pressing Hegelianism into a vindication of Theism and of Christian- 
 ity as the Absolute Religion, and a conservative vindication of social 
 institutions Erdmann, for example ; a Centre, keeping fairly 
 closely along Hegel's ridge-line Vatke ; a Left, which declined to 
 Pantheism Strauss and Baur ; and an Extreme Left, which descended 
 right down to Materialism and Atheism Feuerbach. For an account 
 of Hegelianism in Britain, see Professor R. Mackintosh, Hegel and 
 Hegelianism. 
 
 3 Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was par excellence a teleologist : for him .* 
 the pursuit of purposes was 'the main characteristic of the" world- 
 processes, but he made unconscious instinct or " will," as he called it, 
 the fundamental agency, regarding intelligence as only a special mani- 
 festation with a limited area of operation, and probably only a transi- 
 tory episode in the history of the universe. He vindicated Religion as 
 
412 The Tdeolorjical Argument 
 
 "in admitting that a force, a plastic instinct, by a blind 
 tendency creates works which then are revealed to the 
 analytic understanding as conformed to an end. An uncon- 
 scious finality is not, then, a contradiction in adjecto ; and 
 from the denial of a personal creator of the world, aiming at 
 conscious ends, there no more follows denial of the harmony 
 of the world than the denial of the harmony of the organs 
 follows from the affirmation that a plastic organic virtue 
 acts unconsciously in plants and animals. The Aristotelian 
 opposition between the efficient and the final cause is in no 
 way identical with the opposition between the unconscious 
 and the intelligent cause. For the final cause itself may be 
 unconscious." * 
 
 Schopenhauer expresses himself in the same way : " The 
 admiration and astonishment which are wont to seize us in 
 view of the infinite finality manifested in the construction of 
 the organised being, rests at bottom on the natural but false 
 supposition that this agreement of the parts with each other 
 and with the whole of the organism, as well as with its 
 external ends, is realised by the same principle that enables 
 us to conceive and judge it, and, consequently, by means of 
 representation ; that, in a word, as it exists for the under- 
 standing, so it only exists by the understanding. N"o doubt, 
 we can realise nothing regular or conformed to an end, except 
 under the condition of the conception of that end ; but we 
 are not warranted to transfer these conditions to nature, 
 which is itself a prius of all intellect, and whose action is 
 absolutely distinct from ours. It brings to pass what appears 
 to us so wonderfully teleological, without reflection and 
 
 a true mode of mental life, but opposed any inference of a Theistic 
 kind. For a critical exposition see Caldwell's SchopcnJiaucr's System 
 in its Philosophical Significance, and W. Wallace's Schopenhauer in 
 - " Great Writers " series. 
 
 * Frauenstadt, Brief e, iiber die Schopenhaucrsche Philosophic (Leipzig, 
 1854), Letter 21, p. 442. 
 
Janet 413 
 
 without concept of the end, for it is without representation, a 
 phenomenon of secondary origin, f 
 
 "It seems," says the same author again, J "that nature 
 has meant to give us a brilliant comment of its productive 
 activity in the artistic instinct of the animals; for these 
 show us most evidently that beings may work to an end 
 with the greatest surety and precision, without knowing 
 it, and without having the least conception of it. ... The 
 artistic instincts of insects throw much light on the action 
 of the will without knowledge, which is manifested in the 
 internal springs of the organism and in its formation. . . . 
 The insects will the end in general, without knowing it, 
 precisely like nature when it acts according to final causes. 
 They have not even the choice of means in general; it 
 is only the detail that in particular cases is left to their 
 knowledge." 
 
 Such are the reasons of the adherents of unconscious 
 finality. But this doctrine, we have said, may assume 
 two forms : finality may be considered as an instinct, 
 which is the doctrine of Schopenhauer, or as an idea, 
 which is the doctrine of Hegel. Let us first consider the 
 former. The latter will be the subject of the following 
 chapter. 4 
 
 To attribute to nature an instinctive activity, is to say that 
 nature acts like bees and the ant, in place of acting like 
 man; it is zoomorphism substituted for anthropomorphism. 
 We see no advantage in it. 
 
 In fact, the true difficulty, the profound difficulty in this 
 question, is that we can only explain the creative activity 
 of nature by comparing it to something that is in nature 
 itself, that is to say, which is precisely one of the 
 effects of that activity. Kant expresses this in these 
 
 t Die Welt als Wille, t. ii. chap. xxvi. J Ibid. 
 
 4 Janet's next chapter is occupied with a criticism of Hegel's 
 position. 
 
414 The Teleological Argument 
 
 words : " Can the internal possibility of nature, acting 
 spontaneously (which first renders possible all art, and per- 
 haps even reason), be derived from another art still, but 
 superhuman 1 " This, the true, the only difficulty, evidently 
 applies to the hypothesis of a primitive instinct quite as 
 well as to that of a primitive intelligence. Instinct is not 
 less a fact of nature than intelligence itself; and in the 
 one case, as in the other, the effect will be transformed into 
 the cause. 
 
 But if one is content to say, like Schopenhauer, that 
 instinct is only a commentary of the creative activity, that 
 is to say, a symbol, an example that may give some idea of it, 
 it may be asked wherein this commentary is more luminous 
 than that which we find in intelligence, or in mechanism 
 properly so called. There are, in fact, three modes of action 
 in nature, mechanism, instinct, and thought. Of these 
 three modes, two only are distinctly known to us, mechanism 
 and intelligence. Instinct is the most obscure, most un- 
 explained. Why, of the three modes of action of nature, 
 should the most luminous commentary of the creative activity 
 be precisely that of which nothing is understood ? All science 
 since Descartes tends to suppress occult qualities. Instinct 
 is essentially an occult quality. To choose it to explain 
 finality, when it is itself the most incomprehensible instance 
 of finality, is not this to explain olscurum per obscurius 1 In 
 fine, of three modes of action of nature, one inferior, another 
 superior, the other intermediate, why choose as type pre- 
 cisely that which is only a middle term 1 ? Mechanism is 
 inferior, but it has the advantage of being the simplest of all. 
 Intelligence is the most complicated, but it has the advantage 
 of being the most elevated term. Instinct presents neither 
 the one nor the other of these advantages. A middle pheno- 
 menon, it seems, indeed, to be only a passage from the one to 
 the other, from mechanism to intelligence to be only a more 
 particular and complex case of the first, or the rudimentary 
 
Janet 415 
 
 state of the last. In any case, it seems in no way to have 
 the character of a principle. 
 
 In another point of view, instinct is again subject to the 
 same difficulties as intelligence. This is to say, the latter 
 is objected to as only known to us under the condition of 
 organisation. Are we warranted, it is said, to suppress this 
 condition, and to conceive in the pure state, and as anterior 
 to nature, a faculty which is only given to us as a result 1 
 Whatever be the weight of this objection, it is as applicable 
 to instinct as to intelligence ; for instinct, like intelligence, is 
 bound to organisation : there is no more instinct than intelli- 
 gence in inorganic beings. 
 
 But if the hypothesis of instinctive finality presents no 
 advantage over that of intelligent finality, it presents, on the 
 other hand, much greater difficulties. The question still 
 remains, how a cause attains an end by appropriate means, 
 without having either known that end or chosen the means 1 
 The question must be well answered. Is the idea of end 
 admitted or not 1 If admitted, this idea necessarily implies, 
 whether we will or not, that, a given result being predeter- 
 mined (for instance, seeing or hearing), the efficient cause, 
 which, as such, was capable of taking millions of different 
 directions, has limited the choice of these directions to those 
 that could bring about the required result. But to say that 
 a hidden cause produces this limitation and determination 
 we know not why, is simply to revert to the hypothesis of 
 chance. 
 
 Will it be said that only one of these directions was 
 possible, and that all the others are excluded by the very 
 nature of the cause 1 ? In this case the final cause is 
 set aside in order to revert to the efficient cause, which 
 is Spinozism. What, in fact, does the idea of end do 
 here, and wherein is it end, if each of the effects is con- 
 tained in that which precedes, and if all together are only 
 the unfolding of the nature of each being? On this 
 
416 The Teleological Argument 
 
 hypothesis there is no more final cause in physiology than 
 in geometry. 5 
 
 To say, with Schopenhauer, " Because finality exists for 
 intelligence, it does not follow that it exists by intelligence," 
 is at bottom to suppress finality. 6 We must choose between 
 subjective and instinctive finality. If finality only exists for 
 intelligence, it does not in reality exist at all ; it is an illusory 
 phenomenon. "It is our understanding," says Schopenhauer, 
 " that, seizing the object by means of its own forms, time, 
 space, causality, first produces the plurality and divisibility of 
 parts and of their functions, and then falls into amazement at 
 the perfect harmony and co-operation of these parts resulting 
 from the original unity, in which, consequently, it admires its 
 own work." * If this be so, finality is only a subjective con- 
 ception. But then the objection of Herbart recurs: If we 
 carry with us the concept of finality, why not apply it 
 everywhere, and to all things, like causality 1 If we only do 
 so in regard to certain objects, it is because these objects 
 present certain special characters. These characters do not 
 come from us ; they must, therefore, have an objective cause. 
 But instinct is not a cause it is a non-cause ; for, between 
 the indetermination of the instinctive faculty and the strict 
 determination of the end, there is the disproportion of the 
 infinite to the finite. 
 
 5 In our Selection from Spinoza we have seen liow Spinoza has no 
 other world-process in view than the unfolding of statical properties, 
 as in the case of geometrical figures, and therefore no room for causes 
 which would involve reference to time, anticipation of results, forma- 
 tion of resolutions according to choice, or the elements of intentional 
 causality. 
 
 6 Schopenhauer means that a reference to Finality may help me to 
 interpret by setting before me the way in which I should proceed in 
 aiming at such and such results myself ; but that this does not justify 
 me in inferring that this is the way in which the thing is done by 
 Nature. 
 
 * Die Welt als Wille, chap. xxvi. 
 
Janet 417 
 
 For the rest, the inadequacy of Schopenhauer's theory is 
 confirmed even by the acknowledgment and reform of his 
 disciple and successor Hartmann, who, without himself ad- 
 vancing to the conception of intelligent finality, yet makes a 
 way of return towards that conception. In fact, Schopen- 
 hauer had completely separated the will and representation 
 (der Wille und die Vorstellung). Representation, which is 
 the foundation of the intellectual act, was, in his view, a 
 merely secondary thing (ganz secunddren Ur sprung s). Hart- 
 mann, on the other hand, restores the bond between these two 
 things, and says very justly : " Tendency is only the empty 
 form of the will, . . . and as every empty form is only an 
 abstraction, volition is existential or actual only in its relation 
 to the representation of a present or future state. No one 
 can really will purely and simply, without willing this or 
 that. A will that does not will something is nothing. It is 
 only by the determination of its content that the will acquires 
 the possibility of existence, and this content is representation. 
 Thus, then, there is no will without representation, as 
 Aristotle had said before : opeKTiKOf 8e OUK akcu <arra<na9 
 (De An. iii. 30)." t 
 
 Herein lies, Hartmann adds, the cause of the error and 
 "insufficiency (die Halbheit} of Schopenhauer's philosophy, 
 who only recognised the will as a metaphysical principle, and 
 made representation or the intellect originate materially." 
 
 Hartmann admits, then, that the will is impossible without 
 representation, only with him this representation is at first 
 unconscious. Finality would thus still remain unconscious. 
 And yet a great step would be taken. There would be con- 
 ceded to the first cause the reality of intelligence, save in 
 considering consciousness as only an accessory phenomenon, 
 which remains for discussion. The question would no longer 
 be as to an intelligent cause, but as to an unconscious intelli- 
 gence, which is different. The question changes ground. 
 
 t Philos. des Unbcwussten, A. iv. 
 27 
 
418 The Teleological Argument 
 
 Can there be representations without consciousness *? Such is 
 now the point of the debate. Hartmann quotes the opinion 
 of Kant and Leibnitz ; but these two authors rather speak of 
 obscure, indistinct perceptions, of an extremely feeble con- 
 sciousness, than of absolutely unconscious perceptions in 
 strict terms. It is not for us further to engage in these 
 questions, which would remove us too far from the present 
 discussion. In fact, to reintroduce representation, even un- 
 conscious, into activity, is partly to return to the Hegelian 
 conception, which reduces finality to notion, concept, idea, 
 and not merely to pure instinct. But this point of view will 
 occupy us in the following chapter. 
 
 This last transformation of hylozoism 7 (for Schopenhauer's 
 philosophy hardly deserves any other name) suffices to show 
 the nullity of the explanation of finality by instinct. But if 
 instinctive finality seems to us inadmissible, we still admit 
 that intentional finality has its difficulties, which must be 
 examined more closely. 
 
 The profoundest discussion that we know against inten- 
 
 7 Hylozoism, the theory that life or consciousness is a universal 
 property of matter. This may be applied in reference to Matter as a 
 whole, by supposing a world-soul, Cosmic Hylozoism ; or that every 
 physical atom is alive and conscious, Atomic Hylozoism. The former 
 has always had its advocates on broad lines, e.g. the Stoics, but the 
 term Hylozoism is usually applied to the latter theory. Amongst the 
 Atomists of Greece it is found in crude forms ; Bruno and Gassendi 
 revived it at the dawn of modern philosophy. Kant trenchantly dis- 
 misses it as incomprehensible in itself, and a mere circle if used as 
 explanatory (Critique of Judgment, 73) ; yet we have it again appear- 
 ing in von Baer's " Zielstrebigkeit," endorsed by Lange and Paulsen ; 
 in Kichet's "Effort pour la vie"; and in Clifford's "Mind-stuff" 
 theory. For Lotze's carefully guarded treatment, see his Metaphysic 
 (Bosanquet's edition), Bk. n. c. viii. The attraction lies in the 
 simplicity of supposing life and consciousness to be universally 
 associated with matter, " Allbeseelung, " as compared with the 
 acceptance of breaches of continuity, if life and consciousness have 
 made their appearance at later epochs than matter. 
 
Janet 419 
 
 tionalism is that of a Hegelian philosopher, Fortlage, in his 
 History of the Proofs of the Existence of God** This 
 discussion sums up and completes all the difficulties previously 
 enumerated. 
 
 I. The first difficulty is this : There are numerous cases 
 in nature where the tendency towards an end is not 
 accompanied by the clear conception of that end. For 
 instance, the tendency of bodies towards a centre, the 
 instinct of animals, the inspiration of great men, are facts 
 of this kind. If, then, these different forces are not to be 
 recognised as immanent in nature, recourse must incessantly 
 be had to the first cause without need, and we fall into 
 occasionalism. In a word, immanent and unconscious 
 finality, or deus ex machind such are the two horns of the 
 dilemma. 
 
 We reply that this dilemma sins against the fundamental 
 rule of this kind of reasoning, which requires that there be 
 only two possible alternatives, without intermediaries, whence 
 the rule of the exclusio tertii. But here there is between the 
 two opposite hypotheses a mean hypothesis, which the author 
 omits, and which consists in supposing that there are, indeed, 
 immanent forces in things, and forces unconsciously tending 
 towards an end, but that this immanent finality is derived 
 and not primitive, relative and not absolute. Between 
 Hegel's hypothesis and Paley's there is room for that of 
 Leibnitz, who by no means admits that we must incessantly 
 
 8 Janet calls Fortlage (d. 1881) a Hegelian. Ueberweg and Erd- 
 mann point out that he renounced his early Hegelianism, and drew 
 upon Fichte and Beneke. Following Beneke, Fortlage considers 
 impulse to be more fundamental than reason : he was anti-indi- 
 vidualist, but in favour of a world-soul ; and from this standpoint he 
 objected to an inference to anything but a Pantheistic order of the 
 universe. 
 
