The Contemporary Review, January 1883

Cardinal Newman, in writing to me a few weeks ago, suggests the pregnant inquiry, "Which is the greater assumption? that we can do without religion, or that we can find a substitute for Christianity?" I have hitherto been surveying the substitute for Christianity which the author of "Ecce Homo" has exhibited to the world in his new book. I shall now briefly consider the question whether the need for such a substitute does in truth exist. The book, as I have already more than once noted, assumes that it does. It takes "the scientific view frankly at its worst"40 as throwing discredit upon the belief "that a Personal Will is the cause of the Universe, that that Will is perfectly benevolent, that that Will has sometimes interfered by miracles with the order of the Universe," which three propositions are considered by its author to sum up the theological view of the universe. "If," he writes, "these propositions exhaust [that view] and science throws discredit upon all of them, evidently theology and science are irreconcilable, and the contest between them must end in the destruction of one or the other" (p. 13). I remark in passing, first, that no theologian—certainly no Catholic theologian—would accept these three propositions as exhausting the theological view of the universe; and secondly, that if we were obliged to admit that physical science throws discredit upon that view, it would by no means necessarily follow that physical science and theology are irreconcilable, for ampler knowledge might remove the discredit.

"What do we see? Each man a space,Of some few yards before his face.Can that the whole wide plan explain?Ah no! Consider it again."

But is it true, as a matter of fact, that physical science throws discredit upon these three propositions? Let us examine this question a little. I must of necessity be brief in the limits to which I am here confined, and I must use the plainest language, for I am writing not for the school but for the general reader. Brevity and plainness of speech do not, however, necessarily imply superficiality, which, in truth, is not unfrequently veiled by a prolix parade of pompous technicalities.

First, then, as to causation. The shepherd in the play, when asked by Touchstone, "Hast any philosophy in thee?" replies, "No more but that I know that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun," and upon the strength of this knowledge is pronounced by the clown to be "a natural philosopher." Well, is not in truth the "science" of the mere physicist, however accomplished, in pari materia with that of honest Corin? He observes certain sequences of facts, certain antecedents and consequents, but of the nexus between them he knows no more than the most ignorant and foolish of peasants. He talks, indeed, of the laws of Nature, but the expression, convenient as it is in some respects, and true as it is in a sense—and that the highest—is extremely likely to mislead, as he uses it ordinarily. What he calls a law of Nature is only an induction from observed phenomena, a formula which serves compendiously to express them. As Dr. Mozley has well observed in his Bampton Lectures, "we only know of law in Nature, in the sense of recurrences in Nature, classes of facts, like facts in Nature:"41

"In vain the sage with retrospective eyeWould from the apparent what conclude the why;"

physical "science has itself proclaimed the truth that we see no causes in nature"42—that is to say, in the phenomena of the external world, taken by themselves. We read in Bacci's "Life of St. Philip Neri" that the Saint drew men to the service of God by such a subtle irresistible influence as caused those who watched him to cry out in amazement, "Father Philip draws souls, as the magnet draws iron." The most accomplished master of natural science is as little competent to explain the physical attraction as he is to explain the spiritual. He cannot get behind the fact, and if you press him for the reason of it—if you ask him why the magnet draws iron—the only reason he has to give you is, "Because it does." It is just as true now as it was when Bishop Butler wrote in the last century that "the only distinct meaning of the word [natural] is, stated, fixed, or settled," and it is hard to see how he can be refuted when, travelling beyond the boundaries of physics, he goes on to add, "What is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so—i.e., to effect it continually, or at stated times—as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."43 Then, again, the indications of design in the universe may well speak to us of a Designer, as they spoke three thousand years ago to the Hebrew poet who wrote the Psalm "Cœli enarrant," as they spoke but yesterday to the severely disciplined intellect of John Stuart Mill, who, brushing aside the prepossessions and prejudices of a lifetime, has recorded his deliberate judgment that "there is a large balance in favour of the probability of creation by intelligence."44 Sir William Thomson, no mean authority upon a question of physical science, goes further, and speaks not of "a large balance of probability," but of "overpowering proofs." "Overpowering proofs," he told the British Association, "of intelligence and benevolent design, lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler."45 And, once more, it is indubitable that matter is inert until acted upon by force, and that we have no knowledge of any other primary46 cause of force than will. Whence, as Mr. Wallace argues in his well-known work, "it does not seem improbable that all force may be will-force, and that the whole universe is not merely dependent upon, but actually is, the will of higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence."47

