On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

CHAPTER XXXI.

Man's Knowledge of God

1. MAN'S powers and means of knowledge are so limited and imperfect that he can know little concerning God. It is well that men in their theological speculations should recollect that it is so, and should pursue all such speculations in a modest and humble spirit.

But this humility and modesty defeat their own ends, when they lead us to think that we can know nothing concerning God: for to be modest and humble in dealing with this subject, implies that we know this, at least, that God is a proper object of modest and humble thought.

2. Some philosophers have been led, however, by an examination of man's faculties and of the nature of being, to the conclusion that man can know nothing concerning God. But we may very reasonably doubt the truth of this conclusion. We may ask, How can we know that we can know nothing? If we can know nothing, we cannot even know that.

It is much more reasonable to begin with things that we really do know, and to examine how far such knowledge can carry us, respecting God, as well as anything else. This is the course which we have been following, and its results are very far from being trifling or unimportant.

In thus beginning from what we know, we start from two points, on each of which we have, we conceive, some real and sure knowledge:—namely, mathematical and physical knowledge of the universe without us; and a knowledge of our own moral and personal nature within us.

3. (From Nature we learn something of God.)—In pursuing the first line of thought, we are led to reason thus. The universe is governed by certain Ideas: for instance, everything which exists and happens in the universe, exists and happens IN Space and Time. Why is this? It is, we conceive, because God has constituted and constitutes the universe so that it may be so; that is, because the Ideas of Space and of Time are Ideas according to which God has established and upholds the universe.

But we may proceed further in this way, as we have already said. The universe not only exists in space and time, but it has in it substances—material substances: or taking it collectively, Material Substance. Can we know anything concerning this substance? Yes: something we can know; for we know that material substance cannot be brought into being or annihilated by any natural process. We have then an Idea of Substance which is a Law of the universe. How is this?—We reply, that it is because our Idea of Substance is an Idea on which God has established and upholds the universe.

Can we proceed further still? Can we discern any other Ideas according to which the universe is constituted? Yes: as we have already remarked, we can discern several, though as we go on from one to another they become gradually fainter in their light, less cogent in their necessity. We can see that Force as well as Material Substance is an Idea on which the universe is constituted, and that Force and Matter are a necessary and universal antithesis: we can see that the Things which occupy the universe must be of definite Kinds, in order that an intelligent mind may occupy itself about them, and thus that the Idea of Kind is a constitutive Idea of the universe. We can see that some kinds of things have life, and our Idea of Life is, that every part of a living thing is a means to an End; and thus we recognize End, or Final Cause, as an Idea which prevails throughout the universe, and we recognize this Idea as an Idea according to which God constitutes and upholds the universe.

Since we know so much concerning the universe, and since every Law of the universe which is a necessary form of thought about the universe must exist in the Divine Mind, in order that it may find a place in our minds, how can we say that we can know nothing concerning the Divine Mind?

4. (Though but Little.)—But on the other hand, we easily see how little our knowledge is, compared with what we do not know. Even the parts of our knowledge which are the clearest are full of perplexities; and of the Laws of the universe, including living as well as lifeless things, how small a portion do we know at all!

Even the parts of our knowledge which are the clearest, I say, are full of perplexities. Infinite Space and an infinite Past, an infinite Future,—how helplessly our reason struggles with these aspects of our Ideas! And with regard to Substance, how did ingenerable and indestructible substance come into being? And with regard to Matter, how can passive Matter be endued with living force? And with regard to Kinds, how immeasurably beyond our power of knowing are their numbers and their outward differences: still more their internal differences and central essence! And with regard to the Design which we see in the organs of living things, though we can confidently say we see it, how obscurely is it shown, and how much is our view of it disturbed by other Laws and Analogies! And the Life of things, the end to which such Design tends, how full of impenetrable mysteries is it! or rather how entirely a mass of mystery into which our powers of knowledge strive in vain to penetrate!