 * Darstellung und Kritik der Beweise furs Daseyn Gottes, Heidel- 
 berg, 1840, p. 237 et seq. Bedenken gegen die Paleysche Schlussform : 
 Difficulties regarding Paley's argument. 
 
420 The Teleological Argument 
 
 have recourse to God as to a mechanician, without whom the 
 machine cannot go. He admits that God has placed in the 
 thing at the first a certain force of spontaneity and energy, 
 which is displayed conformably to an internal law without 
 the necessity of the action of God being added to it, which 
 force will be called, according to occasion, tendency, instinct, 
 inspiration, etc. Such facts do not in the least prove that an 
 activity can be conceived aiming at an end, without any 
 notion of that end ; for these forces, more or less blind and 
 ignorant of their end, may be derived from some being that 
 knows that end for them. Nay, this is the only means we 
 have of comprehending this hidden and unconscious tendency 
 towards an end. There is nothing in this that touches the 
 principle, or is irreconcilable with it. 
 
 But is it possible, it will be said, to conceive that, even if 
 created, blind forces can attain a certain end 1 And if this 
 be granted, why should not an uncreated force equally attain 
 it"? We have here the true difficulty which Bayle, in a 
 similar discussion on plastic natures, had already excellently 
 perceived. "But if a faculty without consciousness and 
 reason," he says, " merely because it is created by an intelli- 
 gent being, becomes fit to accomplish works that require 
 intelligence, is it not as if it were said that, of two men 
 equally blind, the one does not know his way, the other 
 knows it because he has been created by a father with eyes 1 
 If you are blind, it matters little whether you were born of a 
 blind or seeing father, for in both cases you always need to 
 be guided by the advice and the hand of another. So, to 
 regulate matter, it matters little whether plastic nature be 
 born of an intelligent cause, if it is blind and knows not in 
 what way to proceed to compose, separate, distribute, or re- 
 unite the elements of matter. Of what use is the power of 
 acting without the faculty of comprehending 1 Of what use 
 are legs to a blind man ? . . . Consequently, if plastic causes 
 are entirely destitute of intelligence, they must be continually 
 
Janet 421 
 
 directed by God as physical instruments." Consequently, 
 according to Bayle, the hypothesis of plastic natures, little 
 different at bottom from the Leibnitzian forces, either reverts 
 to pure mechanism and occasionalism, or leads to the nega- 
 tion of a supreme cause ; for if a blind force, tending towards 
 an end and attaining it, implies no contradiction, we cannot 
 see why such forces should any more imply a contradiction 
 because existing of themselves. 
 
 To this we reply, with J. Leclerc, the defender of plastic 
 natures : What implies contradiction is not the fact of a blind 
 force tending towards an end, since experience shows us such, 
 but is just the hypothesis of such a force existing of itself ; 
 for in that case we do not see whence it can derive the deter- 
 mination towards the end, and the exact choice of means 
 leading to it. If, on the other hand, such a force is only 
 derived, the reason of its determinations is in the intelligence 
 of the cause from which they emanate. What, says Bayle, 
 does it matter, if the force is blind, whether it have as author 
 an intelligent being ? What matters it whether a blind man 
 be born of a seeing father 1 To solve this difficulty, let us 
 borrow, like Bayle himself, our examples from experience. 
 Every day we see intelligent beings communicate to other 
 beings dispositions and impulsions that direct them un- 
 consciously towards a determinate end. This takes place, for 
 instance, in education. Parents insinuate by example, by a 
 certain tact, by caresses, etc., a thousand dispositions and 
 inclinations into the soul of their children, of which the latter 
 are unconscious, and which direct them, without their know- 
 ing it, towards an end they know not of, for instance, virtue, 
 wisdom, happiness. Such dispositions, however, are really 
 incorporated in the soul of children, are blended with their 
 natural qualities, become proper to them, and are later truly 
 spontaneous principles of action to them. In this case, then, 
 we clearly enough see how an intelligent cause might origin- 
 ally place in created beings certain dispositions, potencies, 
 
422 The Teleological Argument 
 
 or natural habitudes, which should be inherent, immanent, 
 and essential to them, and which should conduct them to their 
 destination without their knowledge, and without the Creator 
 needing to act for them and guide them, as the husbandman 
 the plough. A thousand instances, derived from physiological 
 and moral experience, might be quoted of this premeditated 
 infusion of certain principles of action into souls that are 
 unconscious of them, and that then obey them spontaneously 
 and blindly. And men make use of this power as well for evil 
 as for good. A skilled seducer, for instance, will know how 
 to determine in an innocent mind certain unconscious im- 
 pulses that will lead it unwittingly to the end fixed by him, 
 namely, towards its ruin or misfortune. An orator or a 
 politician will call forth in crowds commotions which, once 
 excited, will lead to this or that consequence, foreseen by him 
 and not by them. Thus the Creator might determine in 
 bodies or in souls certain impulsions or tendencies leading 
 them inevitably to the end fixed, reserving to man alone, and 
 still within a limited circle, the faculty of acting like Himself, 
 conformably to a premeditated end.* 
 
 In truth, it will always be possible to oppose hidden 
 qualities, which, being neither mechanisms nor systems of 
 thought, present nothing clear to the mind, and to say, with 
 Descartes, that we only comprehend two things clearly and 
 distinctly, thought and motion (or any other modification of 
 space) ; and this objection is at bottom that of Bayle, who 
 opposes the dynamism of Cudworth from the point of view 
 of Cartesian occasionalism. But this point of view cannot be 
 that of the German philosopher we are discussing, for he 
 
 * One may conceive this creation of impulsions in things either as 
 a supererogatory act of God, adding to beings, when once formed, the 
 instincts or powers they have need of, or else (which would be more 
 philosophical) one may admit that God has at once created beings 
 and their instincts, the nature of things being but the sum of the 
 powers or instincts of which it is composed. 
 
Janet 423 
 
 shows himself opposed to every species of mechanism, 
 whether the mechanism of Epicurus (that without God), or 
 the Cartesian mechanism (that with God). He thus neces- 
 sarily admits something like hidden qualities, under the 
 names of tendencies, instincts, inclinations, inspiration, 
 enthusiasm. He has, consequently, nothing to object to 
 those who will admit the same hidden faculties, on condi- 
 tion of supposing them to be derived and not primitive; 
 and from the point of view of the explanation of these 
 notions there is no advantage in conceiving these sorts of 
 qualities as existing by themselves in place of being com- 
 municated properties. 
 
 There are, besides, in the facts quoted by the author, 
 many differences to be noticed. One might even dispute 
 regarding the approximation of mechanical tendency and 
 instinct ; but what cannot be in any way assimilated is the 
 fact of instinct and that of inspiration. 
 
 Instinct is a phenomenon entirely blind, routine, machine- 
 like, always like itself. It may vary more or less under the 
 influence of circumstances; but as these modifications are 
 slow, rare, and infinitely little, the dominant character of 
 instinct is no less monotony, servile obedience to a blind 
 mechanism. Inspiration is of quite another order ; its proper 
 character is invention, creation. Wherever there is imitation, 
 or mechanical reproduction of a phenomenon already pro- 
 duced, we refuse to recognise the character of inspiration. 
 The property of instinct is precisely to resemble a work 
 calculated and arranged beforehand. Thus the bee, in 
 choosing the hexagonal form for depositing its honey, acts 
 precisely as an architect would do, who should be asked 
 to construct the most pieces possible in a given space. On 
 the other hand, the property of inspiration is in nothing to 
 resemble calculation, and to be incapable of being in any 
 way represented by calculation. For instance, when a poet 
 wishes to paint a great sentiment, it would be impossible for 
 
424 The Teleological Argument 
 
 him to find laws of combination permitting him to attain his 
 end ; he could not say : By combining words in such a way I 
 shall be sublime. For the words must still be given him ; 
 and by what means could he find such words rather than 
 others^ In artificial works (and what renders instinct so 
 marvellous is just that it produces such works), it is by the 
 combination of parts that we succeed in producing the 
 whole. In works of art, on the other hand, it is the whole 
 that commands the arrangement of the parts. For instance, 
 although a musical theme is necessarily successive, in virtue 
 of the laws of time, yet even the first notes are dominated by 
 the entire air ; and one cannot imagine a musician adding 
 note to note in order to reach an end, for that end is the 
 entire air, and the air is in the first notes as well as in the 
 last. No doubt, there is even in inspiration a part to be 
 done by reflection, calculation, and science, as we shall show 
 immediately; but the essence of inspiration is something 
 entirely different, and cannot be conceived as a calculated 
 combination. 
 
 These observations may appear at first sight more favour- 
 able than otherwise to the objection of the German philo- 
 sopher ; but our aim is first clearly to distinguish inspiration 
 from blind instinct, two things that this philosopher puts 
 almost on the same line as proving the same thing, wherein 
 he deceives himself. No doubt the fact of artistic inspiration 
 can quite prove that there is a sort of finality superior to 
 the finality of foresight and calculation, that the soul attains 
 its end spontaneously, while the mind laboriously seeks and 
 combines the means of attaining its end. Where the versifier 
 employs with consummate ability all the resources of the art 
 of versification, to leave the reader cold while amusing him, 
 where the rhetorician calls to his aid all figures made to order, 
 to persuade, please, and move according to rule, a Corneille 
 and a Demosthenes find in their heart unexpected words, 
 sublime turns, whose origin they themselves cannot explain, 
 
Janet 425 
 
 and which astonish and elevate the soul of the spectators and 
 auditors, and soul speaks to soul. Where shall one discover 
 the like of Qu'U nwurut* or, Je ne te hais point 1 f By what 
 process 1 by what recipes 1 And how superior is emotion here 
 to calculation ! But if one may conclude from these facts 
 that the highest finality is not perhaps that which results 
 from a deliberate combination, still how can we confound 
 this inspiration, in which the ancients saw the seal of the 
 divine, TO Oclov, with a blind instinct, with the mechanical 
 and routine course of a watch that goes alone, which is what 
 the instinct of animals resembles'? Inspiration may be 
 superior to calculating intelligence, but intelligence remains 
 very superior to instinct. The soul inspired by sentiment is 
 not a blind activity. It is conscious of itself j it has a vivid 
 and profound intuition of its end ; it is quite full of it ; and 
 it is precisely this vivid sentiment of the end that evokes in 
 it its own realisation. In this case, as Hegel says, " the end 
 realises itself." Instinct, on the other hand, not only is 
 ignorant of the means, but of the end. Far from creating 
 anything, it does nothing but repeat and imitate, without even 
 knowing that it imitates what has always been done. The 
 first animal of each species could alone be truly called an 
 inventor. But there is no reason to attribute to it in prefer- 
 ence to its posterity such a superiority of genius. For if it 
 had been capable of such an innovation, why should its 
 successors be reduced to a sterile and routine imitation 1 ? 
 Doubtless the creation of instinct supposes genius ; but 
 instinct is not genius, and is even the opposite of it. 
 
 Moreover, we have hitherto reasoned on the hypothesis 
 whereby inspiration would only be a purely spontaneous act, 
 in which intelligence should have no part. But nothing is 
 more contrary to the truth. Everyone knows the old dis- 
 putes between art and genius. No doubt art is not genius. 
 
 * Corneillc, Horace, act iii. scene 6. 
 t Corneille, Lc Old, act iii. scene 4. 
 
426 The Teleological Argument 
 
 Rules do not suffice to make masterpieces ; but who does not 
 know that genius is only complete when accompanied by 
 art 1 How [many parts of the beautiful are derived from 
 intelligence and science ! The wise arrangement of a subject, 
 the division and gradation of the parts, the elimination of 
 useless parts, the choice of times, places, circumstances, the 
 adaptation of the style to the manners and sentiments of the 
 personages these for the dramatic art. The investigation of 
 proofs, their distribution, their clever gradation, the skilful 
 interweaving of dialectic with the pathetic, the accommoda- 
 tion of the sentiments and motives to the habits and disposi- 
 tions of the auditory these for the art of oratory. The 
 combination of harmonies or colours, rhythm, the contrasts of 
 light and shade, the laws of harmony or of perspective these 
 for music and painting. In architecture, the part of science 
 is greater still; and even industry comes into play. Thus 
 even in the labour of inspiration, science and art that is, 
 calculation, foresight, and premeditation play a considerable 
 part ; nay, it is almost impossible rigidly to distinguish what 
 is of art and what is of inspiration itself. No doubt the 
 original conception of a character like that of the Misan- 
 thrope, or, in another class, the Olympian Jupiter, can only be 
 referred to a first stroke of the creative imagination. What 
 means, in effect, can be employed to conceive a primary idea "? 
 At the very most, the artist may place himself in circum- 
 stances favourable for invention. But the primary idea once 
 given, what is it that fertilises, animates, colours, and realises 
 it but art, always, it is true, accompanied by inspiration 1 Is 
 there not here a part to be played by calculation and 
 thoughtful combination 1 Will not reflection, for instance, 
 suggest to the author of the Misanthrope: To attain the 
 comic, I must put my principal personage in contradiction 
 with himself. I must then give him a weakness, and what 
 weakness more natural than that of love 1 And to render the 
 contrast more striking, and the drama more comical, I will 
 
Janet 427 
 
 make him love a coquette without soul, who will play with 
 him. I will bring them together, and the man of heart shall 
 humble himself before the selfish and frivolous fine lady. 
 Besides, this coquette must be a perfect woman of the world ; 
 and to depict her as such I will have a conversation scene, 
 where I will paint the salons in all their charming frivolity. 
 That Moliere made these calculations, or others like them, 
 cannot be doubted, although at every step he needed genius 
 that is, inspiration to realise his conceptions ; for it is not 
 enough to say, I will have talent, the great thing is to have 
 it. But talent can no more be found by means of reflection 
 than genius. Everyone knows, on the contrary, that to seek 
 talent is the best way not to find it. In music, inspiration 
 properly so called plays a greater part ; but even here there 
 are skilful combinations that may be the result of reflection, 
 and produced intentionally. For instance, it may very well 
 be the case that it was after reflection, and voluntarily, that 
 Mozart resolved to accompany the amorous serenade of Don 
 Juan, that air so melancholy and touching, with the playful 
 refrain that inspired some well-known, charming verses of 
 Musset. Donizetti may also very well have calculated before- 
 hand the profound effect produced on the heart by the singing 
 of Lucia's obsequies, interrupted by Edgar's marvellous final 
 air. At every moment one may find in the arts examples 
 of great beauties gained by calculation and reflection. In 
 Atkalie, for instance, the introduction of choruses, the 
 prophecy of Jehoiada, the bringing together a divine child 
 and an impious queen ; in Horace, the idea of cutting in two 
 the narrative to produce a sudden dramatic change ; in the 
 Descent from the Cross at Antwerp, the skilful and difficult 
 combination that makes all the personages in some measure 
 bear or touch the body of Christ are striking examples of 
 beauties desired, premeditated, and prepared by aesthetic 
 science, on condition, no doubt, of finding a powerful 
 imagination for their realisation. These striking examples of 
 
428 The Teleologiml Argument 
 
 an intelligence at the service of inspiration might incline us 
 in favour of Schopenhauer's theory, that makes intelligence 
 the servant of the will, if we agreed to attribute inspiration 
 to what this philosopher calls the will as if inspiration 
 itself were not already a sort of intelligence ; as if the first 
 conception, the immediate work of the creative imagination, 
 were not also an act of intelligence ; as if, in fine, love itself, 
 which impels to create, to engender, as Plato says, were 
 possible without a certain view of the object loved. All 
 that can be said and it in no way contradicts the doctrine 
 of final causes is that above the combining and calculating 
 intelligence, there is a primary form of superior intelligence, 
 which is the condition of the second, and which may be called 
 creative. 
 