If then things are so—as who can disprove?—we may reasonably demur to the assertion that physical science throws discredit upon the position that a Personal Will is the cause of the universe. Let us now glance at the last of the propositions supposed to be condemned by the researches of the physicists—namely, that this Personal Will has sometimes interfered by miracles with the order of the universe. Now, here, as I intimated in an earlier portion of this article, I find myself at variance with the author of "Natural Religion" upon a question, and a very important question, of terminology. I do not regard the supernatural as an interference with, or violation of, the order of the universe. I adopt, unreservedly, the doctrine that "nothing is that errs from law." The phenomena which we call supernatural and those which we call natural, I view as alike the expression of the Divine Will: a Will which acts not capriciously, nor, as the phrase is, arbitrarily, but by law, "attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia." And so the theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine Reason. Thus St. Augustine, "Lex æterna est ratio divina vel voluntas Dei,"48 and St. Thomas Aquinas, "Lex æterna summa ratio in Deo existens."49 It is by virtue of this law that the sick are healed, whether by the prayer of faith or the prescription of a physician, by the touch of a relic or by a shock from a galvanic battery; that the Saint draws souls and that the magnet draws iron. The most ordinary so-called "operations of Nature" may be truly described in the words of St. Gregory as God's daily miracles;50 and those events, commonly denominated miraculous, of which we read in the Sacred Scriptures, in the Lives of the Saints, and elsewhere, may as truly be called natural, using the word in what, as I just now observed, Bishop Butler notes as its only distinct meaning—namely, stated, fixed, or settled;51 for they are the normal manifestations of the order of Grace—an order external to us, invisible, inaccessible to our senses and reasonings, but truly existing and governed by laws, which, like the laws of the physical and the intellectual order, are ordained by the Supreme Lawgiver. Once purge the mind of anthropomorphic conceptions as to the Divine Government, and the notion of any essential opposition between the natural and the supernatural disappears. Sanctity, which means likeness to God, a partaking of the Divine nature, is as truly a force as light or heat, and enters as truly into the great order of the universe. There is a passage in M. Renan's "Vie de Jésus" worth citing in this connection. "La nature lui obéit," he writes; "mais elle obéit aussi à quiconque croit et prie; la foi peut tout. Il faut se rappeler que nulle idée des lois de la nature ne venait, dans son esprit ni dans celui de ses auditeurs, marquer la limite de l'impossible.... Ces mots de 'surhumain' et de 'surnaturel,' empruntés à notre théologie mesquine, n'avaient pas de sens dans la haute conscience religieuse de Jésus. Pour lui, la nature et le développement de l'humanité n'étaient pas des règnes limités hors de Dieu, de chétives réalités assujetties aux lois d'un empirisme désesperant. Il n'y avait pas pour lui de surnaturel, car il n'y avait pas pour lui de nature. Ivre de l'amour infini, il oubliait la lourde chaîne qui tient l'esprit captif; il franchissait d'un bond l'abîme, infranchissable pour la plupart, que la médiocrité des facultés humaines trace entre l'homme et Dieu."52 These words seem to me to express a great truth. The religious mind conceives of the natural, not as opposed to the supernatural, but as an outlying province of it; of the economy of the physical world as the complement of the economy of Grace. And to those who thus think, the great objection urged by so many philosophers, from Spinoza downwards—not to go further back—that miracles, as the violation of an unchangeable order, make God contradict himself, and so are unworthy of being attributed to the All-Wise, is without meaning. The most stupendous incident in the "Acta Sanctorum" is, as I deem, not less the manifestation of law than is the fall of a sparrow.53 The budding of a rose and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are equally the effect of the One Motive Force, which is the cause of all phenomena, of the Volition of the Maker, Nourisher, Guardian, Governor, Worker, Perfecter of all. Once admit what is involved in the very idea of God as it exists in Catholic theology—as it is set forth, for example, in the treatise of St. Thomas Aquinas "De Deo"—and the notion of miracles as abnormal, as infractions of order, as violations of law, will be seen to be utterly erroneous.