There is therefore no danger that by following this train of thought we should elevate our view of man too high, or bring down God in our thoughts to the likeness of man. Even if we were to suppose the Idea of the Divine Mind to be of the same kind as the Ideas of the human mind, the very few Ideas of this kind, which man possesses, compared with the whole range of the universe, and the scanty length to which he can follow each, make his knowledge so small and imperfect, that he has abundant reason to be modest and humble in his contemplations concerning the Intelligence that knows all and constitutes all. He can, as I have already said, wade but a few steps into the margin of the boundless and unfathomable ocean of truth.

5. But the Ideas of the Divine Mind must necessarily be different in kind, as well as in number and extent, from the Ideas of the human mind, on this very account, that they are complete and perfect. The Mind which can conceive all the parts and laws of the universe in all their mutual bearings, fundamental reasons, and remote consequences, must be different in kind, as well as in extent, from the mind which can only trace a few of these parts, and see these laws in a few of their aspects, and cannot sound the whole depth of any of them. The Divine Mind differs from the human, in the way in which we must needs suppose what is Divine to differ from what is human.

6. It has sometimes been said that the Divine Mind differs from the human as the Infinite from the finite. And this has been given as a reason why we cannot know anything concerning God; for we cannot, it is said, know anything concerning the Infinite. Our conception of the Infinite being merely negative, (the negation of a limit,) makes all knowledge about it impossible. But this is not truly said. Our conception of the Infinite is not merely negative. As I have elsewhere remarked, our conception of the Infinite is positive in this way:—that in order to form this conception, we begin to follow a given Idea in a given direction; and then, having thus begun, we suppose that the progress of thought goes on in that direction without limit. To arrive at our Idea of infinite space, for example, we must determine what kind of space we mean,—line, area or solid; and from what origin we begin: and infinite space has different attributes as we take different beginnings in this way.

And so with regard to the kinds of infinity (for there are many) which belong to the Divine Mind. We have a few Ideas which represent the Laws of the universe:—as Space, Time, Substance, Force, Matter, Kind, End; of such Ideas the Divine Mind may have an infinite number. These Ideas in the human mind are limited in depth and clearness: in the Divine Mind they must be infinitely clearer than the clearest human Intuition; infinitely more profound than the profoundest human thought. And in this way, and, as we shall see, in other ways also, the Divine Mind infinitely transcends the human mind when most fully instructed and unfolded.

In this way and in other ways also, I say. For we have hitherto spoken of the human mind only as contemplating the external world;—as discerning, to a certain small extent, the laws of the universe. We have spoken of the world of things without: we must now speak of the world within us;—of the world of our thoughts, our being, our moral and personal being.

7. (From ourselves we learn something concerning God.)—We must speak of this: for this is, as I have said, another starting point and another line in which we may proceed from what we know, and see how far our knowledge carries us, and how far it teaches us anything concerning God.

Looking at ourselves, we perceive that we have to act, as well as to contemplate: we are practical as well as speculative beings. And tracing the nature and conditions of our actions, in the depths of our thought we find that there is in the aspect of actions a supreme and inevitable distinction of right and wrong. We cannot help judging of our actions as right and wrong. We acknowledge that there must be such a judgment appropriate to them. We have these Ideas of right and wrong as attributes of actions; and thus we are moral beings.

8. And again: the actions are our actions. We act in this way or that. And we are not mere things, which move and change as they are acted on, but which do not themselves act, as man acts. I am not a Thing but a Person; and the men with whom I act, who act with me—act in various ways towards me, well or ill—are also persons. Man is a personal being.

The Ideas of right and wrong—the moral Ideas of man—are then a part of the scheme of the universe to which man belongs. Could they be this, if they were not also a part of the nature of that Divine Mind which constitutes the universe?—It would seem not: the Moral Law of the universe must be a Law of the Divine Mind, in order that it may be a Law felt and discerned by man.

9. (Objection answered.)—But, it may be objected, the Moral Law of the universe is a Law in a different sense from the Laws of the universe of which we spoke before—the mathematical and physical laws of the universe. Those were laws according to which things are, and events occur: but Moral Laws are Laws according to which men ought to act, and according to which actions ought to be. There is a difference, so that we cannot reason from the human to the Divine Mind in the same manner in this case as in the other.