 If, then, we seek in experience some type or model that 
 may give us an analogical idea of the primary activity, we 
 will not refuse to admit that inspiration is that which, 
 perhaps, in fact, comes nearest to it. At this elevation inten- 
 tion becomes lost in finality that is, the means confound 
 themselves with the end; but far from such a conception 
 confining us within the circle of nature, it is only, on the 
 contrary, by leaving nature that we can conceive such an 
 identity of means and ends. It is the property of nature, on 
 the other hand, to pass by the one to the attainment of the 
 other, which is impossible to a blind force, not directed. 
 Foresight, as it is manifested in the secondary substances, is 
 not, perhaps, the highest expression of finality; but blind 
 instinct is a still less faithful expression of it, and pure 
 mechanism is its absolute negation. 
 
 If, moreover, we analyse the idea of intention, we shall 
 find in it two elements (1) the art of willing the end, with 
 the consciousness that we will it ; (2) the choice of means 
 to attain it. But in the phenomenon called inspiration, 
 intention exists in the first sense, although not always in the 
 second. The artist will express what he has in his soul, and 
 
Janet 429 
 
 he is conscious of this volition ; but how is he to express 
 what he has in his soul 1 ? He does not know. Does it 
 follow that a higher intelligence would know no more 1 Is 
 what is unconscious in artistic creation a necessary element 
 of creative genius ? On what ground could such a hypothesis 
 be maintained 1 It appears that the highest degree of genius 
 is just that which has the completest consciousness of its 
 power. As there is more consciousness in genius than in 
 mere instinct, so what may be called absolute genius should 
 be accompanied by absolute consciousness. 
 
 Supposing, then, that there is a supreme act, of which 
 artistic inspiration can give us some idea, this absolute act 
 should be not the act of a blind force, or of a fortuitous 
 mechanism, but of a creative intelligence, inventing at once 
 means and end by a single act, and in which, consequently, 
 foresight should be identical with immediate conception. It 
 is in this sense that it may be allowed that intention is not 
 necessary to finality; not that it is absent, as in ignorant 
 instinct and in the blind forces of nature, but rather that it 
 has become useless, because, being in no way separated from 
 its end, conception and execution are for it but one. But we 
 will return to these ideas ; this is not yet the place to give 
 them all their development. 9 
 
 9 The importance of this section is exhibited in the fact that some 
 Theists have felt drawn to support the notion of a "Plastic Nature," 
 intermediate between the Divine Being and the world we see. The 
 trivialities, the blemishes, and the indirectnesses which abound in 
 Nature made them feel an objection to bringing the Divine Being into 
 direct contact with every thing and every event. So stalwart a Theist 
 as Cud worth, the Cambridge Platonist, who objected to Hylozoism, 
 resorted to a Plastic Nature, "a universal, substantial life, soul, or 
 spirit of nature, subordinate to the Deity." He claimed that he was 
 going back through Plotinus to both the later Platonists, the later 
 Peripatetics and the Stoics. Intellectiuil System, Bk. n. c. 3, and 
 an appendix stating twenty-nine reasons. 
 
 Janet's point is the obvious one, that if intelligence is proved we 
 
430 The Teleological Argwment 
 
 This first objection being much the most important, we 
 have had to dwell the longer upon it; we will pass more 
 rapidly over those that follow. 
 
 II. The German author appeals against the intentionalist 
 doctrine to what he calls mathematical finality, without 
 explaining very clearly what he means by it. No doubt he 
 means to say that, to render any regular figure possible in 
 geometry, its lines must be arranged in a certain way ; but 
 this prearrangement of the lines in relation to the general 
 figure is something analogous, not to say similar, to the 
 arrangement of the members in the organism; it is an 
 adaptation to an end. Yet in this case, he says, no one 
 supposes an intentional arrangement, no one infers a wise 
 author, who has ordained all that, conformably to the end, 
 by the most simple means. Why, according to this author ? 
 Because mathematical figures have no relation to our con- 
 venience, and their fundamental relations are absolutely 
 indifferent to us. 
 
 There is here, as it seems to us, much confusion of ideas. 
 But to come at once to the main point, we may say that 
 Kant, from whom the principles of the objection are 
 borrowed, has himself, with his usual profundity, furnished 
 the solution of them. It is, that in mathematics we have to 
 do not with the existence of things, but their possibility, and, 
 consequently, there can be here no question of cause " and 
 effect." * This is why Kant gives to this finality the name 
 of "finality without an end," which equally applies to 
 
 shall have an inference to personality, not to anything expressed by 
 such a phrase as "Plastic Nature" ; and no modern thinker, at any 
 rate, has ventured to suppose a vicegerent personality, interposed 
 between God and the world. At the same time, modern ways of speak- 
 ing of "Nature," especially where the personification is imaginatively 
 expressed by poets, come very much to this. The World-Soul of a 
 Cosmic universe is parallel to the Atom-Soul of the Atomic Hylozoism 
 (see note 7 ). 
 
 * Critique of the Judgment, Ixii. note. 
 
Janet 431 
 
 aesthetic finality. Kant's explanation amounts to that of 
 Aristotle, according to whom mathematical entities are fixed, 
 that is, are not subject to generation. But where there is 
 no generation, there is no cause and effect (except by 
 metonymy) ; and where there is no cause and effect, there 
 can be no means and end, for means are nothing but a cause 
 fit to produce a certain effect, which, therefore, is called 
 an end. 
 
 If, however, instead of conceiving geometrical figures as 
 pure abstract possibilities, they be taken as concrete forms, 
 which matter really assumes under determinate conditions, 
 for instance, in crystallisation, 10 there will, in fact, be room 
 to inquire how certain blind materials come to be arranged 
 conformably to a determinate order; and a definite reason 
 will evidently be needed to explain why they take this 
 arrangement rather than another, since particles left to 
 chance would assume a thousand combinations before hitting 
 on those simple figures that geometry designs and studies. 
 In this case, we will be entitled to suppose that these 
 molecules move as if they aimed to produce a determinate 
 geometrical order ; and to affirm that in this case there is a 
 finality without intention, is to assume precisely what is in 
 question ; for it does not follow as of course that any cause 
 can spontaneously, and without knowing anything of what it 
 does, direct its motion according to a regular law and con- 
 formably to a determinate type. 
 
 Thus it is not because geometrical proportions and relations 
 have no reference to our use, as Fortlage supposes, but 
 because they are pure ideas, that we do not assume inten- 
 tional arrangements in geometrical figures. But as soon as 
 
 10 The reference to crystals reminds us of their position in the front 
 rank of mechanisms, by reason of their symmetry, complication, and 
 beauty. Lord Kelvin, when speaking impromptu (May 1903), placed 
 them with organisms as indicating design, but on reflection somewhat 
 reduced the claim. 
 
432 The Teleological Argument 
 
 these figures are objectively realised in the real world, we 
 raise exactly the same question as regarding the most 
 elaborate arrangements. Besides, it is not true that human 
 utility is the sole criterion of finality and intentionality. 11 
 We admire the structure of animals and plants, even in the 
 case of creatures that are of no use to us ; and if bees' honey 
 were of no more use to us than their wax, it would be 
 enough that these two products are useful to themselves to 
 make us admire the industry that yields them. Still more, 
 we recognise finality even in beings hurtful to us, and, as 
 Voltaire says, the very fly should own that the spider weaves 
 its web with wondrous skill. 
 
 Thus it is the internal agreement of the object, and not its 
 relation to us, that determines our judgment of finality ; and 
 if, in place of conceiving geometrical figures as externally 
 seif-existent, we saw a luminous point moving in space, and 
 turning round a centre, drawing a curved line, without ever 
 increasing its distance in relation to that centre, we would 
 then seek a cause for this motion, and could not conceive it 
 except as the act of a mind and an intelligence. 
 
 III. It is the very rarity of the fact of finality, it is said, 
 that makes us infer a cause apart from nature, and an inten- 
 tional cause analogous to our own. If finality were displayed 
 
 11 To show utility for man, to bring everything even in external 
 nature into relation with mankind, is a prime problem for teleology. 
 Against it has been set the indifference of external nature to man 
 even where in contact with human life, and the vast tracts of matter 
 and life outside his contact altogether ; an indifference made more 
 striking as science has extended our view over astronomical spaces and 
 geological epochs. Nevertheless the anthroprocentric theory of the 
 universe remains firm in the views of many. Indeed it is notable 
 that while Lotze, the Theist, counsels renunciation of the attempt to 
 connect these areas with man, Comte, the non-Theist, definitely insists 
 on man being the consummation of Nature. For recent claims for 
 a central position for human nature, see Professor Eraser's Giffbrd 
 Lectures, and Professor Pringle-Pattison's Man's Place in the Cosmos. 
 
Janet 433 
 
 in all phenomena like causality, we would have no more 
 difficulty in attributing the one than the other to the power 
 of nature ; but these facts being scattered, we judge nature 
 too feeble to produce them, and think it necessary to have 
 recourse to a miracle to explain them. Fortlage, in this 
 connexion, ingeniously compares this distrust of nature in 
 general with the misanthrope's distrust of human nature. 
 
 Here, again, there is much confusion of ideas. The 
 question whether the cause of finality is within or without 
 nature is not the same as this, whether that causality is 
 intentional or blind. Intentionality and transcendence are, 
 as we have repeatedly said, two different things. One may 
 conceive an immanent natural cause (a soul of the world, for 
 instance), which, like the Providence of the Stoics, should 
 act with wisdom and foresight. One may, on the other 
 hand, conceive a transcendent cause, like the pure act of 
 Aristotle, which should act on nature unconsciously, and by 
 a sort of insensible attraction. Thus we should not necessarily 
 exclude intelligence from finality if we proved that the cause 
 of finality is within, not outside, nature. Consequently, if 
 this kind of distrust, with which, according to the author, the 
 forces of nature inspire us, were to disappear, and we were 
 brought to consider it as the sole and sufficient cause of 
 finality, it would still remain to inquire how nature can 
 attain its end without knowing it how it can have adapted 
 means to ends, while knowing nothing of either; and the 
 hypothesis of a finality without foresight would still remain 
 incomprehensible. Thus it is not our distrust of nature that 
 compels us to recognise intelligence in its works. 
 
 An example will render our distinction evident. Suppose 
 a poet, regarded as mediocre, and of recognised tameness, 
 were to produce by chance some brilliant work, some 
 beautiful verses, it might be supposed that he was not the 
 author of his work, that some one prompted and inspired 
 him, although in reality there is nothing impossible in genius 
 28 
 
434 The Teleological Argument 
 
 being manifested only in sudden leaps and intermittent 
 flashes. There is more than one instance of a poet having 
 produced but one sublime piece, and relapsing into the night of 
 mediocrity. But if this poet, on the other hand, were then 
 continuously to produce a succession of masterpieces, our 
 distrust would disappear, and we would no longer need to 
 seek elsewhere than in the genius of the poet himself the 
 inspiring principle of his writings. But would we thereby 
 have in the least degree proved that genius is a blind force, 
 not self-possessed, foreseeing nothing, and acting without 
 light and thought *? So nature might be the proper cause of 
 its products without our being entitled to draw any inference 
 against the existence of an intelligence in nature itself. 
 
 It will, no doubt,, be said that experience giving us no sign 
 of the immediate presence of an intra-mundane intelligence, 
 we can only conceive a supreme intelligence by supposing it 
 at the same time extra-mundane. We grant it ; and it is one 
 of the most decisive reasons in favour of the transcendence of 
 a first cause. But, after all, the question of transcendence 
 raises difficulties of another kind ; and, therefore, it should be 
 distinguished from that of an intelligent first cause. For 
 instance, the difficulties that arise from the idea of creation 
 ex nihilo, those which arise from the idea of substance, from 
 the exact distinction between the first cause and secondary 
 causes, are independent of those that are raised against the 
 hypothesis of a pre-ordaining foresight. Accordingly, we 
 say that this hypothesis may be disengaged from that of 
 transcendence that it rests on its own reasons, whatever the 
 degree of intimacy attributed to the first cause in relation to 
 nature. 
 
 Let us now add that, even if finality were as universally 
 diffused through nature as causality, there would still be no 
 occasion to set aside the idea of a contingency of nature, 
 contingentia mundi ; for this contingency affects causality as 
 well as finality. Because all the phenomena of nature have 
 
Janet 435 
 
 a cause, it does not follow that that cause is immediately the 
 first cause, and that there are no second causes ; but nature, 
 being by the very definition only the totality of second 
 causes, is not in itself its own cause. Now, if finality were 
 universal, like causality, it would simply follow that all that 
 we call cause would become means, all we call effect would 
 become end ; but the chain of means and ends, no more than 
 that of causes and effects, would be confounded with the 
 absolute, and the question of contingency would remain 
 intact. 
 
 IV. A new difficulty proposed by the German author is 
 that the hypothesis of an intentional finality cannot explain 
 the errors of nature, and the groping with which it gradually 
 advances towards its end. 12 This objection has already been 
 discussed above ; * we need not refer to it. Let us merely 
 say that if the idea of a sovereign and absolute wisdom 
 excludes the idea of groping, it is not so with the idea of a 
 nature created by sovereign wisdom. The groping or grada- 
 tion, in fact, may be the only means that a nature has at its 
 disposal to express the absolute perfection of the creative act 
 that gives birth to it. We will add that, if nature seems to 
 you powerful and rich enough to be itself declared divine, a 
 fortiori it must be beautiful enough for an image, shadow, or 
 expression of the divine act. 
 
 V. The last objection is particularly interesting. It tends 
 to put the belief of God's existence in opposition to the senti- 
 ment of nature, such as men feel it at the present time. It 
 seems that in order to be loved nature must be considered 
 
 13 How Janet came to call this a new difficulty is incomprehensible. 
 The objection is a commonplace, and he has himself dealt with it at a 
 very early stage when establishing the principle of teleology itself. 
 (Bk. i. c. 1.) The difficulty was felt so keenly by Cudworth in the 
 seventeenth century, for example, that it was a principal reason for 
 his resort to the supposition of a Plastic Nature. 
 
 * Chap. i. p. 56. 
 
436 The Teleological Argument 
 
 as itself divine, and not merely as the artificial work of the 
 Deity. 
 
