Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

LAST WORDS ABOUT AGNOSTICISM AND THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY

Those who expected from Mr. Harrison an interesting rejoinder to my reply, will not be disappointed. Those who looked for points skilfully made, which either are, or seem to be, telling, will be fully satisfied. Those who sought pleasure from witnessing a display of literary power, will close his article gratified with the hour they have spent over it. Those only will be not altogether contented who supposed that my outspoken criticism of Mr. Harrison’s statements and views, would excite him to an unusual display of that trenchant style for which he is famous; since he has, for the most part, continued the discussion with calmness. After saying thus much it may seem that some apology is needed for continuing a controversy of which many, if not most, readers, have by this time become weary. But gladly as I would leave the matter where it stands, alike to save my own time and others’ attention, there are sundry motives which forbid me. Partly my excuse must be the profound importance and perennial interest of the questions raised. Partly I am prompted by the consideration that it is a pity to cease just when a few more pages will make clear sundry of the issues, and leave readers in a better position for deciding. Partly it seems to me wrong to leave grave misunderstandings unrectified. And partly I am reluctant on personal grounds to pass by some of Mr. Harrison’s statements unnoticed.

One of these statements, indeed, it would be imperative on me to notice, since it reflects on me in a serious way. Speaking of the Descriptive Sociology, which contains a large part (though by no means all) of the evidence used in the Principles of Sociology, and referring to the compilers who, under my superintendence, selected the materials forming that work, Mr. Harrison says: —

Of course these intelligent gentlemen had little difficulty in clipping from hundreds of books about foreign races sentences which seem to support Mr. Spencer’s doctrines. The whole proceeding is too much like that of a famous lawyer who wrote a law book, and then gave it to his pupils to find the “cases” which supported his law.

Had Mr. Harrison observed the dates, he would have seen that since the compilation of the Descriptive Sociology was commenced in 1867 and the writing of the Principles of Sociology in 1874, the parallel he draws is not altogether applicable: the fact being that the Descriptive Sociology was commenced seven years in advance for the purpose (as stated in the preface) of obtaining adequate materials for generalizations: sundry of which, I may remark in passing, have been quite at variance with my pre-conceptions.62 I think that on consideration, Mr. Harrison will regret having made so grave an insinuation without very good warrant; and he has no warrant. Charity would almost lead one to suppose that he was not fully conscious of its implications when he wrote the above passage; for he practically cancels them immediately afterwards. He says: – “But of course one can find in this medley of tables almost any view. And I find facts which make for my view as often as any other.” How this last statement consists with the insinuation that what Mr. Harrison calls a “medley” of tables contains evidence vitiated by special selection of facts, it is difficult to understand. If the purpose was to justify a foregone conclusion, how does it happen that there are (according to Mr. Harrison) as many facts which make against it as there are facts which make for it?

The question here incidentally raised concerns the primitive religious idea. Which is the original belief, fetichism or the ghost-theory? The answer should profoundly interest all who care to understand the course of human thought; and I shall therefore not apologize for pursuing the question a little further.

Having had them counted, I find that in those four parts of the Descriptive Sociology which give accounts of the uncivilized races, there are 697 extracts which refer to the ghost-theory: illustrating the belief in a wandering double which goes away during sleep, or fainting, or other form of insensibility, and deserts the body for a longer period at death, – a double which can enter into and possess other persons, causing disease, epilepsy, insanity, etc., which gives rise to ideas of spirits, demons, etc., and which originates propitiation and worship of ghosts. On the other hand there are 87 extracts which refer to the worship of inanimate objects or belief in their supernatural powers. Now even did these 87 extracts support Mr. Harrison’s view, this ratio of 8 to 1 would hardly justify his statement that the facts “make for my [his] view as often as any other.” But these 87 extracts do not make for his view. To get proof that the inanimate objects are worshipped for themselves simply, instances must be found in which such objects are worshipped among peoples who have no ghost-theory; for wherever the ghost-theory exists it comes into play and originates those supernatural powers which certain objects are supposed to have. When by unrelated tribes scattered all over the world, we find it held that the souls of the dead are supposed to haunt the neighboring forests – when we learn that the Karen thinks “the spirits of the departed dead crowd around him;”63 that the Society Islanders imagined spirits “surrounded them night and day watching every action;”64 that the Nicobar people annually compel “all the bad spirits to leave the dwelling;”65 that an Arab never throws anything away without asking forgiveness of the Efrits he may strike;66 and that the Jews thought it was because of the multitudes of spirits in synagogues that “the dress of the Rabbins become so soon old and torn through their rubbing;”67 when we find the accompanying belief to be that ghosts or spirits are capable of going into, and emerging from, solid bodies in general, as well as the bodies of the quick and the dead; it becomes obvious that the presence of one of these spirits swarming around, and capable of injuring or benefiting living persons, becomes a sufficient reason for propitiating an object it is assumed to have entered: the most trivial peculiarity sufficing to suggest possession – such possession being, indeed, in some cases conceived as universal, as by the Eskimo, who think every object is ruled by “its or his, inuk, which word signifies “man,” and also owner or inhabitant.”68 Such being the case, there can be no proof that the worship of the objects themselves was primordial, unless it is found to exist where the ghost-theory has not arisen; and I know no instance showing that it does so. But while those facts given in the Descriptive Sociology which imply worship of inanimate objects, or ascription of supernatural powers to them, fail to support Mr. Harrison’s view, because always accompanied by the ghost-theory, sundry of them directly negative his view. There is the fact that an echo is regarded as the voice of the fetich; there is the fact that the inhabiting spirit of the fetich is supposed to “enjoy the savory smell” of meat roasted before it; and there is the fact that the fetich is supposed to die and may be revived. Further, there is the summarized statement made by Beecham, an observer of fetichism in the region where it is supposed to be specially exemplified, who says that: —