True: we cannot reason in the same manner. But we can reason still more confidently. For the Law directing what ought to be is the Supreme Law, and the mind which constitutes the Supreme Law is the Supreme Mind, that is, the Divine Mind.

10. That the Moral Law is not verified among men in fact, is not a ground for doubting that it is a Law of the Divine Mind; but it is a ground for inquiring what consequences the Divine Mind has annexed to the violation of the Law; and in what manner the supremacy of the Law will be established in the total course of the history of the universe, including, it may be, the history of other worlds than that in which we now live.

Considering how dimly and imperfectly we see what consequences the Divine Governor has annexed to the violation of the Moral Law, He who sees all these consequences and has provided for the establishment of His Law in the whole history of the human race, must be supposed to be infinitely elevated above man in wisdom;—more even in virtue of this aspect of His nature, than in virtue of that which is derived from the contemplation of the universe.

11. Man is a person; and his personality is his highest attribute, or at least, that which makes all his highest attributes possible. And the highest attribute which belongs to the finite minds which exist in the universe must exist also in the Infinite Mind which constitutes the universe as it is. The Divine Mind must reside in a Divine Person. And as man, by his personality, acts in obedience to or in transgression of a moral law, so God, by His Personality, acts in establishing the Law and in securing its supremacy in the whole history of the world.

12. (Creation.)—Acknowledging a Divine Mind which is the foundation and support of the world as it is, constituting and upholding its laws, it may be asked, Does this view point to a beginning of the world? Was there a time when the Divine Mind called into being the world, before non-existent? Was there a Creation of the world?

I do not think that an answer to this question, given either way, affects the argument which I have been urging. The Laws of the Universe discoverable by the human mind, are the Laws of the Divine Mind, whether or not there was a time when these Laws first came into operation, or first produced the world which we see. The argument respecting the nature of the Divine Mind is the same, whether or not we suppose a Creation.

But, in point of fact, every part of our knowledge of the Universe does seem to point to a beginning. Every part of the world has been, so far as we can see, formed by natural causes out of something different from what it now is. The Earth, with its lands and seas, teeming with innumerable forms of living things, has been produced from an earth formed of other lands and seas, occupied with quite different forms of life: and if we go far enough back, from an earth in which there was no life. The stars which we call fixed move and change; the nebulæ in their shape show that they too are moving and changing. The Earth was, some at least hold, produced by the condensation of a nebula. The history of man, as well as of others of its inhabitants, points to a beginning. Languages, Arts, Governments, Histories, all seem to have begun from a starting-point, however remote. Indeed not only a beginning, but a beginning at no remote period, appears to be indicated by most of the sciences which carry us backwards in the world's history.

But we must allow, on the other hand, that though all such lines of research point towards a beginning, none of them can be followed up to a beginning. All the lines converge, but all melt away before they reach the point of convergence. As I have elsewhere said320, in no science has man been able to arrive at a beginning which is homogeneous with the known course of events, though we can often go very far back, and limit the hypotheses respecting the origin. We have, in the impossibility of thus coming to any conclusion by natural reason on the subject of creation, another evidence of the infinitely limited nature of the human mind, when compared with the Creative or Constitutive Divine Mind.

13. (End of the World.)—But if our natural reason, aided by all that science can teach, can tell us nothing respecting the origin and beginning of this world, still less can reason tell us anything with regard to the End of this world. On this subject, the natural sciences are even more barren of instruction than on the subject of Creation. Yet we may say that as the Constitution of the Universe, and its conformity to a Collection of eternal and immutable Ideas as its elements, are not inconsistent with the supposition of a Beginning of the present course of the world, so neither are they inconsistent with the supposition of an End. Indeed it would not be at all impossible that physical inquiries should present the prospect of an End, even more clearly than they afford the retrospect of a Beginning. If, for instance, it should be found that the planets move in a resisting medium which constantly retards their velocity, and must finally make them fall in upon the central sun, there would be an end of the earth as to its present state. We cannot therefore, on the grounds of Science, deny either a Beginning or an End of the present world.

