{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57773/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57773","id":"gutenberg_57773","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57773","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Humanism","Naturalism","Theism"],"text":"Produced by Richard Hulse, Les Galloway and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\nObvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.\n\nItalics are represented thus _italic_.\n\nFootnotes have been placed at the end of each Lecture.\n\n\n\n\n                          THEISM AND HUMANISM\n\n\n                                 BEING\n                         THE GIFFORD LECTURES\n             DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, 1914\n\n\n                                BY THE\n                     RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR\n                      M.A., F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L.\n              (HON. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE)\n\n\n                         HODDER AND STOUGHTON\n                   LONDON      NEW YORK      TORONTO\n                                 MCMXV\n\n\n\n\n       _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.\n                        London and Aylesbury._\n\n\n\n\n  TO THE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS\n  OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW,\n  WHO GAVE SO KIND A RECEPTION\n  TO THESE LECTURES ON THEIR DELIVERY\n  IN THE BUTE HALL, I\n  DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis volume contains the substance of the Gifford Lectures delivered\nat the University of Glasgow in January and February 1914. I say the\n_substance_ of the lectures, lest any of those who formed part of my\nmost kindly audience should expect a verbal reproduction of what they\nthen heard. No such reproduction would have been either expedient or\npossible. The lectures were not read: they were spoken (with the aid\nof brief notes) in such terms as suggested themselves at the moment;\nand their duration was rigidly fixed, to suit my academic audience,\nso as just to occupy the customary hour. Although, therefore, they\nwere largely (though not wholly) based upon written drafts, none of\nthe language, and not all the ideas and illustrations contained in the\noriginal could be reproduced in the spoken lectures, nor did everything\nin the spoken lectures represent passages in the written originals.\n\nIt is not, in these circumstances, surprising that the work has had,\nin large measure, to be rewritten, though the argument itself, and\nthe order in which its various parts are presented for consideration,\nremains substantially unchanged.\n\nI should not have troubled the reader with this very unimportant\nnarrative except for the purpose of explaining the long interval that\nhas elapsed between the delivery of the lectures and their publication.\nLiterary composition I have always found laborious and slow, even in\nfavourable conditions. But the conditions have not been favourable. My\nanxiety to make the argument easy to read for persons who take little\ninterest in, and have small knowledge of, philosophical controversies\ndid not make it easy to write; while external circumstances were\nsingularly unfavourable to rapid composition. No one who took any part\nin public affairs between March 1914 and the outbreak of the war, or\nbetween the outbreak of the war and the present moment, is likely to\nregard these months as providing convenient occasion for quiet thought\nand careful writing. I say this, however, not as an excuse for poor\nworkmanship, but only as an explanation of long delay.\n\nIt may be desirable to warn the intending reader before he embarks on\nthese lectures, that though the basis of the argument is wide, its\nconclusion is narrow: and though that conclusion is religious, the\ndiscussions leading up to it are secular. I make no dialectical use of\nthe religious sentiment; nor do I attempt any analysis of its essential\ncharacter. Still less do I deal with any doctrines outside what is\ncalled \u201cnatural\u201d religion; for to \u201cnatural\u201d religion the Gifford\nLecturer is expressly confined. But even themes which might well be\ndeemed to fall within these limits are scarcely referred to. For\nexample, God, freedom, and immortality have been treated by at least\none eminent writer as the great realities beyond the world of sense. I\nbelieve in them all. But I only discuss the first\u2014and that only from a\nlimited point of view.\n\nOne other caution I must give, though it is hardly necessary. No\none, I suppose, is likely to consult this small volume in the hope\nof finding an historic survey, properly \u201cdocumented,\u201d of the great\ntheistic controversy. But, if so misguided an individual exists, he is\ndoomed to the severest disappointment. There have been, and will be,\nGifford Lecturers well equipped for so great an undertaking; but most\nassuredly I am not among them.\n\nMy warm thanks are due to my brother, Mr. Gerald Balfour; my sister,\nMrs. Sidgwick, and my brother-in-law, Lord Rayleigh, for the trouble\nthey have taken in reading the proofs, and for the aid they have given\nme in correcting them.\n\nIn connection with a passage in the ninth lecture, Sir Oliver Lodge\nhas been good enough to give me an interesting note on \u201cenergy,\u201d which\nappears in its proper place.\n\n  4 CARLTON GARDENS\n  _May 24, 1915_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  PART I\n\n  _INTRODUCTORY_\n\n\n  LECTURE I\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\n  I. INTRODUCTORY: METAPHYSICS AND THE \u201cPLAIN MAN\u201d                     3\n\n  II. \u201cINEVITABLE\u201d BELIEFS AND COMMON SENSE                           13\n\n  III. THE MATERIAL OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT FOR THEISM:\n       THE CHARACTER OF THE THEISM TO BE ESTABLISHED                  17\n\n  IV. WHAT THE ARGUMENT IS NOT. SOME OF ITS LIMITATIONS               23\n\n\n  LECTURE II\n\n  I. DESIGN AND SELECTION                                             28\n\n  II. ARGUMENT FROM VALUES. THE COGNITIVE AND THE CAUSAL SERIES       44\n\n\n  PART II\n\n  _\u00c6STHETIC AND ETHICAL VALUES_\n\n\n  LECTURE III\n\n  \u00c6STHETIC AND THEISM\n\n  I. \u00c6STHETIC DESCRIBED                                               55\n\n  II. WHENCE COMES IT?                                                58\n\n  III. VALUES AND THE HIGHER EMOTIONS                                 63\n\n  IV. NATURAL BEAUTY                                                  77\n\n  V. \u00c6STHETIC OF HISTORY                                              81\n\n\n  LECTURE IV\n\n  ETHICS AND THEISM\n\n  I. ETHICS DESCRIBED                                                 95\n\n  II. EGOISM, ALTRUISM, AND SELECTION                                 98\n\n  III. SELECTION AND THE HIGHER MORALITY                             107\n\n  IV. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED                                         119\n\n  V. THEISM AND THE COLLISION OF ENDS                                122\n\n\n  PART III\n\n  _INTELLECTUAL VALUES_\n\n\n  LECTURE V\n\n  INTRODUCTION TO PART III\n\n  I. RETROSPECT                                                      133\n\n  II. REASON AND CAUSATION                                           134\n\n  III. LESLIE STEPHEN, AND LOCKE\u2019S APHORISM                          136\n\n  IV. REASON AND EMPIRICAL AGNOSTICISM                               145\n\n\n  LECTURE VI\n\n  PERCEPTION, COMMON SENSE, AND SCIENCE\n\n  I. COMMON SENSE AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD                             149\n\n  II. SCIENCE AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD                                 153\n\n  III. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES                               156\n\n  IV. PERCEPTION AS A CAUSAL SERIES                                  160\n\n  V. PERCEPTION AS A COGNITIVE ACT                                   165\n\n  VI. AN IRRESISTIBLE ASSUMPTION                                     170\n\n\n  LECTURE VII\n\n  PROBABILITY, CALCULABLE AND INTUITIVE\n\n  I. MATHEMATICIANS AND PROBABILITY                                  175\n\n  II. CALCULABLE PROBABILITY                                         178\n\n  III. INTUITIVE PROBABILITY                                         189\n\n\n  LECTURE VIII\n\n  UNIFORMITY AND CAUSATION\n\n  I. HABIT, EXPECTATION, INDUCTION                                   192\n\n  II. REGULARITY, CAUSATION                                          195\n\n  III. THE PRINCIPLE OF NEGLIGIBILITY                                199\n\n  IV. CAUSATION AND FOREKNOWLEDGE                                    207\n\n\n  LECTURE IX\n\n  TENDENCIES OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF\n\n  I. FROM BELIEFS THAT WE MUST HOLD TO BELIEFS THAT WE\n     ARE INCLINED TO HOLD                                            217\n\n  II. ATOMISM. BELIEFS OF CONSERVATION                               220\n\n  III. EPILOGUE                                                      238\n\n\n  PART IV\n\n  _SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION_\n\n\n  LECTURE X\n\n  I. HUMANISM AND THEISM                                             247\n\n  II. THE DOCTRINE OF CONGRUITY                                      249\n\n  III. IS THIS SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHY?                                261\n\n  IV. CONCLUSION                                                     268\n\n\n[_The paragraph headings in this Table of Contents are not designed to\ngive more than a very imperfect suggestion of the subjects discussed.\nI have put them in for the convenience of those who, having read the\nbook, wish to refer back to some particular passage. The headings do\nnot appear in the text._]\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\n_INTRODUCTORY_\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I\n\n\nI\n\nThose responsible for the selection of Gifford Lecturers have made it\nclear that, in their interpretation of Lord Gifford\u2019s Trust, studies\nin a very wide range of subjects are relevant to the theme of Natural\nReligion. Gifford lectures have been devoted to such diverse themes\nas Comparative Religion, Primitive Mythologies, Vitalism, Psychology\nof Religious Experiences, the History of Religious Development at\nparticular Epochs. And, in addition to these, we have had expounded\nto us systems of Metaphysics of more than one type, and drawing their\ninspiration from more than one school.\n\nWhen I was honoured by an invitation to take a share in the perennial\ndebate which centres round what Lord Gifford described as Natural\nReligion, I had to consider what kind of contribution I was least\nunfitted to make. Perhaps if this consideration had preceded my reply\nto the invitation, instead of following it, I might have declined the\nperilous honour. Neither in my own opinion nor in that of anybody else,\nam I qualified to contribute a special study of any of the scientific,\npsychological, anthropological, or historical problems which may throw\nlight upon the central issue. This must of necessity be the work of\nspecialists. No metaphysical system, again, am I in a position to\nprovide;\u2014for reasons which will appear in the sequel. A merely critical\ncommentary upon the systems of other people might hardly meet either\nthe expectations of my audience, or the wishes of those who appointed\nme to the post. Indeed, the enormous range of modern philosophic\nliterature, and the divergent tendencies of modern philosophic thought\nwould make the task, in any case, one of extreme difficulty. Few,\nindeed, are those who, by the width of their reading and the quickness\nof their intellectual sympathy, are qualified to survey the whole field\nof contemporary speculation; and, assuredly, I am not among them.\n\nThe vast amplitude of relevant material daily growing with the growth\nof knowledge, cannot but hamper the sincerest efforts of those who\ndesire to take a comprehensive view of the great problems which Lord\nGifford desired to solve. Most men are amateurs in all departments\nof activity but the one, be it scientific or practical, or artistic,\nto which they have devoted their lives. Bacon, indeed, with the\nmagnificent audacity of youth, took all knowledge for his province.\nBut he did so in the sixteenth century, not in the twentieth; and even\nBacon did not escape the charge of being an amateur. No one, while\nhuman faculty remains unchanged, is likely to imitate his ambitions.\nMore and more does the division and subdivision of labour become\nnecessary for knowledge, as for industry. More and more have men to\nchoose whether they shall be dabblers in many subjects or specialists\nin one. More and more does it become clear that, while each class\nhas its characteristic defects, both are required in the republic of\nknowledge.\n\nSo far as specialists are concerned, this last proposition is\nself-evident. Specialists are a necessity. And it may well be that\nthose who have successfully pressed forward the conquering forces of\ndiscovery along some narrow front, careless how the struggle towards\nenlightenment fared elsewhere, may be deemed by the historian to have\nbeen not only the happiest, but the most useful thinkers of their\ngeneration. Their achievements are definite. Their contributions to\nknowledge can be named and catalogued. The memory of them will remain\nwhen contemporary efforts to reach some general point of view will\nseem to posterity strangely ill-directed, worthless to all but the\nantiquarian explorers of half-forgotten speculation.\n\nYet such efforts can never be abandoned, nor can they be confined to\nphilosophers. There are for all men moments when the need for some\ngeneral point of view becomes insistent; when neither labour, nor care,\nnor pleasure, nor idleness, nor habit will stop a man from asking how\nhe is to regard the universe of reality, how he is to think of it as a\nwhole, how he is to think of his own relation to it.\n\nNow I have no wish to overpraise these moments of reflection. They are\nnot among the greatest. They do not of necessity involve strenuous\naction, or deep emotion, or concentrated thought. Often they are\nperiods of relaxation rather than of tension, moods that pass and\nleave no trace. Yet it is not always so; and when the pressure of\nthese ancient problems becomes oppressive, then those who, from taste\nor necessity, have lived only from hour to hour, seek aid from those\nwho have had leisure and inclination to give them a more prolonged\nconsideration.\n\nOf these there is no lack; some speaking in the name of science, some\nin the name of religion, some in the name of philosophy. The founder of\nthese lectures regarded philosophy, and (if I mistake not) philosophy\nin its most metaphysical aspect, as the surest guide to the truths of\nwhich he was in search. And certainly I am the last to criticise such\na view. It is clearly the business of metaphysicians, if they have any\nbusiness at all, to provide us with a universal system. They cannot\nlose themselves in concrete details, as may happen to men of science.\nThey are neither aided, nor trammelled, as all working organisations,\nwhether in Church or State, are necessarily aided and trammelled, by\ninstitutional traditions and practical necessities. They exist to\nsupply answers to the very questions of which I have been speaking.\nYet metaphysics does not appeal, and has never appealed, to the world\nat large. For one man who climbs to his chosen point of view by a\nmetaphysical pathway, a thousand use some other road; and if we ask\nourselves how many persons there are at this moment in existence whose\nviews of the universe have been consciously modified by the great\nmetaphysical systems (except in so far as these have been turned to\naccount by theologians), we must admit that the number is insignificant.\n\nNow, I do not think this is due to the fact, so often commented upon,\nboth by the friends of metaphysics and its foes, that in this branch\nof inquiry there is little agreement among experts; that the labours\nof centuries have produced no accepted body of knowledge; that, while\nthe separate sciences progress, metaphysics, which should justify them\nall, seems alone to change without advancing. Mankind is not so easily\ndiscouraged. New remedies are not less eagerly adopted because old\nremedies have so often failed. Few persons are prevented from thinking\nthemselves right by the reflection that, if they be right, the rest\nof the world is wrong. And were metaphysical systems what men wanted,\nthe disagreements among metaphysicians would no more destroy interest\nin metaphysics than the disagreements among theologians destroys\ninterest in theology. The evil, if evil it be, lies deeper. It is not\nso much that mankind reject metaphysical systems, as that they omit\nthe preliminary stage of considering them. Philosophy is now, perhaps\nhas always been, an academic discipline which touches not our ordinary\nlife. A general knowledge of the historic schools of thought may indeed\nbe acquired by the young as part of their education; but it is commonly\nforgotten by the middle-aged; and, whether forgotten or remembered, is\nrarely treated as in any vital relation to the beliefs and disbeliefs\nwhich represent their working theories of life and death.\n\nIf you desire confirmation of this statement, consider how few men of\nscience have shown the smallest interest in metaphysical speculation.\nPhilosophers, with one or two notorious exceptions, have commonly had a\nfair amateur acquaintance with the science of their day. Kant, though I\nbelieve that his mechanics were not always beyond reproach, anticipated\nLaplace in one famous hypothesis. Descartes and Leibnitz would be\nimmortalised as mathematicians if they had never touched philosophy,\nand as philosophers if they had never touched mathematics. In our own\nday Huxley not only contributed to biology, but wrote on philosophy.\nYet, speaking generally, metaphysics has in modern times been treated\nby men of science with an indifference which is sometimes respectful,\nmore commonly contemptuous, almost always complete.\n\nNor can we attribute this attitude of mind, whether on the part\nof scientific specialists or the general public, to absorption in\nmerely material interests. There are some observers who would have\nus believe that the energies of Western civilisation are now[1]\nentirely occupied in the double task of creating wealth and disputing\nover its distribution. I cannot think so; I doubt whether there has\nbeen for generations a deeper interest than at this moment in things\nspiritual\u2014however different be its manifestations from those with which\nwe are familiar in history. We must look elsewhere for an explanation\nof our problem. There must be other reasons why, to the world at large,\nthose who study metaphysics seem to sit (as it were) far apart from\ntheir fellow-men, seeking wisdom by methods hard of comprehension, and\ngently quarrelling with each other in an unknown tongue.\n\nAmong these reasons must no doubt be reckoned the very technical\ncharacter of much metaphysical exposition. Some of this could be\navoided, much of it could not; and, in any case, philosophers might\nwell ask why people should expect metaphysics\u2014to say nothing of logic\nand psychology\u2014to be easier of comprehension than the differential\ncalculus or the electro-magnetic theory of light. Plainly, there is no\nreason: and, in so far as the thoughts to be expressed are difficult,\nand the language required to express them is unfamiliar, the evil\nadmits of no remedy.\n\nBut there is something more to be said. It must, I think, be admitted\nthat most men approach the difficulties of a scientific exposition far\nmore hopefully than the difficulties of a metaphysical argument. They\nwill take more trouble because they expect more result. But why? In\npart, I think, because so much metaphysical debate is not, or does not\nappear to be, addressed to the problems of which they feel the pinch.\nOn the contrary, it confuses what to them seems plain; it raises doubts\nabout what to them seems obvious; and, of the doubts which they _do_\nentertain, it provides no simple or convincing solution.\n\nThe fact is, of course, that the metaphysician wants to re-think the\nuniverse; the plain man does not. The metaphysician seeks for an\ninclusive system where all reality can be rationally housed. The plain\nman is less ambitious. He is content with the kind of knowledge he\npossesses about men and things\u2014so far as it goes. Science has already\ntold him much; each day it tells him more. And, within the clearing\nthus made for him in the tangled wilderness of the unknown, he feels at\nhome. Here he can manage his own affairs; here he needs no philosophy\nto help him. If philosophy can speak to him about questions on which\nscience has little to say, he will listen; provided always that the\nproblems dealt with are interesting, and the treatment of them easily\nunderstood. He would like, for example, to hear about God, if there\nbe a God, and his Soul, if he has a Soul. But he turns silently away\nfrom discussions on the One and the Many, on Subject and Object, on\ndegrees of Reality, on the possibility of Error, on Space and Time,\non Reason and Intuition, on the nature of Experience, on the logical\ncharacteristics of the Absolute. These may be very proper topics for\nmetaphysicians, but clearly they are no topics for him.\n\nNow I am far from saying that in these opinions the plain man is right.\nHis speculative ambitions are small, and his tacit assumptions are\nmany. What is familiar seems to him easy; what is unfamiliar seems\nto him useless. And he is provokingly unaware of the difficulties\nwith which his common-sense doctrines are beset. Yet in spite of all\nthis, he has my sympathy; and I propose, with due qualifications and\nexplanations, to approach the great subject, described by the Trust as\nNatural Religion, from his\u2014the plain man\u2019s\u2014point of view.\n\n\nII\n\nBut what _is_ the plain man\u2019s point of view? What _is_ the creed of\ncommon sense?\n\nIt has never been summed up in articles, nor fenced round with\ndefinitions. But in our ordinary moments we all hold it; and there\nshould be no insuperable difficulty in coming to an agreement about\ncertain of its characteristics which are relevant to the purposes of my\nimmediate argument. One such characteristic is that its most important\nformulas represent beliefs which, whether true or false, whether proved\nor unproved, are at least _inevitable_. All men accept them in fact.\nEven those who criticise them in theory live by them in practice.\n\nNow this category of \u201cinevitableness\u201d is not often met with in\nmetaphysics; indeed, so far as I know, it is not met with at all. We\nhear of innate beliefs, _a priori_ judgments, axioms, laws of thought,\ntruths of reason, truths the opposite of which is \u201cinconceivable\u201d\u2014and\nso forth. These various descriptions are all devised in the interests\nof epistemology, i.e. the theory of knowledge. They are intended\nto mark off classes of judgments or beliefs which possess peculiar\nvalidity. But none of these classes are identical with the class\n\u201cinevitable.\u201d There are inevitable beliefs which nobody would think\nof describing either as _a priori_ or axiomatic. There are others of\nwhich the contradictory is perfectly conceivable; though no one who had\nother things to do would take the trouble to conceive it. An inevitable\nbelief need not be self-evident, nor even, in the last analysis,\nself-consistent. It is enough that those who deem it in need of proof\nyet cannot prove it, and those who think it lacks coherence yet cannot\nharmonise it, believe it all the same.\n\nBut, are there such inevitable beliefs? There certainly are. We cannot,\nin obedience to any dialectical pressure, suppose the world to be\nemptied of persons who think, who feel, who will; or of things which\nare material, independent, extended, and enduring. We cannot doubt that\nsuch entities exist, nor that they act on one another, nor that they\nare in space or time. Neither can we doubt that, in the world thus\npictured, there reigns an amount of stability and repetition, which\nsuggests anticipations and retrospects\u2014and sometimes justifies them.\n\nThese beliefs are beliefs about what are sometimes called \u201cfacts\u201d\nand sometimes \u201cphenomena\u201d\u2014neither term being either very convenient\nor very accurate. They are assumed in all sciences of nature, in all\nhistories of the past, in all forecasts of the future, in all practice,\nin all theory, outside philosophy itself. But there are two other\nkinds of beliefs which must, I think, be also regarded as inevitable,\nof which I shall have to speak in the course of these lectures. They\nhave unfortunately no generic names, and I must defer any description\nof them till future lectures. It is sufficient for the moment to say\nthat one of them relates to the ends of action, and includes morals;\nwhile the other relates to objects of contemplative interest, among\nwhich is beauty. In some shape or other\u2014perhaps in shapes which seem\nto us utterly immoral or disgusting\u2014beliefs of both kinds are, so far\nas I can judge, entertained by all men. And though they have not the\ncoercive force possessed by such beliefs as those in the independent\nexistence of things and persons, they may be counted, for my purposes,\namong the inevitable.\n\nHere, then, are three classes of belief which in some shape or other\ncommon sense holds, has always held, and cannot help holding. But\nevidently the shapes in which they may be held are many. They vary\nfrom age to age and from person to person. They are modified by\neducation, by temperament, by the general condition of learning, by\nindividual opportunities, and by social pressure. The common sense of\nthe twentieth century A.D. is very different from the common sense of\nthe twentieth century B.C. Yet, different though it be, it possesses\nunalterable similarities, and up to a certain point submits to the same\nclassification.\n\nIf you desire an illustration, consider the case of matter, or of\nmaterial things. All men believe in what is commonly called the\n\u201cexternal world\u201d\u2014they believe in it with evidence, or without evidence,\nsometimes (like David Hume) in the teeth of evidence, in any case\nindependently of evidence. But as to what this \u201cexternal world\u201d really\nis they differ profoundly. The expert of to-day differs from the expert\nof yesterday, both differ from the average man, the average man of the\ntwentieth century differs from his predecessors, and they differ from\neach other according to the stage of general and scientific culture at\nwhich they have severally arrived.\n\n\nIII\n\nBut, though all this be granted, to what, you may be disposed to ask,\ndoes it lead? What has it got to do with Theism? It is not alleged\nthat in any shape these inevitable beliefs are necessarily true; it is\nadmitted that in most of the shapes in which men have held them they\nare actually false; it is not even suggested that a belief in God is to\nbe counted among them. How, then, is Natural Theology advanced?\n\nTo answer this question would be to anticipate the nine lectures which\nare still to come. In the meanwhile, it may be enough to say that these\nbeliefs of common sense supply the material on which I propose to\nwork; that I shall treat them as a developing and improving system,\nof which the present phase is the most developed and the best. It is\nwith this phase that I am chiefly concerned. If, for example, I make\nuse of beliefs about the \u201cexternal world\u201d they will be (mainly) the\nbeliefs of contemporary or recent science so far as I know them. If I\nmake use of ethics or \u00e6sthetics, it will be the ethics and \u00e6sthetics\nof Western civilisation, not of Melanesia. I shall not add to them nor\nsubtract from them. I shall not criticise nor question them. I shall\naccept them at their face values. But I shall ask what this acceptance\nimplies. I shall ask how these values are to be maintained. And in\nparticular I shall inquire whether the course of development, whose\nlast known stages these beliefs represent, can be regarded as a merely\nnaturalistic process without doing fatal damage to their credit.\n\nThe answer I shall give to this last question will be in the negative.\nAnd, if the only alternative to Naturalism be Theism, as from the\ncommon-sense standpoint it certainly is, then the effect of my\nargument, for those who accept it, will be to link up a belief in God\nwith all that is, or seems, most assured in knowledge, all that is, or\nseems, most beautiful in art or nature, and all that is, or seems,\nmost noble in morality.\n\nAt this point you will inevitably ask me to explain what sort of Deity\nHe is whose existence I wish to establish. Men have thought of God in\nmany ways. In what way is He thought of in these lectures?\n\nThe question is legitimate, though I am in some doubt how far you\nwill regard my answer as satisfactory. I, of course, admit that the\nconception of God has taken many shapes in the long-drawn course of\nhuman development, some of them degraded, all of them inadequate.\nBut this, or something like this, was inevitable on any theory of\ndevelopment; and the subject-matter of theology does not seem to have\nfared differently in this respect from the subject-matter (say) of\nphysics or psychology. It is in all cases the later stages of the\nprocess which mainly concern us.\n\nThere is, however, something more to be said. The highest conceptions\nof God seem to approximate to one of two types, which, without\nprejudice, and merely for convenience, I may respectively call the\nreligious and the metaphysical. The metaphysical conception emphasises\nHis all-inclusive unity. The religious type emphasises His ethical\npersonality. The metaphysical type tends to regard Him as the logical\nglue which holds multiplicity together and makes it intelligible. The\nreligious type willingly turns away from such speculations about the\nAbsolute, to love and worship a Spirit among spirits. Which of these\ntypes is contemplated in the argument that follows?\n\nTo this question I would reply by another. Are the two conceptions\nincompatible? Must we abandon the second if we accept the first? If so,\nit is the second of which I propose to speak. It is the God according\nto religion, and not the God according to metaphysics, whose being I\nwish to prove. But there are theologians and philosophers of repute who\nthink the two conceptions can be harmonised. They hold that belief in\na personal and transcendent God is consistent with the acceptance even\nof those forms of Absolute Idealism which their friends call logical\nand their critics call intellectual\u2014in both cases, perhaps, without\nsufficient justification.\n\nFor myself, I must admit that I have never succeeded to my own\nsatisfaction in fusing the two conceptions. Yet I do not profess to\nbe content with their separation. The attribution of personality to\nGod, though much truer, I think, than the denial of it, is manifestly\ninadequate to the full reality we are struggling to express. Some of\nthe greatest religious teachers, Christian and non-Christian, that\nthe world has seen have more or less explicitly held both, or at\nleast have leaned towards neither exclusively. This is surely true,\nfor example, of Plato the Greek philosopher, of Philo the platonising\nJew, of St. Paul the Christian Apostle, of St. Augustine the patristic\ntheologian. Nor (so far as I know), has religious mysticism ever felt\nthe least difficulty in bridging the chasm by which, in the eyes of\ndiscursive reason, the two conceptions seem to be divided. This may\nwell represent the highest wisdom. But, the argument of these lectures\nhas a narrower scope: and when, in the course of them, I speak of God,\nI mean something other than an Identity wherein all differences vanish,\nor a Unity which includes but does not transcend the differences which\nit somehow holds in solution. I mean a God whom men can love, a God to\nwhom men can pray, who takes sides, who has purposes and preferences,\nwhose attributes, howsoever conceived, leave unimpaired the possibility\nof a personal relation between Himself and those whom He has created.\n\nBut is not this (it may be objected) the degradation of religion? What\nis a deity so conceived but the old tribal god, with his character\nimproved and his local limitations swept away? If God be not the\nAbsolute, can he be more than a magnified man? Can you hope to cleanse\nthese religious conceptions from the mud in which they once so rankly\nflourished?\n\nNow there are plenty of unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, difficulties\ninvolved in the religious, or indeed in any other, conception of God.