The fetiches are believed to be spiritual, intelligent beings, who make the remarkable objects of nature their residence, or enter occasionally into the images and other artificial representations, which have been duly consecrated by certain ceremonies… They believe that these fetiches are of both sexes, and that they require food.

These statements are perfectly in harmony with the conclusion that fetichism is a development of the ghost-theory, and altogether incongruous with the interpretation of fetichism which Mr. Harrison accepts from Comte.

Already I have named the fact that Dr. Tylor, who has probably read more books about uncivilized peoples than any Englishman living or dead, has concluded that fetichism is a form of spirit-worship, and that (to give quotations relevant to the present issue)

To class an object as a fetish, demands explicit statement that a spirit is considered as embodied in it or acting through it or communicating by it.69

… A further stretch of imagination enables the lower races to associate the souls of the dead with mere objects.70

… The spirits which enter or otherwise attach themselves to objects may be human souls. Indeed, one of the most natural cases of the fetish-theory is when a soul inhabits or haunts the relics of its former body.71

Here I may add an opinion to like effect which Dr. Tylor quotes from the late Prof. Waitz, also an erudite anthropologist. He says: —

“According to his [the negro’s] view, a spirit dwells or can dwell in every sensible object, and often a very great and mighty one in an insignificant thing. This spirit he does not consider as bound fast and unchangeably to the corporeal thing it dwells in, but it has only its usual or principal abode in it.”72

Space permitting I might add evidence furnished by Sir Alfred Lyall, who, in his valuable papers published in the Fortnightly Review years ago on religion in India, has given the results of observations made there. Writing to me from the North-West provinces under date August 1, in reference to the controversy between Mr. Harrison and myself, he incloses copies of a letter and accompanying memorandum from the magistrate of Gorakhpur, in verification of the doctrine that ghost-worship is the “chief source and origin” of religion. Not, indeed, that I should hope by additional evidences to convince Mr. Harrison. When I point to the high authority of Dr. Tylor as on the side of the ghost-theory, Mr. Harrison says – “If Dr. Tylor has finally adopted it, I am sorry.” And now I suppose that when I cite these further high authorities on the same side, he will simply say again “I am sorry,” and continue to believe as before.

In respect of the fetichism distinguishable as nature-worship, Mr. Harrison relies much on the Chinese. He says: —

The case of China is decisive. There we have a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained. It rests entirely on worship of Heaven, and Earth, and objects of Nature, regarded as organized beings, and not as the abode of human spirits.

Had I sought for a case of “a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained,” which illustrates origin from the ghost-theory, I should have chosen that of China; where the State-religion continues down to the present day to be an elaborate ancestor-worship, where each man’s chief thought in life is to secure the due making of sacrifices to his ghost after death, and where the failure of a first wife to bear a son who shall make these sacrifices, is held a legitimate reason for taking a second. But Mr. Harrison would, I suppose, say that I had selected facts to fit my hypothesis. I therefore give him, instead, the testimony of a bystander. Count D’Alviella has published a brochure concerning these questions on which Mr. Harrison and I disagree.73 In it he says on page 15: —