 No doubt it would be a great exaggeration to say that 
 Theism is irreconcilable with a lively sense of the beauties of 
 nature. Nowhere have these beauties been more eloquently 
 described than in the writings of Fenelon, Rousseau, and 
 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, which are directly intended to 
 prove the existence of a Providence. But what might 
 perhaps be maintained is that a certain manner of loving 
 nature, and that precisely which has been developed in our 
 age, supposes another religious philosophy than that of the 
 Savoyard vicar. The old theodicy, it will be said, that 
 conceives a God fabricating the universe as a watchmaker 
 makes a watch, behoved to engender an entirely similar 
 aesthetic. Nature, to be beautiful, had to be arranged, 
 cultivated, combed, pruned. The beautiful must exclusively 
 consist in the proportion of parts, in a harmonious and sweet 
 agreement ; everywhere there were required in works of art 
 plans well arranged and methodically executed. The earth was 
 only a machine that is, something cold, dry, more or less 
 agreeable in parts, but without internal life, without flame, with- 
 out a divine spirit. But since a new philosophy has taught 
 us the divinity of nature, now that all is full of gods, iravra 
 TrXyprj $(av, the grand poetry of things has been revealed to 
 us. The voice of the ocean, the roar of the winds, the abrupt 
 depths produced by the elevation of the mountains, the 
 splendour of glaciers, all speak to us of an ever-acting, ever- 
 living power, that has not retired into its solitude after 
 having acted one single time, we know not why, but which, 
 on the contrary, is always here in communication with us, 
 animating this nature that is called dead, but is not, since it 
 speaks to us with accents so pathetic, and penetrates us with 
 seductions so intoxicating. Here is God; and Goethe did 
 not mean to lessen Him when, like the old Indians, he saw 
 Him everywhere in the rocks, forests, lakes, in that sublime 
 
Janet 437 
 
 sky in that totality, in short, of which He is the eternal 
 soul, the inexhaustible source. The theist, on the other 
 hand, only admires His cold and pale image, the wretched 
 copy of His eternal perfections, an insipid work that He 
 has created without knowing why, tired, no doubt, of His 
 immovable eternity. 
 
 This whole argumentation supposes that, on the hypothesis 
 of a supramundane and intelligent cause, nature would be no 
 more than a machine, and the Creator could only be a work- 
 man, which would be to compare the divine activity with the 
 lowest human occupations that is, with handicrafts. These 
 are very exaggerated consequences, derived from a metaphor. 
 The comparison of the universe to a watch is one of the most 
 convenient presented to the mind, and philosophy is no longer 
 possible if every figure is forbidden on pain of being taken 
 literally. The mechanism which exists in the universe, and 
 may be considered by itself abstractly, warrants such a com- 
 parison, but does not exclude others. Because the Author of 
 things has had regard to utility for His creatures, it does not 
 follow that He has not had beauty in view also. As Leibnitz 
 has said, mechanism does not exclude metaphysic. The 
 architect who builds a temple like the Parthenon may have 
 made a sublime work while occupying himself with its 
 solidity. Whether immanent or transcendent, intentional or 
 blind, the Cause of nature has been obliged to employ 
 material means to express His thought, and the just com- 
 bination of these means, to make a stable and solid work, is 
 imposed quite as much on the God of pantheism as on the 
 God of creation ; and, conversely, the employment of these 
 material means, wisely combined, no more forbids the 
 beautiful or the sublime to the God of creation than to the 
 God of pantheism. If, then, the adherents of a transcendent 
 and intentional cause have specially attached themselves to 
 examples drawn from mechanics, it is not that they are more 
 bound than others to maintain that everything in nature is 
 
438 The Teleological Argument 
 
 mechanism, but that there is here one of those privileged 
 facts in which is strikingly manifested the proper character of 
 an intentional cause ; and philosophy, as well as the sciences, 
 is entitled to appeal to the most decisive facts, even though 
 they should appear low to a false imagination. And besides, 
 when it concerns the mechanism of the universe and the 
 conception of the system of the world, who will venture to 
 say that that is a small matter, and that the admiration 
 which such a work must inspire is really unworthy of the 
 Divine Being 1 
 
 Thus those who have said that the world is a machine, are 
 in no way deprived of the right to say that it is a poem as 
 well. Wherein does the one exclude the other *? The system 
 of the world for geometricians is certainly only a mechanism. 
 Does anyone believe, however, that a geometrician will there- 
 fore become insensible to the beauties of the starry heaven 
 and the infinite immensity'? Will it be disputed that a 
 building, in order to stand, needs to obey the laws of the 
 exactest and driest mechanics 1 The gigantic arches of Gothic 
 cathedrals are not supported by miracle. It is not angels or 
 hidden powers that support their stones, but the abstract and 
 dead laws of gravitation. And yet, is the mysterious 
 grandeur of these mystical monuments less overwhelming, 
 divine, and pathetic on that account 1 The soul of the 
 architect has manifested or embodied itself in these dumb 
 stones, but it has only been able to do so by observing the 
 laws of mechanics. Why cannot the divine soul, if we may 
 use such an expression, have also passed into its work, 
 whether mechanical or not 1 Is it necessary that the 
 architect's soul be present in the building substantially in 
 order that it may be truly there 1 Is there not a kind of 
 ideal presence, the thought of the Creator being communicated 
 to His work, and existing apart from Him, but by Him t 
 Will it be said that the divine hymn of Stradella has not 
 retained something of the soul of its author, although he is 
 
Janet 439 
 
 no longer here to sing it 1 ? Thus, that nature be beautiful, 
 touching, and sublime, it is not necessary that God be 
 present in it substantially ; it is enough that He is there by 
 representation, as a prince is present wherever his ambassador 
 is, and communicates to him his dignity, without needing to 
 be present in person. 
 
 Thus the aesthetic objection proves nothing in favour of an 
 instinctive and against an intentional finality. Nature, were 
 it only a vast mechanism, might still be beautiful, as 
 expressing a divine thought, just as the succession of the 
 sounds of an instrument may be something sublime, although, 
 for the physicist, it is only in reality a purely mechanical 
 combination. But we have seen besides that the doctrine of 
 transcendent and intentional finality is by no means obliged 
 to reduce everything to mechanism. Nature may be com- 
 posed of forces without being itself the supreme and absolute 
 force. In fine, the species and degree of the participation of 
 things in the Divine Being is one question, and intelligence 
 in the ordaining cause is another. Were the world nothing 
 but the phenomenon of God, there would still be room to 
 inquire whether it is a phenomenon developed in the way of 
 blind instinct, or of enlightened reason. But on the latter 
 view, it is not apparent why nature should be less beautiful 
 than on the former. 
 
 In a word, the fundamental error the Trpcurov i/'evSos of 
 what is otherwise a very learned discussion is the perpetual 
 confusion between two distinct questions, that of immanence 
 and that of intentionality, immanence not excluding inten- 
 tionality and wisdom in the cause ; and, secondly, the vague- 
 ness and indecision in which this term immanence, interiority, 
 which is imputed to the first cause, is left. For immanence 
 is not absolutely denied by anyone ; the only question is as 
 to the degree, but the degree is not fixed. 
 
 To sum up. There is a common tendency at present in 
 
440 The Teleological Argument 
 
 several schools to adopt a middle theory between the Epi- 
 curean theory of fortuitous combinations and the Leibnitzian 
 of intelligent choice. This is the theory of instinctive finality, 
 sometimes arbitrarily called the Will. This mongrel theory 
 is nothing else than the old theory of hylozoism, which 
 attributes to matter sympathies, antipathies, affinities, pre- 
 ferences, things that are all absolutely opposed to the idea 
 of it. All that can be attributed to matter, as regards power, 
 is the capacity to produce motion. As to the direction of 
 the motion, and the choice between the possible combinations 
 of motion, it is an indefensible anthropomorphism to explain 
 it by a second mysterious view, that consists in seeing without 
 seeing, in choosing without knowing, and combining without 
 thinking. .Say simply that the adaptations of matter are 
 only appearances and results;- but to attribute to nature a 
 desire without light, an intelligence without intelligence, an 
 aesthetic and artistic faculty that could dispense with con- 
 sciousness and knowledge, is to take metaphors for realities, 
 
 /XTa<oplKW9 KOL KCVWS. 
 
 The only substantial thing remaining in the objections 
 that may be made against intentionalism is, that our vision 
 always becomes obscure and dim when we come to the mode 
 of action of the first cause, as our experience only gives us 
 to know second causes. Thus no other course is left to us 
 than to say nothing at all about it, as the Positivists do, 
 or to speak of it by comparison with ourselves, always 
 endeavouring to exclude whatever is incompatible with the 
 idea of the perfect and absolute. There is no other method 
 of determining anything of this first cause than the negative, 
 excluding from God whatever belongs to the finite character 
 of the creation; and the analogical method, attributing to 
 God, ratione absoluti, everything with a character of reality 
 and perfection. Every other method, pretending to discover 
 a priori the attributes of the primary being, is a pure illusion ; 
 and even those who conceive this first cause as an instinct, 
 
Janet 441 
 
 and not an intelligence, do yet but borrow their type from 
 experience. 
 
 Thus it will be admitted that all foresight similar to 
 that of man, and implying time and difficulty, can have no 
 place in the absolute. Is that to say, however, that all 
 foresight is absent from it, as in blind instinct 1 Or is there 
 not something that represents what we would call foresight, 
 if the divine act were translated into human language ? This 
 is the question. 
 
 Let us examine, then, more closely this idea of foresight, 
 as it occurs in human consciousness. 13 It seems to imply 
 two things incompatible with the absolute (1) the idea 
 of pre-existing matter, whose laws and properties must be 
 mastered, and at the same time utilised; (2) the idea of 
 time. 
 
 1. Why has man need of foresight in preparing for the 
 ends he pursues 1 ? Is it not because he finds before him a 
 nature which, not having been made exclusively for him, 
 presents a multitude of bodies submissive to laws which, in 
 their actual form, do not in any way promote our conveni- 
 ence, and are even oftener hurtful than useful to us, so that 
 nature might have been as often presented under the aspect 
 of a stepmother as of a beneficent mother 1 Man thus 
 finding resistance in external forces, is obliged to calculate 
 in order to overcome this resistance, and to make it subserve 
 his designs. No doubt, indeed, given a determinate end, 
 and pre-existing matter not prepared for that end, this matter 
 can only be adapted by foresight, which is nothing but the 
 reciprocal of experience. But could such a notion be com- 
 prehended in an absolute cause, absolute mistress of the 
 possible as of the real, which, being able to produce 
 everything by a sovereign fiat, has no difficulty to foresee, 
 
 13 In Paulsen's Introduction to Philosophy the chapter "Causality 
 and Finality" contains a good statement of the case for Finality 
 without Foresight. 
 
442 The Teleological Argument 
 
 no obstacle to surmount, no matter to accommodate to its 
 plans 1 
 
 On this first point, we reply that there is no necessary 
 connexion between the idea of foresight and that of pre- 
 existing matter. In fact, when I pursue an end, I can 
 attain it either by employing means that are not at my 
 disposal, or by creating the means themselves ; and although 
 in the case of man this creation of means is never other 
 than metaphorical, as the matter pre-exists, it is clear that 
 the operation would not change its nature, if, in place of 
 producing means by borrowing them from nature, I were 
 endued with the faculty of absolutely creating them. For 
 instance, to attain some end, say, to make a metre to 
 remain without alteration during so many years, I need 
 a metal hard enough not to change during that number of 
 years, capable of resisting a certain degree of temperature, 
 and having so little marketable value as not to tempt 
 cupidity; and not finding this metal in nature, I produce 
 it by the aid of certain combinations. Is it not evident 
 that if I could produce it immediately, the operation would 
 remain the same 1 ? and this matter, once created, would still 
 have to be put in relation to the end, by adapting it, so that 
 the creation of the means in no way excludes the adaptation 
 of the means. Thus, granting that a given effect is an end 
 (which is the hypothesis allowed at present by common 
 consent), the production of the fit matter for this end is as 
 much the effect of foresight as the adaptation of it in this 
 manner would be. For, first, the production requires the 
 adaptation besides ; and, in the second place, that production 
 itself is already adaptation, for we must first choose this 
 matter, and then give it this form. Omnipotence being 
 able to create every kind of matter without end, to create 
 those that contribute to the end, and not others, is itself 
 an act of adaptation; and, so far as the previous con- 
 ception of the end should have determined this creation 
 
Janet 443 
 
 and not another, it is what we would call an act of fore- 
 sight. 
 
 2. To what extent, however, can the term foresight, or 
 intention, be here employed to represent the creative act 1 ? 
 This question may still be asked. The creative act is 
 absolutely one and indivisible; and, consequently, there can 
 be no distinction between a consequent and an antecedent 
 volition. That act not being in time, there is neither a post 
 nor an ante ; and our youngest scholars know that prescience 
 or prevision is only an immediate vision. That is true ; but 
 if, on the other hand, the act be considered, not in its super- 
 natural origin, but from the point of view of nature which 
 is subject to generation, the act will be decomposed into 
 diverse elements, and, so far as the last is called end and 
 recognised as such, the antecedents will be preordained in 
 relation to that end; and if the whole act be considered 
 as the act of an immediate knowledge or vision, the ante- 
 cedents, relatively to the consequents, will be legitimately 
 called acts of prevision. This will simply mean that no 
 blind cause can have produced such acts; that they are 
 acts of reason and of absolute reason; and that this 
 absolute reason, so far as it is regarded in its effects, 
 acts as if it were endued with foresight, prescience, and 
 intention. 
 
 We do not hesitate to declare that the doctrine of an 
 adequate conception of the absolute in the human mind 
 cannot be maintained in philosophy. To say that things 
 occur in the divine nature exactly in the way we conceive 
 them, would be to pretend that we can see God face to face, 
 which, according to theology, is only possible in the future 
 life. We only know God, according to Bacon, by a refracted 
 ray, which evidently implies under a point of view that 
 modifies the object, in other words, in a symbolic manner. 
 Thus we are not far from admitting with Kant that the 
 doctrine of intentional finality is a doctrine relative to the 
 
444 The Teleological Argument 
 
 mode of representation of the human mind, a hypothesis. 
 Things occur, we say, as if a supreme wisdom had regulated 
 the order of things. In these terms I do not believe that 
 any philosopher can dispute the results of Kant's criticism. 
 For what philosopher would ever dare to say, I know God 
 as He is in Himself? And yet this is what must be said, 
 if it be not granted that all our conceptions of God have 
 something relative and subjective belonging to the imperfec- 
 tion of our faculties. 
 