\nBut I hardly count among them the lowly origin and crime-stained\nhistory of religious development. On this point you will be able to\nform a better opinion as these lectures proceed. But, in the meanwhile,\nit may be observed that though no tragic accompaniments attach to the\ngrowth of a purely Absolutist philosophy, this by no means implies that\nmetaphysics is better than religion. It is true that, for the sake of\na purely logical Absolute, no man has been moved to do what a later\nand higher morality condemns\u2014to placate it, for example, with bloody\nrites or obscene revels. But this is because, for the sake of such\nan Absolute, no man has ever yet been moved to do anything at all. A\nbelief in it may be the conclusion of our intellectual labours; but\nhardly (as it seems to me) their motive or their reward.\n\n\nIV\n\nLet me now bring this introductory lecture to a close by adding to\nwhat, so far, must seem a bare and obscure suggestion of what my\nargument _is_, a warning hint as to what, at first sight, it might seem\nto be, but is _not_.\n\nIt is not an argument from common sense, as that phrase ought properly\nto be interpreted. It does not say to the opponents of Theism: \u201cYou\naccept current beliefs in science, in morality, in ethics. In some\nshape or other common sense has always accepted them, in some shape or\nother you cannot help accepting them. You do, in fact, probably accept\nthem in the shape which finds favour with the \u2018best thought of the\nage\u2019 or what you conceive to be such. This is common sense. Why not\ndo in the sphere of religion what you are admittedly doing in these\nother spheres of theory and practice? Would not this be common sense\nalso? True, there is one important difference between the two cases.\nTheological beliefs are not inevitable\u2014at least not at our present\nstage of culture. It is possible to be an atheist; and easy to be an\nagnostic. But inevitableness, in itself, is no ground of philosophic\ncertitude. So this point may be ignored; and in all other respects the\nparallel seems to be complete. Some form of Theism has been prevalent\nfrom an immemorial past. It has strongly appealed to the needs and\nfeelings of mankind. You do not pause before accepting beliefs about\nthings and persons till philosophy has solved all the speculative\ndoubts about them which philosophy itself has raised. Why, then, should\nyou apply a standard of rationality to religion which, with general\napproval, you reject in the case of science?\u201d\n\nNow I do not suggest that this is bad advice. Quite the contrary.\nNeither is it necessarily bad argument. But it is not the argument of\nthese lectures. Whatever be its intrinsic merits, it has, from my point\nof view, the defect of implying a theory of knowledge\u2014a very modest\nand unassuming theory indeed; but still a theory. And it therefore\ncomes into competition with all other theories of knowledge\u2014Absolutist,\nEmpirical, Pragmatic, Neo-Kantian, Neo-Hegelian, Realist, New Realist,\nto say nothing of Professor Mach\u2019s philosophy of science, or M.\nBergson\u2019s world-famous speculations.\n\nNow I preach no theory of knowledge; partly because I have none to\npreach, partly because, in these lectures, I desire to dogmatise as\nlittle as I can about fundamentals, and to be constructive rather\nthan critical. If you ask me how it is possible to be constructive\nwithout first settling fundamentals, and how it is possible to settle\nfundamentals without first being critical, I reply that it is only\npossible if you start from premises which are practically accepted by\nboth parties to the controversy, however little agreement there may be\nas to their speculative proof; and this is what I am trying to do.\n\nNor ought this procedure to be deemed unworthy of the attention of\nserious thinkers. It is provisional, no doubt; but I do not think it\nshallow. It can never give us a metaphysic of the universe; but the\ncreators of such a metaphysic, when they come, will not find it stand\nin their way. Moreover, it takes account of facts as they are. A creed\nof some kind, religious or irreligious, is a vital necessity for all,\nnot a speculative luxury for the few: and the practical creed of the\nfew who speculate has a singular, and even suspicious, resemblance to\nthat of the many who do not. While those rare individuals who have\nthought deeply about the theory of knowledge are profoundly divided as\nto _why_ we should believe, they largely agree as to _what_ we should\nbelieve with that vast multitude who, on the theory of knowledge,\nhave never thought at all. Is not this a circumstance in itself most\nworthy of closer consideration? May it not guide us to some approximate\nsolution of our present perplexities? The present lectures are an\nattempt to answer this question.\n\nIs my argument, then, nothing better than an appeal from the competent\nto the incompetent, from the few to the many? By no means. Progress,\nthough of small account unless it touch the many, gets its vital\nimpetus always from the few. It is to the patient labours of those\nrare intelligences who possess originality, courage, subtlety, and\nsympathy that we must look for the gradual working out of a theory of\nthe universe which shall as fully satisfy our reason and our conscience\nas the limitations of our faculties permit. But that consummation is\nnot yet. And since, whether we be philosophers or not, we all act on\na working body of root-beliefs about men and things: since we are\nalso in general agreement as to the form in which those beliefs can\nbest express the present state of knowledge, is it not legitimate to\nask whether, on the basis thus provided, a still larger measure of\npractical harmony cannot in the meantime be reasonably established? It\nis true that Theism could never by such methods acquire a certitude\neither greater than, or independent of, the beliefs of science and\ncommon sense. But, could it acquire as much, theologians might well be\ncontent, though philosophers most rightly strove for more.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Written before the war.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II\n\n\nI\n\nThe argument, then, which I propose to lay before you, though its\nmaterial is provided by our common-sense beliefs, is not an argument\nfrom common sense. It does not extend to theology those uncritical\nmethods which we accept (most of us without protest) in the sphere\nof our every-day activities. Is it, then, you may be tempted to ask,\nsome form of the yet more familiar argument from design? Is it more\nthan Paley and the Bridgwater treatises brought up to date? And, if\nso, has not the vanity of all such endeavours been demonstrated in\nadvance: from the side of sceptical philosophy by Hume; from the side\nof idealist philosophy by Kant and his successors; from the side of\nempirical philosophy by the nineteenth-century agnostics; from the\nside of science by the theory of Natural Selection? Do not the very\ncatch-words of the argument\u2014\u201ccontrivance,\u201d \u201cdesign,\u201d \u201cadaptation,\u201d\nexercised by the \u201cArchitect of the Universe\u201d fill us with a certain\nweariness? Do they not represent the very dregs of stale apologetics;\nthe outworn residue of half-forgotten controversies?\n\nFor my own part, I do not think the argument from contrivance bad, but\nI do think it very limited: limited in respect of its premises; limited\nalso in respect of its conclusions. It may, perhaps, be worth dwelling\non some of these limitations, if only to make my own position clearer\nby contrast.\n\nIn the first place, it must be noted that, from a consideration of\ninanimate nature alone it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to infer\ndesign. The mere existence of natural laws is not, as it seems to me,\na sufficient basis for the argument; we require also that these laws\nshould combine to subserve an end. Were the universe, for example, like\na huge impervious reservoir of some simple gas, where nothing rested\nbut nothing changed, where amid all the hurry and bustle of colliding\natoms no new thing was ever born, nor any old thing ever perished, we\nmight find in it admirable illustrations of natural law, but no hints,\nso far as I can see, of purpose or design. Nor is the case really\nmended if, instead of thus artificially simplifying inanimate nature,\nwe consider it in all its concrete complexity. Even cosmic evolution of\nthe Spencerian type will scarcely help us. Herbert Spencer, as we know,\nregarded the world-story as a continuous progress from the simple to\nthe complex, in which the emergence of the living out of the not-living\nis treated as a harmonious episode in one vast evolutionary drama. The\nplot opens in the first chapter with diffused nebul\u00e6; it culminates\nin the last with the social organisation of man. Unfortunately its\ncentral episode, the transition from the not-living to the living, was\nnever explained by the author of the \u201cSynthetic Philosophy\u201d; and the\nlamentable gap must be filled in by each disciple according to his\npersonal predilections. For the moment, however, we are concerned only\nwith one part of the story, that which deals with the evolution of\ninanimate nature. Can this be regarded as displaying design? I hardly\nthink so. Granting, for the sake of argument, the validity of the\nSpencerian physics, granting that the material Universe exhibits this\ngeneral trend from the simple to the complex, from a loose diffusion\nof nebulous matter to the balanced movements of suns and satellites,\ndoes this of itself give any hint of purpose? Only, I believe, if we\nconfound evolution with elaboration and elaboration with improvement,\nand read into it some suggestion of progress borrowed from biology or\nethics, sociology or religion.\n\nBut we have not the slightest right to do this. Apart from life and\nthought, there is no reason to regard one form of material distribution\nas in any respect superior to another. A solar system may be more\ninteresting than its parent nebula; it may be more beautiful. But if\nthere be none to unravel its intricacies or admire its splendours, in\nwhat respect is it better? Its constituent atoms are more definitely\ngrouped, the groups move in assignable orbits; but why should the\nprocess by which these results have been achieved be regarded as\nother than one of purposeless change super-induced upon meaningless\nuniformity? Why should this type of \u201cevolution\u201d have about it any\nsuggestion of progress? And, if it has not, how can it indicate design?\n\nSpencer himself was, of course, no advocate of \u201cdesign\u201d after the\nmanner of Paley; and I only mention his cosmic speculations because\ntheir unavowed optimism\u2014the optimism that is always apt to lurk in the\nword \u201cevolution\u201d\u2014makes of them material peculiarly suitable for those\nwho seek for marks of design in lifeless nature. But let us add two\ntouches to Spencer\u2019s picture, and see how the argument then stands.\n\nI have already commented on the great omission which mars the\ncontinuity of his world-story\u2014the omission, I mean, of any account of\nthe transition from the not-living to the living. I shall have again\nto refer to it. But there are, besides this, two other omissions, one\nat the beginning of his narrative, and the other at the end, whose\nsignificance in relation to \u201cdesign\u201d should receive a passing comment.\n\nAs I understand the matter, an intelligence sufficiently endowed\u2014let\nus call him Laplace\u2019s calculator\u2014might infer the past state of\nthe material universe from the present by a process of rigorous\ndeduction, on accepted physical principles. But, if he carried back his\ninvestigations into a period sufficiently remote, he would find a point\nat which certain fundamental processes reach a theoretical limit; and,\nthough we must believe that this condition of things had antecedents,\nyet infinite powers of calculation, based upon infinite knowledge of\nthe present, could not, it seems, tell us what they were.\n\nSo much for the past. Now for the future. Here our calculator would\nbe more successful. His prophecy, unlike his history, would not break\nhelplessly against any impassable barrier. He could range at will over\nthe illimitable future. But the prospect, though unbounded, would\nnot be exhilarating. No faintest tinge of optimism would colour his\nanticipations. Everything that happened, good or bad, would subtract\nsomething from the lessening store of useful energy, till a time\narrived when nothing could happen any more, and the universe, frozen\ninto eternal repose, would for ever be as if it were not.\n\nDo our ideas of material evolution, thus corrected and supplemented,\nlend themselves easily to the argument from design? I hardly think so.\nIt is true that in retrospect we can ideally reach a limit which no\ncalculations, based upon physical laws, will permit us to overpass,\nand that where (what in old-fashioned language were called) \u201csecondary\ncauses\u201d fail us, a First Cause may plausibly be invoked; but, if we\ngaze forward instead of backward, the physical course of nature does\nnot merely fail to indicate design, it seems loudly to proclaim its\nabsence. A world where all energy suffers inevitable degradation,\nconsidered by itself, appears atheistic on the face of it: nor can even\nlife consciousness or thought redeem it, if they, too, are doomed to\nperish when further transformations of energy become impossible.\n\nIt is not, therefore, on any general survey of material nature that,\nin the present state of our knowledge, we can base the argument\nfrom \u201cdesign.\u201d Nor is this the foundation on which those who use\nthe argument have chiefly built. They have always sought for proofs\nof contrivance rather among the living than among the dead. In the\nintricate adjustment of different parts of an organism to the interests\nof the whole; in the adaptation of that whole to its environment, they\nfound the evidence they required. Arrangements which so irresistibly\nsuggested purpose could not (they thought) be reasonably attributed to\nchance.\n\nThis argument possessed immense force in what was, comparatively\nspeaking, the infancy of biology. Has that force been lessened by the\ngrowth of knowledge? Yes and No. If we consider organic adaptations\nand adjustments in themselves, scientific discovery has increased a\nthousand-fold our sense of their exquisite nicety and their amazing\ncomplexity. I take it as certain that, had no such theory as Natural\nSelection been devised, nothing would have persuaded mankind that\nthe organic world came into being unguided by intelligence. Chance,\nwhatever chance may mean, would never have been accepted as a solution.\nAgnosticism would have been scouted as stupidity.\n\nAll this has been changed, as every one knows, by Darwin. But what\nexactly was it that, in this connection, Darwin did? He is justly\nregarded as the greatest among the founders of the doctrine of organic\nevolution; but there is nothing in the mere idea of organic evolution\nwhich is incongruous with design. On the contrary, it almost suggests\nguidance, it has all the appearance of a plan. Why, then, has Natural\nSelection been supposed to shake teleology to its foundation?\n\nThe reason, of course, is that though the fact of Selection does not\nmake it harder to believe in design, it makes it easier to believe in\naccident; and, as design and accident are the two mutually exclusive\nalternatives between which the argument from design requires us to\nchoose, this comes to the same thing. Before Darwin\u2019s great discovery\nthose who denied the existence of a Contriver were hard put to it to\nexplain the appearance of contrivance. Darwin, within certain limits\nand on certain suppositions, provided an explanation. He showed how the\nmost complicated and purposeful organs, if only they were useful to the\nspecies, might gradually arise out of random variations, continuously\nweeded by an unthinking process of elimination. Assume the existence\nof living organisms, however simple, let them multiply enough and vary\nenough, let their variations be heritable, then, if sufficient time\nbe granted, all the rest will follow. In these conditions, and out of\nthis material, blind causation will adapt means to ends with a wealth\nof ingenuity which we not only cannot equal, but which we are barely\nbeginning to comprehend.[2]\n\nThe theory of selection thus destroys much of the foundation on which,\na hundred years ago, the argument from design was based. What does it\nleave untouched?\n\nIt leaves untouched all that can be inferred from the existence of\nthe conditions which make organic evolution possible: matter which\nlives, multiplies, and varies; an environment which possesses the\nmarvellously complex constitution required to make these processes\npossible. Selection may modify these conditions, but it cannot start\nthem. It may modify the manner in which multiplication is secured; it\nmay modify the lines which variations follow; it may enable organic\nspecies to adapt their powers to their environment, and (within narrow\nlimits) their environment to their powers. But it cannot produce either\nthe original environment or the original living matter. These must be\ndue either to luck or to contrivance; and, if they be due to luck, the\nluck (we must own) is great. How great we cannot say. We cannot measure\nthe improbability of a fortuitous arrangement of molecules producing\nnot merely living matter, but living matter of the right kind, living\nmatter on which selection can act. Here, indeed, Laplace\u2019s calculator\nmight conceivably help us. But suppose him to have done so, suppose\nhim to have measured the odds against the accidental emergence of the\ndesired brand of protoplasm, how are we to compare _this_ probability\nwith its assumed alternative\u2014intelligent design? Here, I think, even\nLaplace\u2019s calculator would fail us; for he is only at home in a\nmaterial world governed by mechanical and physical laws. He has no\nprinciples which would enable him to make exhaustive inferences about a\nworld in which other elements are included: and such a world is ours.\n\nFor a Greek philosopher to assert that the world is material was\nlegitimate enough. He was in search of a universal principle; and if\nhe found it in matter we need neither wonder nor criticise. After all,\nmatter lies round us on every side; we are immersed in it; we are\nlargely dependent on it. It may well seem but a small step further, and\na very natural one, to treat it as the essence of all that is.\n\nBut, as it seems to me, we now know too much about matter to be\nmaterialists. The philosophical difficulties in the way of accepting\na materialistic world-system are notorious\u2014at least to philosophers.\nBut I am not speaking of them. I am thinking of the scientific\ndifficulties, those that cannot but suggest themselves when we consider\nthe breach of continuity involved in the appearance of life, and still\nmore obviously of feeling, at particular points in the long procession\nof material causes and effects. The very essence of the physical order\nof things is that it creates nothing new. Change is never more than a\nredistribution of that which never changes. But sensibility belongs to\nthe world of consciousness, not to the world of matter. It is a new\ncreation, of which physical equations can give no account; nay, rather,\nwhich falsifies such equations; which requires us to say that, before\na certain date in the history of the universe, energy in one shape was\nconverted into precisely the same amount of energy in another shape,\nand into nothing more; that matter in one position was transferred to\nanother position without increase or diminution: but that, after this\ndate, the transformations of energy and the movements of matter were\nsometimes accompanied by psychical \u201cepiphenomena\u201d which differ from\nthem in kind, which are incommensurable with them in amount, and which\nno equations can represent.\n\nBabbage, in order to show how occasional \u201cmiracles\u201d might \u201cnaturally\u201d\nbreak the continuity of the longest sequences, devised a machine which\nproduced numbers according to a particular law for an indefinite\nperiod, then broke this uniformity by a single exception, and,\nthereafter, reverted for ever to its original principle of action.\nBut Babbage\u2019s results, however startling, depended wholly on known\nmathematical and mechanical laws. Their irregularity was only\napparent. To Laplace\u2019s calculator, they would have seemed not merely\ninevitable but obvious. It is quite otherwise with the appearance\nand disappearance of feeling, thought, will, consciousness in\ngeneral, within the strictly determinal series of mechanical causes\nand effects. Here the anomaly is real: the breach of continuity\ninexplicable by any physical laws and indeed incompatible with them.\nI am not at this moment concerned either to deny or to assert that\nat the critical frontier where mind and matter meet, the even course\nof nature suffers violence. I am not suggesting, for example, that,\nif a given physiological state were exactly repeated, the psychical\nstate formerly associated with it would not be repeated also. My point\nis different. It is that in a strictly determined physical system,\ndepending on the laws of matter and energy alone, no room _has_ been\nfound, and no room _can_ be found, for psychical states at all. They\nare novelties, whose intrusion into the material world cannot be\ndenied, but whose presence and behaviour cannot be explained by the\nlaws which that world obeys.\n\nThe difficulty is a very familiar one; and I cannot see that the\nprogress either of science or philosophy has brought us nearer to its\nsolution. But what (you may be disposed to ask) has it to do with the\nargument from design? At least this much:\n\nThose who refuse to accept design do so because they think the\nworld-story at least as intelligible without it as with it. This\nopinion is very commonly associated with a conception of the universe\naccording to which the laws of matter and energy are sufficient to\nexplain, not only all that is, but all that has been or that will be.\nIf we thus know the sort of explanation which is sufficient to cover\nthe facts, why (it is asked) should we travel further afield into the\nmisty realms of theology or metaphysics?\n\nBut the explanation does not cover the facts, even when all has\nbeen conceded to the opponents of design that I, at least, am ready\nto concede. Grant that the inorganic world, considered in and for\nitself, does not suggest contrivance; grant that the contrivance\nwhich the organic world does undoubtedly suggest may in great part\nbe counterfeit\u2014there still remains a vast residue of fact quite\nrecalcitrant to merely physical explanation. I will not argue whether\nin this residue we should or should not include life. It is enough\nthat we must undoubtedly include feeling and all other phases of\nconsciousness. We must include them, even if they be no more than the\npassive accompaniments of material change; still more must we include\nthem if we speculatively accept (what I deem to be) the inevitable\nbelief that they can, within limits, themselves initiate movement and\nguide energy. The choice, therefore, is not between two accounts of the\nuniverse, each of which may conceivably be sufficient. The mechanical\naccount is not sufficient. It doubly fails to provide a satisfactory\nsubstitute for design. In the first place, it requires us to believe\nthat the extraordinary combination of material conditions required for\norganic life is due to hazard. In the second place, it has to admit\nthat these material conditions are insufficient, and have somehow to be\nsupplemented. We must assume, that is to say, an infinitely improbable\naccident, and, when we have assumed it, we are still unprovided with an\nexplanation. Nay, the case is even worse\u2014for the laws by whose blind\noperation this infinitely improbable accident has been brought about\nare, by hypothesis, mechanical; and, though mechanical laws can account\nfor rearrangements, they cannot account for creation; since, therefore,\nconsciousness is more than rearrangement, its causes must be more than\nmechanical.\n\nTo me, then, it seems that the common-sense \u201cargument from design\u201d is\nstill of value. But, if it carries us beyond mechanical materialism, it\nmust be owned that it does not carry us very far towards a religious\ntheology. It is inconsistent with Naturalism: it is inconsistent with\nAgnosticism. But its demands would be satisfied by the barest creed\nwhich acknowledged that the universe, or part of it, showed marks\nof intelligent purpose. And, though most persons willing to accept\nthis impoverished form of Theism will certainly ask for more, this is\nnot because they are swept forward by the inevitable logic of the\nargument, but because the argument has done something to clear a path\nwhich they were already anxious to pursue.\n\n\nII\n\nAs the conclusions which I desire to establish are richer in contents\nthan any which can be derived merely from marks of contrivance, so\nthe method of arriving at them is essentially different. In the\nfirst place, it is based not upon considerations drawn from external\nnature, but from the mind and soul of man. Stress is laid, not upon\ncontrivances, adjustments, and the happy adaptation of means to ends,\nbut on the character of certain results attained. It is not an argument\nfrom design, but an argument from value. To emphasise the contrast, it\nmight be called an argument _to_ design. Value (we assert) is lost if\ndesign be absent. Value (you will ask) of what? Of our most valuable\nbeliefs, (I answer) and of their associated emotions.\n\nWe are, no doubt, accustomed to connect the notion of value rather\nwith things believed in, than with the beliefs of which they are the\nsubjects. A fine symphony, an heroic deed, a good dinner, an assured\nlivelihood, have admitted values. But what values can we attribute\nto beliefs and judgments, except is so far as they are aids and\ninstruments for obtaining valuable objects?\n\nThis question, however, is based, as I think, upon an insufficient\nsurvey of the subject. We are in search of a world outlook. Creeds,\ntherefore, are our concern. The inquiry with which these lectures are\nconcerned is whether, among the beliefs which together constitute\nour general view of the universe, we should, or should not, include\na belief in God. And to this question it is certainly relevant to\ninquire whether the elimination of such a belief might not involve a\nloss of value in other elements of our creed\u2014a loss in which we are not\nprepared to acquiesce.\n\nBut how, you will ask, is this loss of value brought about? What is\nthe connection between a belief in God and a belief concerning (say)\nbeauty, or goodness, or natural law? Evidently the connection is not,\nin the ordinary sense, a logical one. Neither \u00e6sthetic, nor ethic, nor\nscientific judgments can be \u2018deduced\u2019 from Theism; nor can Theism be\n\u2018deduced\u2019 from them. We are not dealing with premises and conclusions\nbound together by a formal chain of inference. How, then, is our\nprocedure to be described?\n\nIn order to make this clear, I must call your attention to a double\naspect possessed by all beliefs alike, whatever be the subject-matter\nwith which they deal. All beliefs have a position, actually or\npotentially, in a cognitive series; all beliefs, again, have a\nposition, known or unknown, in a causal series. All beliefs, in so far\nas they belong to the first kind of series, are elements in one or\nmore collections of interdependent propositions. They are conclusions,\nor premises, or both. All beliefs, in so far as they belong to the\nsecond kind of series, are elements in the temporal succession of\ninterdependent events. They are causes, or effects, or both.\n\nIt has, further, to be noted that whereas reasons may, and usually do,\nfigure among the proximate causes of belief, and thus play a part in\nboth kinds of series, it is always possible to trace back the causal\nseries to a point where every trace of rationality vanishes; where we\nare left face to face with conditions of beliefs\u2014social, physiological,\nand physical\u2014which, considered in themselves, are quite a-logical in\ntheir character.\n\nIt is on this last point that I particularly desire to insist. We are\nall very familiar with the equivocal origin of most human creeds. To\nbe sure, we observe it chiefly in the case of other people. In our own\ncase, we dwell by preference on those causes of our beliefs which are\nalso reasons. But in our detached studies of the opinions we do not\nshare, we easily perceive how insufficient are the arguments officially\nurged on their behalf, and how often even these insufficient arguments\nhave only a nominal connection with the convictions of which they claim\nthe legal paternity. We must, however, go yet one step further. We\nmust realise that, on any merely naturalistic hypothesis, the rational\nelements in the causal series lie always on the surface. Penetrate\nbut a short way down, and they are found no more. You might as easily\ndetect life in the minerals wherein plants are rooted, as reason in\nthe physiological and physical changes to which the source of our most\ncarefully reasoned beliefs must, in the last resort, be traced.\n\nConsider, for example, an extreme case\u2014say a proposition of Euclid.\nHere we have a belief logically inferred from well-assured premises\u2014so,\nat least, we were accustomed to suppose before mathematicians became\nso very fastidious in the matter of proof. Can we not say that in\nthis case the elements of the two series are in a sense identical,\nthat all the causes for our belief are also reasons for it? Certainly\nwe are not moved by prejudice, or affection, or authority. It is\nneither self-interest nor party passion that induces us to believe,\nfor example, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two\nright angles. Has our thought, then, in this case freed itself\nfrom the dominion of a-logical conditions? Is our belief the child\nof uncontaminated reason? I answer\u2014No. Though the argument, _qua_\nargument, is doubtless independent of time, the argumentative process\nby which we are in fact convinced occurs in time, and, like all\npsychological processes, is somehow associated with physiological\nchanges in the brain, These, again, are part of the general stream of\nphysical happenings, which in themselves have nothing rational about\nthem. Follow up this stream but a little further and every trace,\nnot only of mind but of life, is completely lost; and we are left\nface to face with unthinking matter and its purposeless movements.\nLogical inference is thus no more than the reasoned termination of an\nunreasoning process. Scratch an argument, and you find a cause.\n\nIf this be admitted, the question at once arises whether we can treat\nthe two kinds of series thus intimately connected as separable when\nwe are estimating the values of the beliefs with which they are both\nassociated. Is it permissible, is it even possible, to ignore the\ngenesis of knowledge when we are considering its validity? Do not\norigins qualify values?\n\nIn many cases they notoriously do. A distinguished agnostic once\nobserved that in these days Christianity was not refuted, it was\nexplained. Doubtless the difference between the two operations was, in\nhis view, a matter rather of form than of substance. That which was\nonce explained needed, he thought, no further refutation. And certainly\nwe are all made happy when a belief, which seems to us obviously\nabsurd, is shown nevertheless to be natural in those who hold it.\n\nBut we must be careful. True beliefs are effects no less than false.\nIn this respect magic and mathematics are on a level. Both demand\nscientific explanation; both are susceptible of it. Manifestly,\nthen, we cannot admit that explanation may be treated as a kind\nof refutation. For, if so, the more successfully science carried\nout its explanatory task, the more completely would it shatter its\nown principles. This way lies universal scepticism. Thus would all\nintellectual values be utterly destroyed.\n\nBut we have not to do with intellectual values alone. There are beliefs\n(as I have already said) round which crystallise complex emotions,\n\u00e6sthetic and ethic, which play no small part in our highest life.\nWithout the beliefs the emotions would dwindle; without the emotions\nthe beliefs would lose their worth. Though they do not imply each other\nin the world of logic, they are mutually necessary in the world of\nvalues. Here, of course, there is no question of a contrast between the\nlogical and the causal series. Emotions are always effects; they are\nnever inferences. In their case, therefore, the relation of value to\norigin is not obscured by considerations like those which must occupy\nus in the case of mere beliefs; and we have to face in a simpler and\nmore direct form the central problem of these lectures: the problem of\nthe relation which origin bears to value. It is with this branch of\nmy subject as it is raised by \u00e6sthetic and by ethic emotions that I\nshall be mainly occupied in the next two lectures. And as in the later\npart of my course I shall contend that it is destructive of rational\nvalues to root them in unreason, so I shall now contend that the\nemotional values associated with, and required by, our beliefs about\nbeauty and virtue must have some more congruous source than the blind\ntransformation of physical energy. If I am successful in my endeavour\nI shall have done something to show that \u201cdesign\u201d is demanded by all\nthat we deem most valuable in life, by beauty, by morals, by scientific\ntruth: and that it is design far deeper in purpose, far richer in\nsignificance, than any which could be inferred from the most ingenious\nand elaborate adjustments displayed by organic life.