La thèse de M. Harrison, au contraire, – que l’homme aurait commencé par l’adoration d’objets matériels “franchement regardés comme tels,” – nous paraît absolument contraire au raisonnement et à l’observation. Il cite, à titre d’exemple, l’antique religion de la Chine, “entièrement basée sur la vénération de la Terre, du Ciel et des Ancêtres, considérés objectivement et non comme la residence d’êtres immatériels.” [This sentence is from Mr, Harrison’s first article, not from his second.] C’est là jouer de malheur, car, sans même insister sur ce que peuvent être des Ancêtres “considérés objectivement,” il se trouve précisément que la religion de l’ancien empire Chinois est le type le plus parfait de l’animisme organise et qu’elle regarde même les objets matériels, dont elle fait ses dieux, comme la manifestation inséparable, l’enveloppe ou même le corps d’esprits invisibles. [Here in a note Count D’Alviella refers to authorities, notamment Tiele, Manuel de l’Histoire des Religions, traduit par M. Maurice Vernes, Liv. II, et dans la Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, la Religion de l’ancien empire Chinois par M. Julius Happel (t. IV. no. 6).]

Whether Mr. Harrison’s opinion is or is not changed by this array of counter-opinion, he may at any rate be led somewhat to qualify his original statement that “Nothing is more certain than that man everywhere started with a simple lead worship of natural objects.”

I pass now to Mr. Harrison’s endeavor to rebut my assertion that he had demolished a simulacrum and not the reality.

I pointed out that he had inverted my meaning by representing as negative that which I regarded as positive. What I have everywhere referred to as the All-Being, he named the All-Nothingness. What answer does he make when I show that my position is exactly the reverse of that alleged? He says that while I am “dealing with transcendental conceptions, intelligible only to certain trained metaphysicians,” he is “dealing with religion as it affects the lives of men and women in the world;” that “to ordinary men and women, an unknowable and inconceivable Reality is practically an Unreality;” and that thus all he meant to say was that the “Everlasting Yes” of the “evolutionist,” “is in effect on the public a mere Everlasting No,” (p. 354). Now compare these passages in his last article with the following passages in his first article: – “One would like to know how much of the Evolutionist’s day is consecrated to seeking the Unknowable in a devout way, and what the religious exercises might be. How does the man of science approach the All-Nothingness” (p. 502)? Thus we see that what was at first represented as the unfitness of the creed considered as offered to the select is now represented as its unfitness considered as offered to the masses. What were originally the “Evolutionist” and the “man of science” are now changed into “ordinary men and women” and “the public;” and what was originally called the All-Nothingness has become an “inconceivable Reality.” The statement which was to be justified is not justified but something else is justified in its stead.

Thus is it, too, with the paragraph in which Mr. Harrison seeks to disprove my assertion that he had exactly transposed the doctrines of Dean Mansel and myself, respecting our consciousness of that which transcends perception. He quotes his original words, which were “there is a gulf which separates even his all-negative deity from Mr. Spencer’s impersonal, unconscious, unthinkable Energy.” And he then goes on to say “I was speaking of Mansel’s Theology, not of his Ontology. I said “deity,” not the Absolute.” Very well; now let us see what this implies. Mansel, as I was perfectly well aware, supplements his ontological nihilism with a theological realism. That which in his ontological argument he represents as a mere “negation of conceivability,” he subsequently re-asserts on grounds of faith, and clothes with the ordinarily-ascribed divine attributes. Which of these did I suppose Mr. Harrison meant by “all-negative deity”? I was compelled to conclude he meant that which in the ontological argument was said to be a “negation of conceivability.” How could I suppose that by “all-negative deity” Mr. Harrison meant the deity which Dean Mansel as a matter of “duty” rehabilitates and worships in his official capacity as priest. It was a considerable stretch of courage on the part of Mr. Harrison to call the deity of the established church an “all-negative deity.” Yet in seeking to escape from the charge of misrepresenting me he inevitably does this by implication.

In his second article Mr. Harrison does not simply ascribe to me ideas which are wholly unlike those my words express, but he ascribes to me ideas I have intentionally excluded. When justifying my use of the word “proceed,” as the most colorless word I could find to indicate the relation between the knowable manifestations present to perception and the Unknowable Reality which transcends perception, I incidentally mentioned, as showing that I wished to avoid those theological implications which Mr. Harrison said were suggested, that the words originally written were “created and sustained;” and that though in the sense in which I used them the meanings of these words did not exceed my thought, I had erased them because “the ideas” associated with these words might mislead. Yet Mr. Harrison speaks of these erased words as though I had finally adopted them, and saddles me with the ordinary connotations. If Mr. Harrison defends himself by quoting my words to the effect that the Inscrutable Existence manifested through phenomena “stands towards our general conception of things in substantially the same relation as does the Creative Power asserted by Theology;” then I point to all my arguments as clearly meaning that when the attributes and the mode of operation ordinarily ascribed to “that which lies beyond the sphere of sense” cease to be ascribed, “that which lies beyond the sphere of sense” will bear the same relation as before to that which lies within it, in so far that it will occupy the same relative position in the totality of our consciousness: no assertion being made concerning the mode of connexion of the one with the other. Surely when I have deliberately avoided the word “create” to express the connexion between noumenal cause and the phenomenal effect, because it might suggest the ordinary idea of a creating power separate from the created thing, Mr. Harrison was not justified in basing arguments against me on the assumption that I had used it.