 But while Kant absolutely maintains the subjectivity of 
 human conceptions, and, enclosing us within an impassable 
 circle, leaves beyond it only an absolutely indeterminate sc, 
 we maintain, on the other hand, that these conceptions (when 
 they are the results of the right use of our faculties) are in 
 strict relation to things as they are in themselves, as the 
 stick broken in the water strictly corresponds to the real 
 stick, as the apparent heavens enable astronomers to discover 
 the laws of the real heavens. By analogy we maintain that, 
 if the highest manner of humanly conceiving the first cause 
 of finality is the hypothesis of a supreme wisdom, this con- 
 ception, to him who could penetrate to the deepest foundation 
 of things, would be strictly translated into an attribute corre- 
 sponding to the perfect being, so that goodness, wisdom, justice, 
 and, in general, what are called the moral attributes of God, 
 are not mere names relative to our way of feeling, but 
 symbols, approximations more and more faithful to the 
 absolute essence, considered in its relation to sensible 
 things. 14 
 
 14 What Janet is sayiiig here is, that when we have granted that our 
 view is relative to our own minds, and therefore is not adequately repre- 
 sentative of an infinite object, yet, so^ far as it goes, it is true. Not 
 only is it the best view that we can have, but what it represents is in 
 the object as well as in our own minds, and it tells us all about the 
 object that we need to know. Though relative, it is adequately rela- 
 tive. The position is of great importance, and we can find another 
 
Janet 445 
 
 Consequently these approximations (as symbols of the 
 absolute), assuming an objective and ontological character 
 not possessed by pure poetic fictions, which are absolutely 
 subjective, these approximations should be pushed as far as 
 possible, taking most carefully into account the two data of 
 the problem, on the one hand, the facts to be explained; 
 on the other, the nature of the absolute. Thus, foresight, 
 being given as the only attribute intelligible to us that can 
 explain the facts of finality, we ought, on the other hand, 
 to free it from all that is incompatible with the idea of the 
 absolute, and the residue of this operation will be the most 
 adequate possible expression, humanly speaking, of the 
 supreme cause of finality. 
 
 For instance, there is in human foresight a part that 
 evidently belongs to the imperfection of the creature, 
 namely, effort, groping, progressive and successive elabora- 
 tion. We are not, then, to imagine the absolute as com- 
 mencing by conceiving an end, then seeking means to realise 
 it, then finding them, and putting them successively in 
 operation. But is the idea of foresight bound to these 
 accidents that are peculiar to human imperfection 1 We may 
 apply to the attribute of the divine foresight what is habitu- 
 ally said of reasoning in God. Does God reason 1 No, it is 
 said, if by that is meant that God seeks to prove to Himself 
 
 statement of it in Janet's next chapter (ad finem) : "We are entitled to 
 believe that the highest hypothesis that the human mind can form 
 regarding the supreme cause of the universe would not be contradicted, 
 but would rather be confirmed and cleared of its obscurities, if it were 
 given to us, as the theologians say, to see God face to face by a direct 
 and immediate vision. Such a hypothesis may well be but an approxi- 
 mation to the truth, and a human representation of the Divine nature ; 
 but although inadequate to its object, it does not follow that it 
 is unfaithful to it. It is its projection into a finite Consciousness, its 
 translation into the language of men, which is all that philosophy can 
 demand," or theology either, according to all but extreme Mystics. 
 Cf. Selection from Thomas Aquinas. 
 
446 The Teleological Argument 
 
 a truth He did not know, and that He only discovers the 
 truth step by step. But, on the other hand, if He sees all 
 truths at a single glance, it is still the case that He sees 
 them in their dependence and objective subordination. He 
 sees the consequence in the principle, and distinct from the 
 principle; but this is the essence of reasoning. It is the 
 same with foresight. God sees all at one glance, but He 
 sees the means as distinct from the end, and as being sub- 
 ordinate to it, and that is the essence of foresight. From 
 the side of God there is thus only a single act : from the 
 point of view of things there are two, namely, the act that 
 perceives the end, and the act that distinguishes the means. 
 Consequently, placing ourselves in the point of view of things, 
 and by analogy with ourselves, we will call foresight the 
 view of the end, as it suggests the creation of the means, 
 or the view of the means, as it leads to the realisation of 
 the end. Thus it is that, in the single act of the divine 
 volition, theologians have been able to distinguish three 
 distinct acts, an antecedent volition, a consequent volition, 
 and a total volition, as mathematicians decompose a given 
 force into hypothetical forces, of which it would be the 
 result. 
 
 Thus the doctrine of the Nous, or of intentional finality, 
 has for us no other meaning than this, that intelligence is 
 the highest and most approximate cause we can conceive of 
 a world of order. All other causes, chance, laws of nature, 
 blind force, instinct, as symbolic representations, are beneath 
 the truth. If, however, it be maintained, with the Alexan- 
 drians, that the true cause is still beyond, namely, beyond 
 intelligence, beyond volition, beyond love, this may be quite 
 true, nay, we risk nothing in allowing that it is certain; for 
 the words of human speech are all inferior to the essence 
 of the absolute. But since this supreme and final reason is 
 absolutely beyond our grasp, it is useless to speak of it ; and 
 we have only to do with the highest manner of conception we 
 
Janet 447 
 
 can attain. 15 It is in this sense we say with Anaxagoras : 
 Novs Travra 
 
 References. Lotze's Microcosmus, Lange's History of Materialism 
 (in vol. iii.), and Paulson's Introduction to Philosophy. For a treat- 
 ment in English on similar lines to Janet's, and with at least equal 
 impressiveness of statement, see Professor Fraser's Philosophy of 
 Theism. Good brief expositions of Teleology are given in Mr. T. B. 
 Saunders, The Quest of Faith, 1899 ; Dr. Fisher, Grounds of Theistic 
 and Christian Belief, new ed. 1902, and Professor Bowne's Theism, 
 ed. 1902. 
 
 16 The conclusion is that Finality is intentional, in a way which 
 discloses Mind : that this is so even for external nature. Janet's 
 inquiry did not extend to the sphere of mind in the moral and 
 spiritual life, and the history of civilisation. He regarded the stress 
 of battle as lying in the area where the most plausible case could be 
 made for referring teleology to instinctive unconscious agency. If the 
 battle could be won there, the field of morals would be easily secured. 
 If external nature can be shown to require for its interpretation the 
 reference to a Mind other than itself, the inference will be easy when 
 we come to consider human nature with its sense of obligation and 
 duty, its ideals of justice and charity, its presumption of liberty of 
 will, both in individual life and in the institutions of society. 
 
XV. 
 RELIGION AS JUDGMENTS OF WORTH. 
 
 ElTSCHL (1822-1889). 
 
 ALBRECHT RITSCHL, who may be described as the chief and, 
 perhaps, the most interesting figure in the world of theology for 
 the past twenty-five years, deserves a place in a volume like 
 this, mainly on account of his reasoned and impressive attempt 
 to work out a new theological method. To some extent he 
 may be said to have built upon the foundations of Kant 
 and Schleiermacher, and in his later years the influence of 
 Lotze upon his thinking was easily traceable. Early in his 
 intellectual development, too, Ritschl had come into sym- 
 pathetic contact with nearly all the tendencies which have 
 helped to mould the higher thought of the age ; he is 
 indeed to a great degree an " epitome and reflection " of the 
 chief spiritual movements of his generation, though never 
 ceasing to preserve an extremely vigorous independence of 
 mind. Ritschlianism has a claim to general consideration for 
 the function it continues to discharge, in a time of intellectual 
 transition, as a missionary theology with a special attractive- 
 ness for minds that have been nourished upon science. 
 
 The most salient characteristics of the Ritschlian system, 
 viewed on its philosophical side, are the exclusion of meta- 
 physics from theology, the effort to dispense with specula- 
 tive Theism, the all but exclusively practical conception of 
 religion, and the strongly marked antithesis which is set 
 up between religious and theoretical knowledge. All these 
 features are obviously only different applications of a single 
 principle. While Ritschl is at one with Schleiermacher 
 in contending that the theologian must take his stand 
 upon the Christian experience, and find his materials in the 
 consciousness of redemption which is present in believing 
 
 448 
 
Ritachl 449 
 
 men, yet he is resolute in emphasizing the fact that in the 
 interpretation of Christianity we must recur at every point 
 to the definite historical revelation given in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. Not subjective experience, but revelation, thus 
 realised objectively in a fact of history, is the basal element 
 in Christianity. 
 
 The extracts from the great work on Justification and 
 Reconciliation, which we have given below, are chiefly designed 
 to put before the reader Ritschl's theory of religious know- 
 ledge as a system of value-judgments. In a well-known 
 passage he divides judgments into two classes theoretical 
 judgments, which predicate certain relations of the object as 
 it exists in its own nature, and value-judgments, which affirm 
 its value or worth for the percipient Self, according to the 
 pleasure or pain it excites. The former enter into science and 
 philosophy, the latter into ethics, aesthetics, and religion. It 
 is essential to observe that no adherent of this theory, in 
 any of its forms, would concede that value-judgments are 
 less objectively valid or certain than those assigned to the 
 theoretical class : it is only claimed that the mind reaches a 
 persuasion of their truth by a different avenue. And it is 
 contended, from the same point of view, that no propositions 
 should be given a place in theology except those which have a 
 distinctively moral and religious interest in other words, to 
 take the aptest illustration for our purpose, no Theistic proof 
 can be regarded as either cogent or apposite which does not 
 rest at bottom on the ultimate notion of worth. 
 
 Sympathetic discussion of these topics in the past few 
 years has had for its main object to dispel the air of sub- 
 jectivity and caprice which at first seemed to attach to value- 
 judgments, the real validity of which had been prejudiced by 
 certain inconsiderate expressions used in the first exposi- 
 tions of the theory. But it is increasingly felt that Ritschl, 
 aided by the large and enthusiastic school which rapidly 
 gathered round him, has done a very real service to 
 religious thought by the force and persistency with which 
 he has urged the truth that the apprehension of spiritual 
 realities is spiritually conditioned, even though his con- 
 ception of the significance of spirit may seem unduly narrow. 
 He has done this by proclaiming that faith and science appeal 
 to different interests and capacities in the mind of man, and 
 that " nothing worth the proving can be proven." 
 29 
 
450 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 Our extracts are taken from the Introduction and the 
 fourth chapter of The Christian Doctrine of Justification and 
 Reconciliation (a translation of vol. iii. of the original work, 
 containing Ritschl's own dogmatic system, and edited by 
 Mackintosh and Macaulay, T. & T. Clark, 2nd ed. 1902). 
 
 GOD NOT A METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTION. 
 From Introduction. 
 
 There are no sufficient grounds for combining a theory of 
 things in general with the conception of God. That is done, 
 however, when Aristotle gives the name God to the idea of 
 the highest end which he postulates as winding up the cosmic 
 series of means and ends, and so as an expression of the 
 unity of the world. This conjunction of the two forms the 
 content of the teleological argument for God's existence con- 
 structed by Scholastic theology. We have a similar case in 
 the cosmological argument. It exhibits a metamorphosis of 
 the Neoplatonic view of the world, which rests merely upon 
 the idea of things and their causal connexion. Now in 
 religion the thought of God is given. But the religious view 
 of the world, in all its species, rests on the fact that man in 
 some degree distinguishes himself in worth from the pheno- 
 mena which surround him and from the influences of nature 
 which press in upon him. 1 All religion is equivalent to an 
 explanation of the course of the world to whatever extent it 
 may be known in the sense that the sublime spiritual 
 powers (or the spiritual power), which rule in or over it, 
 
 1 This is the fundamental value -judgment which, for Ritschl, lies at 
 the basis of all religion. The objection has been urged, not quite 
 unreasonably, that such a view puts the world rather than God into 
 the place of primary importance as a religious incentive. (Cf. Orr, 
 The Ritschlian Theology and the Evangelical Faith, 1897, p. 70 ff.) 
 Religion has the appearance of a weapon at which man has grasped 
 in the struggle for existence. 
 
Ritschl 451 
 
 conserve and confirm to the personal spirit its claims and its 
 independence over against the restrictions of nature and the 
 natural effects of human society. Thus the thought of God, 
 when by the word is understood conscious personality, lies 
 beyond the horizon of metaphysic, as metaphysic is defined 
 above. 2 And both these proofs for God's existence, whose 
 construction is purely metaphysical, lead not to the Being the 
 idea of which Scholastic theology receives as a datum from 
 Christianity, but merely to conceptions of the world-unity 
 which have nothing to do with any religion. This use of 
 metaphysic, consequently, must be forbidden in theology, 
 if the latter's positive and proper character is to be 
 maintained. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL MOTIVE OF RELIGION. 
 From Chapter IV. 
 
 In every religion what is sought, with the help of the 
 superhuman spiritual power reverenced by man, is a solution 
 of the contradiction in which man finds himself, as both a 
 part of the world of nature and a spiritual personality claim- 
 ing to dominate nature. 3 For in the former role he is a part 
 of nature, dependent upon her, subject to and confined by 
 
 2 Founding upon a narrow and strained interpretation of Aristotle's 
 language, Ritschl defines metaphysics as the systematic investiga- 
 tion of the regulative conceptions of knowledge. In other words, 
 he identifies metaphysics with epistemology, and thus ignores the 
 data for metaphysical thought which are yielded, e.g., by ethics and 
 aesthetics. 
 
 3 This definition of religion, let it be remembered, is meant to be 
 "neither a statement of the common characteristics of all reli- 
 gions, nor a determination of the universal ideal of religion, but a 
 description of the tendency which in all religions finds more or less 
 adequate expression." Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, 2nd ed. 
 1902. 
 
452 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 other things ; but as spirit he is moved by the impulse to 
 maintain his independence against them. In this juncture, 
 religion springs up as faith in superhuman spiritual powers, 
 by whose help the power which man possesses of himself is in 
 some way supplemented and elevated into a unity of its own 
 kind which is a match for the pressure of the natural 
 world. 4 The idea of gods, or Divine powers, everywhere 
 includes belief in their spiritual personality, for the support 
 to be received from above can only be reckoned on in virtue 
 of an affinity between God and men. Even where merely 
 invisible natural powers are regarded as Divine, they are 
 conceived in a way analogous to that in which man dis- 
 tinguishes himself from nature. For the rest, the ease with 
 which definite stupendous natural phenomena, whether 
 beneficent or destructive, are personified, proves that it is in 
 the spiritual personality of the gods that man finds the foot- 
 hold which he seeks for in every religion. The assertion 5 
 that the religious view of the world is founded upon the idea 
 of a whole certainly holds true of Christianity : as regards 
 the other religions it must be modified thus far, that in them 
 what is sought is a supplementary addition to human self- 
 feeling or to human independence over against and above 
 the restrictions of the world. For in order to know the 
 world as a totality, and in order himself to become a 
 totality in or over it, by the help of God, man needs the 
 idea of the oneness of God, and of the consummation of 
 the world in an end which is for man both knowable 
 and realisable. But this condition is fulfilled in Christianity 
 alone. 
 
 4 I.e. it is constituted a self-enclosed and independent personal life, 
 a spiritual unity or whole, which, in contrast to the multiplicity of 
 the world of things, is sui generis. 
 
 5 Vide Lotze, Microcosmus (English translation), vol. ii. p. 577. 
 
Ritschl 453 
 
 THE PECULIAR CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 How, then, is religious knoiuledge related to theoretical 
 or philosophical knowledge] 6 This question, indeed, has 
 already been raised by the very fact of Greek philosophy ; 
 still, much more tangible and comprehensive reasons for 
 raising it are to be found in the mutual relations of Chris- 
 tianity and philosophy. Accordingly, it is best that we 
 should limit the question to Christianity in so far as it is a 
 religion, intelligible as such from the characteristics noted 
 above. The possibility of both kinds of knowledge mingling, 
 or, again, colliding, lies in this, that they deal with the same 
 object, namely, the world. 7 Now we cannot rest content 
 with the amiable conclusion that Christian knowledge com- 
 prehends the world as a whole, while philosophy fixes the 
 special and universal laws of nature and spirit. For with 
 
 6 It is because they are unanimous in using the idea of value- 
 judgments, as the feature by which scientific is to be differentiated 
 from religious knowledge, that the members of the so-called Ritschlian 
 school, amid much free and even wide internal divergence, may rightly 
 be viewed as a strong and distinctive ' ' movement " in present-day 
 theology. Among the more prominent members of the school may be 
 named Harnack, the well-known Church historian of Berlin, Kaftan, 
 Herrmann, Reischle, Loofs, Bornemann, and Haring. Already there 
 are signs that the company of Ritschl 's disciples must sooner or later 
 part into a " Right " and a " Left" wing, as happened in the case of 
 Hegelianism, according as the separate members of the party approach 
 or diverge from the expression which the Christian faith has received 
 in the historic creeds. See the works cited above, and cf. also Ecke, 
 Die theologische Schule Albrecht Ritschls, 1897, pp. 67-130. 
 