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] As I shall often have to mention \u201cselection\u201d in the course of these\nlectures, I must observe that it is no part of my business to weigh the\ncomparative merits of competing evolutionary theories. It may be that\nthe hypothesis of small random variations accumulated or eliminated\naccording as they help or hinder survival, is, in the light of recent\nresearch, insufficient and unsatisfactory. From my point of view this\nis immaterial. I use the word \u201cselection\u201d as a convenient name for\nany non-rational process, acting through heredity, which successfully\nimitates contrivance. Darwin\u2019s theory, be it true or false, still\nprovides, I suppose, the only suggestion as to how this feat may\nbe accomplished, and his terminology may be used without danger of\nmisunderstanding.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n_\u00c6STHETIC AND ETHICAL VALUES_\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III\n\n\u00c6STHETIC AND THEISM\n\n\nI\n\nIn this lecture I have undertaken to consider certain beliefs and\nemotions relating to beauty, and to inquire how far their value is\naffected by our views as to their origin.\n\nThe poverty of language, however, makes it rather difficult to\ndescribe with any exactness the scope of such an inquiry. Beauty is\nan ill-defined attribute of certain members of an ill-defined class;\nand for the class itself there is no very convenient name. We might\ndescribe its members as \u201cobjects of \u00e6sthetic interest\u201d always bearing\nin mind that this description (as I use it) applies to objects of the\nmost varying degrees of excellence\u2014to the small as well as the great,\nthe trifling as well as the sublime: to conjuring and dancing; to\nliterature, art, and natural beauty.\n\nIt follows from this description that, while all things of beauty\npossess \u00e6sthetic interest, not all things of \u00e6sthetic interest would in\ncommon parlance be described as beautiful.[3] They might, for example,\ndisplay wit, or finish, or skill. They might, therefore, properly\nexcite admiration. But beauty is a term whose use may well be confined\nto the qualities which excite only the highest forms of \u00e6sthetic\ninterest, and it is thus I propose to employ it.\n\nNow what are the characteristics which distinguish objects of \u00e6sthetic\ninterest from interesting objects generally? I will mention two.\n\nIn the first place, the value of \u00e6sthetic objects depends on the\nintrinsic quality of the emotions they arouse, and not upon the\nimportance of any ulterior purpose which they may happen to subserve.\nIn the second place, the emotions themselves, whatever be their value,\nmust be _contemplative_. They must not prompt to action or reach\nforward to any end. They must be self-sufficient, and self-contained.\n\nOf course, I do not suggest that works of art are useless. A building\nmay be beautiful, although it is also convenient. A sword most\ndelicately damascened may be an admirable engine of destruction. We may\neven go further and admit that utility unadorned may have about it an\n\u00e6sthetic flavour. Nice adjustment and fitness exquisitely accomplished\nare without doubt agreeable objects of contemplation. But, in the\nfirst two of these cases, beauty is deliberately added to utility, not\norganically connected with it. An ill-proportioned building might have\nbeen equally fitted for its purpose; a plain sword might have been\nequally lethal. In the third case the connection between utility and\n\u00e6sthetic interest is organic, yet undesigned. From the very nature of\nthe case it forms no part of the purpose for which the mechanism was\ncontrived.\n\nAgain\u2014when I say that \u00e6sthetic interest does not prompt to action,\nI am, of course, speaking of those who enjoy, not of those who are\nlaboriously trying to enjoy, still less of those who create what is to\nbe enjoyed. It commonly requires effort, conscious and unconscious, to\nbe a good spectator; it always requires effort to become a good artist.\nYet these are no real exceptions to the principle. \u00c6sthetic interests,\nonce aroused, do not prompt to action; and it is, I conceive, of their\nessence that they should not. The most emotional spectator does not\nrush to save Desdemona from Othello; and, though tragedy may (or may\nnot) purify by \u201cpity and terror,\u201d the pity does not suggest a rescue,\nnor the terror urge to flight.\n\n\nII\n\nNow these characteristics of \u00e6sthetic emotions and beliefs raise\nproblems of great interest. How came they to be what they are? To what\ncausal process are they due? In the case of ethics (to anticipate a\ndiscussion that will occupy us in the next lecture) the earlier stages\nat least are seemingly due to selection. They lead to action, and to\naction which has survival value. But what survival value have \u00e6sthetic\njudgments and feelings at any stage of culture? It is true that\nactions which are sometimes represented as primitive forms of artistic\ncreation play their part in the drama of animal courtship. Some animals\ndance, some sing, some croak; some flaunt colours, some exhale smells.\nApes (it seems) make inarticulate noises which (according to Spencer)\nwere the humble beginnings, not only of speech, but of music. I own\nthat to me this sort of explanation leaves our \u00e6sthetic interests quite\nunexplained. Grant, for the sake of argument that, were our knowledge\nsufficient, we could trace a continuous history of musical emotions\nfrom the simple satisfaction excited in the female ape by the howling\nof the male, down to the delicate delights of the modern musician,\nshould we be nearer an answer to the problem of \u00e6sthetic causation?\nI doubt it. Certainly we should not have succeeded in coupling the\ndevelopment of our feelings for beauty to the general process of\norganic evolution. Before this can be satisfactorily accomplished it\nmust be shown, not merely that the tastes of anthropoid apes are useful\nto anthropoid apes, but that the tastes of men are useful to men, and\nin particular that the tastes of civilised men are useful to civilised\nmen. Nor would even this be enough unless usefulness be carefully\ndefined in terms of survival value. It must, in other words, be shown\nthat communities rich in the genius which creates beauty and in the\nsensibility which enjoys it, will _therefore_ breed more freely and\nstruggle more successfully than their less gifted neighbours. And I am\nnot aware that any attempt to establish such a doctrine has ever been\nseriously undertaken.\n\nBut, if so, our \u00e6sthetic sensibilities must be regarded (from the\nnaturalistic standpoint) as the work of chance. They form no part\nof the _quasi_ design which we attribute to selection; they are\nunexplained accidents of the evolutionary process. This conclusion\nharmonises ill with the importance which civilised man assigns to\nthem in his scheme of values. On this point, at least, there reigns\na singular unanimity. However people may differ as to what we should\nadmire, all are agreed that we should admire something. However they\nmay differ about the benefits to be derived from \u00e6sthetic, all are\nagreed that the benefits are great. The pessimist finds in art the\nsolitary mitigation of human miseries. A certain type of agnostic\ntreats it as an undogmatic substitute for religion. He worships\nbeauty, but nothing else; and expects from it all the consolations of\nreligious experience without the burdens of religious belief. Even\nthose who would refuse to art and literature this exalted position, are\nprepared to praise them without stint. They regard the contemplative\nstudy of beautiful things as a most potent instrument of civilisation;\nin countless perorations they preach its virtues; delicacy of \u00e6sthetic\ndiscrimination they deem the surest proof of culture, and the enjoyment\nof \u00e6sthetic excellence its highest reward.\n\nThe case is apparently, but not really, different when we turn\nfrom beauty to the minor \u00e6sthetic interests\u2014the popular novel, the\nmusic-hall song, the cricket-match (as spectacle), the cinematograph,\nand so forth. Nobody, it is true, greatly praises these things, but\nmultitudes greatly enjoy them. The space they occupy in the life of\nthe community has increased beyond computation. As locomotion becomes\neasier and leisure greater that space will increase yet more. This\nmay be good or bad; but none will deny that it is important. What a\nparadox this seems! Theories of selection were devised to explain the\ncomplex structures and the marvellous adjustments of the organic world\nwithout needlessly postulating design. We should think but poorly of\nthem if they accounted for some organs by methods quite inapplicable\nto others\u2014if they showed us, for example, how the eye had developed,\nbut appealed to some wholly different principle (say special creation)\nwhen they set to work on the ear; or taught that the nose must be\nregarded as an evolutionary accident not to be explained on any general\nprinciple at all. If what required explanation was of small biological\nimportance, this last hypothesis would not seem perhaps startling. The\nmost convinced selectionist is not obliged to suppose that selection\neliminates everything which does not make for survival. Useless\nvariations may be spared if they be harmless. Even harmful variations\nmay be spared if they be linked to variations so advantageous that\ntheir joint effect proves beneficial on balance. But is this the case\nwith \u00e6sthetic? Are we to treat as unconsidered trifles our powers\nof enjoying beauty and of creating it? Can we be content with a\nworld-outlook which assigns to these chance products of matter and\nmotion so vast a value measured on the scale of culture, and no value\nworth counting measured on the scale of race survival? If design may\never be invoked where selection fails and luck seems incredible, surely\nit may be invoked here.\n\n\nIII\n\nThese observations are applicable, more or less, to the whole body\nof our \u00e6sthetic interests\u2014whether they be roused by objects we deem\nrelatively trivial, or by objects which are admittedly rare and\nsplendid. But while neither fit comfortably into a purely naturalistic\nframework, it is only the second which, in virtue of their intrinsic\nquality, demand a source beyond and above the world of sense\nperception. Here, then, we are face to face with a new question. So far\nwe have been concerned to ask whether that which is admittedly valuable\ncan be plausibly attributed to chance. Now we must ask whether that\nwhich is attributed to chance can thereafter retain its value. Of these\nquestions the first is germane to the ordinary argument from design. It\nis the second which chiefly concerns us in these lectures.\n\nPerhaps an affirmative answer may seem to have been already given by\nimplication. The admission that the second problem only touches the\nhighest values in the \u00e6sthetic scale may be thought to render the whole\ninquiry vain. And the admission cannot be avoided. No one supposes\nthat when we are looking (for example) at an acrobat, it matters in\nthe least what we think of the universe. Our beliefs and disbeliefs\nabout the Cosmic order will not modify either in quantity or quality\nsuch satisfaction as we can derive from the contemplation of his grace\nand agility. Where, then, it will be asked, do we reach the point in\nthe \u00e6sthetic scale at which values begin to require metaphysical or\ntheological postulates? Is it the point where beauty begins? If so, who\ndetermine where this lies; and by what authority do they speak?\n\nEvidently we are here on difficult and delicate ground. On questions\nof taste there is notoriously the widest divergence of opinion. Nor,\nif we regard our \u00e6sthetic interests simply as the chance flotsam and\njetsam of the evolutionary tides, could it well be otherwise. If there\nbe practically no \u201climits of deviation\u201d imposed by selection; if,\nfrom a survival point of view, one taste be as good as another, it is\nnot the varieties in taste which should cause surprise so much as the\nuniformities.\n\nTo be sure, the uniformities have often no deep \u00e6sthetic roots. They\nrepresent no strong specific likes and dislikes shared by all men at\na certain stage of culture, but rather tendencies to agreement (as\nI have elsewhere called them), which govern our social ritual, and\nthereby make social life possible. We rail at \u201cfashion,\u201d which by an\nunfelt compulsion drives multitudes simultaneously to approve the same\ndresses, the same plays, the same pictures, the same architecture, the\nsame music, and the same scenery. We smile at the obsequious zeal with\nwhich men strive to admire what the prophets of the moment assure them\nis admirable. But admitting, as I think we must, that these prophets\nneither possess any inherent authority, nor can point to any standard\nof appeal, we must also admit that if in Art there were no orthodoxies,\nif the heresies themselves were unorganised, if every man based his\n\u00e6sthetic practice on a too respectful consideration of his own moods\nand fancies, the world we live in would be even more uncomfortable than\nit is.\n\nHowever this may be, it is clear that this second portion of my\nargument, which is not based, like the first, on any objective survey\nof the part played in human affairs by general \u00e6sthetic interests,\nhas special difficulties to surmount. For it rests on experiences of\nhigh emotion rare for all, unknown to many, roused in different men\nby different objects. How can any conclusions be securely based on\nfoundations at once so slender and so shifting?\n\nI agree that the values dealt with in this part of the argument are\nnot values for everybody. Yet everybody, I think, would be prepared\nto go some way in the direction I desire. They would acknowledge\nthat, in art, origin and value cannot be treated as independent.\nThey would agree that those who enjoy poetry and painting must be at\nleast dimly aware of a poet beyond the poem and a painter beyond the\npicture. If by some unimaginable process works of beauty could be\nproduced by machinery, as a symmetrical colour pattern is produced by a\nkaleidoscope, we might think them beautiful till we knew their origin,\nafter which we should be rather disposed to describe them as ingenious.\nAnd this is not, I think, because we are unable to estimate works of\nart as they are _in themselves_, not because we must needs buttress up\nour opinions by extraneous and irrelevant considerations; but rather\nbecause a work of art requires an artist, not merely in the order of\nnatural causation, but as a matter of \u00e6sthetic necessity. It conveys a\nmessage which is valueless to the recipient, unless it be understood by\nthe sender. It must be expressive.\n\nSuch phrases are no doubt easily misunderstood. Let me, therefore,\nhasten to add that by an \u201cexpressive\u201d message I do not mean a message\nwhich can be expressed in words. A work of art can never be transferred\nfrom one medium into another, as from marble to music. Even when words\nare the medium employed, perfect translation is impossible. One poet\nmay paraphrase, in a different language, the work of another; and a\nnew work of art may thus be produced. But however closely it follows\nthe original, it will never be the same. On the other hand, if the\nmedium used be (for example) colour, or sound, or stone, the work of\nart cannot be translated into words at all. It may be described; and\nthe description may better the original. Yet it cannot replace it. For\nevery work of art is unique; and its meaning cannot be alternatively\nrendered. But are we, therefore, to conclude that it has no meaning?\nBecause its message cannot be translated, has it therefore no message?\nTo put these questions is to answer them.\n\nMany people, however, who would travel with me so far would refuse to\ngo further. They would grant that a work of art must be due to genius,\nand not, in the first instance, to mechanism or to chance. But whether,\nin the last resort, mechanism or chance has produced the genius, they\nwould regard as, from the \u00e6sthetic point of view, quite immaterial.\nMusic and poetry must have a personal source. But the musician and the\npoet may come whence they will.\n\nAnd perhaps, in very many cases, this is so; but not, I think, in\nall, nor in the highest. If any man will test this for himself, let\nhim recall the too rare moments when beauty gave him a delight which\nstrained to its extremest limit his powers of feeling; when not only\nthe small things of life, but the small things of Art\u2014its technical\ndexterities, its historical associations\u2014vanished in the splendour of\nan unforgettable vision; and let him ask whether the attribution of\nan effect like this to unthinking causes, or to an artist created and\nwholly controlled by unthinking causes, would not go far to impair its\nvalue.\n\nTo such an appeal it is not difficult to raise objections. It may be\nsaid, for example, that, under the stress of emotions like those I\nhave described, no man troubles his head about problems of cosmology;\nthought is merged in feeling; speculation is smothered. But though this\nis true, it is not wholly true. As no pain, I suppose, is so intense\nas to exclude all reflections on its probable duration, so no rapture\nis so absorbing as to exclude all reflections on its probable source.\nI grant that at such moments we do not philosophise; we do not analyse\na problem, turning it this way or that, and noting every aspect of it\nwith a cool curiosity. Nevertheless, for those accustomed to reflect,\nreflection is never wholly choked by feeling. Nor can feeling, in the\nlong run, be wholly unaffected by reflection.\n\nAgain, it may be said that such moments too seldom occur in any man\u2019s\nexperience to justify even the most modest generalisations\u2014let alone\ngeneralisations that embrace the universe. But this objection seems\nto rest on a misapprehension. We must remember that the argument\nfrom \u00e6sthetic values is not a scientific induction or a logical\ninference. There is here no question of truth and falsehood, or even\nof good taste and bad taste. We are not striving to isolate what is\nessential to beauty by well-devised experiments; nor are we concerned\nwith psycho-physical determination of the normal relation between\nfeeling and stimulus. If it be urged that some particular example\nof deep \u00e6sthetic emotion quite outruns the merits of its object, so\nthat sound canons of criticism require its value to be lowered, we\nneed not deny it. We are not dealing with sound canons of criticism;\nthough I may observe, in passing, that if they lower emotional values\nin one direction without raising them in others, good taste becomes a\nsomewhat costly luxury. My point is different. I am not appealing to\nall men, but only to some men\u2014to those and to those only who, when they\nexplicitly face the problem, become deeply conscious of the incongruity\nbetween our feelings of beauty and a materialistic account of their\norigin.\n\nThe extreme individualism of this point of view may seem repulsive to\nmany. Are the feelings (they will ask) of some transient moment to be\ntreated as authentic guides through the mysteries of the universe,\nmerely because they are strong enough to overwhelm our cooler judgment?\nAnd, if so, how far is this method of metaphysical investigation to\nbe pressed? Are we, for example, to attach transcendental value to\nthe feelings of a man in love? There is evidently a close, though\ndoubtless not a perfect, parallel between the two cases. It is true\nthat love is rooted in appetite, and that appetite has a survival value\nwhich I, at least, cannot find in the purely contemplative emotions.\nBut romantic love goes far beyond race requirements. From this point of\nview it is as useless as \u00e6sthetic emotion itself. And, like \u00e6sthetic\nemotion of the profounder sort, it is rarely satisfied with the\ndefinite, the limited, and the immediate. It ever reaches out towards\nan unrealised infinity. It cannot rest content with the prose of mere\nfact. It sees visions and dreams dreams which to an unsympathetic world\nseem no better than amiable follies. Is it from sources like these\u2014the\nillusions of love and the enthusiasms of ignorance\u2014that we propose\nto supplement the world-outlook provided for us by sober sense and\nscientific observation?\n\nYet why not? Here we have values which by supposition we are reluctant\nto lose. Neither scientific observation nor sober sense can preserve\nthem. It is surely permissible to ask what will. And if Naturalism be\ninimical to their maintenance, the fact should at least be noted.\n\nIt is true, no doubt, that these high-wrought feelings have worse\nenemies even than naturalism. When the impassioned lover has sunk\ninto a good husband, and the worshipper of beauty has cooled into a\njudicious critic, they may look back on their early raptures with\nintelligent disdain. In that event there are for them no values to be\nmaintained. They were young, they were foolish, they made a mistake,\nand there is no more to be said. But there is a higher wisdom. Without\nignoring what experience has to teach, they may still believe that\nthrough these emotions they have obtained an authentic glimpse of a\nworld more resplendent and not less real than that in which they tramp\ntheir daily round. And, if so, they will attribute to them a value\nindependent of their immediate cause\u2014a value which cannot be maintained\nin a merely naturalistic setting.[4]\n\nThis may seem a doctrine too mystical to suit the general tenor of\nthese lectures. Let me, therefore, hasten to add that our ordinary and\nrepeatable experiences of beauty seem to point in the same direction\nas these rarer and more intense emotions. It is, of course, true that\neven about these we cannot generalise as we may (for example) about\nthe external world. We cannot, I mean, assume that there is a great\nbody of \u00e6sthetic experience which all normal persons possess in common.\nThere is always something about our feeling for beautiful things\nwhich can neither be described nor communicated, which is unshared\nand unshareable. Many normal persons have no such feelings, or none\nworth talking about. Their \u00e6sthetic interests may be great, but they\nlie at a lower level of intensity. They do not really care for beauty.\nAgain, there are many who do care, and care greatly, who would yet\nutterly repudiate the doctrine that the highest \u00e6sthetic values were\nin any sense dependent on a spiritual view of the universe. The fact\nthat so much of the greatest art has been produced in the service of\nreligion they would not regard as relevant. They would remind us that\none great poet at least has been a passionate materialist; that many\nhave been pessimists; that many have been atheists; that many have been\nin violent revolt against the religion of their age and country. Of\nthese we cannot say that their art suffered from their opinions, for we\ncannot imagine what their art would have been like had their opinions\nbeen different. Neither can we say that the readers who shared their\nopinions, became, thereby, less qualified to enjoy their art. Such a\nparadox would be too violent. How, then (the objectors may ask), are\nfacts like these to be harmonised with the views I am recommending?\n\nProbably they cannot be harmonised. We are confronted with a difference\nof temperament which must be accepted as final. Yet the contradiction\nmay often be less than at first appears. In the case which I brought\nforward just now, strong \u00e6sthetic emotion was assumed to carry with\nit, both at the crisis of immediate experience and yet more in periods\nof reflective retrospect, a demand for some cause emotionally adequate\nto its effect. In other words, it was assumed that such an experience\nsuggested the question\u2014whence comes it? of matter? or of spirit? and\nrequired the answer\u2014if it be not born of spirit it is little, or it is\nnaught.\n\nBut in many cases this answer is not given because the question is not\nasked; or, if it be asked, is misunderstood. And there are many reasons\nwhy it should not be asked; and many why it should be misunderstood.\n\nFor there are two things which must, in this connection, be remembered.\nThe first is that materialism has never been the prevailing creed\namong lovers of beauty. The second is that though (as I contend) a\ndeep-lying incongruity infects theories which trace the ultimate\ngenesis of beauty exclusively to causes which neither think, nor feel,\nnor will, such theories involve no contradiction, nor can those who\nhold them be taxed with inconsistency. There is, therefore, little\nin the ordinary routine of artistic criticism which raises the point\nwhich we are now discussing. A critic examining some artistic whole\u2014a\npicture, a poem, a symphony\u2014is much occupied in separating out the\nelements which contribute to the total effect, and in observing their\ncharacter, value, and mutual relations. But it is only when we cease to\nanalyse, when we contemplate, directly or in retrospect, the whole _as_\na whole, that the problem of origin arises; and even then it need never\nbecome explicit. It may remain in the shape of an unsatisfied longing\nfor a spiritual reality beyond the sensuous impression, or of a vaguely\nfelt assurance that the spiritual reality is there. And in neither case\nhas it developed into a question definitely presented\u2014and pressing for\na definite reply.\n\nWhile, then, I am quite ready to believe that there are many persons\nwhose enjoyment of beauty is quite independent of their world outlook,\nI am also convinced that there are some who count themselves among\nthe number only because they have never put the matter to the proof.\nIt may be that they have given but little thought to questions of\ntheology or metaphysics. It may be that they are pantheists after the\nmanner of Shelley, or pessimists after the manner of Schopenhauer.\nPerhaps, again, they hold one or other of the theosophies which pass\ncurrent in the West as the esoteric wisdom of the East. In any case,\nthey are averse from orthodoxy, or what they regard as such. A lover of\nthe beautiful belonging to any type like these, if asked whether his\nestimate of \u00e6sthetic values depended on his creed, might easily miss\nthe point of the inquiry, and his negative reply would be worthless.\nLet the question, therefore, be put in different terms. Let him be\nasked whether beauty would not lose value for him if his world-outlook\nrequired him to regard it as a purposeless accident; whether the\n\u00e6sthetic delights which he deems most exquisite would not be somewhat\ndimmed if reflection showed them to be as vain, as transitory, though\nnot so useful, as the least considered pleasures of sense. If he\nreplies in the negative, there is no more to be said. This lecture\nis not addressed to him. But I believe there are many to whom such\nan answer would be profoundly unsatisfying; and they, at least, can\nhardly deny that \u00e6sthetic values are in part dependent upon a spiritual\nconception of the world we live in.\n\n\nIV\n\nSo far I have been considering art and the beauty expressed by art. But\nthere are two kinds of \u00e6sthetic interest, which, though not artistic in\nthe ordinary sense of the word, are so important that something must be\nsaid about them before this lecture closes.\n\nThe first of these is natural beauty. Hegel, if I rightly understand\nhim, altogether excluded this from the sphere of \u00e6sthetic. For him the\npoint of importance was Spirit\u2014the Idea\u2014expressing itself in art; and\nsince nature is not spirit, nor natural beauty art, the exclusion was\nlogical. For me, on the other hand, the main thing is feeling roused by\ncontemplation; and particularly feeling at its highest level of quality\nand intensity. Natural beauty, therefore, cannot be ignored; since no\nfeelings of contemplation possess higher quality, or greater intensity,\nthan those which natural beauty can arouse.\n\nEvidently, however, there is, even from my point of view, a great\ndifference between beauty in art and beauty in nature. For, in the\ncase of nature, there is no artist; while, as I observed just now, \u201ca\nwork of art requires an artist, not merely in the order of natural\ncausation, but in the order of \u00e6sthetic necessity. It conveys a message\nwhich is valueless to the recipient unless it be understood by the\nsender. It must be significant.\u201d\n\nAre we, then, to lay down one rule for artistic beauty and another rule\nfor natural beauty? Must the first be expressive, but not the second?\nIs creative mind necessary in one case, and superfluous in the other?\nAnd if in the case of nature it be necessary, where is it to be found?\nOn the naturalistic hypothesis, it is not to be found at all. The glory\nof mountain and of plain, storm and sunshine, must be regarded as\nresembling the kaleidoscopic pattern of which I just now spoke; with\nthis difference only\u2014that the kaleidoscope was designed to give _some_\npattern, though no one pattern more than another; while nature was not\ndesigned with any intention at all, and gives us its patterns only by\naccident.\n\nI know not whether you will think that this train of thought is helped\nor hindered by bringing it into relation with our scientific knowledge\nof natural realities. The world which stirs our \u00e6sthetic emotions is\nthe world of sense, the world as it appears. It is not the world as\nscience asks us to conceive it. This is very ill-qualified to afford\n\u00e6sthetic delight of the usual type; although the contemplation of\ncomplicated relations reduced to law may produce an intellectual\npleasure in the nature of \u00e6sthetic interest. Yet none, I think, would\nmaintain that mass and motion abstractly considered, nor any concrete\narrangement of moving atoms or undulating ether, are beautiful as\nrepresented in thought, or would be beautiful could they become objects\nof perception. We have a bad habit of saying that science deals with\nnothing but \u201cphenomena.\u201d If by phenomena are meant appearances, it\nis to \u00e6sthetics rather than to science that, on the principle of\nSolomon\u2019s judgment, phenomena most properly belong. To get away from\nappearances, to read the physical fact behind its sensuous effect, is\none chief aim of science; while to put the physical fact in place of\nits sensuous effect would be the total and immediate ruin of beauty\nboth in nature and in the arts which draw on nature for their material.\nNatural beauty, in other words, would perish if physical reality and\nphysical appearance became one, and we were reduced to the lamentable\npredicament of perceiving nature as nature is!\n\nNow, to me, it seems that the feeling for natural beauty cannot, any\nmore than scientific curiosity, rest satisfied with the world of\nsensuous appearance. But the reasons for its discontent are different.\nScientific curiosity hungers for a knowledge of causes; causes which\nare physical, and, if possible, measurable. Our admiration for natural\nbeauty has no such needs. It cares not to understand either the\nphysical theories which explain what it admires, or the psychological\ntheories which explain its admiration. It does not deny the truth of\nthe first, nor (within due limits) the sufficiency of the second. But\nit requires more. It feels itself belittled unless conscious purpose\ncan be found somewhere in its pedigree. Physics and psycho-physics, by\nthemselves, suffice not. It longs to regard beauty as a revelation\u2014a\nrevelation from spirit to spirit, not from one kind of atomic agitation\nto the \u201cpsychic\u201d accompaniment of another. On this condition only can\nits highest values be maintained.[5]\n\n\nV\n\nThere is yet one other subject of \u00e6sthetic interest on which I desire\nto say something before the course of these lectures carries me into\nvery different regions of speculation. The subject I refer to is\nhistory.\n\nThat history has \u00e6sthetic value is evident. An age which is both\nscientific and utilitarian occasionally pretends to see in it no more\nthan the raw material of a science called sociology, and a storehouse\nof precedents from which statesmen may draw maxims for the guidance of\nmankind. It may be all this, but it is certainly more. What has in the\nmain caused history to be written, and when written to be eagerly read,\nis neither its scientific value nor its practical utility, but its\n\u00e6sthetic interest. Men love to contemplate the performances of their\nfellows, and whatever enables them to do so, whether we belittle it as\ngossip or exalt it as history, will find admirers in abundance.