Religion and Science Part 11

FREEDOM.--Perhaps the best service we can do is to protest against indulging an appet.i.te for negative dogmatism. Such an att.i.tude is a negation of the freedom of thought. And it is in an atmosphere of freedom that both religion and science flourish best. A hard and fast naturalistic outlook may prove, and actually has proved, an incubus from which even scientists themselves may pray to be delivered.

Nor has religion always enjoyed that full measure of freedom which is indispensable to its vigorous life. The curious and sad fact is that the human mind seems to delight in creating prisons for itself. The scientific spirit created a mechanico-materialistic scheme which has ended by becoming the enemy of scientific research, and which (besides this) asks, as a sacrifice, the mutilation of our spiritual instincts.

And so with religion. The religious instinct (like the scientific) tends to create its prisons. The pride of, a pretended knowledge reduces to a mechanical scheme the mysteries of life and death; it provides superficial standardised solutions for the problems of existence.

Of course, it is clear enough, that in religion as in science, we cannot, even if we would, start each of us from the beginning. We have to accept and to revere the riches of knowledge and experience acc.u.mulated by those who have gone before. And yet, in religion as in science, life consists in movement; we must go forward. The past may be an inspiration, but it must not be the limit of our thought, or it becomes an incubus. The glance must be forward not backward; the stream flows, and we are borne on its bosom. Humanity, like an explorer, has its face set towards the unknown. Both science and religion are children of freedom, without which the creative spirit in man is crushed.

And here, with this note of warning (though perhaps rather of encouragement) we may close.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _The Grammar of Science_, pp. 12, 13.

[2] Ptolemy of Alexandria: 127-151 A.D.

[3] J. M. Heald in art. "Aquinas" in _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_.

[4] Monks and theologians were betrayed into some controversial asperities. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven"

formed the appropriate text for a sermon by a Dominican.

[5] In spite of this, however, Descartes' works, in 1663, appeared in the Index of forbidden books: and his doctrines were banned by Royal decree from the French universities. Jesuit influences, which were not at all favourable to _native_ religion in France (or elsewhere!), may have been responsible for this obscurantist policy.

[6] Merz, _History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century_, Vol.

I, p. 384.

[7] Quoted by Ward, _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, p. 4.

[8] Hoffding, _History of Modern Philosophy_, Vol. I, p. 315.

It may set the scruples of some at rest to be reminded that Aquinas himself applied the term _Natura Naturans_ to G.o.d as the cause of all existence. Eckhart and Bruno had made a similar application of it (cf.

Martineau, _Study of Spinoza_, p. 226).

[9] Here we may note, by way of an antic.i.p.ation, a truth that Kant afterwards was the first to grasp clearly: that it is only when the mechanism of phenomena is proved, that religion can be purged of materialism.

[10] Cf. letter to Arnauld, quoted by Hoffding, I, p. 347: "The substantial unity presupposes a complete, indivisible being. Nothing of this kind is to be found in figure or motion ... but only in a soul or a substantial form similar to that which we call an 'I.'"

[11] The _Monadology_ (quoted by Pattison, _Idea of G.o.d_, p. 180).

[12] Inge, _Christian Mysticism_, p. 19.

[13] Cf. "With s.p.a.ce the universe encloses me and engulfs me like an atom, but with thought I enclose the universe." A great saying.

[14] Novalis called him "the G.o.d-intoxicated": a bold phrase.

[15] We refer, of course, to the promulgation of the Bull _Unigenitus_, procured from Pope Clement XI by the Jesuits; when their opponents, the Jansenists "of all professions and cla.s.ses, were subjected to imprisonment, confiscation, and every species of oppression" (Jervis, _Student's History of France_, p. 415).

The manoeuvre is characterised by another historian as a "struggle of narrow-minded fanaticism, allied to absolutely unscrupulous political ambition, against all the learning and virtue which the French clergy still possessed" (Chamberlain, _Foundations of the Nineteenth Century_, Vol. II, p. 379).

[16] Even before the age of the Revolution, Paris possessed many great schools. The _College de France_ was founded in 1530; there was the _College et ecole de Chirurgie_, the _Jardin des Plantes_, the _ecole royale des Mines_, etc. (cf. Merz, _History of European Thought_, Vol.

I, p. 107).

[17] Merz says of Newton: "In his own country that fruitful co-operation which can only be secured by an academic organisation and by endowment of research was wanting" (I, p. 99). As late as 1740 the whole revenue of the Royal Society was only 232 _per annum_.

[18] Morley, _Voltaire_, p. 41.

[19] He published his _elemens de la Philosophie de Newton_ in 1738.

[20] Hoffding, Vol. I, p. 481.

[21] See note in Merz, Vol. I, p. 145.

[22] Merz, Vol. I, p. 143.

[23] The receipt and perusal of Rousseau's _Emile_, are said to have interrupted the walk on one occasion, to the great astonishment of the Konigsbergers.

[24] Pringle Pattison, _Idea of G.o.d_, p. 26.

[25] "Atheism is aristocratic," was the reply of Robespierre to one who mocked at his _etre Supreme_.

[26] _Confessions_, Book XII.

[27] Hoffding, Vol. II, p. 9.

[28] Fichte's word is _Anschauung_, for which the English language possesses no exact equivalent. It "implies something akin, though perhaps superior to, seeing or perceiving by means of the senses," and it approaches less closely to "inspiration" than does the English word "intuition." The term acquired a meaning somewhat akin to the _amor intellectualis Dei_ of Spinoza, which we have met before. (See note in Merz, III, p. 445.)

[29] William James, _A Pluralistic Universe_, p. 92.

[30] Here again a certain ambiguity surrounds the German word. _Geist_ is inadequately translated by either "mind" or "spirit": it comprises the meaning of both words (cf. Merz, III, p. 466).

[31] This does not mean that what is not good enough for philosophy is good enough for religion. The idea behind Schleiermacher is that what philosophy cannot sanction, religious experience _can_ sanction. And it has to be remembered that, as a follower of Kant, he a.s.signed very definite limits to the powers of philosophy. He was not an Hegelian--Hegel's and Schleiermacher's views of the religious problem are quite incompatible--the one believed, the other did not believe, that reason could solve that problem.

[32] Kopp, _Geschichte der Chemie_, Vol. I, p. 442 (quoted by Merz, Vol.

I, p. 191).

[33] Merz, Vol. I, p. 218.

[34] According to one authority (Judd, in his _Coming of Evolution_) the number of known species of plants and animals must be placed at 600,000 (p. 10).

[35] _Vestiges of Creation_, published anonymously in 1844, pa.s.sed through nine large editions by 1853. The author was Robert Chambers (1802-71), a geologist.

[36] _Life and Letters_, Vol. I, p. 168 (_vide_ Judd, _Coming of Evolution_, p. 89).

[37] As a matter of fact, biologists soon demanded more than even Lyell's geology could give them. Recent discoveries about the nature of matter have, however, further extended the possible age of our planet.