 7 On this point Ritschl wavered. The "amiable conclusion" with 
 which, he says, "we cannot rest content," was once his own, and is 
 expressed in the first edition (1874) of the work from which we are 
 quoting. Finally, though with curious and inconsistent reversions to 
 his earlier standpoint, he came to adhere to the view set forth in the 
 sentences which follow. 
 
454 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 this task every philosophy likewise combines the ambition to 
 comprehend the universe under one supreme law. And for 
 Christian knowledge, also, one supreme law is the form under 
 which the world is comprehensible as a whole under God. 
 Even the thought of God, which belongs to religion, is 
 employed in some shape or other by every non-materialistic 
 philosophy. Thus no principle of discrimination between the 
 two kinds of knowledge is, at least provisionally, to be found 
 in the object with which they deal. 
 
 Now, in order to elicit the distinction between the two 
 from the realm of the subject, I recall the twofold manner in 
 which the mind (Geist) further appropriates the sensations 
 aroused in it. They are determined, according to their value 
 for the Ego, by the feeling of pleasure or pain. 8 Feeling is 
 the basal function of mind, inasmuch as in it the Ego is 
 originally present to itself. In the feeling of pleasure or 
 pain, the Ego decides whether a sensation, which touches the 
 feeling of self, serves to heighten or depress it. On the other 
 hand, through an idea the sensation is judged in respect of 
 its cause, the nature of the latter, and its connexion with 
 other causes ; and by means of observation, etc., the know- 
 ledge of things thus gained is extended until it becomes 
 scientific. The two functions of spirit mentioned are always 
 
 8 In assigning so great, and so direct, an importance to the feeling of 
 pleasure and pain Ritschl shows clearly the influence of Lotze. Cf. 
 the latter's unequivocal declaration (Outlines of a Philosophy oj Reli- 
 gion, Conybeare's translation, p. 123) : " What we mean by value in 
 the world lies wholly in the feeling of satisfaction or of pleasure which 
 we experience from it." Later discussions have led to the drawing of 
 a necessary line of distinction between the feeling of worth and the 
 judgment of worth. The most careful treatment of the whole subject 
 is to be found in Reischle, Werturteile und Glaubensurteile, Halle, 
 1900. Cf. three articles by Professor Garvie in the Expositor for 1903, 
 under the title " The Value- Judgments of Religion," and a paper "On 
 the Judgment of Value," in Professor OIT'S JRitschlianism : Expository 
 and Critical Essays, 1903. 
 
Ritechl 455 
 
 in operation simultaneously, and always also in some degree 
 mutually related, even though it be in the inverse ratio of 
 prominence. In particular, it must not be forgotten that all 
 continuous cognition of the things which excite sensation is 
 not only accompanied, ,but likewise guided, by feeling. 9 For 
 in so far as attention is necessary to attain the end of know- 
 ledge, will, as representing the desire for accurate cognition, 
 comes in between ; the proximate cause of will, however, is 
 feeling as expressing the consciousness that a thing or an 
 activity is worth desiring, or that something ought to be put 
 away. Value-judgments therefore are determinative in the 
 case of all connected knowledge of the world, even when 
 carried out in the most objective fashion. Attention during 
 scientific observation, and the impartial examination of the 
 matter observed, always denote that such knowledge has a 
 value for him who employs it. This fact makes its presence 
 all the more distinctly felt when knowledge is guided through 
 a richly diversified field by attention of a technical or practical 
 kind. 
 
 But even if we have made up our mind that religious 
 knowledge in general, and therefore Christian knowledge 
 too, consists of value-judgments, such a definition is as 
 lacking in precision as it would be to describe philosophical 
 knowledge contrariwise as disinterested. For without interest 
 we do not trouble ourselves about anything. We have 
 therefore to distinguish between concomitant and independent 
 value-judgments. The former are operative and necessary 
 in all theoretical cognition, as in all technical observation 
 and combination. But all perceptions of moral ends or 
 moral hindrances are independent value-judgments, in so far 
 as they excite moral pleasure or pain, or, it may be, set 
 
 9 This seems to cast some doubt on the impartial objectivity even pf 
 scientific study. But elsewhere Ritschl corrects this impression by 
 insisting on the difference between the feeling of interest in knowledge 
 as such, and interest in particular conclusions. 
 
456 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 in motion the will to appropriate what is good or repel the 
 opposite. If the other kinds of knowledge are called "dis- 
 interested," this only means that they are without these 
 moral effects. But even in them pleasure or pain must be 
 present, according as they succeed or fail. Religious know- 
 ledge forms another class of independent value-judgments. 
 That is, it cannot be traced back to the conditions which 
 mark the knowledge belonging to moral will, for there exists 
 religion which goes on without any relation whatever to the 
 moral conduct of life. Besides, in many religions, religious 
 pleasure is of a purely natural kind, and is independent of 
 those conditions which lift religious above natural pleasure. 
 For only at the higher stages do we find religion combined 
 with the ethical conduct of life. Religious knowledge moves 
 in independent value - judgments, which relate to man's 
 attitude to the world, and call forth feelings of pleasure or 
 pain, in which man either enjoys the dominion over the 
 world vouchsafed to him by God, or feels grievously the lack 
 of God's help to that end. 10 This theory is almost more 
 easily intelligible if it be tested by religions which possess 
 no moral character. Orgiastic worships represent contend- 
 ing natural feelings with extraordinary intensity, and with 
 abrupt changes, in virtue of their recognition of the value 
 which the identity of the Godhead with the vegetation as 
 it decays and again revives, has for the man who modifies 
 his attitude towards the world of nature in sympathy with 
 the Godhead which he adores. The peculiar nature of reli- 
 gious value-judgments is less clear in the case of religions of 
 an explicitly ethical character. Nevertheless, in Christianity 
 we can distinguish between the religious functions which 
 relate to our attitude towards God and the world, and the 
 
 10 In this locus classicus we should note that the religious value - 
 judgment is viewed as being primarily, not upon God, but on the world 
 and our attitude to it. This order has generally been reversed by 
 Hitachi's followers. Of. p. 450, note *. 
 
Ritschl 457 
 
 moral functions which point directly to men, and only 
 indirectly to God, Whose end in the world we fulfil by 
 moral service in the Kingdom of God. In Christianity, the 
 religious motive of ethical action lies here, that the Kingdom 
 of God, which it is our task to realise, represents also the 
 highest good which God destines for us as our supramundane 
 goal. For here there emerges the value-judgment that our 
 blessedness consists in that elevation above the world in the 
 Kingdom of God which accords with our true destiny. This 
 is a religious judgment, inasmuch as it indicates the value 
 of this attitude taken up by believers towards the world, 
 just as those judgments are religious in which we set our 
 trust in God, even when He condemns us to suffering. 
 
 In its day the Hegelian philosophy represented theoretical 
 knowledge as not merely the most valuable function of spirit, 
 but likewise the function which has to take up the problem 
 of religion and solve it. To this Feuerbach opposed the 
 observation that in religion the chief stress falls upon the 
 wishes and needs of the human heart. 11 But as the latter 
 philosopher also continued to regard professedly pure and 
 disinterested knowledge as the highest achievement of man, 
 religion, and especially the Christian religion which he held 
 to be the expression of a purely individual and therefore 
 egoistic interest, and a self-delusion in respect of its object, 
 God was by him declared to be worthless, as compared 
 not merely with the knowledge of philosophic truth, but also 
 with purely moral conduct. But an interest in salvation in 
 the Christian sense, when rightly understood, is incompatible 
 with egoism. Egoism is a revolt against the common tasks 
 of action. Now, people might say that faith in God for 
 our salvation, and a dutiful public spirit towards our fellows, 
 have nothing to do with one another, and that therefore 
 
 11 Iii his Das Wesen des Christentums, which appeared in 1841, 
 and some years later was translated into English by George 
 Eliot. 
 
458 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 there is no conceivable reason why religion, as a rule, should 
 not be egoistic. But in Christianity, precisely, faith in God 
 and moral duty within the Kingdom of God are related to 
 one another. As a rule, therefore, it is impossible that 
 Christian faith in God should be egoistic. On the other 
 hand, theoretical knowledge in itself, as has been shown, is 
 not disinterested ; but moral conduct is still less so. For 
 in the latter domain the vital point is that one realises as 
 one's own interest the interest of others to whom the service 
 is rendered. The moral disposition can nowhere strike root 
 save in such motives. It is true that, contrary to the rule, 
 faith in God may be combined with egoistic arrogance 
 towards others. But the same danger attaches to both of 
 the other kinds of activity which have been compared. It 
 is possible for one occupied with theoretical knowledge to 
 be vain and haughty, and for one devoted to the moral 
 service of others to be tyrannical or sycophantic. 
 
 Scientific knowledge is accompanied or guided by a judg- 
 ment affirming the worth of impartial knowledge formed by 
 observation. In Christianity, religious knowledge consists 
 in independent value-judgments, inasmuch as it deals with 
 the relation between the blessedness which is assured by 
 God and sought by man, and the whole of the world which 
 God has created and rules in' harmony with His final end. 
 Scientific knowledge seeks to discover the laws of nature 
 and spirit through observation, and is based on the pre- 
 supposition that both the observations and their arrangement 
 are carried out in accordance with the ascertained laws of 
 human cognition. Now the desire for scientific knowledge 
 carries with it no guarantee that, through the medium of 
 observation and the combination of observations according 
 to known laws, it will discover the supreme universal law 
 of the world, from which, as a starting-point, the differenti- 
 ated orders of nature and spiritual life, each in its kind, 
 might be explained, and understood as forming one whole. 
 
Ritschl 459 
 
 On the contrary, the intermingling and collision of religion 
 and philosophy always arises from the fact that the latter 
 claims to produce in its own fashion a unified view of the 
 world. 12 This, however, betrays rather an impulse, religious 
 in its nature, which philosophers ought to have distinguished 
 from the cognitive methods they follow. For in all philo- 
 sophical systems the affirmation of a supreme law of exist- 
 ence, from which they undertake to deduce the world as a 
 whole, is a departure from the strict application of the 
 philosophic method, and betrays itself as being quite as 
 much an object of the intuitive imagination, as God and 
 the world are for religious thought. This is the case at all 
 stages and in all forms of Greek philosophy, especially in 
 those forms in which the ultimate universal grounds of 
 existence, through which the universe is interpreted, are 
 identified with the idea of God. In these cases the com- 
 bination of heterogeneous kinds of knowledge the religious 
 and the scientific is beyond all doubt; and it is to be 
 explained by the fact that philosophers, who, through their 
 scientific observation of nature, had destroyed the foundations 
 of the popular faith, sought to obtain satisfaction for their 
 religious instincts by another path. In a certain respect, 
 too, they were able to follow this tendency with especial 
 confidence, so far as they succeeded in making out the 
 unity of the Divine Being to be the ground of the universe. 
 But in another respect they failed to satisfy the essential 
 conditions of the religious view of the world, partly in so 
 far as they surrendered the personality of the Godhead thus 
 identified with the ground of the world, partly because they 
 had to give up the active influence of a personal God 
 upon the world. Nor, under these circumstances, could any 
 worship be deduced from the idea of God. Thus the collision 
 of Greek philosophy with the popular faith was twofold, 
 
 12 Here an old, and what Ritschl considers a superseded, view per- 
 sistently endeavours to reassert itself. Cf. p. 453, note 7 . 
 
460 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 and in both respects inevitable. For one thing, the actual 
 observation of nature and her laws is incompatible with the 
 religious combination of popular views of nature and the 
 idea of God. Further, the rigidly unified view of the world 
 held by philosophers is incompatible with the religious view 
 of the world which is only loosely developed in Polytheism. 
 But the real force of the latter incompatibility is to be 
 found in the fact that, under the guise of philosophic know- 
 ledge, what was really only the religious imagination has 
 been operative in designing the general philosophic view of 
 the world, the supreme principle of which is never proved 
 as such, but always merely anticipatively assumed. 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION FROM LUTHER. 18 
 
 That religious knowledge consists of value-judgments is 
 brought out in a felicitous way by Luther in his Larger 
 Catechism, in the explanation of the First Commandment : 
 "Deus est et vocatur, de cuius bonitate et potentia omnia 
 bona certo tibi pollicearis, et ad quern quibuslibet adversis 
 rebus ac periculis ingruentibus confugias, ut deum habere, 
 nihil aliud sit, quam illi ex toto corde fidere et credere. . . . 
 Haec duo, fides et deus, una copula coniungenda sunt." In 
 these sentences are expressed various truths, of which the 
 theology of the schools both earlier and later has taken no 
 account, and which its modern successors combat even yet. 
 Knowledge of God can be demonstrated as religious know- 
 ledge only when He is conceived as securing to the believer 
 such a position in the world as more than counterbalances 
 
 13 In this paragraph we find an admirable illustration of the 
 Ritschlian theory of religious knowledge. God, to the religious man, 
 is not a mere philosophical notion, but an intensely practical reality. 
 Whether Ritschl and his school are right in their interpretation of 
 Luther's theology is an interesting and hotly disputed point. 
 
Ritschl 461 
 
 its restrictions. Apart from this value-judgment of faith, 
 there exists no knowledge of God worthy of this content. 
 So that we ought not to strive after a purely theoretical 
 and "disinterested" knowledge of God, as an indispensable 
 preliminary to the knowledge of faith. To be sure, people 
 say that we must first know the nature of God and Christ 
 ere we can ascertain their worth for us. But Luther's insight 
 perceived the incorrectness of such a view. The truth rather 
 is that we know the nature of God and Christ only in their 
 worth for us. 
 
 IS THE IDEA OF GOD APPREHENSIBLE 
 BY SCIENCE? 
 