\n\nYet the difference between this subject of contemplative interest and\nthose provided either by beauty in art or beauty in nature are striking.\n\nIn the first place, history is not concerned to express beauty. I do\nnot deny that a great historian, in narrating some heroic incident,\nmay rival the epic and the saga. He may tell a tale which would be\nfascinating even if it were false. But such cases are exceptional,\nand ought to be exceptional. Directly it appears that the governing\npreoccupation of an historian is to be picturesque, his narrative\nbecomes intolerable.\n\nThis is because the interest\u2014I mean the _\u00e6sthetic_ interest\u2014of history\nlargely depends upon its accuracy; or (more strictly) upon its supposed\naccuracy. Fictitious narrative, whether realistic or romantic, may\nsuggest deeper truths, may tell us more about the heart of man,\nthan all the histories that ever were written; and may tell it more\nagreeably. But fact has an interest, because it is fact; because it\nactually happened; because actual people who really lived and really\nsuffered and really rejoiced caused it to happen, or were affected by\nits happening. And on this interest the charm of history essentially\ndepends.\n\nIn this respect there is, I think, a certain analogy between the\n\u00e6sthetic interest aroused by history and that aroused by natural\nbeauty. Our pleasure in a landscape is qualified if we discover\nourselves to have been the victims of an optical delusion. If, for\nexample, purple peaks are seen on a far horizon, the traveller may\nexclaim, \u201cWhat beautiful mountains!\u201d Something thereupon convinces him\nthat the mountains are but clouds, and his delight suffers an immediate\nchill. But why? The mountains, it is true, proved unreal; but they had\nas much reality as mountains in a picture. Where lies the essential\ndifference between a representation accidentally produced by condensed\nvapour and a representation deliberately embodied in paint and canvas?\nIt is not to be found, as might be at first supposed, in the fact\nthat the one deceives us and the other does not. Were we familiar with\nthis particular landscape, did we know that nothing but a level plain\nstretched before us to the limits of our vision, we might still feel\nthat, if the clouds on the horizon were what they seemed to be, the\nview would gain greatly in magnificence. Here there is no deception and\nno shock of disillusionment. If, therefore, we remain dissatisfied, it\nis because in this case verisimilitude does not suffice us; we insist\non facts.\n\nIt has, perhaps, not been sufficiently noticed that brute fact, truth\nas it is apprehended in courts of law, truth as it is given by an\naccurate witness speaking on oath, has for some purposes great \u00e6sthetic\nvalue. That it is all-important in the dealings between man and man\nwould be universally conceded; that it has no importance either in fine\nart or imaginative literature, and no meaning in music or architecture,\nmost people would be ready to admit. But that it possesses worth\nwhere no practical issues are involved, and that this worth is of the\ncontemplative or \u00e6sthetic order, is perhaps not so easy of acceptance.\nYet so it is. A tale which would be inexpressibly tedious if we thought\nit was (in the \u201claw court\u201d sense) false may become of absorbing\ninterest if we think it true. And this not because it touches morals\nor practice, not because it has theoretic interest or controversial\nimportance, but in its own right and on its own merits.\n\nNow this \u00e6sthetic quality is, it seems to me, required both from\n\u201cnatural beauty\u201d and historic narrative; but if there is here a\nresemblance between them, in other respects they are profoundly\ndifferent. Landscape appeals to us directly. I do not mean that our\nenjoyment of it, both in quality and quantity, is not largely due to\nthe work of artists. Our tastes have, no doubt, been formed and our\nsensibilities educated by the interpretation of nature which we owe to\npainters and poets. But though this is true, it is also true that what\nwe see and what we enjoy is not art but nature, nature at first hand,\nnature seen immediately, if not as she is, at least as she appears. In\nthe case of history it is otherwise. Except when we happen to have been\nourselves spectators of important events, there is always an artist to\nbe reckoned with. It may be Thucydides. It may be Dr. Dryasdust. It may\nbe a medi\u00e6val chronicler. It may be Mrs. Candour at the tea-table. But\nthere is always somebody; and though that somebody might repudiate\nthe notion that his narrative was a work of art, yet he cannot evade\nresponsibility for selection, for emphasis, and for colour. We may\nthink him a bad artist, but, even in his own despite, an artist he\nis;\u2014an artist whose material is not marble or sound, but brute fact.\n\nThere is another way in which the \u00e6sthetic interest of history\ncharacteristically differs from the interest we feel in beauty, whether\nof art or of nature. It is massive rather than acute. Particular\nepisodes may indeed raise the most poignant emotions. But, broadly\nspeaking, the long-drawn story of man and his fortunes stirs feelings\nwhich (to borrow a metaphor from physics) are great in quantity but of\nlow intensity. So it comes about that, whereas in the case of art the\nemotions stand out prominently above their associated judgments, in the\ncase of history the positions are commonly reversed.\n\nYet this need not be so; and in particular it need not be so when we\nare contemplating the historical process as a whole. Details are then\nmerged in a general impression; and the general impression drives us\nbeyond the limits of history proper into questions of origin and\npurpose, into reflections about man and destiny, into problems of\nwhence and whither. Speculations like these have an emotional as well\nas an intellectual value, which must be affected by the answers we give\nthem.\n\nLet me illustrate and explain. It is possible, indeed it is easy, to\ncontemplate aspects of history with the coolest intellectual interest.\nIn this mood we might, for instance, study the development of science\nand religion out of primitive magics and superstitions. In this mood\nwe might observe the characteristics of the city state, or the growth\nand decay of feudalism, or the history of the Mongols. On the other\nhand, the interest often becomes tinged with stronger feelings when we\nsympathetically follow the changing fortunes of particular individuals\nor communities. We are then, as it were, spectators of a drama, moved\nby dramatic hopes and fears, dramatic likes and dislikes, dramatic\n\u201cpity and terror.\u201d And our emotions are not merely those appropriate to\ndrama; they have, besides, that special quality (already referred to)\nwhich depends on the belief that they are occasioned by real events in\na world of real people.\n\nBut there is yet a third case to be considered, in which the two\nprevious cases are included and partially submerged. This occurs when\nthe object of our contemplative interest is not episodic but general,\nnot the fate of this man or that nation, this type of polity or that\nstage of civilisation, but the fate of mankind itself, its past and\nfuture, its collective destiny.\n\nNow we may, if we please, treat this as no more than a chapter of\nnatural history. Compared with the chapter devoted, let us say, to the\nDinosaurs it no doubt has the disadvantage of being as yet unfinished,\nfor the Dinosaurs are extinct, and man still survives. On the other\nhand, though the natural history of \u201cHomo Sapiens\u201d is incomplete, we\nmay admit that it possesses a peculiar interest for the biologist; but\nthis interest is scientific, not historical.\n\nFor what does historical interest require? Not merely \u201cbrute fact,\u201d but\nbrute fact about beings who are more than animals, who look before and\nafter, who dream about the past and hope about the future, who plan and\nstrive and suffer for ends of their own invention; for ideals which\nreach far beyond the appetites and fears which rule the lives of their\nbrother beasts. Such beings have a \u201cnatural history,\u201d but it is not\nwith this that we are concerned. The history which concerns us is the\nhistory of self-conscious personalities, and of communities which are\n(in a sense) self-conscious also. Can the contemplative values which\nthis possesses, especially in its most comprehensive shape, be regarded\nas independent of our world-outlook? Surely not.\n\nObserve that history, so conceived, must needs compare faculty with\ndesire, achievement with expectation, fulfilment with design. And no\nmoralist has ever found pleasure in the comparison. The vanity of\nhuman wishes and the brevity of human life are immemorial themes of\nlamentation; nor do they become less lamentable when we extend our\nview from the individual to the race. Indeed, it is much the other\nway. Men\u2019s wishes are not always vain, nor is every life too brief\nto satisfy its possessor. Only when we attempt, from the point of\nview permitted by physics and biology, to sum up the possibilities\nof collective human endeavour, do we fully realise the \u201cvanity of\nvanities\u201d proclaimed by the Preacher.\n\nI am not, of course, suggesting that history is uninteresting because\nmen are unhappy: nor yet that naturalism carries pessimism in its\ntrain. It may well be that if mankind could draw up a hedonistic\nbalance-sheet, the pleasures of mundane existence would turn out to\nbe greater than its sufferings. But this is not the question. I am not\n(for the moment) concerned with the miseries of the race, but with its\nfutility. Its miseries might be indefinitely diminished, yet leave its\nfutility unchanged. We might live without care and die without pain;\nnature, tamed to our desires, might pour every luxury into our lap;\nand, with no material wish unsatisfied, we might contemplate at our\nease the inevitable, if distant, extinction of all the life, feeling,\nthought, and effort whose reality is admitted by a naturalistic creed.\n\nBut how should we be advanced? What interest would then be left in the\nstory of the human race from its sordid beginnings to its ineffectual\nend? Poets and thinkers of old dimly pictured a controlling Fate\nto which even the Olympian gods were subject. The unknown power,\nwhich they ignorantly worshipped, any text-book on physics will now\ndeclare unto you. But no altars are erected in its honour. Its name\nis changed. It is no longer called Fate or Destiny, but is known by a\ntitle less august if more precise, the law of energy-degradation, or\n(if you please) \u201cthe second law of thermo-dynamics.\u201d It has become\nthe subject of scientific experiment; the physicists have taken it\nover from the seers, and its attributes are defined in equations. All\nterrestrial life is in revolt against it; but to it, in the end, must\nall terrestrial life succumb. Eschatology, the doctrine of the last\nthings, has lapsed from prophecy to calculation, and has become (at\nleast potentially) a quantitative science.\n\nAnd, from a scientific point of view, this is quite satisfactory. But\nit is not satisfactory when we are weighing the \u00e6sthetic values of\nuniversal history. Shakespeare, in the passionate indictment of life\nwhich he puts into the mouth of Macbeth, declares it to be \u201ca tale\ntold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,\u201d and (mark well the climax)\n\u201c_signifying nothing_.\u201d That is the point with which in this lecture\nwe are chiefly concerned. It most clearly emerges when, in moments of\nreflection, we enlarge the circuit of our thoughts beyond the needs of\naction, and, in a mood untouched by personal hopes or fears, endeavour\nto survey man\u2019s destiny as a whole. Till a period within the memory\nof men now living it was possible to credit terrestrial life with\nan infinite future, wherein there was room for an infinite approach\ntowards some, as yet, unpictured perfection. It could always be hoped\nthat human efforts would leave behind them some enduring traces, which,\nhowever slowly, might accumulate without end. But hopes like these are\npossible no more. The wider is the sweep of our contemplative vision\nthe more clearly do we see that the r\u00f4le of man, if limited to an\nearthly stage, is meaningless and futile;\u2014that, however it be played,\nin the end it \u201csignifies nothing.\u201d Will any one assert that universal\nhistory can maintain its interest undimmed if steeped in the atmosphere\nof a creed like this?\n\nHere, however, we are evidently nearing the frontier which divides\n\u00e6sthetic from ethic. Before I cross it, and begin a new subject, let me\nvery briefly touch on a difficulty which may have occurred to some of\nmy hearers.\n\nThe line of thought followed in the last section of this lecture\nassumes, or seems to assume, that our only choice lies between history\nframed in a naturalistic, and history framed in a theistic, setting. In\nthe first case we have a world-outlook which forbids the attribution\nof permanent value to human effort; in the second case we have a\nworld-outlook which requires, or, at the least, permits it. But are\nthese the only alternatives? What are we to say, for example, about\nthose metaphysical religions which, whether they be described as\ntheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic, agree in regarding all life as\nillusion, all desire as wretchedness, and deem the true end of man to\nbe absorption in the timeless identity of the real? Such creeds have no\naffinity with naturalism. Philosophically they are in sharpest contrast\nto it. But even less than naturalism do they provide history with a\nsuitable setting. For naturalism does, after all, leave untouched the\ninterest of historical episodes, so long as they are considered out of\nrelation to the whole of which they form a part. As we are content, in\nthe realm of fiction, to bid farewell to the hero and heroine on their\nmarriage, unmoved by anxieties about their children, so, in the realm\nof \u201cbrute fact,\u201d we may arbitrarily isolate any period we choose, and\ntreat the story of it without reference to any theories concerning the\nfuture destiny of man. But this process of abstraction must surely be\nuseless for those who think of the world in terms of the metaphysical\nreligions to which I have referred. In their eyes all effort is\ninherently worthless, all desire inherently vain. Nor would they change\ntheir opinion even were they persuaded that progress was real and\nunending; that effort and desire were building up, however slowly, an\nimperishable polity of super-men. For those who in this spirit face the\nstruggling world of common experience the contemplative interest of\nuniversal history must be small indeed.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] I greatly regret having to stretch the ordinary meaning of the word\n\u201c\u00e6sthetic\u201d to the extent required by the argument of this chapter. I\ngot into trouble in a previous work by the extension I gave to the word\n\u201cAuthority.\u201d And as, in that case, no explanation seemed sufficient to\navoid misconception, so I am afraid it will be in the present case.\n\nBut what better course is open to me? I require a word to express a\nconcept which is vital to the doctrines I am preaching. Where am I to\nget it? If there is no such word in ordinary use, I must either invent\na new word, or I must modify the familiar meaning of an old word. There\nare objections to both courses; yet one of them must be taken. I have\nchosen the second; and can do no more than ask for the indulgence of\nthose readers who think I should have chosen the first.\n\n[4] Cf. Plato in the \u201cPh\u00e6drus.\u201d\n\n[5] It is perhaps to this tendency we may (in part) attribute the\neagerness with which poetry and fine art have used and abused the\npersonifications of natural objects provided for them by primitive\nsuperstition. If not, it is curious that these tedious mythologies\nshould have been cherished by poets long after they were abandoned by\neverybody else; and that we still use every expedient for endowing\nmaterial nature with fictitious sympathies and powers. But it is, I\nthink, an error to see nothing in such metaphors but a trick of style.\nThey represent the same deep-rooted tendency which finds significance\nin such phrases as \u201cMother Earth,\u201d which has suggested certain\npoetic forms of Pantheism; or which gathers a vague, semi-spiritual\nconsolation from the thought that, when we die, our bodies, resolved\ninto their elements, may still share in the new manifestations of life\nwhich Nature (half personified) pours out in exhaustless profusion.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV\n\nETHICS AND THEISM\n\n\nI\n\nI turn now from contemplation to action; from \u00c6sthetics to Ethics.\nAnd in so doing I must ask permission to stretch the ordinary meaning\nof the term which I use to describe the subject-matter of the present\nlecture, as I have already stretched the meaning of the term which\ndescribed the subject-matter of the last. \u201c\u00c6sthetics\u201d there included\nmuch besides beauty; \u201cEthics\u201d here will include much besides morality.\nAs, under the first head, were ranged contemplative interests far lower\nin the scale than (for example) those of art, so I shall extend the\nuse of the word \u201cEthics\u201d till it embraces the whole range of what used\nto be called the \u201csprings of action,\u201d from the loftiest love down to\nimpulses which in themselves are non-moral, instinctive, even automatic.\n\nThe grounds for this procedure are similar in both cases. I am mainly,\nalmost exclusively, concerned with beliefs and emotions touching\nbeauty and goodness. Yet it is important to remember that, considered\nas natural products, these shade off by insensible gradations into\nmanifestations of life to which the words \u201cbelief\u201d and \u201cemotion\u201d are\nquite inapplicable, where \u201cbeauty\u201d and \u201cgoodness\u201d have little meaning\nor none. And as this larger class, when concerned with action, has at\npresent no better name, I may be permitted to describe it as ethical.\n\nI am mainly concerned, however, with that higher part of the ethical\nscale which all would agree to call Moral, and with the debatable\nregion immediately below it. Of purposive action, or what seems to be\nsuch, of a still lower type, I need say little\u2014but we must never forget\nthat it is there.\n\nMorals, as I conceive them, are concerned with ends of action: and\nprincipally with _ultimate_ ends of action. An end of action, in so far\nas it is ultimate, is one which is pursued for itself alone, and not as\na means to some other end. Of course an end may be, and constantly is,\nboth ultimate and contributory. It is sought for on its own account,\nand also as an instrument for procuring something else. It is mainly\nin the first of these capacities, however, that it concerns morality.\n\nFor the purposes of this lecture I shall classify ultimate ends as\neither egoistic or altruistic\u2014egoistic ends being those that are\nimmediately connected with, or centred in, the agent; altruistic\nends being those that are not. But I beg you to remember that this\ndistinction does not correspond to that between right and wrong. Egoism\nis not necessarily vicious, nor is altruism necessarily virtuous.\nIndeed, as I shall have occasion to point out later, the blackest\nvices, such as cruelty and hatred, are often altruistic.\n\nThis is an unusual, though not, I think, an unreasonable, use of\nlanguage. \u201cEgoism\u201d and \u201caltruism\u201d are terms historically associated\nwith the moral theories which regard happiness as the only end of\naction, but are under the necessity of distinguishing between actions\ndesigned to secure the happiness of the agent and actions designed to\nsecure the happiness of other people. I do not accept these theories,\nthough I borrow their phraseology. Happiness may, or may not, be the\nhighest of all ultimate ends, the one to which all others should give\nway. But it seems to me quite misleading to call it the only one.\nTo describe the sensual man, the vain man, the merely selfish man,\nthe miser, the ascetic, the man moved by rational self-love, the man\nabsorbed in the task of \u201cself-realisation,\u201d the man consumed by the\npassion for posthumous fame, as all pursuing the same egoistic end\nby different means, is surely to confuse distinctions of great moral\nimportance without any gain of scientific clarity. In like manner,\nto suppose that the man who spends himself in the service (say) of\nhis family, his country, or his church, is only striving for the\n\u201chappiness\u201d of the human race, or of certain selected members of the\nhuman race, is (it seems to me) to ignore the plain teaching of daily\nexperience. As there are many egoistic ends besides our own happiness,\nso there are many altruistic ends besides the happiness of others.\nThe extended sense, therefore, in which I employ these terms seems\njustified by facts.\n\n\nII\n\nI shall not attempt to determine the point at which we can first\nclearly discriminate between the \u201cegoistic\u201d and \u201caltruistic\u201d elements\nin animal instinct. Evidently, however, it is anterior to and\nindependent of any conceptual recognition either of an _ego_ or an\n_alter_. It might be argued that there is an altruistic element in the\nmost egoistic instincts. Eating, multiplying, fighting, and running\naway\u2014acts plainly directed towards preserving and satisfying the\nindividual\u2014also conduce to the preservation of the race. But, however\nthis may be, the converse is certainly untrue. There are altruistic\ninstincts into which no element of egoism enters. Of these the most\nimportant is parental, especially maternal, love: the most amazing\nare the impulses which regulate the complex polity of (for example) a\nhive of bees. In these cases one organism will work or fight or endure\nfor others: it will sacrifice its life for its offspring, or for the\ncommonwealth of which it is a member. Egoism is wholly lost in altruism.\n\nNow, I suppose that, in the order of causation, all these animal\ninstincts, be they egoistic or altruistic, must be treated as\ncontrivances for aiding a species in the struggle for existence.\nIf _anything_ be due to selection, surely _these_ must be. This is\nplainly true of the egoistic appetites and impulses on which depend\nthe maintenance of life and its propagation. It must also be true of\nthe altruistic instincts. Take, for instance, the case of parental\ndevotion. Its survival value is clearly immense. The higher animals, as\nat present constituted, could not exist without it; and though, for all\nwe can say to the contrary, development might have followed a different\ncourse, and a race not less effectively endowed than man might flourish\nthough parental care played no greater part in the life-history of its\nmembers than it does in the life-history of a herring, yet this is\nnot what has actually happened. Altruistic effort, in the world as we\nknow it, is as essential to the higher organisms as the self-regarding\ninstincts and appetites are to organic life in general; and there seems\nno reason for attributing to it a different origin.\n\nCan this be said with a like confidence about the higher portions of\nthe ethical scale? Are these also due to selection?\n\nEvidently the difference between primitive instincts and developed\nmorality is immense; and it is as great in the egoistic as in the\nnon-egoistic region of ethics. Ideals of conduct, the formulation of\nends, judgments of their relative worth, actions based on principles,\ndeliberate choice between alternative policies, the realised\ndistinction between the self and other personalities or other centres\nof feeling\u2014 all these are involved in developed morality, while in\nanimal ethics they exist not at all, or only in the most rudimentary\nforms.\n\nCompare, for instance, a society of bees and a society of men. In both\nthere is division of labour; in both there is organised effort towards\nan end which is other and greater than the individual good of any\nsingle member of the community. But though there are these deep-lying\nresemblances between the two cases, how important are the differences\nwhich divide them! In the bee-hive altruism is obeyed, but not chosen.\nAlternative ends are not contrasted. No member of the community thinks\nthat it could do something different from, and more agreeable than, the\ninherited task. Nor in truth could it. General interest and individual\ninterest are never opposed, for they are never distinguished. The agent\nnever compares, and therefore never selects.\n\nFar different are the ethical conditions requiring consideration\nwhen we turn from bees to men. Here egoism and altruism are not only\ndistinguished in reflection; they may be, and often are, incompatible\nin practice. Nor does this conflict of ends only show itself _between_\nthese two great ethical divisions; it is not less apparent _within_\nthem. Here, then, we find ourselves in a world of moral conflict very\nfaintly foreshadowed in animal ethics. For us, ultimate ends are many.\nThey may reinforce each other, or they may weaken each other. They may\nharmonise, or they may clash. Personal ends may prove incompatible with\ngroup ends: one group end may prove incompatible with another. Loyalty\nmay be ranged against loyalty, altruism against altruism; nor is there\nany court of appeal which can decide between them.\n\nBut there are yet other differences between the ethics of instinct\nand the ethics of reflection. Instincts are (relatively) definite and\nstable; they move in narrow channels; they cannot easily be enlarged\nin scope, or changed in character. The animal mother, for example,\ncares for its young children, but never for its young grandchildren.\nThe lifelong fidelity of the parent birds in certain species (a\nfidelity seemingly independent of the pairing season, or the care of\nparticular broods) never becomes the nucleus of a wider association.\nAltruistic instincts may lead to actions which equal, or surpass,\nman\u2019s highest efforts of abnegation; but the actions are matters of\nroutine, and the instincts never vary. They emerge in the same form at\nthe same stage of individual growth, like any other attribute of the\nspecies\u2014its colour, for instance, or its claws. And if they be, like\ncolour and claws, the products of selection, this is exactly what we\nshould expect. But then, if the loyalties of man be also the product of\nselection, why do they not show a similar fixity?\n\nPlainly they do _not_. Man inherits the capacity for loyalty, but not\nthe use to which he shall put it. The persons and causes (if any) to\nwhich he shall devote himself are suggested to him, often, indeed,\nimposed upon him, by education and environment. Nevertheless, they are\nhis by choice, not by hereditary compulsion. And his choice may be bad.\nHe may unselfishly devote himself to what is petty or vile, as he may\nto what is generous and noble. But on the possibility of error depends\nthe possibility of progress; and if (to borrow a phrase from physics)\nour loyalty possessed as few \u201cdegrees of freedom\u201d as that of ants or\nbees, our social organisation would be as rigid.\n\nThe most careless glance at the pages of history, or the world of\nour own experience, will show how varied are the forms in which this\ncapacity for loyalty is displayed. The Spartans at Thermopyl\u00e6,\nthe \u201cBlues\u201d and the \u201cGreens\u201d at Byzantium, rival politicians in a\nhard-fought election, players and spectators at an Eton and Harrow\nMatch, supply familiar illustrations of its variety and vigour. And do\nnot suppose that in thus bringing together the sublime, the familiar,\nand the trivial, I am paradoxically associating matters essentially\ndisparate. This is not so. I am not putting on a moral level the\npatriot and the partisan, the martyr to some great cause and the\nshouting spectator at a school match. What I am insisting on is that\nthey all have loyalty in common; a loyalty which often is, and always\nmay be, pure from egoistic alloy.\n\nLoyalties, then, which are characteristically human differ profoundly\nfrom those which are characteristically animal. The latter are due to\ninstincts which include both the end to be sought for and the means by\nwhich it is to be attained. The former are rooted in a general capacity\nfor, or inclination to, loyalty, with little inherited guidance either\nas to ends or means. Yet, if we accept selection as the source of\nthe first, we can hardly reject it as the source of the second. For\nthe survival value of loyalty is manifest. It lies at the root of\nall effective co-operation. Without it the family and tribe would be\nimpossible; and without the family and the tribe, or some yet higher\norganisation, men, if they could exist at all, would be more helpless\nthan cattle, weak against the alien forces of nature, at the mercy of\nhuman foes more capable of loyalty than themselves. A more powerful aid\nin the struggle for existence cannot easily be imagined.\n\nWe are indeed apt to forget how important are its consequences, even\nwhen it supplies no more than a faint qualification of other and more\nobvious motives. It acts like those alloys which, in doses relatively\nminute, add strength and elasticity even to steel. The relation (for\nexample) between a commercial company and its officials is essentially\na business one. The employer pays the market price for honesty and\ncompetence, and has no claim to more. Yet that company is surely either\nunfortunate or undeserving whose servants are wholly indifferent to\nits fortunes, feeling no faintest flicker of pride when it succeeds,\nno tinge of regret when it fails. Honourable is the tie between those\nwho exchange honest wage and honest work; yet loyalty can easily better\nit. And a like truth is manifest in spheres of action less reputable\nthan those of commerce. Mercenaries, to be worth hiring, must be partly\nmoved by forces higher than punishment or pay. Even pirates could not\nplunder with profit were their selfishness unredeemed by some slight\ntincture of reciprocal loyalty.\n\nThere are, however, many who would admit the occasional importance of\nloyalty while strenuously denying that social life was wholly based\nupon it. For them society is an invention; of all inventions the most\nuseful, but still only an invention. It was (they think) originally\ndevised by individuals in their individual interest; and, though\ncommon action was the machinery employed, personal advantage was the\nend desired. By enlightened egoism social organisation was created;\nby enlightened egoism it is maintained and improved. Contrivance,\ntherefore, not loyalty, is the master faculty required.\n\nThis is a great delusion\u2014quite unsupported by anything we know or can\nplausibly conjecture about the history of mankind. No one, indeed,\ndoubts that deliberate adaptation of means to ends has helped to\ncreate, and is constantly modifying, human societies; nor yet that\negoism has constantly perverted political and social institutions to\nmerely private uses. But there is something more fundamental to be\nborne in mind, namely, that without loyalty there would be no societies\nto modify, and no institutions to pervert. If these were merely\nwell-designed instruments like steam-engines and telegraphs, they would\nbe worthless. They would perish at the first shock, did they not at\nonce fall into ruin by their own weight. If they are to be useful as\nmeans, they must first impose themselves as ends; they must possess\na quality beyond the reach of contrivance: the quality of commanding\ndisinterested service and uncalculating devotion.\n\n\nIII\n\nI should therefore be ready to admit, as a plausible conjecture, that\nthe capacity for altruistic emotions and beliefs is a direct product\nof organic evolution; an attribute preserved and encouraged, because\nit is useful to the race, and transmitted from parents to offspring\nby physiological inheritance. On this theory loyalty in some shape\nor other is as natural to man as maternal affection is natural to\nmammals. Doubtless it is more variable in strength, more flexible in\ndirection, more easily smothered by competing egoisms; but the capacity\nfor it is not less innate, and not less necessary in the struggle for\nexistence. But when we ask how far selection has been responsible for\nthe development of high altruistic ideals out of primitive forms of\nloyalty, we touch on problems of much greater complexity. Evidently\nthere has been a profound moral transformation in the course of ages.\nNone suppose that ethical values are appraised in the twentieth century\nas they were in the first stone age. But what has caused the change is\nnot so clear.