But the course in so many cases pursued by him of fathering upon me ideas incongruous with those I have expressed, and making me responsible for the resulting absurdities, is exhibited in the most extreme degree, by the way in which he has built up for me a system of beliefs and practices. In his first article occur such passages as – “seeking the Unknowable in a devout way” (p. 502); can anyone “hope anything of the Unknowable or find consolation therein?” (p. 503); and to a grieving mother he represents me as replying to assuage her grief, “Think on the Unknowable” (p. 503). Similarly in his second article he writes “to tell them that they are to worship this Unknowable is equivalent to telling them to worship nothing” (p. 357); “the worship of the Unknowable is abhorrent to every instinct of genuine religion” (p. 360); “praying to the Unknowable at home” (p. 376); and having in these and kindred ways fashioned for me the observances of a religion which he represents me as “proposing,” he calls it “one of the most gigantic paradoxes in the history of thought” (p. 355). So effectually has Mr. Harrison impressed everybody by these expressions and assertions, that I read in a newspaper – “Mr. Spencer speaks of the ‘absurdities of the Comtean religion,’ but what about his own peculiar cult?”

Now the whole of this is a fabric framed out of Mr. Harrison’s imaginations. I have nowhere “proposed” any object of religion.” I have nowhere suggested that anyone should “worship this Unknowable.” No line of mine gives ground for inquiring how the Unknowable is to be sought “in a devout way,” or for asking what are “the religious exercises;” nor have I suggested that anyone may find “consolation therein.” Observe the facts. At the close of my article “Religion; a Retrospect and Prospect,” I pointed out to “those who think that science is dissipating religious beliefs and sentiments” that whatever of mystery is taken from the old interpretation is added to the new;” increase rather than diminution being the result. I said that in perpetually extending our knowledge of the Universe, concrete science “enlarges the sphere for religious sentiment;” and that progressing knowledge is “accompanied by an increasing capacity for wonder.” And in my second article, in further explanation, I have represented my thesis to be “that whatever components of this [the religious] sentiment disappear, there must ever survive those which are appropriate to the consciousness of a Mystery that cannot be fathomed and a Power that is omnipresent.” This is the sole thing for which I am responsible. I have advocated nothing; I have proposed no worship; I have said nothing about “devotion,” or “prayer,” or “religious exercises,” or “hope,” or “consolation.” I have simply affirmed the permanence of certain components in the consciousness which “is concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense.” If Mr. Harrison says that this surviving sentiment is inadequate for what he thinks the purposes of religion, I simply reply – I have said nothing about its adequacy or inadequacy. The assertion that the emotions of awe and wonder form but a fragment of religion, leaves me altogether unconcerned: I have said nothing to the contrary. If Mr. Harrison sees well to describe the emotions of awe and wonder as “some rags of religious sentiment surviving” (p. 358), it is not incumbent on me to disprove the fitness of his expression. I am responsible for nothing whatever beyond the statement that these emotions will survive. If he shows this conclusion to be erroneous, then indeed he touches me. This, however, he does not attempt. Recognizing though he does that this is all I have asserted, and even exclaiming “is that all!” (p. 358) he nevertheless continues to father upon me a number of ideas quoted above, which I have neither expressed nor implied, and asks readers to observe how grotesque is the fabric formed of them.

I enter now on that portion of Mr. Harrison’s last article to which is specially applicable its title “Agnostic Metaphysics.” In this he recalls sundry of the insuperable difficulties set forth by Dean Mansel, in his Bampton Lectures, as arising when we attempt to frame any conception of that which lies beyond the realm of sense. Accepting, as I did, Hamilton’s general arguments, which Mansel applied to theological conceptions, I contended in First Principles that their arguments are valid, only on condition that that which transcends the relative is regarded not as negative, but as positive; and that the relative itself becomes unthinkable as such in the absence of a postulated non-relative. Criticisms on my reasoning allied to those made by Mr. Harrison, have been made before, and have before been answered by me. To an able metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, I made a reply which I may be excused here for reproducing, as I cannot improve upon it: —