14. But here another order of considerations comes into play, namely, those derived from moral and theological views of the world. On these we must, in conclusion, say a few words.

It is very plain that these considerations may lead us to believe in a view of the Beginning, Middle, and End of the history of the world, very different from anything which the mere physical and natural sciences can disclose to us. And these expressions to which I have been led, the Beginning, the Middle, and the End of the world's history according to theological views, are full of suggestions of the highest interest. But the interest which belongs to these suggestions is of a solemn and peculiar kind; and the considerations to which such suggestions point are better, I think, kept apart from such speculations as those with which I have been concerned in the present volume.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Analogies of Physical and Religious Philosophy

1. ANY assertion of analogy between physical and religious philosophy will very properly be looked upon with great jealousy as likely to be forced and delusive; and it is only in its most general aspects that a sound philosophy on the two subjects can offer any points of resemblance. But in some of its general conditions the discovery of truth in the one field of knowledge and in the other may offer certain analogies, as well as differences, which it may be instructive to notice; and to some such aspects of our philosophy I shall venture to refer.

For the physical sciences—the sciences of observation and speculation—the progress of our exact and scientific knowledge, as I have repeatedly said, consists in reducing the objects and events of the universe to a conformity with Ideas which we have in our own minds:—the Ideas, for instance, of Space, Force, Substance, and the like. In this sense, the intellectual progress of men consists in the Idealization of Facts.

2. In moral subjects, on the other hand, where man has not merely to observe and speculate, but also to act;—where he does not passively leave the facts and events of the world such as they are, but tries actively to alter them and to improve the existing state of things, his progress consists in doing this. He makes a moral advance when he succeeds in doing what he thus attempts:—when he really improves the state of things with which he has to do by removing evil and producing good:—when he makes the state of things, namely, the relations between him and other persons, his acts and their acts, conform more and more to Ideas which he has in his own mind:—namely, to the Ideas of Justice, Benevolence, and the like. His moral progress thus consists in the realization of Ideas.

And thus we are led to the Aphorism, as we may call it, that Man's Intellectual Progress consists in the Idealization of Facts, and his Moral Progress consists in the Realization of Ideas.

3. But further, though that progress of science which consists in the idealization of facts may be carried through several stages, and indeed, in the history of science, has been carried through many stages, yet it is, and always must be, a progress exceedingly imperfect and incomplete, when compared with the completeness to which its nature points. Only a few sciences have made much progress; none are complete; most have advanced only a step or two. In none have we reduced all the Facts to Ideas. In all or almost all the unreduced Facts are far more numerous and extensive than those which have been reduced. The general mass of the facts of the universe are mere facts, unsubdued to the rule of science. The Facts are not Idealized. The intellectual progress is miserably scanty and imperfect, and would be so, even if it were carried much further than it is carried. How can we hope that it will ever approach to completeness?

4. And in like manner, the moral progress of man is still more miserably scanty and incomplete. In how small a degree has he in this sense realized his Ideas! In how small a degree has he carried into real effect, and embodied in the relations of society, in his own acts and in those of others with whom he is concerned, the Ideas of Justice and Benevolence and the like! How far from a complete realization of such moral Ideas are the acts of the best men, and the relations of the best forms of society! How far from perfection in these respects is man! and how certain it is that he will always be very far from perfection! Far below even such perfection as he can conceive, he will always be in his acts and feelings. The moral progress of man, of each man, and of each society, is, as I have said, miserably scanty and incomplete; and when regarded as the realization of his moral Ideas, its scantiness and incompleteness become still more manifest than before.

Hence we are led to another Aphorism:—that man's progress in the realization of Moral Ideas, and his progress in the Scientific idealization of Facts, are, and always will be, exceedingly scanty and incomplete.

5. But there is another aspect of Ideas, both physical and moral, in which this scantiness and incompleteness vanish. In the Divine Mind, all the physical Ideas are entertained with complete fulness and luminousness; and it is because they are so entertained in the Divine Mind, and it is because the universe is constituted and framed upon them, that we find them verified in every part of the universe, whenever we make our observation of facts and deduce their laws.