 When we mark the attitude taken up by the human spirit 
 towards the world of nature, two analogous facts present 
 themselves. In theoretical knowledge, spirit treats nature 
 as something which exists for it; while in the practical 
 sphere of the will, too, it treats nature as something which 
 is directly a means to the realisation of the common ethical 
 end which forms the final end of the world. The cognitive 
 impulse and the will both take this course without regard 
 to the fact that nature is subject to quite other laws than 
 those which spirit obeys, that it is independent of spirit, and 
 that it forms a restraint on spirit, and so far keeps it in a 
 certain way in dependence on itself. Hence we must con- 
 clude either that the estimate which spirit, as a power 
 superior to nature, forms of its own worth in particular, 
 the estimate which it forms of moral fellowship, which 
 transcends nature is a baseless fancy, or that the view 
 taken by spirit is in accordance with truth, and with the 
 supreme law which is valid for nature as well. If that be 
 so, then its ground must lie in a Divine Will, which creates 
 the world with spiritual life as its final end. To accept the 
 
462 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 idea of God in this way is, as Kant observes, practical faith, 
 and not an act of theoretical cognition. While, therefore, 
 the Christian religion is thereby proved to be in harmony 
 with reason, it is always with the reservation that know- 
 ledge of God embodies itself in judgments which differ in 
 kind from those of theoretical science. 14 
 
 The meaning, therefore, of this moral argument for the 
 necessity of the thought of God differs altogether from the 
 aim of the other arguments ; and for that reason the success it 
 attains surpasses that of the others. The cosmological and teleo- 
 logical arguments are intended to show that the conception of 
 God necessary to complete the circle of knowledge is similar 
 in kind to the results of science. A truth which for religious 
 faith is certain is thus proved, it is held, to be at the same 
 time the result of scientific cognition as it advances from 
 observation to observation and crystallises into conclusions, 
 and should be set up as the criterion of theological science. 
 But this method ends in failure, partly because neither argu- 
 ment takes us beyond the limits of the world, partly because 
 their pretended results, even if they were correct, differ from 
 the Christian conception of God in this, that they fail to 
 
 14 The question at issue in this important paragraph may be stated 
 thus : Can science furnish the idea of God ? Two conflicting strains of 
 thought, which we take to be indicative of the transition through which 
 Ritschl's mind was passing, may be differentiated here. On the one 
 hand, he still clings to the belief that it is possible to construct a valid 
 theoretical proof of God's existence on the lines of Kant's moral argu- 
 ment, in the sense that the Christian idea of God supplies a unifying 
 principle which science can accept as rationally accounting for the co- 
 existence of nature and spirit. On the other hand, he is growingly 
 certain that the idea of God "can be represented only in value- 
 judgments," and that science, therefore, as such, is incapable of 
 recognising or apprehending it. The first line of argument was 
 attractive, because it seems to vindicate the right of theology to 
 the name of science ; the second still more so, because it brings 
 into relief the fact that spiritual knowledge is wholly dependent 
 on faith. 
 
Ritschl 463 
 
 express His worth for men, and in particular His worth for 
 men as sinners. On the other hand, while Kant regards 
 practical faith in God, conceived as endowed with the attri- 
 butes which Christianity ascribes to Him, as necessary to 
 complete our knowledge of the world, yet he does not posit 
 this idea which is an object merely of practical faith, and 
 cannot be proved apart from such faith as a conception 
 which is theoretical or rational in the sense of general science. 
 On the contrary, he maintains it in its original and specific 
 character. Now it is the duty of theology to conserve the 
 special characteristic of the conception of God, namely, that 
 it can only be represented in value -judgments. 15 Con- 
 sequently it ought to base its claim to be a science, when 
 looked at in itself, on the use of the method described above, 
 and, when looked at in its relation to other sciences, by 
 urging that, as Kant was the first to show, the Christian view 
 of God and the world enables us comprehensively to unify 
 our knowledge of nature and the spiritual life of man in a 
 way which otherwise is impossible. When we have once got 
 a true conception of this point, a review of the moral con- 
 stitution of man, based upon the principles of Kant, will 
 serve as the ratio cognoscendi of the validity of the Christian 
 idea of God when employed as the solution of the enigma of 
 the world. 
 
 Preferences. The student should consult the books which have been 
 cited in the notes. In addition the following will be found useful : 
 Stahlin, Kant, Lotze, Albrecht Ritschl , English translation, 1889 ; Swing, 
 The Theology of Albrecht Ritschl, 1901 ; Pfleiderer, Development of 
 Theology in Germany and Great Britain ; Adams Brown, The Essence 
 
 15 This sentence may be called the theological motto of Kitschlianism. 
 The question still awaiting solution is whether, even if we grant that 
 judgments of science and judgments of faith spring from different and 
 equally valid interests, the unity of the mind does not necessarily 
 compel us to hold that they must be combined in our final view of 
 things. 
 
464 Religion as Judgments of Worth 
 
 of Christianity, 1902, chap. vii. (with an excellent bibliography) ; and 
 various articles in the American Journal of Theology, and Zeitschrift 
 fur Theologie und Kirche. There are many points of contact between 
 Eitschlian thought and that set forth in Sabatier's JEsquisse d"une 
 Philosophic de la Religion d'apres la Psychologic, et VHistoire, English 
 translation, 1897 (Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, based on 
 Psychology and History}. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABSOLUTE, expressed in Theistic terms. 
 
 See God. 
 Agnosticism, in Natural Theology, 
 
 Selection XI. 
 Albertus, teacher of Aquinas, 12 and 
 
 note. 
 
 Analogy, in theological argument, 
 Aquinas, 2 ; Kant, 216. 
 Hansel, 366 n. 
 Janet, 443-447. 
 Angelology, in Aquinas, 16. 
 
 in Schleiermacher, 288. 
 
 Anselm, Selection I. 
 A posteriori theistic proof, five ways of, 
 
 Aquinas, 3. 
 
 ,, theistic proof, in Des- 
 
 cartes, 57. 
 ,, theistic proof, slight use of 
 
 in Spinoza, 89. 
 
 ,, theistic proof, in cosmo- 
 logical and teleologi- 
 cal arguments, Kant, 
 200 ff. 
 
 ,, theistic proof, the teleo- 
 
 logical proof, Selection 
 XIV. 
 
 A priori theistic proof (and see Onto- 
 logical Argument), Anselm, 
 Selection I. 
 
 ,, theistic proof, Aquinas, 23. 
 
 ,, ,, Descartes, 65 ff. 
 
 ,, Spinoza, 1. 
 
 Kant, 190 ff. 
 
 ,, Kant's usage of term, 197 n. 
 
 3 
 
 Aquinas (St. Thomas of Aquino), Selec- 
 tion II. 
 
 Arabian Philosophy, 12 n. 
 
 Archetypal Intelligence, God as, 182, 
 186 n., 223 n. 
 
 Aristotle, influence in Scholasticism, 11. 
 ,, in Aquinas, Selection II. pas- 
 sim. 
 
 Art, analogies in nature, 216 f. 
 ,, philosophy of, Kant, 182, 239 11. 
 ,, the world a work of, Schleier- 
 macher, 257. 
 
 Attributes, Divine, Aquinas' canons of 
 predication, 2 ; Descartes, 54 ; 
 Spinoza, 1 and n. 8. 
 
 Authority, of God in conscience, Selec- 
 tion XIII. passim. 
 
 BEAUTY, as datum for Theism, in 
 Aquinas, 306 n. ; in John 
 Smith, 137 ; in Kant, 250 
 n. ; in Cousin, Selection 
 IX. 
 
 ,, the world a work of art, 257. 
 
 ,, Theistic reference rejected 
 by Martineau, 312 n., 
 387. 
 
 ,, Theistic reference rejected 
 by Newman, 312 n. 
 
 ,, a neglected factor in history 
 of Theism. See Notes to 
 Selection IX. 
 
 ,, in Nature, offered as Sub- 
 stitute for Theism, 435. 
 
466 
 
 Index 
 
 Berkeley, Selection VI. 
 Butler, differentiated from Kant, 220 n. 
 ,, his analogical argument pushed 
 further by Mansel, 366 n. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE Platonists, Selection V. 
 Causality, in reference to ideas, Des- 
 cartes, 44 ; Berkeley, 149 
 n. ; Martineau, 387 ff. 
 ,, in reference to existence, 
 Descartes, 50, 59 ; Kant, 
 251 f. 
 
 ,, as Theistic proof (cosmo- 
 logical), among Aquinas' 
 five ways, 3. 
 
 ,, as Theistic proof, Descartes, 
 cause of idea, 54 ff.; of 
 conservation, 59. 
 ,, as Theistic proof, Spinoza's 
 
 conception, 77, 88. 
 ,, as Theistic proof, Kant on, 
 200 ff., 241 ; involves 
 Ontological argument, 
 202 ff. 
 . , as Theistic proof, Martineau, 
 
 386. 
 as Theistic proof, faults of, 
 
 205 n. 
 
 Comte, Selection X. 
 Conception, contrasted with Percep- 
 tion, Descartes, 53. 
 or "notion," allowed for 
 
 Mind, not for Matter, 
 Berkeley, passim. 
 ,, not a ground for inference 
 
 to reality, Kant, esp. 
 195 n. 
 
 Conscience, inference from, Kant, 220 ff . ; 
 Martineau, 387 ff. See Moral Argu- 
 ment. 
 Contingency, disallowed by Spinoza, 
 
 97 n. 
 
 ,, meaning of, in Kant, 201. 
 
 Cosmological Argument. See Caus- 
 ality. 
 
 Cousin, Selection IX. 
 Creation, Aquinas, 24 n. ; Descartes, 
 59 n. ; Spinoza, 96, 98. 
 
 Creation, difficulty of belief in, Berke- 
 ley, 169. 
 ,, not a problem for Lotze, 
 
 380 n. 
 Cudworth, on Ontological argument, 
 
 68 n. 
 
 ,, as Cambridge Platonist, 
 
 114, 122 n. 
 
 DEISM, Aquinas, 24 n. 
 
 ,, as derived from Descartes, 74. 
 ,, charged upon Kant, 230 n. 
 ,, See Causality. 
 Demonstrative proof. See A priori and 
 
 A posteriori. 
 Design. See Teleology. 
 Doctrine, function of, in religion, 
 
 Schleiermacher, 273 n., 293 n. 
 Dualism, of mind and matter, Des- 
 cartes, 40 ; opposed, Ber- 
 keley, passim. 
 
 ,, of essential attributes, Spin- 
 oza, 86 n., 91 n. 
 
 ,, of theoretical and practical 
 Reason, Kant, 223 n. 
 
 EGOISM, not Berkeley's position, 148. 
 ,, advocated by Feuerbach, 
 
 457. 
 Eminenticevia, in Causality, Descartes, 
 
 passim. 
 Ens realissimum, in Kant, 184ff., 
 
 186 n. 
 Error, how explained, Descartes, 47, 
 
 62 ; John Smith, 130. 
 Eternity, prominent in Spinoza and 
 
 Sch leiermacher. 
 
 Ethical Theism, represented by Mar- 
 tineau, Selection XIII. ; cf. also 
 Kant, and see Moral Argument. 
 Evil, in relation to God, Aquinas, 5 ; 
 Spinoza, 4 ; Berkeley, 156, 161 ; 
 Janet, 429 n. 
 Evolution, in Aquinas, 27 n. 
 
 , , not welcomed by Martineau, 
 
 392 n. 
 
 ,, compatible with final 
 causes, Janet, 409. 
 
Index 
 
 467 
 
 Extension. See Matter. 
 
 External World, reality of, nearly dis- 
 solved, Descartes, 
 40, 53; his final 
 position, 74. 
 
 ,, ,, ideas presented by an 
 
 Eternal Mind, Ber- 
 keley, 147, 153, and 
 
 ,, ,, as problem of know- 
 
 ledge for Kant,183n. 
 
 FAITH, precedes Eeason, and follows it, 
 
 Anselm, 5. 
 ,, in relation to Keason, Aquinas, 
 
 |1. 
 ,, in revelation beyond natural 
 
 light, Descartes, 44. 
 ,, no separate Faith, Spinoza and 
 
 Martineau. 
 ., equivalent to Intuitive Reason, 
 
 John Smith. 
 ,, disallowed, Comte. 
 ,, gives objectivity of knowledge, 
 
 Lotze, 368. 
 ,, the only religious organ, Man- 
 
 sel, 361. 
 
 ,, the form of religious know- 
 ledge, Ritschl, passim. 
 Fatalism, how distinct from Spinozism, 
 
 99 n. 
 
 Feeling, modern usage of term, 376 n. 
 ,, prominent factor in religion, 
 Schleiermacher (especially), 
 Comte, Lotze, Ritschl. 
 ,, how attributable to God, 
 
 Aquinas, 4. 
 
 ,, not attributable to God, Spin- 
 oza, 4. 
 Foresight, implied in teleology, Janet, 
 
 441 ff. 
 
 Freedom, denied by Spinoza, 2 ; ex- 
 cept as rational v. emo- 
 tional, 5. 
 , , bound up with Moral Theism, 
 
 Martineau, 386, 406. 
 emphasised in religion, Rit- 
 schl, 262 n. 
 
 French thought, influenced by Des- 
 cartes, 73 n. , 74 ; represented by 
 Comte, Selection X. 
 
 GAUNILO, criticism of Anselm, 5. 
 God, as d priori necessity of thought, 
 Anselm. 
 
 ,, as Causal Being, known d posteri- 
 ori, Aquinas. 
 
 ,, as Causal Being, Descartes. 
 
 ,, as Perfect Being, ibid. 
 
 ,, as Substance, Spinoza. 
 
 ,, as Mystically known, J. Smith. 
 
 ,, as Eternal Mind, Berkeley. 
 
 ,, as Postulate of Practical Reason, 
 Kant. 
 
 , , as given in pious Feeling, Schleier- 
 macher. 
 
 ,, as Infinite Personality, Lotze. 
 
 ,, as Perfection, Martineau. 
 
 ,, as Supreme Beauty, Cousin. 
 
 , , replaced by Humanity, Comte. 
 
 ,, known in historical Revelation 
 only, Mansel. 
 
 ,, as Purposive Intelligence, Janet. 
 
 as Ground of Worth, Ritschl. 
 Goodness, an attribute of God, Aquinas, 
 
 36 ; Spinoza contra, 102 f. 
 
 HAPPINESS, in God, Aquinas, 4. 
 
 , , an element in the Summum 
 
 Bonum, Kant, 224 n., 
 228 ff. 
 
 ,, See Summum Bonum. 
 
 Hartmann, explains teleology by un- 
 conscious mind, 417. 
 Hedonism, to be excluded from religi- 
 ous judgments, Kant, 235 n. 
 Hegel, on Ontological Argument, 9, 
 
 199 n., 220 n. 
 ,, on teleology, 409 ff. 
 an intellectualist in Theism, 
 
 457. 
 
 ,, See Introduction, p. xiii. 
 Humanity, as subject of religion, 
 
 Comte, 317. 
 
 , . as object of religion, Comte, 
 
 317, 320 n. 
 
468 
 
 Index 
 
 Humanity, place of, in the Cosmos, 
 
 Comte, 324 ; Janet, 432 n. 
 Human Nature, the field of search for 
 God. See J. Smith. 
 Schleiermacher, 
 Lotze, Martineau, 
 Janet. 
 
 ,, ,, for religion, Comte. 
 
 Hume, awakened Kant to speculation, 
 
 180. 
 
 ,, on Ontological argument, 190 n. 
 ,, on Cosmological argument, 203 
 
 note. 
 his Dialogues, 216 n. 
 
 IDEA, meaning of, for Descartes, 45 ff. ; 
 
 for Berkeley, 148 f. 
 
 Imagination, compared with Reason, 
 Anselm, 4; Descartes, 48; Spin- 
 oza, 104. 
 
 Immanence, of God, Aquinas, 26 ; 
 Spinoza, passim ; cf. p. 205, n. 28, 
 and see also John Smith, Berkeley, 
 Kant, Schleiermacher, Cousin, Mar- 
 tineau, Lotze, Janet ; and cf. Deism, 
 Pantheism, Causality, Creation. 
 Immortality, as timelessness of mind, 
 
 Spinoza, 5. 
 a postulate of Practical 
 
 Eeason, Kant, 224 ff. 
 ,, may involve pre- exist- 
 
 ence, Kant, 225. 
 , doctrinal faith in, Kant, 
 
 227 n. 
 
 as timeless, Schleier- 
 
 macher, 301. 
 ,, subjective, Comte, 345 f., 
 
 347 n. 
 