\n\nThere are obvious, and, I think, insurmountable difficulties in\nattributing it to organic selection. Selection is of the fittest\u2014of\nthe fittest to survive. But in what consists this particular kind of\nfitness? The answer from the biological point of view is quite simple:\nalmost a matter of definition. That race is \u201cfit\u201d which maintains\nits numbers; and that race is fittest which most increases them. The\njudge of such \u201cfitness\u201d is not the moralist or the statesman. It is\nthe Registrar-General. So little is \u201cfitness\u201d inseparably attached to\nexcellence, that it would be rash to say that there is any quality,\nhowever unattractive, which might not in conceivable circumstances\nassist survival. High authorities, I believe, hold that at this moment\nin Britain we have so managed matters that congenital idiots increase\nfaster than any other class of the population. If so, they must be\ndeemed the \u201cfittest\u201d of our countrymen. No doubt this fact, if it be\na fact, is an accident of our social system. Legislation has produced\nthis happy adaptation of environment to organism, and legislation might\ndestroy it. The fittest to-day might become the unfittest to-morrow.\nBut this is nothing to the purpose. That part of man\u2019s environment\nwhich is due to man does no doubt usually vary more quickly than the\npart which is due to nature; none the less is it environment in the\nstrictest sense of the word. The theory of selection draws no essential\ndistinction between (say) the secular congelation of a continent in\nthe ice age, and the workings of the English Poor Law in the twentieth\ncentury. It is enough that each, while it lasts, favours or discourages\nparticular heritable variations, and modifies the qualities that make\nfor \u201csurvival.\u201d\n\nWhat is more important, however, than the fact that heritable \u201cfitness\u201d\nmay be completely divorced from mental and moral excellence, is the\nfact that so large a part of man\u2019s mental and moral characteristics are\nnot heritable at all, and cannot therefore be directly due to organic\nselection. Races may accumulate accomplishments, yet remain organically\nunchanged. They may learn and they may forget, they may rise from\nbarbarism to culture, and sink back from culture to barbarism, while\nthrough all these revolutions the raw material of their humanity\nvaries never a bit. In such cases there can be no question of Natural\nSelection in the sense in which biologists use the term.\n\nAnd there are other considerations which suggest that, as development\nproceeds, the forces of organic selection diminish. While man was in\nthe making we may easily believe that those possessing no congenital\ninstinct for loyalty failed, and that failure involved elimination.\nIn such circumstances, the hereditary instinct would become an\ninbred characteristic of the race. But in a civilised, or even in\na semi-civilised, world, the success of one competitor has rarely\ninvolved the extinction of the other\u2014at least by mere slaughter. When\nextinction has followed defeat, it has been due rather to the gradual\neffects of disease and hardship, or to other causes more obscure, but\nnot less deadly. The endless struggles between tribes, cities, nations,\nand races, have in the main been struggles for domination, not for\nexistence. Slavery, not death, has been the penalty of failure; and\nif domination has produced a change in the inherited type, it is not\nbecause the conquered has perished before the conqueror, but because,\nconquest having brought them together, the two have intermarried.\nThere is thus no close or necessary connection between biological\n\u201cfitness\u201d and military or political success. The beaten race, whose\ninstitutions or culture perish, may be the race which in fact survives;\nwhile victors who firmly establish their language, religion, and polity\nmay, after a few centuries, leave scarce a trace behind them of any\nheritable characteristics which the anthropologist is able to detect.\n\nThis observation, however, suggests a new point. Is there not, you may\nask, a \u201cstruggle for existence\u201d between non-heritable acquirements\nwhich faintly resembles the biological struggle between individuals\nor species? Religious systems, political organisations, speculative\ncreeds, industrial inventions, national policies, scientific\ngeneralisations, and (what specially concerns us now) ethical ideals,\nare in perpetual competition and conflict. Some maintain themselves\nor expand. These are, by definition, the \u201cfit.\u201d Some wane or perish.\nThese are, by definition, the unfit. Here we find selection, survival,\nelimination; and, though we see them at work in quite other regions of\nreality than those explored by the student of organic evolution, the\nanalogy between the two cases is obvious.\n\nBut is the analogy more than superficial? Is it relevant to our present\nargument? Can it explain either the spread of higher moral ideals or\ntheir development? Let us consider for a moment some examples of this\npsychological \u201cstruggle for existence.\u201d Take, as a simple case, the\ncompetition between rival inventions\u2014between the spinning-jenny and the\nhand-loom, the breech-loader and the muzzle-loader, pre-Listerian and\npost-Listerian methods of surgery. Unless the environment be strongly\ncharged with prejudice, ignorance, or sinister interests, the \u201cfittest\u201d\nin such cases is that which best serves its purpose. Measurable\nefficiency is the quality which wins. But this supplies us with no\nuseful analogy when we are dealing with ethics. Morality, as I have\nalready insisted, is not an invention designed to serve an external\npurpose. The \u201cstruggle for existence\u201d between higher and lower ethical\nideals has no resemblance to the struggle between the spinning-jenny\nand the hand-loom. It is a struggle between ends, not between means.\nEfficiency is not in question.\n\nA like observation applies to that quality of our beliefs which might\nbe described as \u201cargumentative plausibility.\u201d This is to abstract\ntheorising what efficiency is to practical invention. It has survival\nvalue. Both, of course, are relative terms, whose application varies\nwith circumstances. An invention is only efficient while the commodity\nit produces is in demand. A theory is only plausible while it hits off\nthe intellectual temper of the day. But if efficiency and plausibility\nbe thus understood, the more efficient invention and the more plausible\ndoctrine will oust their less favoured rivals. They are the \u201cfittest.\u201d\nBut as morality is not a means, so neither is it a conclusion. Whatever\nbe its relation to Reason, _reasoning_ can never determine the\nessential nature of its contents. Plausibility, therefore, is no more\nin question than efficiency.\n\nI do not, of course, deny that ethics are always under discussion,\nor that the basis of moral rules and their application are themes of\nunending controversy. This is plainly true. But it is also true that\nthere is no argumentative method of shaking any man\u2019s allegiance to\nan end which he deems intrinsically worthy, except by showing it to\nbe inconsistent with some other end which _he_ (not you) deems more\nworthy still. Dialectic can bring into clear consciousness the implicit\nbeliefs which underlie action, but it cannot either prove them or\nrefute them. It is as untrue to say that there is no disputing about\nmorals as to say that there is no disputing about tastes. But also it\nis as true; and the truth, properly understood, is fundamental.\n\nWhat pass for opposing arguments are really rival appeals; and it is\ninteresting to observe that the appeal which, to the unreflecting,\nseems the most rational is the appeal to selfishness. I am told[6]\nthat on any fine Sunday afternoon in some of our big towns you may\nfind an orator asking why any man should love his country. \u201cWhat,\u201d\nhe inquires, \u201cdoes a man get by it? Will national success bring\neither to himself or to any of his hearers more food, more drink, more\namusements? If not, why make personal sacrifices for what will never\nconfer personal advantage?\u201d To this particular question it might be\nreplied (though not always with truth) that the antithesis is a false\none, and that on the whole the selfish ideal and the patriotic ideal\nare both promoted by the same policy of public service. But there is\nanother question of the same type to which no such answer is possible.\nWe have all heard it, either in jest or in earnest. \u201cWhy\u201d (it is asked)\n\u201cshould we do anything for posterity, seeing that posterity will do\nnothing for us?\u201d The implication is infamous, but the statement is\ntrue. We cannot extract from posterity an equivalent for the sacrifices\nwe make on its behalf. These are debts that will never be recovered.\nThe unborn cannot be sued; the dead cannot be repaid. But what then?\nAltruism is not based on egoism; it is not egoism in disguise. The ends\nto which it points are ends in themselves; and their value is quite\nindependent of argument, neither capable of proof nor requiring it.\n\nIn what, then, consists the psychological (as distinguished from\nthe organic) \u201cfitness\u201d of the higher moral ideals? If it cannot be\nfound in their practical efficiency, nor yet in their argumentative\nplausibility, where shall we seek it?\n\nSometimes, no doubt, the explanation is to be found in their\nassociation with a culture, other elements of which do possess both\nthese kinds of \u201cfitness.\u201d Thus Western morality\u2014or (to be accurate)\nWestern notions of morality\u2014find favour with backward races, because\nthey are associated with Western armaments and Western arts. Again,\nthey may be diffused, perhaps as part of some militant religion, by the\npower of the sword or by its prestige. They reach new regions in the\ntrain of a conqueror, and willingly or unwillingly the conquered accept\nthem.\n\nBut these associations are seemingly quite casual. The prestige of\nWestern arts and science may assist the diffusion of Western morals,\nas it assists the diffusion of Western languages, or Western clothes.\nConquests by Mahommedan or Christian States may substitute a higher\nfor a lower ethical creed in this or that region of the world. Such\ncases, however, leave us still in the realm of accident. The causes\nthus assigned for the spread of a particular type of ethical ideal\nhave nothing to do with the quality of that type. They would promote\nbad morals not less effectively than good; as a hose will, with equal\nease, scatter dirty water or clean. Moreover, the growth of the higher\ntype in its place of origin is left wholly unexplained. Its \u201cfitness\u201d\nseems a mere matter of luck due neither to design nor to any natural\nimitation of design.\n\nThe rigour of this conclusion would be little mitigated even if\nwe could connect psychological fitness with some quite non-moral\npeculiarity habitually associated with the higher morality, but not\nwith the lower. If, for example, the former were found to lead normally\nto worldly success, its repute would need no further explanation. If,\nin private life, those endowed with Sir Charles Grandison\u2019s merits\nusually possessed Sir Charles Grandison\u2019s estate, if, in political or\nnational life, victory and virtue went ever hand in hand, morality\nmight be none the better, but certainly it would be more the fashion.\nHeaven would be wearied with prayers for an unselfish spirit, uttered\nby suppliants from purely selfish motives. Saints would become the\ndarlings of society, and the book of Job would be still unwritten.[7]\n\nI can devise no more extravagant hypothesis. But though, if it were\ntrue, the \u201cfitness\u201d of the higher morality might seem to have found an\nexplanation, it is not the explanation we require. It is too external.\nIt gives no account of the appeal which the nobler ends of action make\nto our judgments of intrinsic value. It suggests the way in which a\nhigher ideal might increase the number of its possessors at the expense\nof a lower, but not the way in which the higher ideal might itself\narise. Indeed, we must go further. Few are the moralists who would\nmaintain that indifference to worldly triumphs was not, on the whole,\na bar to their attainment. Few are the biologists who would maintain\nthat care and kindness, lavished on the biologically unfit, will never\ntend to diminish the relative number of the biologically fit. But,\nif so, we must agree with Nietzsche in thinking that ethical values\nhave become \u201cdenaturalised.\u201d In their primitive forms the products of\nselection, they have, by a kind of internal momentum, overpassed their\nprimitive purpose. Made by nature for a natural object, they have\ndeveloped along lines which are certainly independent of selection,\nperhaps in opposition to it. And though not as remote from their first\nmanifestations as is the \u00e6sthetic of men from the \u00e6sthetic of monkeys,\nno evolutionary explanation will bridge the interval. If we treat\nthe Sermon on the Mount as a naturalistic product, it is as much an\nevolutionary accident as _Hamlet_ or the Ninth Symphony.\n\n\nIV\n\nIn what setting, then, are we to place morality so that these\n\u201cdenaturalised\u201d values may be retained? Can we be content to regard\nthe highest loyalties, the most devoted love, the most limitless\nself-abnegation as the useless excesses of a world-system, which in its\nefforts to adapt organism to environment has overshot its mark?\n\nI deem it impossible. The naturalistic setting must be expanded into\none which shall give the higher ethics an origin congruous with their\ncharacter. Selection must be treated as an instrument of purpose,\nnot simply as its mimic. Theistic teleology must be substituted for\nNaturalism. Thus, and thus only, can moral values, as it seems to me,\nbe successfully maintained.\n\nThis would not, I suppose, have been denied by Nietzsche and\nNietzsche\u2019s predecessors in revolt. On the contrary, they would admit\nthe interdependence of morals and religion, as these are commonly\nunderstood in Christendom, and they would condemn both. It would,\nhowever, have been vehemently denied by agnostics like Huxley; for\nHuxley accepted, broadly speaking, Christian ethics, while refusing to\naccept the Christian, or, indeed, any other form of theology.\n\nIn my opinion, this position is not permanently tenable. I do not mean\nthat it involves a logical contradiction. I do mean that it involves\nan emotional and doctrinal incompatibility of a very fundamental\nkind. And this is a defect which may be even more fatal than logical\ncontradiction to the stability of ethical beliefs.\n\nFor what was Huxley\u2019s position? His condemnation of evolutionary ethics\nwas far more violent than my own. He states categorically that \u201cWhat\nis ethically best involves conduct which in all respects is opposed\nto that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.\u201d\nOn a biological question I differ from him with misgiving; but, as\nI have already urged, selection may plausibly be credited with the\nearlier stages of the noblest virtues. I cannot think that the mother\nwho sacrifices herself for her child, the clansman who dies for his\nchief, the generation which suffers for the sake of its posterity,\nare indulging in \u201cconduct which is in all respects opposed to that\nwhich leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.\u201d But,\nwhether Huxley be right on this point or I, it is surely impossible\nfor the mass of mankind to maintain, at the cost of much personal\nloss, an ideal of conduct which science tells us is not merely an\nevolutionary accident, but an evolutionary mistake; something which\nwas, and is, contrary to the whole trend of the cosmic process which\nbrought us into being, and made us what we are. It requires but a small\nknowledge of history to show how easily mankind idealises nature;\nwitness such phrases as \u201cthe return to nature,\u201d the \u201cstate of nature,\u201d\n\u201cnatural rights,\u201d \u201cnatural law,\u201d and so forth. Appeals founded upon\nthese notions have proved powerful, even when they ran counter to\nindividualistic selfishness. When the two are in alliance, how can they\nbe resisted? Is it possible for the ordinary man to maintain undimmed\nhis altruistic ideals if he thinks Nature is against them?\u2014unless,\nindeed he also believes that God is on their side?\n\n\nV\n\nHere are questions raised to which there is no parallel in the case\nof \u00e6sthetics. Doubtless differences of \u00e6sthetic judgment abound; but\nthey do not produce difficulties quite matching those due to the\ncollision of incompatible ends; nor is their solution so important. On\nthis subject I must say a few words before bringing this lecture to a\nconclusion.\n\nPossible collisions between ends are many, for ends themselves\nare many. And of these ends some are in their very nature\nirreconcilable;\u2014based on essential differences which reflection only\nmakes more apparent, and moral growth more profound.\n\nNow these collisions are not always between altruism and egoism.\nOften they are between different forms of altruism\u2014call them, if you\nplease, the positive form and the negative. Enmity, hate, cruelty,\ntyranny, and all that odious brood whose end and object is the pain\nand abasement of others are not intrinsically egoistic. Though they be\nthe vilest of all passions, yet they do not necessarily involve any\ntaint of selfish alloy. Often as disinterested as the most devoted\nlove or the most single-minded loyalty, they may demand no smaller\nsacrifices on the part of those whom they inspire, and the demand may\nbe not less willingly obeyed. It is, perhaps, worth observing that\nthese altruistic ends, the positive and the negative, the benevolent\nand the malevolent, irreconcilably opposed as they are in moral theory,\nhave often been associated in ethical practice. Family affection has in\nmany half-civilised communities produced the binding custom of family\nvendetta. Political loyalty, which has blossomed into some of the\nnoblest forms of positive altruism, has also bred cruelty and hatred\nagainst those who are outside the pale of the tribe, the state, the\nparty, or the creed. The brightest light has cast the deepest shadows.\nTo torture and enslave, not because it brings profit to the victor, but\nbecause it brings pain to the vanquished, has, through long ages, been\ndeemed a fitting sequel to victories born of the most heroic courage\nand the noblest self-sacrifice; while no small part of moral progress\nhas consisted in expelling this perverted altruism from the accepted\nideals of civilised mankind.\n\nEgoism is far more reputable. The agent\u2019s own good, considered\nin itself, is, what negative altruism can never be, a perfectly\nlegitimate object of endeavour. When, therefore, there is a collision\nbetween egoism and positive altruism, problems of real difficulty\nmay arise; the competing ends may both have value, and the need for\na reconciliation, practical as well as speculative, of necessity\nimpresses both moralists and legislators.\n\nIn practice the evils of this conflict arise largely from the fact\nthat the end which has most worth has too often least power. This\nis not surprising if the account of ethical evolution, which I have\nprovisionally adopted in this lecture, be near the truth. For the\nextra-regarding instincts are of later birth than the self-regarding.\nAll animals look after themselves. Only the more developed look also\nafter others. The germ of what, in reflection, becomes egoism is of far\nearlier growth than the germ of what, in reflection, becomes altruism.\nBeing more primitive, it is more deeply rooted in our nature; and, even\nwhen recognised as morally lower, it tends, when there is conflict, to\nprevail over its rival. \u201cThe evil that I would not, that I do.\u201d\n\nNow this result has, as we all know, serious social consequences. Even\nthe least stable society must be organised on some firm framework\nof custom, rule, and law; and these, in their turn, must find their\nmain support in the willing loyalty of the general community.\nBut, though loyalty is the great essential, it is not sufficient.\nLegislators, lawyers, moralists, all agree that in the collision\nbetween ends\u2014especially between egoistic and altruistic ends\u2014it is\nnot always the highest end as judged by the agent himself, still less\nthe highest end as measured by the standards of the community, which\nfinally prevails. Therefore must law and custom have the support of\nsanctions: sanctions being nothing else than devices for bringing a\nlower motive to the aid of a higher, and so producing better conduct,\nif not[8] better morals. Public approval and disapproval, the jailer\nand the hangman, heaven and hell, are familiar examples. Can they in\nany true sense effect a reconciliation between discordant ends, and,\nin particular, between altruism and egoism? I hardly think so. When\nthey are effective they doubtless diminish ethical conflict; but it\nis by ignoring the intrinsic value of one set of ethical ends. In so\nfar as we are honest because honesty is the best policy, in so far as\nwe do not injure lest we should ourselves be injured, in so far as we\nbenefit that we may be benefited ourselves\u2014just in that proportion we\ntreat altruistic actions merely as the means of attaining egoistic\nends. The two competitors are not reconciled, but a working arrangement\nis reached under which the conduct appropriate to the higher ideal is\npursued from motives characteristic of the lower.\n\nIs any truer reconciliation possible? Scarcely, as I think, without\nreligion. I do not suggest that _any_ religious theory gets rid of\nethical anomalies, or theoretically lightens by a feather-weight the\nheavy problem of evil. But I do suggest that in the love of God by\nthe individual soul, the collision of ends _for that soul_ loses all\nits harshness, and harmony is produced by raising, not lowering, the\nethical ideal.\n\nKant, by a famous feat of speculative audacity, sought to extract a\nproof of God\u2019s existence from the moral law. In his view the moral law\nrequires us to hold that those who are good will also in the end be\nhappy; and, since without God this expectation cannot be fulfilled,\nthe being of God becomes a postulate of morality. Is this (you may\nask), or any variant of this, the argument suggested in the last\nparagraph? It is not. In Kant\u2019s argument, as I understand it, God was\nexternal to morality in the sense that He was not Himself a moral\nend. It was not our feeling of love and loyalty to Him that was of\nmoment, but His guidance of the world in the interests of virtue and\nthe virtuous. My point is different. I find in the love of God a moral\nend which reconciles other moral ends, because it includes them. It\nis not intolerant of desires for our own good. It demands their due\nsubordination, not their complete suppression. It implies loyal service\nto One who by His essential nature wills the good of all. It requires,\ntherefore, that the good of all shall be an object of our endeavour;\nand it promises that, in striving for this inclusive end, we shall, in\nPauline phrase, be fellow-workers with Him.\n\nI will not further pursue this theme. Its development is plainly\ninappropriate to these lectures, which are not directly concerned with\npersonal religion. In any case, this portion of my argument, though\nimportant, is subsidiary. My main contention rests, not upon the\ndifficulty of harmonising moral ends in a Godless universe, but upon\nthe difficulty of maintaining moral values if moral origins are purely\nnaturalistic. That they never have been so maintained on any large\nscale is a matter of historic fact. At no time has the mass of mankind\ntreated morals and religion as mutually independent. They have left\nthis to the enlightened; and the enlightened have (as I think) been\nwrong.\n\nThey have been wrong through their omission to face the full results of\ntheir own theories. If the most we can say for morality on the causal\nside is that it is the product of non-moral, and ultimately of material\nagents, guided up to a certain point by selection, and thereafter left\nthe sport of chance, a sense of humour, if nothing else, should prevent\nus wasting fine language on the splendour of the moral law and the\nreverential obedience owed it by mankind. That debt will not long be\npaid if morality comes to be generally regarded as the causal effect\nof petty causes; comparable in its lowest manifestations with the\nappetites and terrors which rule, for their good, the animal creation;\nin its highest phases no more than a personal accomplishment, to be\nacquired or neglected at the bidding of individual caprice. More than\nthis is needful if the noblest ideals are not to lose all power of\nappeal. Ethics must have its roots in the divine; and in the divine it\nmust find its consummation.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6] Written in 1913.\n\n[7] Doubtless under such circumstances ideal virtue might also have\nsurvival value in the biological sense.\n\n[8] Indirectly, no doubt, sanctions may perform a most important\neducational work in stimulating and guiding the higher loyalties. The\napproval or disapproval of our fellows, the \u201cterrors of the law,\u201d the\nbelief in future rewards and punishments, though their immediate appeal\nis only to self-interest, may powerfully aid in the creation of moral\njudgments sufficiently free from any \u201cempirical elements of desire\u201d to\nhave satisfied Kant himself.\n\n\n\n\nPART III\n\n_INTELLECTUAL VALUES_\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V\n\nINTRODUCTION TO PART III\n\n\nI\n\nIn the preceding lectures I have given reasons for thinking that in two\ngreat departments of human interest\u2014\u00c6sthetics and Ethics\u2014the highest\nbeliefs and emotions cannot claim to have any survival value. They\nmust be treated as by-products of the evolutionary process; and are,\ntherefore, on the naturalistic hypothesis, doubly accidental. They are\naccidental in the larger sense of being the product of the undesigned\ncollocation and interplay of material entities\u2014molecular atoms,\nsub-atoms, and ether\u2014which preceded, and will presumably outlast,\nthat fraction of time during which organic life will have appeared,\ndeveloped, and perished. They are also accidental in the narrower sense\nof being only accidentally associated with that process of selective\nelimination, which, if Darwinism be true, has so happily imitated\ncontrivance in the adaptation of organisms to their environment. They\nare the accidents of an accident.\n\nI disagreed with this conclusion, but I did not attempt to refute it. I\ncontented myself with pointing out that it was destructive of values;\nand that, the greater the values, the more destructive it became.\nThe difficulty, indeed, on which I have so far insisted is not a\nlogical one. We have not been concerned with premises and conclusions.\nNeither our \u00e6sthetic emotions nor our moral sentiments are the product\nof ratiocination; nor is it by ratiocination that they are likely\nto suffer essential wrong. If you would damage them beyond repair,\nyoke them to a theory of the universe which robs them of all general\nsignificance. Then, at the very moment when they aspire to transcendent\nauthority, their own history will rise up in judgment against them,\nimpugning their pretensions, and testifying to their imposture.\n\n\nII\n\nThe inquiry on which I now propose to enter will follow a more or less\nparallel course, and will reach a more or less similar conclusion.\nYet some characteristic differences it must necessarily exhibit.\nIn the higher regions of \u00e6sthetics and ethics, emotions and beliefs\nare inextricably intertwined. They are what naturalists describe as\n\u201csymbiotic.\u201d Though essentially different, they are mutually dependent.\nIf one be destroyed, the other withers away.\n\nBut Knowledge\u2014the department of human interest to which I now turn\u2014is\ndifferently placed. The values with which we shall be concerned are\nmainly rational; and intellectual curiosity is the only emotion\nwith which they are associated. Yet here also two questions arise\ncorresponding to those which we have already dealt with in a different\nconnection: (1) what are the causes of our knowledge, or of that part\nof our knowledge which concerns the world of common sense and of\nscience? (2) does the naturalistic account of these causes affect the\nrational value\u2014in other words the validity\u2014of their results?\n\nWe are, perhaps, more sensitive about the pedigree of our intellectual\ncreed than we are about the pedigree of our tastes or our sentiments.\nWe like to think that beliefs which claim to be rational are the\nproduct of a purely rational process; and though, where others are\nconcerned, we complacently admit the intrusion of non-rational links\nin the causal chain, we have higher ambitions for ourselves.\n\nYet surely, on the naturalistic theory of the world, all such ambitions\nare vain. It is abundantly evident that, however important be the part\nwhich reason plays among the immediate antecedents of our beliefs,\nthere are no beliefs which do not trace back their origin to causes\nwhich are wholly irrational. Proximately, these beliefs may take rank\nas logical conclusions. Ultimately, they are without exception rooted\nin matter and motion. The rational order is but a graft upon the causal\norder; and, if Naturalism be true, the causal order is blind.\n\n\nIII\n\nBefore I further develop this line of speculation it may help you to\nunderstand what I am driving at if I venture upon an autobiographical\nparenthesis. The point I have just endeavoured to make I have made\nbefore in these lectures, and I have made it elsewhere. It is one\nof a number of considerations which have led me to question the\nprevalent account of the theoretical ground-work of our accepted\nbeliefs. Taken by itself, its tendency is sceptical; and, since it\nhas been associated with arguments in favour of a spiritual view\nof the universe, I have been charged (and not always by unfriendly\ncommentators) with the desire to force doubt into the service of\northodoxy by recommending mankind to believe what they wish, since all\nbeliefs alike are destitute of proof. As we cannot extricate ourselves\nfrom the labyrinth of illusion, let us at least see to it that our\nillusions are agreeable.\n\nThis, however, is not what I have ever wanted to say, nor is it what I\nwant to say now. If I have given just occasion for such a travesty of\nmy opinions, it must have been an indirect consequence of my early, and\nno doubt emphatically expressed, contempt for the complacent dogmatism\nof the empirical philosophy, which in Great Britain reigned supreme\nthrough the third quarter of the nineteenth century. But was this\ncontempt altogether unreasonable?\n\nI went to Cambridge in the middle sixties with a very small equipment\nof either philosophy or science, but a very keen desire to discover\n_what_ I ought to think of the world, and _why_. For the history\nof speculation I cared not a jot. Dead systems seemed to me of no\nmore interest than abandoned fashions. My business was with the\nground-work of living beliefs; in particular, with the ground-work of\nthat scientific knowledge whose recent developments had so profoundly\nmoved mankind. And surely there was nothing perverse in asking modern\nphilosophers to provide us with a theory of modern science!\n\nI was referred to Mill; and the shock of disillusionment remains with\nme to the present hour. Mill possessed at that time an authority in\nthe English Universities, and, for anything I know to the contrary,\nin the Scotch Universities also, comparable to that wielded forty\nyears earlier by Hegel in Germany and in the Middle Ages by Aristotle.\nPrecisely the kind of questions which I wished to put, his Logic was\ndeemed qualified to answer. He was supposed to have done for scientific\ninference what Bacon tried to do, and failed. He had provided science\nwith a philosophy.\n\nI could have forgiven the claims then made for him by his admirers;\nI could have forgiven, though young and intolerant, what seemed to\nme the futility of his philosophic system, if he had ever displayed\nany serious misgiving as to the scope and validity of his empirical\nmethods. If he had admitted, for example, that, when all had been done\nthat could be done to systematise our ordinary modes of experimental\ninference, the underlying problem of knowledge still remained unsolved.\nBut he seemed to hold, in common with the whole empirical school\nof which, in English-speaking countries, he was the head, that the\nfundamental difficulties of knowledge do not begin till the frontier is\ncrossed which divides physics from metaphysics, the natural from the\nsupernatural, the world of \u201cphenomena\u201d from the world of \u201cnoumena,\u201d\n\u201cpositive\u201d experiences from religious dreams. It may be urged that, if\nthese be errors, they are errors shared by ninety-nine out of every\nhundred persons educated in the atmosphere of Western civilisation,\nwhatever be their theological views: and I admit that it has sunk deep\ninto our ordinary habits of thought. Apologetics are saturated with\nit, not less than agnosticism or infidelity. But, for my own part, I\nfeel now, as I felt in the early days of which I am speaking, that\nthe problem of knowledge cannot properly be sundered in this fashion.