And now one word as to the bearing of physical science upon the doctrine of the Divine goodness54—the second of the theological positions which, as we have seen, the author of "Natural Religion" assumes to be discredited by physical science. No doubt he had in his mind what has been so strongly stated by the late Mr. Mill: "Not even on the most distorted and contracted theory of good, which ever was framed by religious or philosophical fanaticism, can the government of Nature be made to resemble the work of a being at once good and omnipotent."55 Now there can be no question that physical nature gives the lie to that shallow optimism, which prates of the best of all conceivable worlds, and hardly consents to recognize evil, save as "a lower form of good;" unquestionably recent researches of physicists have brought out with quite startling clearness what St. Paul calls the subjection of the creature to vanity. Ruin, waste, decay are written upon every feature of the natural order. All that is joyful in it is based on suffering; all that lives, on death; every thrill of pleasure which we receive from the outward world is the outcome of inconceivable agonies during incalculable periods of time. But how does this discredit the teaching of theology as to God's goodness? Theology recognizes, and recognizes far more fully than the mere physicist, the abounding misery that is in the world, the terribleness of that "unutterable curse which hangs upon mankind," for it sees not only what he sees, but what is infinitely sadder and more appalling, the vision of moral evil presented by the heart and conscience of man, by every page in the history of the individual and of the race. It was not reserved for professors of physical science in the nineteenth century to bring to light the fact that "the world is out of joint," and thereby to discredit the theological view of the universe. Theology knows only too well that life is "a dread machinery of sin and sorrow." It is the very existence of the vast aboriginal calamity, whatever it may have been, in which the human race, the whole creation, is involved, that forms the ground for the need of the revelation which Christianity professes to bring. If there were no evil, there would be no need of a deliverance from evil. Of course, why evil has been suffered to arise, why it is suffered to exist, by the Perfect Being, of whom it is truly said that He is God, because he is the highest Good, we know not, and no search will make us know. All we know is that it is not from Him, of whom, and for whom, and by whom, are all things; "because it has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance." The existence of evil is a mystery—one of the countless mysteries surrounding human life—which, after the best use of reason, must be put aside as beyond reason. But it is also a fact, and a fact which is so far from discrediting the theological view of the universe, that it is a primary and necessary element of that view.

VI

Thus much as to physical science and the propositions in which the author of "Natural Religion" supposes the theological view of the universe to be summed up. But, as he notes, the case urged in the present day against Christianity does not rest merely upon physical science, properly so called; but upon the extension of its methods to the whole domain of knowledge (p. 7), the practical effect being the reduction of religion to superstition, of anthropology to physiology, of metaphysics to physics, of ethics to the result of temperament or the promptings of self-interest, of man's personality to the summation of a series of dynamic conditions of particles of matter. I shall proceed to state the case, as I often hear it stated, and I shall put it in the strongest way I can, and to indicate the answer which, at all events, has satisfied one mind, after long and patient consideration, and in spite of strong contrary prepossessions. And this evidently has the most direct bearing on my theme. If Christianity be irrational, its claims to the world's future may at once be dismissed. But if, as I very strongly hold, the achievements of the modern mind, whether in the physical sciences, in psychology, in history, in exegetical criticism, have not in the least discredited Christianity, as rightly understood, here is a fact which is a most important factor in determining our judgment as to the religious prospect of mankind. What I have to say on this grave question I must reserve for the Second Part of this article. I end the First Part with one observation. It seems to me that the issue before the world is between Christianity and a more or less sublimated form of Materialism—not necessarily Atheistic, nay, sometimes approximating to "faint possible Theism"—which is most aptly termed Naturalism; a system which rejects as antiquated the ideas of final causes, of Providence, of the soul and its immortality; which allows of no other realities than those of the physical order, and makes of Nature man's highest ideal: and this issue is not in the least affected by decking out Naturalism in some borrowed garments of Spiritualism, and calling it "Natural Christianity."