 Individuality, prominent in John 
 Smith. See also Kant, 
 225. 
 subordinate in Comte, 
 
 321. 
 
 importance of, for 
 
 Schleiermacher, 
 285 ff. 
 
 ,, harmony between so- 
 
 ciety and, Comte,321 f. 
 
 Individuality, Martineau, 400 ff. 
 Infinite, positive character of, Des- 
 cartes, 54. 
 ,, substance as infinite, Spinoza, 
 
 82. 
 ,, religion as sense of the, 
 
 Schleiermacher, passim. 
 ,. negative idea of, in Mansel, 
 
 361. 
 Innate Ideas, usage in Descartes, 46, 
 
 61 ; in John Smith, 137. 
 Inspiration, as explanation of teleology, 
 
 423. 
 Instinct in nature, as substitute for 
 
 Intelligence. See Janet. 
 Intelligence, in God, Aquinas, 28 ; 
 
 Spinoza contra, 93. 
 ,, in God, primacy of, 
 
 Aquinas, 32. 
 
 Intellect, as contributory to Theism. 
 See Metaphysics, and a priori and 
 d posteriori proofs, and Reason. 
 Intellectualism, in religion, opposed by 
 
 Schleiermacher and Ritschl. 
 Intuition of God, John Smith, passim ; 
 Martineau. 387, 395. 
 
 JANET, Selection XIV. 
 
 KANT, Selection VII. 
 
 Knowledge, general theory of, Aquinas, 
 
 1 ; Descartes, 41 ff. 
 ,, three kinds of, Spinoza, 
 
 104 ; four kinds of, John 
 
 Smith, 130 ff. 
 
 a life, John Smith, 115 ff. 
 factors in, Kant, 180. 
 ,, religious and scientific, 
 
 Ritschl, passim. 
 ,, See Metaphysics, Intellect, 
 
 Reason, Faith. 
 
 LOTZE, Selection XII. 
 
 ,, on Ontological proof, 9 ; on Cos- 
 mological proof, 205 n. 
 Love, a Divine Attribute, Aquinas, 4 ; 
 Spinoza contra, 5. 
 
Index 
 
 469 
 
 Love, an element in religion, Comte, 
 
 332 ff. 
 
 ,, of God, intellectual, man's true 
 blessedness in, Spin- 
 oza, 104 f. 
 ,, how viewed in Schleier- 
 
 macher, 276 n. 
 
 Luther, illustration of value-judgments 
 from, 460. 
 
 MAN'S place in Nature. See Humanity. 
 ,, in Knowledge. See Human 
 
 Nature. 
 Materialism, derived from Descartes, 
 
 74. 
 
 repudiated by Kant, 243. 
 
 ,, See Matter. 
 
 Mathematical method, in metaphysics, 
 
 Descartes, 66 ; Spinoza, 76, 416 n. 
 Matter, refined into extension, Des- 
 cartes, 48 n., 53 n. 
 ,, in relation to mind, Descartes, 
 
 passim. 
 ,, (as Extension), an attribute of 
 
 Substance, Spinoza, 86. 
 ,, polemic against, Berkeley, 
 
 141 if. 
 
 ,, as alive (Hylozoism), 418. 
 Mechanism, subordinate function of, in 
 
 nature, Lotze, 368 f. ; Janet, 414. 
 Metaphysics, in relation to Theism, 
 primary in Anselm, 
 Aquinas, Descartes, 
 Spinoza, Berkeley, 
 Cousin. 
 ,, a co-ordinate factor, 
 
 Lotze. 
 
 ,, allowed in various ways, 
 
 but not primary, John 
 
 Smith, Kant, Schleier- 
 
 macher. 
 
 disallowed, Mansel, Kit- 
 
 schl. 
 
 Mind, in relation to matter. See es- 
 pecially Descartes and Ber- 
 keley. 
 
 ,, in relation to unconsciousness in 
 Nature. See Janet. 
 
 Monotheism, its historical position, 
 
 Comte, 319 ; Schleiermacher, 297. 
 Moral Argument for Theism, in Kant, 
 220 ff. ; in Mar- 
 tineau, Selection 
 XIII. 
 
 ,, ,, as supplementing 
 
 other arguments, 
 Kant, 243 ff. 
 
 ,, ,, Kant's view of, de- 
 
 veloped by Bitschl, 
 462. 
 
 , , , , not primary, Schleier- 
 
 macher, 261, 278. 
 
 ,, ,, See Ethical Theism. 
 
 Motion, argument from, Aquinas, 3 ; 
 
 Kant, 251. 
 Mysticism, represented by John Smith, 
 
 Selection V. 
 
 ,, an element in Schleier- 
 macher, 256, 267 n., 
 270 n. ; criticised 274. 
 ,, See Spinoza, ad fin. 
 ,, sympathy of Comte for, 
 
 332 n. 
 
 ,, in Martineau, 398. 
 Mythology, rejected by Schleiermacher, 
 275. 
 
 NAMES, predicable of God, Aquinas, 
 
 2. 
 
 Naturalism, as a philosophy, 324 n. 
 Natural light, of Reason, Descartes, 
 
 44 n. ; John Smith, 139. 
 Nature, stages of, Aquinas, 26. 
 
 , , dualism of Mind and Matter in. 
 
 See Descartes and Spinoza. 
 ,, as naturans and naturata, 
 
 Spinoza, 97 ; cf. 260 n. 
 ., Theistic symbolism of, Berke- 
 ley, 172. 
 ,, feeling for, a stage in religion, 
 
 Schleiermacher, 282. 
 ,, divinity of, Janet contra, 
 
 435 ff. 
 
 teleology in, Kant, 249. 
 Necessity, a characteristic of God, 
 Spinoza, 2. 
 
470 
 
 Index 
 
 Neoplatonism, in Scholasticism, 19. 
 
 , , in Cambridge Platonists, 
 
 passim. 
 
 Notion, of Mind and God, Berkeley, 
 149. See Conception. 
 
 ONTOLOGICAL Argument, Anselm, pas- 
 sim ; Aquinas contra, 
 14 n., 23; Descartes, 
 Med. V. with notes; 
 Spinoza, 1 ; criticised 
 by Kant, 190 ff., 240 f.; 
 rejected by Martineau, 
 400 n. 
 , Argument, three kinds of, 
 
 Spinoza, 86, 89 n. 
 5, reception of argument, 8. 
 
 Order. See Teleology. 
 
 PAIN, is it in God ? Berkeley, 162. 
 Pantheism, found in Spinoza's axioms, 
 
 79. 
 ,, not strictly attributable to 
 
 Spinoza, 96 n. 
 
 ,, generally. See Lotze, Se- 
 lection XII. 
 
 ,, changes in treatment by 
 Schleiermacher, Selection 
 VIII. passim. 
 Pathological, meaning of, for Kant, 
 
 222 n. 
 
 Personality of God, Aquinas, 4; 
 Spinoza contra, 3 ; in Kant, 230 ; 
 dubious in Schleiermacher, 257, 
 294 ff.; speculatively denied by Man- 
 sel, 360 ; a main position in Lotze, 
 passim,. 
 
 Personality, Human, appeal to whole 
 range of, required for religion. See 
 especially Schleiermacher, Comte, 
 Lotze. 
 
 Piety, as the religious attitude proper, 
 rather than knowledge. See 
 especially Spinoza, Schleier- 
 macher, Ritschl. 
 with marked ethical character, 
 
 Kant and Martin eau. 
 cf. also John Smith and Lotze. 
 
 Plastic Nature, as intermediate between 
 God and the world, Cudworth, 429 
 n. ; Berkeley contra, 160 ; Janet 
 contra, 420. 
 
 Pluralism. See Spinoza, 112 n. 
 Positivism, Comte, Selection IX. 
 Postulates, of Practical Reason, Kant, 
 
 224 n., 233. 
 ,, in lieu of constitutive ideas, 
 
 Kant, passim. 
 
 Practical Reason, is it one with theo- 
 retical ? Kant, 221 ff. 
 Predication, canons of, for Theism, 
 
 Aquinas, 2. 
 ,, turned against teleology, 
 
 440. 
 
 Proofs. See A priori and A posteriori. 
 Psychology, how rejected by Comte, 
 322 n. 
 
 REALITY, the Absolute or Supreme 
 
 reality. See God. 
 Reason, in relation to Faith. See Faith, 
 
 Revelation. 
 ,, in relation to sense-knowledge. 
 
 See Sense-knowledge. 
 ,, as knowledge under form of 
 eternity, Spinoza, 99, 104 n. 
 ,, as intuitive contemplation, 
 
 John Smith. 
 ,, relation of theoretical and 
 
 practical, Kant, 223, 231. 
 ,, in religious beliefs. See Intel- 
 lect, Knowledge, Feeling, 
 Mysticism, Revelation. 
 Regulative and constitutive principles, 
 
 Kant, 209. 
 ,, iisage reversed by Mansel, 
 
 366. 
 Religion, and theology, Spinoza, 112 ; 
 
 Kant, 250, 261 n. 
 
 ,, and morality, Kant, 232; 
 Schleiermacher, 261 ff., 
 278 ff. 
 
 ,, and knowledge. Schleier- 
 macher, 273 ff. 
 
 ,, fundamental motive of, Rit- 
 schl, 451 f. 
 
Index 
 
 471 
 
 Representative perception, theory of, 
 in Descartes, 43, 48. 
 ,, perception, assailed by 
 
 Berkeley, 163. 
 
 Revelation, as historical, insisted upon 
 by Schleiermacher and 
 Ritschl. 
 accepted, but regarded as 
 
 external, J. Smith. 
 the only source of Divine 
 
 knowledge, Mansel. 
 ,, and reason, Aquinas, 1 
 
 and 2. 
 ,, what doctrines passed over 
 
 to, Aquinas, 13. 
 
 ,, and natural light, Des- 
 cartes, passim ; J. Smith, 
 138. 
 ,, through symbolism of 
 
 nature, Berkeley. 
 ,, impossible on Hansel's 
 
 terms, 361. 
 Reverence, the religious sentiment, 
 
 Martineau, 398 n. 
 Ritschl, Selection XV. 
 Ritschlianism, connexion with Kant, 
 231 n., 236 n., 238 n., 243 n. ; with 
 Schleiermacher, 262 n. ; with Lotze, 
 382 n. 
 Roman See, official Natural Theology of, 
 
 11, 12. 
 
 ,, ,, why opposed to Descartes, 
 75. 
 
 SCHELLING, connexion with Schleier- 
 macher, 267 n. ; criticised by Lotze, 
 351. 
 Scholasticism, Selections I. and II. 
 
 , , elements of, in Descartes, 
 
 75. 
 general character of its 
 
 Theism, 37 f. 
 Schopenhauer, on teleology, 411 ff., 
 
 416. 
 Science and religion, Schleiermacher's 
 
 view, 262 ff. 
 
 Sciences, order of, and connexion with 
 metaphysics, Descartes, 73, 
 
 Sciences, order of, Comte ; and cf. 
 Schleiermacher's four cir- 
 cles, 282 n. 
 
 ,, separated from sphere of 
 piety and religion, Schleier- 
 macher and Ritschl. 
 Sense-knowledge, indispensable to man, 
 Aquinas, 14 ; Kant, 
 180. 
 ,, to be withdrawn from, 
 
 John Smith, 130 f. 
 ,, does not justify ma- 
 
 terialism, Berkeley. 
 ,, Kant's theory, 183 n. 
 
 Social, in relation to Individual. See 
 
 Individuality. 
 
 ,, how provided by Spinoza, 108. 
 ,, fundamental in Ritschl, 456- 
 
 457. 
 Sociology, Comte's form of Religion, 
 
 Selection X. 
 
 Solipsism, not Berkeley's position, 148. 
 Soul, not admitted by Spinoza, 100 n. 
 
 See Mind. 
 Spencer, connexion with Mansel, 361 n., 
 
 366 n. 
 
 Spinoza, Selection IV. ; and cf. especi- 
 ally with Schleiermacher. 
 ,, eulogy of, by Schleiermacher, 
 
 266. 
 
 Subjective Idealism, held by Kant, 180 ; 
 apparently Janet contra, 
 444. 
 
 effect of, on Theistic affirma- 
 tion, 239 n. 
 Sublime, in nature, Schleiermacher, 
 
 283. 
 
 ,, as Theistic datum, 309, 311. 
 Substance, as supreme category for God, 
 
 Spinoza, passim. 
 ,, only one exists, 81 ff. 
 ,, meaning of conception, 91 n., 
 
 112 n. 
 
 Summum Bonwn of man, includes 
 Amor and Beati- 
 tudo, Aquinas, 5. 
 
 ,, as intellectual love 
 
 of God, Spinoza, 5. 
 
472 
 
 Index 
 
 Summum Bonum, as union with God, 
 
 John Smith. 
 
 >, includes happiness 
 
 and virtue, Kant, 
 224 n., 228 ff., 232, 
 234. 
 
 jj > as service of hu- 
 
 manity, Comte. 
 
 Synthetic and analytic judgments, in 
 Kant, 194 f. 
 
 TELEOLOGICAL argument, Aquinas, 27, 
 30; absent in Descartes 
 and Spinoza; criticised 
 by Kant, 210 ff. ; de- 
 fended by Janet, pas- 
 sim. 
 
 , , argument, Kant's respect 
 
 for, 212, 242 ff. 
 
 argument, faults in, 
 
 215 n. 
 
 argument, moral, Kant, 
 
 248 f. 
 
 argument, fundamental 
 
 in Nature, Lotze, 
 369. 
 
 ,, argument, for conscious 
 
 finality, Janet, pas 
 sim. 
 
 argument, not merely 
 
 subjective, 443. 
 Transcendence. See Immanence. 
 
 new meaning since 
 
 Transcendental, 
 
 Kant, 189 n. 
 Transeunt action, denied of God, Spin 
 
 oza, 96. 
 
 UNCONSCIOUS Mind, as substitute for 
 Theism. See Janet. 
 
 VALUE- JUDGMENT, adumbrated in Kant, 
 238 n. ; in Schleier- 
 macher, 265 n. 
 
 j, its equivalent in 
 
 Martineau, 400 n., 
 403 n. 
 
 ,, developed by Eit- 
 
 schl, Selection XV. 
 
 Voluntarism, as related to intellectual- 
 ism, see Aquinas, 31 ; Descartes, 42, 
 63 ; Spinoza, 100 n. ; Kant, 236 n. 
 
 WILL, an attribute of God, Aquinas, 30, 
 32 ; Spinoza contra, 93. 
 
 ,, inseparable from intelligence, 
 Janet, 416 ff. 
 
 ,, See Voluntarism. 
 Wordsworth, his Theistic interpretation 
 
 of Beauty, 305-306. 
 World, not a necessity for God, Lotze, 
 
 376. 
 Worship, function of, in religion, Comte, 
 
 335. 
 Worth. See Value-Judgment. 
 
 Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, Edinburgh, 
 
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 MAY If, 1943 
 
 8 1963 
 
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