\nIts difficulties begin with the convictions of common sense, not with\nremote, or subtle, or otherworldly speculations; and if we could\nsolve the problem in respect of the beliefs which, roughly speaking,\neverybody shares, we might see our way more clearly in respect of the\nbeliefs on which many people are profoundly divided.\n\nThat Mill\u2019s reasoning should have satisfied himself and his immediate\ndisciples is strange. But that the wider public of thinking men, whom\nhe so powerfully influenced, should on the strength of this flimsy\nphilosophy adopt an attitude of dogmatic assurance both as to what can\nbe known and what cannot, is surely stranger still. Thus, at least, I\nthought nearly half a century ago, and thus I think still.\n\nConsider, for example, a typical form of the ordinary agnostic\nposition: that presented by Leslie Stephen. The best work of this\nexcellent writer was biographical and literary; but he was always\ndeeply interested in speculation; and his own creed seems early to have\ntaken its final shape under the philosophical influences of the British\nempiricists. He regarded the \u201cappeal to experience\u201d as the fundamental\ndogma of agnosticism, and by the \u201cappeal to experience\u201d he meant what\nMill meant by it. He sincerely supposed that this gave you indisputable\nknowledge of \u201cphenomena,\u201d and that if you went beyond \u201cphenomena\u201d you\nwere dreaming, or you were inventing.\n\nThis is a possible creed; and it is, in fact, the creed held\nimplicitly, or explicitly, by many thousands of quite sensible people.\nBut why should those who hold it suppose that it must always satisfy\nimpartial inquirers? Why should they assume that those who reject it\nare sacrificing their reason to their prejudices or their fancies? It\nmay represent the best we can do, but is it, after all, so obviously\nreasonable? On this subject the empirical agnostic has no doubts. He\nholds, with unshaken confidence, that nothing deserves to be believed\nbut that which in the last resort is proved by \u201cexperience\u201d; that the\nstrength of our beliefs should be exactly proportioned to the evidence\nwhich \u201cexperience\u201d can supply, and that every one knows or can discover\nexactly what this evidence amounts to. Leslie Stephen refers to a\nwell-known aphorism of Locke, who declared that \u201cthere is one unerring\nmark by which a man may know whether he is a lover of truth in earnest,\nviz. the not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than\nthe proofs it is built on will warrant.\u201d Upon which Leslie Stephen\nobserves that the sentiment is a platitude, but, in view of the\nweakness of human nature, a useful platitude.\n\nIs it a platitude? Did Locke act up to it? Did Hume act up to it, or\nany other of Leslie Stephen\u2019s philosophic progenitors? Does anybody\nact up to it? Does anybody sincerely try to act up to it?\n\nRead through the relevant chapters in Locke\u2019s Essay, and observe\nhis ineffectual struggles, self-imprisoned in the circle of his own\nsensations and ideas, to reach the external world in which he believed\nwith a far \u201cgreater assurance\u201d than was warranted by any proofs which\n_he_, at all events, was able to supply. Read Hume\u2019s criticism of our\ngrounds for believing in a real world without, or a real self within,\nand compare it with his admission that scepticism on these subjects is\na practical impossibility.\n\nBut we need not go beyond the first chapter of \u201cAn Agnostic\u2019s Apology\u201d\nto find an illustration of my argument. Leslie Stephen there absolves\nhimself from giving heed to the conclusions of philosophers, because\nthere are none on which all philosophers are agreed, none on which\nthere is even a clear preponderance of opinion. On the other hand,\nhe is ready to agree with astronomers, because astronomers, \u201cfrom\nGalileo to Adams and Leverrier,\u201d substantially agree with each other.\nAgreement among experts is, in his opinion, a guarantee of truth, and\ndisagreement a proof of error.\n\nBut then he forgets that these distressing differences among\nphilosophers do not touch merely such entities as God and the soul, or\nthe other subjects with which agnostics conceive man\u2019s faculties are\nincapable of dealing. They are concerned (among other things) with the\npresuppositions on which our knowledge of \u201cphenomena\u201d\u2014including, of\ncourse \u201castronomy from Galileo to Adams and Leverrier,\u201d is entirely\nconstructed. What, in these circumstances, is Locke\u2019s \u201csincere lover\nof truth\u201d to do? How is he to avoid \u201centertaining propositions with\ngreater assurance than the proofs they are built on will warrant\u201d?\nWhere will he find a refuge from the \u201cpure scepticism\u201d which is, in\nLeslie Stephen\u2019s opinion, the natural result of divided opinions? How\nis he to get on while he is making up his mind whether any theory of\nthe world within his reach will satisfy unbiased reason?\n\nThe fact is that the adherents of this philosophic school apply,\nquite unconsciously, very different canons of intellectual probity to\nthemselves and to their opponents. \u201cWhy,\u201d asks Mr. Stephen, \u201cshould\na lad who has just run the gauntlet of examination and escaped to a\ncountry parsonage be dogmatic?\u201d If to be dogmatic is to hold opinions\nwith a conviction in excess of any reason that can be assigned for\nthem, there seems to be no escape for the poor fellow. The common lot\nof man is not going to be reversed for him. Though he abandon his\nparsonage and renounce his Church, though he scrupulously purify his\ncreed from every taint of the \u201cmetempirical,\u201d though he rigidly confine\nhimself to themes which his critics declare to be within the range of\nhis intellectual vision, fate will pursue him still. He may argue much\nor argue little; he may believe much or believe little; but, however\nmuch he argues and however little he believes, his beliefs will always\ntranscend his arguments, and to faith, in his own despite, he must\nstill appeal.\n\nThose who accept Leslie Stephen\u2019s philosophy suppose that for this\nyoung man, as for all others, a way of escape may be found by appealing\nto experience. But surely none are so sanguine as to suppose that,\nby appealing to experience, they are going to avoid what Mr. Stephen\ndescribes as \u201cendless and hopeless controversies.\u201d Alas, this is not\nso! The field of experience is no well-defined and protected region\nunder whose clear skies useful knowledge flourishes unchallenged, while\nthe mist-enshrouded territories of its metaphysical neighbours are\ndevastated by unending disputations. On the contrary, it is the very\nbattlefield of philosophy, the cockpit of metaphysics, strewn with\nabandoned arguments, where every strategic position has been taken\nand retaken, to which every school lays formal claim, which every\ncontending system pretends to hold in effective occupation. Indeed, by\na singular irony, the thinkers who, at this particular moment, talk\nmost about experience are those metaphysicians of the Absolute in\nwhose speculations Mr. Stephen saw no beginning of interest, except\nthat of being (as he supposed) at once the refuge and the ruin of\ntraditional religion. But these philosophers have no monopoly. All men\nnowadays speak well of experience. They begin to differ only when they\nattempt to say what experience is, to define its character, explain its\ncredentials, and expound its message. But, unhappily, when this stage\nis reached their differences are endless.\n\n\nIV\n\nI am, of course, not concerned with Mr. Stephen except as a brilliant\nrepresentative of a mode of thought to which I most vehemently object.\nI do not object to it merely because it is in my judgment insufficient\nand erroneous, still less because I dislike its conclusion. I object\nto it because it talks loudly of experience, yet never faces facts;\nand boasts its rationality, yet rarely reasons home. These are far\ngraver crimes against the spirit of truth than any condemned in Locke\u2019s\npretentious aphorism, and they lead to far more serious consequences.\n\nIf you ask me what I have in mind when I say that agnostic empiricism\nnever faces facts, I reply that it never really takes account of that\nnatural history of knowledge, of that complex of causes, rational and\nnon-rational, which have brought our accepted stock of beliefs into\nbeing. And if you ask me what I have in mind when I say that though it\nreasons, it rarely reasons home, I reply that, when it is resolved not\nto part with a conclusion, anything will serve it for an argument; only\nwhen it is incredulous does it know how to be critical.\n\nThis is not an error into which I propose to fall. But I hope that\nI shall not on that account be deemed indifferent to the claims of\nreason, or inclined to treat lightly our beliefs either about the\nmaterial world or the immaterial. On the contrary, my object, and my\nonly object, is to bring reason and belief into the closest harmony\nthat at present seems practicable. And if you thereupon reply that such\na statement is by itself enough to prove that I am no ardent lover of\nreason; if you tell me that it implies, if not permanent contentment,\nat least temporary acquiescence in a creed imperfectly rationalised,\nI altogether deny the charge. So far as I am concerned, there is no\nacquiescence. Let him that thinks otherwise show me a better way. Let\nhim produce a body of beliefs which shall be at once living, logical,\nand sufficient;\u2014not forgetting that it cannot be sufficient unless it\nincludes within the circuit of its doctrines some account of itself\nregarded as a product of natural causes, nor logical unless it provides\na rational explanation of the good fortune which has made causes which\nare not reasons, mixed, it may be, with causes which are not _good_\nreasons, issue in what is, by hypothesis, a perfectly rational system.\nHe who is fortunate enough to achieve all this may trample as he\nlikes upon less successful inquirers. But I doubt whether, when this\ndiscoverer appears, he will be found to have reached his goal by the\nbeaten road of empirical agnosticism. This, though it be fashionably\nfrequented, is but a blind alley after all.\n\nIn the meanwhile we must, I fear, suffer under a system of beliefs\nwhich is far short of rational perfection. But we need not acquiesce,\nand we should not be contented. Whether this state of affairs will ever\nbe cured by the sudden flash of some great philosophic discovery is\nanother matter. My present aim, at all events, is far more modest. But\nthey, at least, should make no complaint who hold that common-sense\nbeliefs, and science which is a development of common-sense beliefs,\nare, if not true, at least on the way to truth. For this conviction\nI share. I profess it; I desire to act upon it. And surely I cannot\nact upon it better than by endeavouring, so far as I can, to place it\nin the setting which shall most effectually preserve its intellectual\nvalue. This, at all events, is the object to which the four lectures\nthat immediately follow are designed to contribute.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI\n\nPERCEPTION, COMMON SENSE, AND SCIENCE\n\n\nI\n\nNothing would seem easier, at first sight, than to give a general\ndescription of the ordinary beliefs of ordinary people about our\nfamiliar world of things and persons. It is the world in which we live;\nit is for all men _a_ real world; it is for many men _the_ real world;\nit is the world of common sense, the world where the plain man feels at\nhome, and where the practical man seeks refuge from the vain subtleties\nof metaphysics. Our stock of beliefs about it may perhaps be difficult\nto justify, but it seems strange that they should be difficult to\ndescribe; yet difficult, I think, they are.\n\nSome statements about it may, however, be made with confidence. It is\nin space and time; i.e. the material things of which it is composed,\nincluding living bodies, are extended, have mutual position, and\npossess at least some measure of duration.\n\nThings are not changed by a mere change of place, but a change of place\nrelative to an observer always changes their appearance _for him_.\nCommon sense is, therefore, compelled in this, as in countless other\ncases, to distinguish the appearance of a thing from its reality; and\nto hold, as an essential article of its working creed, that appearances\nmay alter, leaving realities unchanged.\n\nCommon sense does not, however, draw the inference that our experiences\nof material things is other than direct and immediate. It has never\nheld the opinion\u2014or, if you will, the heresy\u2014that what we perceive (at\nleast by sight and touch) are states of our own mind, which somehow\ncopy or represent external things. Neither has it ever held that the\ncharacter or duration of external things in any way depends upon\nour observations of them. In perception there is no reaction by the\nperceiving mind on the object perceived. Things in their true reality\nare not affected by mere observation, still less are they constituted\nby it. When material objects are in question, common sense never\nsupposes that _esse_ and _percipi_ are identical.\n\nBut then, what, according to common sense, _are_ things in their true\nreality? What are they \u201cin themselves,\u201d when no one is looking at them,\nor when only some of their aspects are under observation?\n\nWe can, at all events, say what (according to common sense) things\nare _not_. They are more than collections of aspects. If we could\nsimultaneously perceive a \u201cthing\u201d at a thousand different distances,\nat a thousand different angles, under a thousand varieties of\nillumination, with its interior ideally exposed in a thousand different\nsections, common sense, if pressed, would, I suppose, still hold that\nthese were no more than specimens of the endless variety of ways in\nwhich things may appear, without either changing their nature or\nfully revealing what that nature is. But though common sense might\ngive this answer, it would certainly resent the question being put.\nIt finds no difficulty in carrying on its work without starting these\ndisturbing inquiries. It is content to say that, though a thing is\ndoubtless always more than the sum of those aspects of it to which\nwe happen to be attending, yet our knowledge _that_ it is and _what_\nit is, however imperfect, is, for practical purposes, sufficiently\nclear and trustworthy, requiring the support neither of metaphysics\nnor psychology.\u2014This, with all its difficulties, is, I believe, an\naccount, true as far as it goes, of the world of things as common sense\nconceives it. This is the sort of world which science sets out to\nexplain. Let me give an illustration.\n\nWe perceive some object\u2014let us say the sun. We perceive it directly\nand not symbolically. What we see is not a mental image of the sun,\nnor a complex of sensations caused by the sun; but the sun itself.\nMoreover, this material external object retains its identity while it\nvaries in appearance. It is red in the morning; it is white at midday;\nit is red once more in the evening; it may be obscured by clouds or\nhidden in eclipse; it vanishes and reappears once in every twenty-four\nhours; yet, amid all these changes and vanishings, its identity is\nunquestioned. Though we perceive it differently at different times, and\nthough there are times when we do not perceive it at all, we know it\nto be the same; nor do we for a moment believe (with Heraclitus) that\nwhen it is lost to view it has, on that account, either altered its\ncharacter or ceased to exist.\n\nIn the main, therefore, experience is, according to common sense, a\nvery simple affair. We see something, or we feel something, or, like\nDr. Johnson, we kick something, and \u201cthere\u2019s an end on\u2019t.\u201d Experience\nis the source of all knowledge, and therefore of all explanation; but,\nin itself, it seems scarcely to require to be explained. Common sense\nis prepared to leave it where it finds it. No doubt the occurrence\nof optical or other illusions may disturb this mood of intellectual\ntranquillity. Common sense, when it has to consider the case of\nappearances, some of which are held, on extraneous grounds, to be real\nand others to be illusory, may feel that there are, after all, problems\nraised by perception\u2014by the direct experience of things\u2014which are not\nwithout their difficulties. But the case of illusions is exceptional,\nand rarely disturbs the even tenor of our daily round.\n\n\nII\n\nNow science, as it gladly acknowledges, is but an extension of common\nsense. It accepts, among other matters, the common-sense view of\nperception. Like common sense, it distinguishes the thing as it is\nfrom the thing as it appears. Like common sense, it regards the things\nwhich are experienced as being themselves unaffected by experience.\nBut, unlike common sense, it devotes great attention to the way in\nwhich experience is produced by things. Its business is with the causal\nseries. This, to be sure, is a subject which common sense does not\nwholly ignore. It would acknowledge that we perceive a lamp through the\nlight which it sheds, and recognise a trumpet through the sound which\nit emits; but the nature of light or sound, and the manner in which\nthey produce our experience of bright or sonorous objects, it hands\nover to science for further investigation.\n\nAnd the task is cheerfully undertaken. Science also deems perception to\nbe the source of all our knowledge of external nature. But it regards\nit as something more, and different. For perception is itself a part\nof nature, a natural process, the product of antecedent causes, the\ncause of subsequent effects. It requires, therefore, like other natural\nfacts, to be observed and explained; and it is the business of science\nto explain it.\n\nThus we are brought face to face with the contrast on which so much\nof the argument of these lectures turns: the contrast between beliefs\nconsidered as members of a cognitive series, and beliefs considered\nas members of a causal series. In the cognitive series, beliefs of\nperception are at the root of our whole knowledge of natural laws.\nIn the causal series, they are the effects of natural laws in actual\noperation. This is so important an example of this dual state that you\nmust permit me to consider it in some detail.\n\nWe may examine what goes on between the perceiving person and the\nthing he perceives from either end; but it is by no means a matter of\nindifference with which end we begin. If we examine the relation of the\nperceiver to the perceived it does not seem convenient or accurate to\ndescribe that relation as a process. It is an experience, immediate and\nintuitive; not indeed infallible, but direct and self-sufficient. If\nI look at the sun, it is the sun I see, and not an image of the sun,\nnor a sensation which suggests the sun, or symbolises the sun. Still\nless do I see ethereal vibrations, or a retinal image, or a nervous\nreaction, or a cerebral disturbance. For, in the act of perceiving, no\nintermediate entities are themselves perceived.\n\nBut now if we, as it were, turn round, and, beginning at the other end,\nconsider the relation of the perceived to the perceiver, no similar\nstatements can be made. We find ourselves concerned, not with an\nact of intuition, but with a physical process, which is complicated,\nwhich occupies time, which involves many stages. We have left behind\ncognition; we are plunged in causation. Experience is no longer the\nimmediate apprehension of fact; it is the transmission of a message\nconveyed from the object to the percipient by relays of material\nmessengers. As to how the transmission is effected explanations vary\nwith the growth of science. They have been entirely altered more than\nonce since the modern era began, and with each alteration they become\nmore complicated. They depend, not on one branch of science only, but\non many. Newtonian astronomy, solar physics, the theory of radiation,\nthe optical properties of the atmosphere, the physiology of vision,\nthe psychology of perception, and I daresay many other branches of\nresearch, have to be drawn upon: and all this to tell us what it is we\nsee, and how it is we come to see it.\n\n\nIII\n\nNow there is no one who possesses the least smattering of philosophy\nwho does not know that the views I have just endeavoured to describe\nare saturated with difficulties: difficulties connected with the nature\nof perception; difficulties connected with the nature of the object as\nperceived; difficulties connected with its unperceived physical basis;\ndifficulties connected with the relation in which these three stand to\neach other. For common sense the material object consists of a certain\nnumber of qualities and aspects which are perceived, an inexhaustible\nnumber which might be perceived, but are not, and (perhaps) a vaguely\nconceived \u201csomewhat\u201d lying behind both. The medieval Aristotelian,\nif I rightly understand him (which very likely I do not), developed\nthis \u201csomewhat\u201d into the notion of substance\u2014an entity somewhat\nloosely connected with the qualities which it supported, and in no\nway explaining them. There was \u201csubstance\u201d in a piece of gold, and\n\u201csubstance\u201d in a piece of lead; but there was nothing unreasonable in\nthe endeavour to associate the qualities of gold with the substance of\nlead, and thus for all practical purposes to turn lead into gold.\n\nModern science teaches a very different lesson. It has, perhaps,\nnot wholly abandoned the notion of material substance, if this be\ndefined as the unperceivable support of perceivable qualities; but it\npersistently strives to connect the characteristics of matter with\nits structure, and, among other characteristics, that of producing, or\nhelping to produce, in us those immediate perceptions which we describe\nas our experience of matter itself.\n\nAn important stage in this endeavour was marked by the famous\ndistinction between the primary and the secondary qualities of matter:\nthe primary qualities being the attributes of external material things\nwhich were deemed to be independent of the observer (for example,\nimpenetrability, density, weight, configuration); the secondary\nqualities being those which, apart from observers endowed with senses\nlike our own, would either exist differently, or would not exist at all\n(for example, colour and taste). On this view the primary qualities\nwere among the causes of the secondary qualities, and the secondary\nqualities were transferred from the thing perceived to the person\nperceiving.\n\nI am not the least concerned to defend this theory. It has been much\nderided, and is certainly open to attack. But something like it seems\nto be an inevitable stage in the development of modern views of nature.\nThe whole effort of physical science is to discover the material or\nnon-psychical facts which shall, among other things, account for\nour psychical experiences. It is true that there are men of science,\nas well as philosophers, who regard all such constructions as purely\narbitrary\u2014mere labour-saving devices which have nothing to do with\nreality. But though I shall have something to say about these theories\nin my next course of lectures, for the present I need only observe that\nthey do not represent ordinary scientific opinion, either as it is,\nor as it has ever been. Science thinks, rightly or wrongly, that she\nis concerned with a real world, which persists independently of our\nexperience: she has never assented to the doctrine that the object of\nher patient investigations is no more than a well-contrived invention\nfor enabling us to foretell, and perhaps to modify, the course of our\npersonal feelings.\n\nBut then, if science is right, we are committed to a division between\nthe contents of immediate experience and its causes, which showed\nitself dimly and tentatively in the distinction between the secondary\nand the primary qualities of matter, but has become deeper and more\nimpassable with every advance in physics and physiology. It was\npossible to maintain (though, I admit, not very easy) that, while the\nsecondary qualities of matter are due to the action of the primary\nqualities on our organs of perception, the primary qualities themselves\nare, nevertheless, the objects of direct experience. The fact, for\nexample, that colour is no more than a sensation need not preclude us\nfrom perceiving the material qualities which, like shape, or motion, or\nmass, are the external and independent causes to which the sensation is\ndue. I do not say that this view was ever explicitly entertained\u2014nor\ndoes it signify. For, if we accept the teaching of science, it can, I\nsuppose, be entertained no more. The physical causes of perception are\ninferred, but not perceived. The real material world has been driven\nby the growth of knowledge further and further into the realm of the\nunseen, and now lies completely hidden from direct experience behind\nthe impenetrable screen of its own effects.\n\n\nIV\n\nFor consider what the causal process of perception really is if we\ntrace it from the observed to the observer\u2014if we follow the main\nstrands in the complex lines of communication through which the object\nseen reveals itself to the man who sees it.\n\nI revert to my previous example\u2014the sun. We need not consider those\nof its attributes which are notoriously arrived at by indirect\nmethods\u2014which are not perceived but inferred\u2014its magnitude, for\nexample, or its mass. Confining ourselves to what is directly\nperceived, its angular size, its shape (projected on a plane),\nits warmth, its brightness, its colour, its (relative) motion,\nits separation from the observer in space\u2014how are these immediate\nexperiences produced?\n\nThe answers have varied with the progress of science; nor, for my\npresent purpose, does it greatly matter which answers we adopt. Let us\ntake those which are commonly accepted at the present moment. They are\nnot only the truest, but the fullest; and for that very reason they\nput the difficulty with which we are concerned in the highest relief.\nWe begin our causal series with electrons, or, if you do not accept\nthe electric theory of matter in any of its forms, then with atoms and\nmolecules. We start with these, because the sun is a collection of\nthem, and because it is their movements which set going the whole train\nof causes and effects by which the sun produces in us the perception of\nitself.\n\nWe may take, as the next stage, ethereal vibrations, of various\nlengths and various amplitudes, sent travelling into space by the\nmoving particles. A fraction of these waves reaches our atmosphere, and\nof that fraction a fraction reaches our eyes, and of that fraction a\nfurther fraction falls within the narrow limits of length to which our\neyes are sensitive. It is through these that we are able to _see_ the\nsun. Still another fraction, not necessarily identical in wave-lengths,\naffects the nerves which produce in us the sensation of warmth. It is\nthrough these that we are able to _feel_ the sun.\n\nBut, before we either see or feel, there is much still to be\naccomplished. The causal series is not nearly completed. Complicated\nneural processes, as yet only imperfectly understood; complicated\ncerebral processes\u2014as yet understood still less\u2014both involving\nphysiological changes far more complicated than the electrical\n\u201caccelerations\u201d or electro-magnetic disturbances with which we have\nhitherto been dealing, bring us to the end of the material sequence of\ncauses and effects, and lay the message from the object perceived on\nthe threshold of the perceiving consciousness. So does a postman slip\ninto your letter-box a message which has been first written, then\ncarried by hand, then by a mail-cart, then by a train, then by hand\nagain, till it reaches its destination, and nothing further is required\nexcept that what has been written should be read and understood.\n\nThus far the material process of transmission. The psychical process\nhas still to come. Psychology is a science, not less than physiology or\nphysics; and psychology has much to say on the subject of perception.\nIt is true that scientific explorers whose point of departure\nis introspective; who concern themselves primarily with ideas,\nconceptions, sensations, and so forth, rarely succeed in fitting their\nconclusions without a break to those of their colleagues who begin\nwith the \u201cexternal\u201d causes of perception. The two tunnels, driven from\nopposite sides of the mountain, do not always meet under its crest.\nStill, we cannot on that account ignore the teaching of psychology on\nthe genesis of perceptual experience regarded, not as the ground of\nknowledge, but as a natural product.\n\nI do not mean to attempt a summary of psychology from this point\nof view, any more than I have attempted a summary of physics or\nphysiology. My argument is really independent, in this case as in the\nother, of particular systems. All I ask for is the admission that in\nperception there are conditions antecedently supplied by the perceiving\nconsciousness which profoundly modify every perceptual experience\u2014and\nthat these conditions (unlike Kant\u2019s forms) are natural growths,\nvarying, like other natural growths, from individual to individual.\nThis admission must, I think, be made by every empirical psychologist,\nto whatever school he happens to belong.\n\nIf this statement seems obscure in its general and abstract form,\nconsider a particular application of it. Let us assume, with many\npsychologists, that Will, in the form of selective attention, lies\nat the root of our perceptual activities; that we may therefore be\nsaid, in a sense, voluntarily to create the objects we perceive; that\nexperience of the present is largely qualified by memories of the\npast, and that the perceptual mould into which our sensations are run\nis largely a social product\u2014born of the intercourse between human\nbeings, and, in its turn, rendering that intercourse possible. Is it\nnot clear that, on assumptions like these, consciousness, so far from\npassively receiving the messages conveyed to it through physical and\nphysiological channels, actively modifies their character?\n\n\nV\n\nBut why, it may be asked, should these considerations involve any\ndifficulty? And, if there be a difficulty, what is its exact character?\n\nIn its most general form the difficulty is this. It is claimed by\nscience that its conclusions are based upon experience. The experience\nspoken of is unquestionably the familiar perception of external things\nand their movements as understood by common sense; and, however much\nour powers of perception be increased by telescopes, microscopes,\nbalances, thermometers, electroscopes, and so forth, this common-sense\nview suffers no alteration. The perceptions of a man of science are,\nin essence, the perceptions of ordinary men in their ordinary moments,\nbeset with the same difficulties, accepted with the same assurance.\nWhatever be the proper way of describing scientific results, the\nexperimental data on which they rest are sought and obtained in the\nspirit of \u201cna\u00eff realism.\u201d\n\nOn this foundation science proceeds to build up a theory of nature\nby which the foundation itself is shattered. It saws off the branch\non which it is supported. It kicks down the ladder by which it has\nclimbed. It dissolves the thing perceived into a remote reality which\nis neither perceived nor perceivable. It turns the world of common\nsense into an illusion, and on this illusion it calmly rests its case.\n\nBut this is not the only logical embarrassment in which we are\ninvolved. When science has supplied us with a description of external\nthings as they \u201creally are,\u201d and we proceed to ask how the physical\nreality reveals itself to us in experience, a new difficulty arises,\nor, if you like, the old difficulty with a new face. For science\nrequires us to admit that experience, from this point of view, is\nequivalent to perception; and that perception is a remote psychological\neffect of a long train of causes, physical and physiological,\noriginally set in motion by the external thing, but in no way\nresembling it. Look carefully at this process from the outside, and\nask yourselves why there should be any such correspondence between the\nfirst of these causes and the last of these effects, as should enable\nus to know or infer the one from the other? Why should the long train\nof unperceivable intermediaries that connect the perceived with the\nperceiver be trusted to speak the truth?\n\nI just now likened these intermediaries to relays of messengers. But\nmessengers are expected to hand on their message in the form in which\nthey have received it. The messengers change, but not the message. The\nmetaphor, therefore, is far too complimentary to the train of physical\ncauses which reveal the material thing to the perceiving consciousness.