W. S. Lilly.

SYRIAN COLONIZATION

During the past few years many proposals have been made, and schemes formed, for repeopling the wastes of Syria and Palestine with the surplus population of Europe. These schemes, sometimes philanthropic, sometimes commercial, are always advocated on the assumption that the current of European emigration and capital might be turned to Syria and Palestine in accordance with sound economic and financial considerations. In this paper I propose—

First. To take a survey of the agricultural resources of the country.

Second. To draw attention to the difficulties which immigrants would experience in obtaining secure titles to landed property.

Third. To give a summary of the different kinds of land tenure, and the burdens on agriculture.

Fourth. To point out some of the dangers and inconveniences to which immigrants would be exposed.

I. In the first place we may say broadly that the natural resources of Syria and Palestine are agricultural. On the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon there are a few bitumen pits from which a small quantity of ore of excellent quality is yearly exported to England. Small deposits of coal and iron exist in several localities, and there are chemical deposits about the shores of the Dead Sea. Gypsum and coloured marble are found in Syria, and along the coast opposite the Lebanon range sponges are fished annually to the value of £20,000. Hot sulphur springs exist at Palmyra and the Sea of Galilee, and there are ruined baths on the way between Damascus and Palmyra and in the Yarmûk Valley; but none of these natural products are of sufficient importance to attract European labour or capital.

Forests can scarcely be said to exist in Syria or Palestine. A few groves of cedars of Lebanon, which escaped the axes of Hiram, are fast disappearing. On the limestone ridges and in some of the valleys there are clumps of pine, and throughout a great part of the country there is a considerable quantity of scrub oak which the peasants reduce to charcoal, and carry into the cities. In Galilee one comes on places where the trees give a pleasing character to the landscape. On Mount Carmel there are jungles and thickets of oak, and on the slopes towards Nazareth there are considerable groves, but the nearest approach to a forest is where the oaks of Bashan, which recall the beauties of an English park, assert their ancient supremacy.

Rows of poplars mark the courses of rivers and streams throughout the land, and supply beams for flat-roofed houses; but when churches or other important buildings have to be roofed, or timber is required for domestic purposes, it has to be imported from America, and carried into the interior on the backs of animals. There remain trees enough in some places to lend beauty to the landscape, and to show what the country may once have been, as well as to suggest what it may again become; but there are no forests to attract labour or capital.

The few manufactories of wool and cotton and soap and leather are chiefly limited to local want. Besides these there are the silk-spinning factories in the Lebanon, managed by Frenchmen and natives, and a manufactory of cotton thread on one of the rivers of Damascus.

The popular accounts of the agricultural resources of Syria and Palestine are very different. As instances of extremes:—Mark Twain tells us he saw the goats eating stones in Syria, and he assures us that he could not have been mistaken, for they had nothing else to eat; while Mr. Laurence Oliphant saw even in the Dead Sea "a vast source of wealth" for his English Company. We read in his "Land of Gilead" these words: "There can be little doubt, in fact, that the Dead Sea is a mine of unexplored wealth which only needs the application of capital and enterprise to make it a most lucrative property."56