\nThe neural changes which are in immediate causal contiguity with that\npsychical effect which we call \u201cthe experience of an external object\u201d\nhave no resemblance whatever either to the thing as it is perceived\nor to the thing as it really is. Nor have they any resemblance to the\nproximate cause which sets them going, namely, the ethereal vibrations;\nnor have these to the accelerated electrons which constitute the\nincandescent object which we \u201cexperience\u201d as the sun. Nor has the sun,\nas experienced, the slightest resemblance to the sun as it really is.\n\nHume, in his \u201cDialogues on Natural Religion,\u201d urges the absurdity of\narguing from an effect like the universe to a cause like God, since\nthe argument from a particular effect to a particular cause, or from\na particular cause to a particular effect, is only legitimate when we\nhave had some previous experience of that particular class of causal\nsequence; and nobody, it is plain, has had the opportunity of observing\nCreation. Whatever be the value of this argument in the case of God\nand the world, it seems to me conclusive in the case of matter and\nman. We cannot argue from purely psychical effects, like perceptions\nand sensations, to external causes, like physiological processes or\nethereal vibrations, _unless_ we can experience both sets of facts in\ncausal relation. And this, if we accept the conclusions of science,\nwe can never do\u2014partly because the intermediate members of the causal\nseries are unperceivable; partly because, if they were perceivable,\nperception has been reduced by science to a purely psychical\neffect\u2014which obviously cannot include its material cause. This last\nmust for ever remain outside the closed circle of sensible experiences.\n\nHere, of course, we find ourselves face to face with a familiar\nobjection to those philosophies of perception which deny that we\nhave any access to external reality, except through ideas which are\nits copy. But they are in a better case than science. They need not\nexplicitly admit a discrepancy between their premises and their\nconclusions. They arrive at the subjectivity of perception by methods\nof introspection. They interrogate consciousness, and are convinced\nthat every experience can be analysed into sensations and ideas,\nsome of which, no doubt, suggest externality, but none of which are\nexternal. If, then, the worst comes to the worst, they can, and often\ndo, lighten their philosophic ship by pitching the whole material\nuniverse overboard as a bit of superfluous cargo. But physical science\ncannot (at least in my opinion) do anything of the kind. Its whole\nbusiness is with the material universe. Its premises are experiences\nof external things, not of internal sensation and ideas. And if it\nhas associated its fortunes with a theory of perception which treats\nexperience as a natural effect of the thing experienced; if it has\nthereby wandered within sight of the perilous problems which haunt the\nfrontier where mind and matter meet, it has not done so in a spirit of\nreckless adventure, but in the legitimate pursuit of its own affairs.\n\nThis does not necessarily make things easier. We are not here concerned\nwith questionings about the remoter provinces of knowledge\u2014provinces\nunexplored except by specialists, negligible by ordinary men engaged\non ordinary business. On the contrary, the difficulties to which I\nhave called your attention threaten the unquestioned assumption of\ndaily life, the presupposition of every scientific experiment, and the\nmeaning of every scientific generalisation. They cannot be ignored.\n\nOn the other hand, threaten as they may, these difficulties can never\nmodify our attitude either towards practical action or scientific\ntheory. Beliefs which were inevitable before remain inevitable still.\nThe supreme act of instinctive faith involved in the perception of\nexternal objects stands quite unshaken. Whatever we may think of\nBerkeley, we cannot give up Dr. Johnson. \u201cSeeing,\u201d says the proverb,\n\u201cis believing\u201d; and it speaks better than it knows.\n\n\nVI\n\nCan we, then, adopt a middle course, and, imitating the serene\nacquiescence of Hume, accept the position of sceptics in the study and\nbelievers in the market-place? This seems eminently unsatisfactory;\nand, since believers on this subject we must perforce remain, it\nbehoves us to consider how, and on what terms, we can best qualify our\nscepticism.\n\nObserve, then, that the particular difficulty which has been occupying\nour attention arises in the main from the assumption that our\ncommon-sense beliefs in the reality and character of material things\nhave no other foundation than the fact that we so perceive them. From\nsuch premises it was impossible, it seemed, to infer that they exist\notherwise than as they are perceived; and still more impossible to\nregard the immediate intuition by which we apprehend the object, and\nthe long-drawn sequence of causes by which the object is revealed, as\nbeing the same process looked at from different ends.\n\nBut this difficulty is greatly mitigated if we hold that our belief in\nan independent world of material objects, however it may be caused, is\nneither a conclusion drawn from this or that particular experience nor\nfrom all our experiences put together, but an irresistible assumption.\nGrant the existence of external things, and it becomes possible and\nlegitimate to attempt explanations of their appearance, to regard\nour perceptions of them as a psychical and physiological product\nof material realities which do not themselves appear and cannot be\nperceived. Refuse, on the other hand, to grant this assumption, and no\ninductive legerdemain will enable us to erect our scientific theories\nabout an enduring world of material things upon the frail foundation\nof successive personal perceptions.\n\nIf this does not seem clear at first sight it is, I think, because\nwe do not consider our experiences as a whole. A limited group of\nexperiences\u2014say Faraday\u2019s experiments with electro-magnets\u2014may guide\nus into new knowledge about the external world, including aspects of\nthat world which are not open to sense perception. But then these\nexperiences assume that this external world exists, they assume it\nto be independent of perception, they assume it to be a cause of\nperception. These assumptions once granted, experiment may be, and\nis, the source of fresh discoveries. But experiment based on these\nassumptions never can establish their truth; and if our theory\nof knowledge requires us to hold that \u201cno proposition should be\nentertained with greater assurance than the proofs it is built on will\nwarrant,\u201d our fate is sealed, and we need never hope to extricate\nourselves from the entanglements in which a too credulous empiricism\nhas involved us. This means that one at least of the inevitable\nbeliefs enumerated in the first lecture\u2014the belief in an external\nworld\u2014is a postulate which science is compelled to use but is unable to\ndemonstrate. How, then, are we to class it? It is not a law of thought\nin the accepted meaning of that expression. We are not rationally\nrequired to accept it by the very structure of our thinking faculties.\nMany people, indeed, theoretically reject it; none, so far as I know,\nregard it as self-evident. On the other hand, it is not an inference\nfrom experience; neither is it an analytic judgment in which the\npredicate is involved in the subject. Described in technical language,\nit would seem to be _a priori_ without being necessary, and synthetic\nwithout being empirical\u2014qualities which, in combination, scarcely fit\ninto any familiar philosophic classification.\n\nAccording to the view which I desire to press in these lectures, this\nmarks a philosophic omission. I regard the belief in an external world\nas one of a class whose importance has been ignored by philosophy,\nthough all science depends on them. They refuse to be lost in the\ncommon herd of empirical beliefs; though they have no claim to be\ntreated as axioms. We are inclined to accept them, but not rationally\ncompelled. The inclination may be so strong as practically to exclude\ndoubt; and it may diminish from this maximum to a faint feeling of\nprobability. But, whatever be the strength of these beliefs, and\nwhatever the nature of their claims, the importance of the part they\nplay in the development and structure of our current creed cannot\neasily be exaggerated.\n\nBefore, however, I consider other specimens of this class, I must\ninterpolate a long parenthesis upon probability. I have just described\nthese fundamental beliefs as being \u201cprobable\u201d in varying degrees.\nGradations of probability are familiar to the mathematical theorist.\nAre we, then, here concerned with probability as conceived by the\nmathematician? It is evidently essential to settle this question before\nproceeding with the main argument; and I propose, therefore, to turn\naside and devote the next lecture to its consideration.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII\n\nPROBABILITY, CALCULABLE AND INTUITIVE\n\n\nI\n\nI wish I were a mathematician. There is in the history of the\nmathematical sciences, as in their substance, something that strangely\nstirs the imagination even of the most ignorant. Its younger sister,\nLogic, is as abstract, and its claims are yet wider. But it has never\nshaken itself free from a certain pretentious futility: it always seems\nto be telling us, in language quite unnecessarily technical, what we\nunderstood much better before it was explained. It never helps to\ndiscover, though it may guarantee discovery; it never persuades, though\nit may show that persuasion has been legitimate; it never aids the work\nof thought, it only acts as its auditor and accountant-general. I am\nnot referring, of course, to what I see described in recent works as\n\u201cmodern scientific logic.\u201d Of this I do not presume to speak. Still\nless am I referring to so-called Inductive Logic. Of this it is scarce\nworth while to speak.[9] I refer to their more famous predecessor, the\nformal logic of the schools.\n\nBut in what different tones must we speak of mathematics! Mill, if\nI remember rightly, said it was as full of mysteries as theology.\nBut while the value of theology for knowledge is disputed, the value\nof mathematics for knowledge is indisputable. Its triumphs can be\nappreciated by the most foolish, they appeal to the most material. If\nthey seem sometimes lost to ordinary view in the realms of abstract\ninfinities, they do not disdain to serve us in the humbler fields of\npractice. They have helped mankind to all the greatest generalisations\nabout the physical universe: and without them we should still be\nfumbling over simple problems of practical mechanics, entangled in a\ncostly and ineffectual empiricism.\n\nBut while we thank the mathematician for his aid in conquering Nature,\nwe envy him his powers of understanding her. Though he deals, it would\nseem, entirely with abstractions, they are abstractions which, at his\npersuasion, supply the key to the profoundest secrets of the physical\nuniverse. He holds the clues to mazes where the clearest intellect,\nunaided, would wander hopelessly astray. He belongs to a privileged\ncaste.\n\nI intend no serious qualification of this high praise when I add that,\nas regards the immediate subject of this lecture, I mean Probability,\nmathematicians do not seem to have given ignorant inquirers like myself\nall the aid which perhaps we have a right to ask. They have treated\nthe subject as a branch of applied mathematics. They have supplied us\nwith much excellent theory. They have exercised admirable skill in the\nsolution of problems. But I own that, when we inquire into the rational\nbasis of all this imposing superstructure, their explanations, from the\nlay point of view, leave much to be desired.\n\n\u201cProbability,\u201d says an often-quoted phrase of Butler, \u201cis the guide\nof life.\u201d But the Bishop did not define the term; and he wrote\nbefore the theory of probability had attained to all its present\ndignities. Neither D\u2019Alembert nor Laplace had discussed it. Quetelet\nhad not applied it to sociology, nor Maxwell to physics. Jevons had\nnot described it as the \u201cnoblest creation of the intellect.\u201d It is\ndoubtful whether Butler meant by it exactly what the mathematicians\nmean by it, and certain that he did not suspect any lurking ambiguity\nin the expression.\n\nNor, indeed, would the existence of such ambiguity be commonly admitted\nby any school of thought. The ordinary view is that the theory of\nprobabilities is, as Laplace described it, \u201ccommon sense reduced to\ncalculation.\u201d That there could be two kinds of probability, only one of\nwhich fitted this description, would be generally regarded as a heresy.\nBut it is a heresy in which I myself believe; and which, with much\ndiffidence, I now propose to defend.\n\n\nII\n\nThe well-known paradox of the theory of probabilities is that, to all\nseeming, it can extract knowledge from ignorance and certainty from\ndoubt. The point cannot be better put than by Poincar\u00e9 in discussing\nthe physical theory of gases, where the doctrine of probability\nfinds an important application. Let me give you his view\u2014partly in\nparaphrase, partly in translation. \u201cFor omniscience,\u201d he says in\nsubstance, \u201cchance would not exist. It is but the measure of our\nignorance. When we describe an event as accidental we mean no more\nthan that we do not fully comprehend the conditions by which it was\nbrought about.\n\n\u201cBut is this the full truth of the matter? Are not the laws of chance a\nsource of knowledge? And, stranger still, is it not sometimes easier to\ngeneralise (say) about random movements than about movements which obey\neven a simple law\u2014witness the kinetic theory of gases? And, if this be\nso, how can chance be the equivalent of ignorance? Ask a physicist to\nexplain what goes on in a gas. He might, perhaps, express his views in\nsome such terms as these: \u2018You wish me to tell you about these complex\nphenomena. If by ill luck I happened to know the laws which govern\nthem, I should be helpless. I should be lost in endless calculations,\nand could never hope to supply you with an answer to your questions.\nFortunately for both of us, I am completely ignorant about the matter;\nI can, therefore, supply you with an answer at once. This may seem odd.\nBut there is something odder still, namely, that my answer will be\nright.\u2019\u201d\n\nNow, what are the conditions which make it possible thus to extract\na correct answer from material apparently so unpromising? They\nwould seem to be a special combination of ignorance and knowledge,\nthe joint effect of which is to justify us in supposing that the\nparticular collection of facts or events with which we are concerned\nare happening \u201cat random.\u201d If we could calculate the complex causes\nwhich determine the fall of a penny, or the collisions of a molecule,\nwe might conceivably deal with pennies or molecules individually; and\nthe calculus of probability might be dispensed with. But we cannot;\nignorance, therefore, real or assumed, is thus one of the conditions\nrequired to provide us with the kind of chaos to which the doctrine of\nchances may most fittingly be applied. But there is another condition\nnot less needful, namely, knowledge\u2014the knowledge that no extraneous\ncause or internal tendency is infecting our chaotic group with some\nbias or drift whereby its required randomness would be destroyed. Our\npenny must be symmetrical, and Maxwell\u2019s demons[10] must not meddle\nwith the molecules.\n\nThe slow disintegration of radium admirably illustrates the behaviour\nof a group or collection possessing all the qualities which we require.\nThe myriad atoms of which the minutest visible fragment is composed are\nnumerous enough to neutralise eccentricities such as those which, in\nthe case of a game of chance, we call \u201cruns of luck.\u201d Of these atoms\nwe have no individual knowledge. What we know of one we know of all;\nand we treat them not only as a collection, but as a collection made at\nrandom. Now, physicists tell us that out of any such random collection\na certain proportion will disintegrate in a given time; and always the\nsame proportion. But whence comes their confidence in the permanence\nof this ratio? Why are they so assured of its fixity that these random\nexplosions are thought to provide us with a better time-keeper than\nthe astronomical changes which have served mankind in that capacity\nthrough immemorial ages? The reason is that we have here the necessary\nignorance and the necessary knowledge in a very complete form. Nothing\ncan well exceed our ignorance of the differences between one individual\nradium atom and another, though relevant differences there must be.\nNothing, again, seems better assured than our knowledge that no\nspecial bias or drift will make one collection of these atoms behave\ndifferently from another. For the atomic disintegration is due to no\nexternal shock or mutual reaction which might affect not one atom only,\nbut the whole group. A milligram of radium is not like a magazine of\nshells, where if one spontaneously explodes all the rest follow suit.\nThe disruption of the atom is due to some internal principle of decay\nwhose effects no known external agent can either hasten or retard.\nAlthough, therefore, the proportion of atoms which will disintegrate\nin a given time can only be discovered, like the annual death-rate\namong men, by observation, yet once discovered it is discovered for\never. Our human death-rate not only may change, but does change. The\ndeath-rate of radium atoms changes not. In the one case, causes are in\noperation which modify both the organism and the surroundings on which\nits life depends. In the other case, it would seem that the average of\nsuccessive generations of atoms does not vary, and that, once brought\ninto existence, they severally run their appointed course unaffected by\neach other or by the world outside.\n\nSo far we have been concerned with groups or collections or series;\nand about these the doctrine of chances and the theory of error\nmay apparently supply most valuable information. But in practical\naffairs\u2014nay, even in many questions of scientific speculation\u2014we are\nyet more concerned about individual happenings. We have, therefore,\nnext to ask how we can infer the probability of a particular event from\nour knowledge of some group or series to which it belongs.\n\nThere seems at first sight no difficulty in this, provided we have\nsufficient knowledge of the group or series of which the particular\nevent is a member. If we know that a tossed penny will in the long run\ngive heads and tails equally often, we do not hesitate to declare that\nthe chances of a particular throw giving \u201cheads\u201d are even. To expect\nin any given case heads rather than tails, or tails rather than heads,\nis inconsistent with the objective knowledge of the series which by\nhypothesis we actually possess.\n\nBut what if our information about the group or series is much less\nthan this? Suppose that, instead of knowing that the two possible\nalternatives do in fact occur equally often, we are in the less\nadvantageous position of knowing no reason why they should _not_ occur\nequally often. We ought, I suppose, still to regard the chances of\na particular toss as even; although this estimate, expressed by the\nsame fraction (\u00bd) and held with the same confidence, is apparently\na conclusion based on ignorance, whereas the first conclusion was\napparently based on knowledge.\n\nIf, for example, we know that a die is fairly made and fairly thrown,\nwe can tell how often a particular number will turn up in a long series\nof throws, and we can tell what the chances are that it will turn up on\nthe occasion of a single throw. Moreover, the two conclusions seem to\nbe logically connected.\n\nBut if we know that the die is loaded we can no longer say how the\nnumbers will be distributed in a series of throws, however long, though\nwe are sure that the distribution will be very different from what it\nwould have been had the die been a fair one. Nevertheless, we can still\nsay (before the event) what the chances are of a particular number\nturning up on a single throw; and these chances are exactly the same\nwhether the die be loaded or whether it be fair\u2014namely, one-sixth. Our\nobjective knowledge of the group or series has vanished, but, with the\ntheory of probability to help us, our subjective conviction on this\npoint apparently remains unchanged.\n\nThere is here, surely, a rather awkward transition from the \u201cobjective\u201d\nto the \u201csubjective\u201d point of view. We were dealing, in the first case,\nwith groups or series of events about which the doctrine of chances\nenabled us to say something positive, something which experience would\nalways confirm if the groups or series were large enough. A perfect\ncalculator, endowed with complete knowledge of all the separate group\nmembers, would have no correction to make in our conclusions. His\ninformation would be more complete than our own, but not more accurate.\nIt is true that for him \u201caverages\u201d would have no interest and \u201cchance\u201d\nno meaning. Nevertheless, he would agree that in a long series of\nfair throws of a fair die any selected face would turn up one-sixth\ntimes as often as all the others taken together. But in the second\ncase this is no longer so. Foresight based on complete knowledge would\napparently differ from foresight based on the calculation of chances.\nOur calculator would be aware of the exact manner in which the die\nwas loaded, and of the exact advantage which this gave to certain\nnumbers. He would, therefore, know that in asserting the chance of any\nparticular number turning up on the first throw to be one-sixth, we\nwere wrong. In what sense, then, do we deem ourselves to have been\nright?\n\nThe answer, I suppose, is that we were right _not_ about a group of\nthrows made with _this_ loaded die, but about a group of such groups\nmade with dice loaded at random\u2014a group in which \u201crandomness\u201d was so\nhappily preserved among its constituent groups that its absence within\neach of these groups was immaterial, and no one of the six alternative\nnumbers was favoured above another.\n\nA similar reply might be given if we suppose our ignorance carried\nyet a step further. Instead of knowing that our die was loaded, and\nbeing ignorant only of the manner of its loading, we might be entirely\nignorant whether it was loaded or not. The chances of a particular\nnumber turning up on the first throw would still be one-sixth. But the\nseries to which this estimate would refer would neither be one composed\nof fair throws with a fair die, nor one composed of a series of throws\nwith dice loaded at random, but one composed of a series of throws with\ndice chosen at random from a random collection of dice, loaded and not\nloaded!\n\nIt seems plain that we have no experimental knowledge of series piled\non series after this fashion. Our conclusions about them are not based\non observation, nor collected from statistics. They are arrived at _a\npriori_; and when the character of a series is arrived at _a priori_,\nthe probability of a particular event belonging to it can be arrived\nat independently by the same method. No reference to the series is\nrequired. The reason we estimate the chances against any one of the\nsix possible throws of a die as five to one under each and all of\nthe suppositions we have been discussing is that under none of them\nhave we any ground for thinking any one of the six more probable than\nanother;\u2014even though we may have ground for thinking that in a series\nof throws made with that particular die, some number, to us unknown,\nwill in fact turn up with exceptional frequency.\n\nThe most characteristic examples, therefore, of problems in probability\ndepend for their solution on a bold use of the \u201cprinciple of sufficient\nreason.\u201d We treat alternatives as equally likely when we cannot see any\nground for supposing that one is more likely than another. This seems\nsensible enough; but how far may we carry this process of extracting\nknowledge from ignorance? An agnostic declines to offer any opinion\non the being of God because it is a matter about which he professes\nto know nothing. But the universe either has a spiritual cause, or it\nhas not. If the agnostic is as ignorant as he supposes, he cannot have\nany reason for preferring the first alternative to the second, or the\nsecond to the first. Must he, therefore, conclude that the chances\nof Theism are even? The man who knows this knows much. He knows, or\nmay know, that God\u2019s existence is slightly more probable than his own\nchance of winning a coup at Monte Carlo. He knows, or may know, the\nexact fraction by which the two probabilities differ. How, then, can he\ncall himself an agnostic?\n\nEvery one must, I think, feel that such reasoning involves a misuse\nof the theory of probability. But is that misuse without some\njustification? The theory, unless I misread it, permits, or rather\nrequires, us to express by the same fraction probabilities based on\nwhat is little less than complete knowledge, and probabilities based\non what is little more than complete ignorance. To arrive at a clear\nconclusion, it seems only necessary to apply the \u201claw of sufficient\nreason\u201d to defined alternatives; and it is apparently a matter of\nperfect indifference whether we apply this law in its affirmative or\nits negative shape; whether we say \u201cthere is every reason for believing\nthat such and such alternatives happen equally often,\u201d or whether we\nsay \u201cthere is no reason for thinking that one alternative happens more\noften than the other.\u201d I do not criticise this method; still less do\nI quarrel with it. On the contrary, I am lost in admiration of this\ninstrument of investigation, the quality of whose output seems to\ndepend so little on the sort of raw material with which it is supplied.\n\n\nIII\n\nMy object, indeed, is neither to discuss the basis on which rests\nthe calculus of probabilities\u2014a task for which I own myself totally\nunfit\u2014nor yet to show that a certain obscurity hangs over the limits\nwithin which it may properly be employed. I desire rather to suggest\nthat, wherever those limits are placed, there lies beyond them a kind\nof probability yet more fundamental, about which the mathematical\nmethods can tell us nothing, though it possesses supreme value as a\n\u201cguide of life.\u201d\n\nWherein lies the distinction between the two? In this: the doctrine of\ncalculable probability (if I may so call it) has its only application,\nor its only assured application, within groups whose character is\neither postulated, or is independently arrived at by inference and\nobservation. These groups, be they natural or conventional, provide a\nframework, marking out a region wherein prevails the kind of ignorance\nwhich is the subjective reflection of objective \u201crandomness.\u201d This is\nthe kind of ignorance which the calculus of probabilities can most\nsuccessfully transmute into knowledge: and herein lies the reason why\nthe discoverers of the calculus found their original inspiration in\nthe hazards of the gambling-table, and why their successors still find\nin games of chance its happiest illustrations. For in games of chance\nthe group framework is provided by convention; perfect \u201crandomness\u201d\nis secured by fitting devices; and he who attempts to modify it is\nexpelled from society as a cheat.\n\nNone of these observations apply to the kind of probability on\nwhose importance I am now insisting. If calculable probability be\nindeed \u201ccommon sense reduced to calculation,\u201d intuitive probability\nlies deeper. It supports common sense, and it supplies the ultimate\nground\u2014be it secure or insecure\u2014of all work-a-day practice and all\nscientific theory. It has nothing to do with \u201crandomness\u201d; it knows\nnothing of averages; it obeys no formal laws; no light is thrown on it\nby cards or dice; it cannot be reduced to calculation. How, then, is it\nto be treated? What place is it to occupy in our general scheme?\n\nThese are all important questions. But no answer to them can be given\ntill we have pressed somewhat further the line of thought which the\ndiscussion in this present lecture has for a moment interrupted. Before\nI began this long parenthesis on the theory of chance, I was occupied\nwith a most important example of a belief which possesses the highest\ndegree of intuitive probability, but no calculable probability at all.\nI mean the belief in an independent physical universe. In the next\nlecture I shall resume the general thread of my argument, and consider\nanother belief of the same kind which is not less\u2014some would say even\nmore\u2014essential to natural science than the one with which I have\nalready dealt. I mean a belief in the regularity of nature.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] Although, as a matter of fact, I do speak of it in the next lecture.\n\n[10] Maxwell, as all who interest themselves in physics are aware,\narrived at very interesting conclusions by considering what would\nhappen if little demons interfered with the random motions of the\nmolecules constituting a gas.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII\n\nUNIFORMITY AND CAUSATION\n\n\nI\n\nIn my last lecture but one I dwelt upon the interplay of causes and\nreasons in one special case\u2014the case of our immediate experiences of\nthe external world, the world in which we move, the world investigated\nby the physical sciences. No case can indeed be more important; for\nthese immediate experiences are deemed by every man to be his guide\nthrough all the hours of his waking life, and by every man of science\nto supply the evidence on which depends all our knowledge of natural\nlaws.\n\nYet this very statement suggests the existence of another series of\nproblems not less important and not less closely connected with my\ngeneral argument. For, how do we get from particular experiences to\ngeneral laws\u2014from beliefs about individual occurrences to beliefs\nabout the ordering of the universe? These beliefs, looked at from the\nscientific point of view, are, as I have so often observed, a natural\nproduct. They have a history like other natural products. They are the\neffects of a long train of causes; and among those causes are some\nwhich claim, rightly or wrongly, to be reasons, an uncounted multitude\nwhich make no such claim, and others, again, which occupy a doubtful\nposition between the two.\n\nImagine an external intelligence studying the methods by which\nearth-born creatures of various types adjust themselves to future\ncircumstances. The most primitive method is, I suppose, no more than\nsimple nervous reaction. The most developed method involves reasoned\nexpectation. And between these two extremes our supposed observer would\nsee a long series of intermediate forms melting into one another by\ninsensible gradation.\n\nFrom the point of view of the argument I am endeavouring to present\nto you, this development is of the greatest interest. The creation\nof a capacity for expectation, and of an inclination to expect a\nfuture similar to the past, must be deemed one of the most remarkable\ntriumphs of selection\u2014if to selection it indeed be due. Here we have\nthis irrational mimic of reason, starting from the simplest forms of\nresponse to external stimulus, improving them into such excellent\nimitations of inductive reasoning as those which lead a chick, no more\nthan a few hours old, to reject food which it has once found nasty[11];\nand finally evolving out of these humble beginnings a mode of inference\nwhich, according to empirical philosophy, is the true and only source\nof all our general knowledge, whether of nature or of man.\n\nIt must be owned, indeed, that the attempt to treat instinctive\nexpectation as a form of rational inference has been a lamentable\nfailure. By no exercise of ingenuity can beliefs about what is not\nexperienced be logically extracted from particular experiences,\nmultiply them as you will. It is in vain that empirical philosophers\nattempt to give an air of rationality to this leap from the known to\nthe unknown by the use of high-sounding logical titles. \u201cInduction\nby simple enumeration\u201d is doubtless an imposing name. But those who\npractise the thing are in no wise improving on their predecessor, the\nchick. Indeed they lag behind it. For the chick expects\u2014but gives no\nreason; the empirical philosopher expects\u2014and gives a bad one.\n\n\nII\n\nExpectation, then, if it is to be rational, can only be rationally\nextracted from experiences by the aid of one or more general\nprinciples. What principles are they?\n\nOne of them, at all events, must be the regularity of nature. In some\nform or other, and to some degree or other, this is assumed in every\nscientific speculation and in every purposeful action reflectively\nperformed. It is, as you may recollect, one of the \u201cinevitable beliefs\nof common sense\u201d to which I referred in my first lecture.