The tourists who traverse the country in spring, immediately after the latter rains, when there is some vegetation in the barest places, and when their horses are up to the fetlocks in flowers, never forget the beauty of the landscape. Others, who have been picturing to themselves a land flowing with milk and honey, hills waving with golden grain, and green meadows dappled with browsing flocks, and who pass through the land in autumn, find themselves bitterly disappointed. As they trudge along the white glaring pathways, and through the roadless and flinty wilderness, breasting the hot beating waves of a Syrian noonday, with only an ashy chocolate-coloured landscape around them, scorched as if by the breath of a furnace, they get an impression of dreary and blasted desolation which time can never efface. They looked for the garden of the Lord, and they find only the "burning marl." It was my fate, during a long residence in Syria, to hear autumn tourists criticize books written by spring tourists, and spring tourists criticize books written by autumn tourists, and generally in a manner by no means complimentary to the authors' veracity;—the fact being that the writers had given their impression of what they saw, with perhaps a little of American wit, which consists in exaggerating "the leading feature."

I think, however, that to most English travellers, who have no hobbies to ride, the barren appearance of Syria and Palestine is a disenchantment. Accustomed to their own moist climate and green fields, they are not prepared for the dry and parched, and abandoned appearance of the greater part of the country. With us an abundance of water spoils the crops; in Syria and Palestine the case is reversed, for unless water can be poured over the land the crops are stunted and uncertain. For six or seven months in the year scarcely any rain falls, and scarcely a cloud darkens the sky. In October the early rain commences, with much thunder and lightning; and in April the latter rain becomes light and uncertain, and generally ceases altogether. Then the sky becomes intensely blue, and the sun comes out in all his glory, or rather in all her glory, for with the Arabs the sun is feminine. Suddenly grass and vegetation wither up and become dry for the oven. The level country, except where there are rivers, becomes parched. The stones stick up out of the red soil like the white bones of a skeleton. Limestone, flint, and basalt, and thorny shrubs, cover the face of the wilderness country. Here and there you may see a dwarf oak, or an olive tree, or a wild fig tree, and among the mountains you may notice little patches scratched and cultivated by the fellahîn; but, unless on the great plains of Bashan and Esdraelon and Hamath, and on the uplands of Gilead, or where there is water for irrigation, you may ride for hours along the zigzag paths, over mountain and high-land, and before and behind extend the limestone and flinty rocks, white and blinding, and broken into fragments or burnt into powder. It thus happens that few tourists who pass along the beaten tracks of Syria and Palestine have any just conception of the vast agricultural resources of the land.

The most striking features in the Syrian landscape are two parallel mountain ranges, which appear on the map like two centipedes, running north and south. These are the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges. Lebanon proper lies along the shore of the Mediterranean. The narrow strip of land between the mountain and the sea was the home of the Phœnicians, who steered their white-winged ships to every land, and dipped their oars in every sea, before the Britons were heard of. The gardens of Sidon, luxuriant with bananas, oranges, figs, lemons, pomegranates, peaches, apricots, &c., extend across the plain for two miles to the mountain, and show what Phœnicia may once have been. The palm trees that adorn the fertile gardens of Beyrout are doubtless survivors of the groves from which the strip of land once took its name.57

By the exertions of Lord Dufferin in 1860, a Christian governor was placed over the Lebanon in a semi-independent position. Since then the terraced mountain has been marvellously developed, and every foothold has been planted with vines and figs and mulberries. The industrious peasantry, comparatively safe from Turkish rapacity, have cultivated the ledges among its crags and peaks, and enjoy the fruits of their industry, sitting under their vines and fig trees. The bloodthirsty and turbulent Druzes, restrained by law, and unable to hold their own in a field of fair competition, are being rapidly civilized off the mountain, and betake themselves to remote regions in Bashan where no law is acknowledged but that of the strong arm.

Between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon stretches for seventy miles Cœlo-Syria or Buka'a, a well-watered and fertile plain, containing about 500 square miles and 137 agricultural villages, and marked by such ruins as those of Chalcis and Baalbek.