\n\nBut you may also recollect that in the same lecture I pointed out that\ninevitable beliefs, though we cannot avoid holding them in some shape,\nare, and have been, held in many shapes; shapes which vary with the\nchanges in our general outlook on men and things. In what shape, then,\nshould our belief in regularity now be held?\n\nThe shape in which it is very commonly formulated is something of\nthis kind: \u201ceverything is caused; and the same causes are always\nfollowed by the same effects.\u201d This is the so-called \u201claw of universal\ncausation.\u201d It has been treated as an assured truth by philosophers of\nmany different schools, though not always for the same reasons; and, so\nfar as the physical universe is concerned, the modern world accepts it\nwithout demur. It is, nevertheless, open to criticism from two points\nof view. It asserts somewhat more about the course of nature than\nexperience suggests, and somewhat less than science requires. Let me\ntake the two points separately.\n\nWhen I was dealing with ethics I had occasion to point out that if\nthe primitive manifestations of loyalty and love are products of\nselection, they have developed by a kind of internal momentum, to a\npoint far beyond that to which selection can possibly have carried\nthem. Something of the same kind has happened in the case of the causal\npostulate. Selection, we must suppose, has produced the capacity for\nacquiring habitual expectations; and habitual expectation is induction\nwithout reasoning. Like induction, it would not only be useless, but\nharmful, if no regularity existed; if at any moment the future ceased\nto bear some resemblance to the past. But the regularity asserted by\nthe law of universal causation is far in excess of this requirement.\nThe law applies to regions which never come within the range of finite\nexperience; and, as regards regions which do come within that range,\nexperience hardly confirms it. We may, of course, attribute the\napparent irregularities in nature to our ignorance or our errors; and\nthis, in fact, is what we always do. We must (we think) have observed\nwrongly or insufficiently; or it may be that a clearer insight would\nshow how apparent aberrations really illustrate some larger law, or\ndepend on conditions at present beyond our ken. Such explanations\nare easy; and, what is more, they are true. There is no complaint to\nbe made of a verdict in favour of absolute uniformity except that it\noutruns the evidence. None surely, who understand the meaning of the\nwords they use, will dare to assert that nature _appears_ regular. What\nthey _may_ assert is, that the more you examine it, the more regular\nit appears. The reign of law is always extending. New provinces are\nalways being added to its domains. Anomalies vanish as knowledge grows;\nand the absolute uniformity which we now only know by faith, we may\nsome day know by sight.\n\nTo this \u201ccredo\u201d (with reservations) I readily subscribe. But it sounds\na little strange in the mouths of some who preach it. Does it not imply\nthat we interpret our experiences in the light of a preconceived scheme\nof things; that we force our observations into a mould which they do\nnot naturally fit? If, in unravelling a cypher, I come across passages\nwhich are unintelligible, I attribute the check to my own ignorance\nor dullness. Why? Because I know independently that the cypher has a\nmeaning, if only I could find it. But the empirical agnostic professes\nto know nothing about the world, except what he has observed himself or\nwhat other people have observed for him. Why, then, should he suppose\nperfect regularity to exist when no perfect regularity appears? Why is\nhe not content to accept what he finds, namely, a regularity which is\nreal but incomplete?\n\nIt is no reply to say that patient genius is constantly detecting order\nin apparent chaos. So it is. And when this happens, by all means\nrearrange your map of the universe accordingly. But do not argue that\nchaos is therefore non-existent. The belief in universal causation is\nnot based on argument, nor yet on observation. It depends on what I\nhave described as intuitive probability. And if we refuse to regard\nnature as liable to lapses from perfect uniformity, this is not because\nsuch a theory is unthinkable, not because it is contrary to experience,\nnot because it is incompatible with knowledge, not because it is fatal\nto purposeful action; for it is none of these things. We reject it\nbecause it is out of harmony with the ideal we have formed of what the\nmaterial universe ought to be and is: and so strong is this speculative\nprepossession that there is no experimental evidence which would\nconvince a man of science that, when physical causes were the same,\nphysical consequences could be different.\n\n\nIII\n\nBut this observation brings me to my second commentary on the formula\nof universal causation. If, as I have contended, it goes beyond what\nmere experience suggests, it also falls short of what scientific\ninference requires. The uniformity it postulates lacks a certain kind\nof \u201cstructure\u201d which is absolutely necessary if the past is to be\nexplained and the future foreseen. It is not enough for this purpose\nthat the course of Nature should be determined. It must be determined\nafter a particular pattern; its uniformity must conform to a particular\ntype.\n\nAt first sight this statement may seem rather obscure. What (you\nwill ask) is this \u201cstructure\u201d or pattern whose absence would be so\ndisastrous to knowledge? It is a structure (I reply) which makes it\npossible to break up the flow of events into intelligible repetitions.\nIt is not enough that the condition of the world at any moment should\nbe strictly determined by its condition at the preceding moment.\nSuch a world would, I suppose, completely conform to the doctrine of\nuniformity, and obey both in spirit and in letter the law of universal\ncausation. Yet, unless it also conformed to the additional canon I\nhave just laid down, it would provide no basis either for scientific\nknowledge or for practical decision. The same consequent would always\nsucceed the same antecedent, if and when it recurred. But, unless we\naccept the cyclic theories of the Stoics, it never would recur. The\ncompletest knowledge of the past would tell us nothing about the\nfuture; not because the succession of events was arbitrary or (as the\nword is commonly misused) miraculous; but because each cross-section\nof the stream of Time (that is to say, the sum of all contemporaneous\nfacts and events) had to be considered as a single cause, completely\ndetermining the whole cross-sections immediately in front of it; and,\nas a single effect, completely determined by the whole cross-section\nimmediately behind it. Such a world might have a history, but it could\nnever have a science.\n\nThe reason is plain. Science requires uniformities even more than\nuniformity; and a universe such as I have just described has uniformity\nbut no uniformities. The very phrase \u201claws of nature\u201d shows that it is\nthese subordinate uniformities for which we look. The whole efforts\nof the skilled investigator are directed towards so isolating the\nsequences he is examining that his experiments shall become (as the\nphrase goes) _crucial_. If no such isolation could be effected, it\nwould never be possible to point to some \u201cphenomenon\u201d and say of it\n\u201cHere is a cause,\u201d and to some other \u201cphenomenon\u201d and say of it \u201cHere\nis its effect.\u201d The world, in short, must have a structure which\nconnects its successive phases in such a way that definite parts of all\nthat exists or happens are knit with peculiar closeness to definite\nparts of what existed or happened before. It is on these connecting\nstrands that we mainly fix our gaze; they are often difficult to trace,\nthey are sometimes hopelessly entangled; but when we can bring them\ninto clear vision, then, and not till then, we triumphantly say that we\nhave discovered a law of nature.\n\nWe are so familiar with this \u201cfibrous\u201d structure of the natural world\nthat it seems almost a matter of course. Mill, for example, assumes\nit, unconsciously no doubt, through all his exposition of inductive\nmethods: and if he had not assumed it, these methods would have come\ntumbling about his ears in irreparable ruin. But assuredly neither\nhe nor any other logician has a right to make such an assumption\nin silence. In spite of many speculative difficulties, there is no\nprinciple more vital to knowledge, practical and theoretical, than\nthe principle of \u201cnegligibility\u201d; the principle which asserts that\nsequences can be isolated and repeated, and that vast bodies of\ncontemporaneous facts and happenings may be wholly neglected. It is\nmuch more important than the principle of causation, if by causation\nis meant, not a working, though possibly imperfect, regularity, but the\nspeculative completeness implied by the phrase \u201cuniversal causation\u201d as\ncommonly interpreted.\n\nIt may be said, and I think with truth, that these observations\nscarcely apply to a material world conceived in a purely mechanical\nfashion. In such a world negligibility is theoretically measurable.\nThe mass of Sirius, without doubt, modifies the weight of the pen with\nwhich I am writing. But the effect is demonstrably infinitesimal,\nand negligibility is not assumed, but proved. Laplace\u2019s calculator,\nsurveying the universe, would have no difficulty either in fixing\nhis attention on particular repetitions which exemplify the \u201claws of\nnature,\u201d or in regarding them as integral parts of a single mechanical\nwhole, whose successive phases (if the law of energy dissipation be\nuniversal) can never be repeated.\n\nBut this does not lighten the difficulty. The world may, or may not,\nbe a single mechanical system; but, if it is, the fact can only be\nempirically known to us through induction: and induction assumes\nnegligibility, and cannot, so far as I can see, move a step without it.\nChoose the most perfect experiment on record, idealise its conditions\nto your heart\u2019s content; for greater security, suppose it repeated\neven to weariness, how will you be advanced? There are, I suppose,\nmillions of circumstances, for the most part utterly unknown, which\nhave co-existed with all the experiments already tried, but will have\nvanished before the next experiment is undertaken. Does this disturb\nyou? Do you ask yourself whether, among the unnumbered circumstances in\nwhich the world of to-day differs from the world of yesterday, there\nmay not be one which is necessary to the expected effect? Not at all.\nYou brush them aside. You say they may be neglected. And doubtless you\ndo well. But why? Not on any grounds which observation or reasoning can\nsupply, not on any grounds formulated in the logic of induction, or\nthe calculus of chances. You trust yourself to a feeling of antecedent\nprobability;\u2014the intuitive probability on whose importance I dwelt\nin the last lecture, which is not the flower of experience but its\nroot;\u2014and your trust will sometimes be betrayed.\n\nThe principle of negligibility, or (in terms of belief) the belief that\nobserved regularities may often be treated as if they were complete and\nself-contained cases of cause and effect, separable from contemporary\nevents, is thus a necessary presupposition of concrete science; and,\nlike other presuppositions, it is incapable of scientific proof.\nWe often hear it said, indeed, that principles of this kind should\nbe regarded as hypotheses verified by an ever-increasing volume of\nexperimental proof. They are found to work; what more can be desired?\n\nBut it is not accurate to say that these and other fundamental\nprinciples are, or ever have been, regarded either by common sense\nor science as inferences from experience or as hypotheses requiring\nverification. Nor is it accurate to suggest that verification differs\nessentially from any other kind of experimental evidence except in\nthe date of its occurrence. If evidence follows conjecture, but not\notherwise, it is called verification; and though, from the point of\nview of method, this chronological order is of immense importance, from\nthe point of view of logic it is nothing. A doubtful conjecture (let\nus suppose) is \u201cverified\u201d by experiment. If the experiment had come\nearlier there would have been no conjecture, but there would have been\nequal evidence, indeed the same evidence. It is true that without the\nconjecture there might have been no experiment, and that without the\nexperiment there might have been no proof. But, though the conjecture\noccasioned the proof, it certainly adds nothing to its force, and we\ntherefore come back to the question already discussed\u2014namely, whether\nprinciples without which no inference from experiences is possible,\ncan be themselves inferred from experiences?\u2014a question to which, as I\nconceive, only one answer is possible. Experiences may produce habit,\nand habit may produce expectation, and this process may masquerade\nas induction. But expectations thus engendered belong to the causal\nseries, not the cognitive. Physiology and psychology may explain them.\nBut they can neither be proved nor treated as axiomatic.\n\nAxiomatic they certainly are not; nor do they possess the universality\nand precision of outline which we are accustomed to associate\nwith axioms. It is curious, in this connection, to note that the\nphilosophers who are most firmly resolved to root the principle of\nregularity (they ignore negligibility) in experience always insist on\ngiving it that absolute character which our inferences from experience\nrarely possess. The notion that fundamental beliefs should be liable to\nexception, should be capable of degrees, and should apply unequally\nin different fields of observation, is as abhorrent to them as to any\nmetaphysician out of the opposite camp. One would suppose, to hear them\ntalk, that, unless causation be universal, experience is worthless.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe region where these uncompromising doctrines show to least advantage\nis human character. I do not propose to discuss causation and free\nwill; but I may with advantage say something on a less hackneyed\ntheme, namely, negligibility and foreknowledge. The thesis I desire to\nmaintain is that, in dealing with a human character, full foreknowledge\nis theoretically impossible, even though free will be wholly absent,\nand the succession of psychic states be completely determined.\nPractically impossible we know it to be. But most determinists would\nhold that this impossibility is due partly to our ignorance and partly\nto our incapacity. We know too little either of the general laws of\nmind, or of individual character, or of surrounding circumstances,\nto make accurate forecasts; and, even if we possessed the requisite\ninformation, we could not use it, owing to the irremediable\nweakness of our powers of calculation. It is this contention that\nI wish to traverse. I hold that, had we the supernatural powers of\nLaplace\u2019s calculator, armed with a knowledge of the human heart which\nsupernatural powers of observation could alone supply, we should\nstill fail, because we are face to face with that which is inherently\nincalculable.\n\nThe contrary opinion is due, I think, to an imperfect comprehension\nof the doctrines I have touched on in this lecture. All human\nforeknowledge depends on detecting old sequences in a new context. The\ncontext, of course, is always new. There is never full or complete\nrepetition. But, unless there be partial repetitions embedded in the\nuniversal flux, prescience is impossible. This is the doctrine of\n\u201cnegligibility.\u201d\n\nNow consider two illustrative examples.\n\nFirst, imagine yourself standing on the edge of a valley down which\na landslip has just let loose the waters of some great reservoir\nin the hills. The catastrophe is sudden in its onset, brief in its\nduration, wildly irregular in its character. Even the most tumultuous\ncataract retains a certain steadiness of outline: and few sights are\nmore impressive than the stationary waves in a great rapid. But there\nis here no trace of order imposed on disorder, fixity on motion. The\nrushing wall of water, spouting into foam over every obstacle it\nencounters, the tossing flood that follows furiously behind, seem\nin their brief violence to present the very ideal of incalculable\nconfusion. But we know it is not so. In the presence of such a\nspectacle our calculator would not feel a moment\u2019s embarrassment. He\ncould forecast without difficulty the whole scene down to its minutest\neddy; the motions of each drop obey laws with which he was perfectly\nfamiliar; and the total effect, catastrophic though it be, is but the\nsum of all these component examples of natural uniformity.\n\nTurn now and contemplate a calmer scene. Consider the commonplace life\nof a commonplace man as it develops in the untroubled prosperity of a\nsteady business and a quiet home. Such a career seems as orderly and\nuniform as the flood I have been describing is terrible and strange.\nSurely no supernatural calculator is required to cast the horoscope\nof its hero: for he does, and leaves undone, the same actions, he\nthinks and leaves unthought the same ideas, as thousands of his\ncontemporaries; and, so far as outward appearance goes, he is an\nindistinguishable member of an undistinguished crowd.\n\nYet, in spite of this, we know him to be unique. There never has been\nbefore, nor will there ever be again, another individual exactly like\nhim. A similar statement, it may be urged, can be made about our\ncatastrophic flood. Though this has plenty of parallels, none of them,\nstrictly speaking, are exact. Where, then, lies the distinction on\nwhich I am trying to insist? Let me endeavour to mark the contrast.\n\nIf the material world be conceived as a mechanical system, the flood\nin my illustration may be regarded as a piece arbitrarily cut out\nof it at the whim of the spectator. It possesses no natural unity;\nand, like the whole of which it is a fraction, the moving particles\nwhich compose it do each obey laws which are (we assume) perfectly\nwell known, and have been endlessly exemplified. Its behaviour is the\nsum of the behaviour of these several parts: and it is by estimating\ntheir movements that our imaginary calculator can prophesy its course\nwith absolute exactness. He is never perplexed by the problem of\nnegligibility; for negligibility in such a case can be accurately\nmeasured, and our calculator possesses all the data required for its\nmeasurement. In short, the principle of regularity may here be applied\nin its most uncompromising form; it requires no qualification, nor can\nit be pressed too boldly or too far.\n\nBut the case is otherwise when we have to abandon the strictly\nmechanical point of view, and investigate regions where negligibility\nhas a small and uncertain application. Such a region is individual\nconsciousness. This possesses a natural or intrinsic unity. Its phases\nare never precisely repeated; nor can it be regarded as a collection\nof independent elements, the sequences of which may be separately\nexamined, verified, and repeated. Not only is the whole unique, but the\nparts are unique also. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say\nthat there _are_ no parts possessing a fixed character of their own\napart from the whole. Not only is everything qualified by everything\nelse, but few of these qualifications are negligible. Perfect\nrepetition is therefore impossible, and our calculator, whatever his\npowers, could never feel at home with his premises, or secure in his\nconclusions. The present would always be new, and the future would\nalways be doubtful.\n\nIf this seems paradoxical it is, I think, mainly for two reasons. In\nthe first place, such a doctrine seems inconsistent with the fact that,\nwhatever Laplace\u2019s calculator could do, humbler beings like ourselves\nmanage somehow or other to forecast the behaviour of our neighbours\nwith some small measure of success. This, no doubt, is true. But it\nis in part because the alternatives of behaviour are very few and\nvery definite compared with the infinitely graduated variations of\nthought, will, and feeling. Action is \u201ccanalised.\u201d It can flow only\nalong channels engineered for it by circumstances, and among these the\nchoice is commonly small. But the character which lies behind action is\ncomplex beyond all power of analysis, and variable beyond all powers\nof anticipation. The routine which is unwaveringly pursued from month\nto month and year to year is pursued each day in a different spirit:\nand often a critical hour strikes when some well-drilled creature of\ncustom, to his own surprise and the scandal of his friends, deserts the\nancient ways and wanders suddenly forth into the unknown.\n\nOf course, these violent aberrations are the exception. The more\nfamiliar experience is that, in an orderly society, the alternatives of\naction which need be taken into account are few, and the \u201climits of\ndeviation\u201d narrow. Often, therefore, we can anticipate conduct without\nany real insight into the depths of character or the complexities of\nmotive from which the conduct springs. And truly this is fortunate;\nfor, if mutual comprehension were necessary to social intercourse, how\ncould society exist?\n\nBut there is another reason why we take little note of the distinction\nI am endeavouring to draw between the calculable uniformities of a\nmaterial world and the incalculable regularities of psychic life.\nThe distinction is rather speculative than practical. It does not\naffect the routine of daily existence. For, although the course of\nthe material world is calculable, we mortals have neither the time\nnor the knowledge nor the mental powers required to calculate it. We\nbehave, therefore, towards nature as we behave towards man. We content\nourselves with approximations, with analogies, with resemblances.\nEven if we had the power, we should not have the time to resolve the\nmovement of all the bits of matter with which we have to deal from\nminute to minute into the exact sequences of which they are composed.\nWe would not if we could. We apply rough methods; we are satisfied\nwith imperfect results. Nor are these results always more imperfect in\nthe psychic than in the material sphere of observation. The ways (for\nexample) of British weather are even more mysterious than the ways of\nBritish men. Why, then, should we interest ourselves in a speculation\nwhich tells us, however truly, that perfect foreknowledge is\ntheoretically possible in the first case, but theoretically impossible\nin the second? In practice it is impossible in both. And with this we\nmust be content.\n\nAnd yet the speculation is interesting. For the distinction between the\ntwo cases lies deep. It has nothing (let me say again) to do with free\nwill. It has nothing to do with our ignorance of facts. It has nothing\nto do with our intellectual insufficiency. It is due to a fundamental\ndifference between the uniformities of matter and the regularities of\nmind. Perfect foresight requires perfect repetition, and in the psychic\nsphere perfect repetition can never happen. Every self is unique; all\nits experiences are unique; and these unique wholes are not compounded\nof interchangeable elements obeying identical laws. They do not alter\nby mere addition, subtraction, or rearrangement of parts. They grow.\nAnd the sequence of one phase upon another faintly resembles that\nwhich would prevail in the imaginary universe of which I spoke just\nnow, the universe where all contemporaneous events were treated as\nthe single effect of the immediate past and the single cause of the\nimmediate future. Of such a universe I observed that it would have a\nhistory, but could have no science. And though we cannot go so far when\nspeaking of psychic unities, though we cannot rule out psychology or\nsociology, it must be admitted that no regularities which observation\ndiscloses can ever possess the precision which we theoretically\nattribute to material mechanism. Instructive likenesses we shall find\nin abundance, complete determination we may assume if we please; but\n\u201claws,\u201d in the full and strict sense of the term, we shall not find,\nfor they are not there.\n\n\nNOTE\n\n The shortcomings of mechanism have been discussed by M. Bergson in a\n manner which no other thinker is likely to rival. He has, however,\n usually dealt with the subject in connection with _freedom_; whereas\n in this section I have only dealt with it in connection with\n foreknowledge, repetition, and what I have termed the doctrine of\n \u201cnegligibility.\u201d He approaches it from the side of reality. I approach\n it from the side of inductive inference and the law of universal\n causation.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] Extract from Morgan\u2019s \u201cHabit and Instinct,\u201d page 40. \u201cA young\nchick two days old, for example, had learnt to pick out pieces of\nyolk from others of white of egg. I cut little bits of orange-peel of\nabout the same size as the pieces of yolk, and one of these was soon\nseized, but at once relinquished, the chick shaking his head. Seizing\nanother, he held it for a moment in the bill, but then dropped it and\nscratched at the base of his beak. That was enough; he could not again\nbe induced to seize a piece of orange-peel. The obnoxious material\nwas now removed, and pieces of yolk of egg substituted, but they were\nleft untouched, being probably taken for orange-peel. Subsequently, he\nlooked at the yolk with hesitation, but presently pecked doubtfully,\nnot seizing, but merely touching. Then he pecked again, seized, and\nswallowed.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IX\n\nTENDENCIES OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF\n\n\nI\n\nIn the sixth and eighth lectures of this course I dealt with two\ninevitable beliefs which lie at the root of all science and all\npractice\u2014the beliefs that an independent, or, as it is commonly called,\nan \u201cexternal\u201d world exists, and the belief that the world, whether\nexternal or internal, has at least a measure of regularity. In the\nseventh lecture I interpolated a discussion upon probability; and\nshowed, or attempted to show, that we must take account of a kind of\nprobability other than that which, in the hands of mathematicians, has\nso greatly contributed to knowledge.\n\nIf, now, we consider these subjects in their mutual relation, we\nperceive that an \u201cinevitable\u201d belief is one which possesses the highest\ndegree of this intuitive probability. These are two descriptions of the\nsame quality\u2014one emphasising the objective, the other the subjective,\naspects of a single fact.\n\nBut this at once suggests a further inquiry. Probability is evidently\na matter of degree. A belief may be more probable or less probable.\nInevitableness, on the other hand, seems at first sight to be\ninsusceptible of gradation. It is, or it is not. Yet this extreme\ndefiniteness vanishes if we regard it as a limiting case\u2014as the last\nterm of a series whose earlier members represent varying degrees of\nplausibility. On this view we should regard our beliefs about the\nuniverse as moulded by formative forces, which vary from irresistible\ncoercion to faint and doubtful inclination. Beliefs in the reality of\nthe external world and in its regularity are important products of the\nfirst. I now propose to call attention to some beliefs which are due\nto the less obvious action of the second. Both kinds, whether capable\nof proof or not, are more or less independent of it. Both are to be\nregarded rather as the results of tendencies than as the conclusions of\nlogic.\n\nI am well aware that a doctrine like this will find few admirers among\nsystematic thinkers. Inevitable beliefs which are fundamental without\nbeing axiomatic; which lack definiteness and precision; which do not\nseem equally applicable to every field of experience; which do not\nclaim to be of the essence of our understanding, like the categories\nof the critical philosophy, or the so-called laws of thought, have\nlittle to recommend them to philosophers. And when inevitableness is\ntreated as merely an extreme form of plausibility, when guidance is\ndiscovered in tendencies which are weak and of uncertain application,\nleading to error as well as to truth, their objections will scarcely be\nmitigated.\n\nMany of those who look at these problems from (what they deem to\nbe) a strictly scientific point of view are not likely to be more\nfavourable. Their loyalty to experience takes the form of supposing\nthat men accumulate knowledge by peering about for \u201csequences\u201d among\n\u201cphenomena,\u201d as a child looks for shells upon the beach\u2014equally ready\nto go north or south, east or west, as the humour of the moment moves\nhim. They would regard any antecedent preference for this or that\nsort of explanation as a sin against the categorical imperatives of\nintellectual morals. Science, they think, should have no partialities:\nand as the honest investigator \u201centertains no belief with a conviction\nthe least in excess of the evidence,\u201d[12] so he will resist any leaning\ntoward one kind of conclusion rather than another. Such is their view\nof scientific duty. Scientific practice, however, has been otherwise.\n\nThat the practice of ordinary humanity has been otherwise seems indeed\nsufficiently plain. The folk-lore, the magic, and the religions of\nprimitive races, with all their unborrowed resemblances, are there to\nattest it. But these (you will say) are superstitions. The objection\nis not, I think, relevant; yet, for the sake of peace, let us pass to\nwhat is not regarded as a superstition, namely, morality. Here you\nhave the singular spectacle of a close agreement among moralists as\nto the contents of the moral law, and a profound disagreement as to\nthe grounds on which the moral law is to be accepted. Can the power of\n\u201ctendency\u201d be better shown? Can there be a clearer illustration of the\nway in which it may guide belief and anticipate proof?\n\n\nII\n\nBut our business to-day is neither with magic nor morality. It is\nwith physical science. When we survey man\u2019s strivings to understand\nthe world in which he lives, can we detect any secular leanings\ntowards certain types of belief, any deep-lying inclination to guess\nby preference in one direction rather than another? We surely can.\nThere are some answers, for example, which we refuse to take from\nexperiment and observation. I have already referred to one such case\nin connection with causation. No man of science can be provoked, by\nany seeming irregularities, into supposing that the course of nature\nis subject to lapses from the rule of perfect uniformity. Consider,\nagain, another case, where the tendency is far less strong, but where\nfew can doubt that it is real. I refer to the deep-seated reluctance\nfelt by most physicists to accept as final any scientific explanation\nwhich involves a belief in \u201caction at a distance\u201d\u2014a reluctance which is\nthe more remarkable since action at a distance seems a familiar fact of\nexperience, while action by contact, when you attempt to work it out in\ndetail, seems hard to comprehend.\n\nBut there are tendencies feebler and less general than these which\ngive much food for reflection. Consider, for example, the familiar\nhistory of atomism. At least as far back as Democritus we find the\nconfident assertion that the world consists of atoms, and that its\ninfinite variety is due to the motions and positions of immutable\nand imperceptible units, which, if they are not exactly alike, at\nleast differ less among themselves than do the visible objects into\nwhich they are compounded. Through successive centuries this theory\nnever died. With the revival of learning and the beginning of modern\nscience it burst into fresh life. It was believed in firmly by Bacon,\nthe prophet of the new era. It was treated as almost self-evident\nby philosophers like Gassendi and Hobbes. Boyle held it in its most\nuncompromising form. Newton assumed it without question. After a period\nof varying fortunes in the eighteenth century, a modification of it in\nthe hands of Dalton started a new era in chemistry. Taken over by the\nphysicists, it now lies at the root of the modern theory of gases and\nliquids; the modern theory of matter, the modern theory of heat, and\nthe modern theory of electricity.\n\nThis is a very strange story; and it is not really made less strange by\nthose who emphasise the differences between the atoms of Democritus,\nwhich are the theme of its first chapter, and the electrons of Sir\nJoseph Thomson, which appear in its last. Different indeed they are;\nbut, though the difference be great, the agreement is fundamental.\n\nThere are some who think that the achievement sung by Lucretius is\nlessened by showing that the ancients who believed in atoms had no\nexperimental warrant for their convictions. And this is perfectly true.\nThey had not. Nor had Bacon, nor Gassendi, nor Hobbes, nor Boyle, nor\nNewton. But this only brings into clearer relief the point I desire to\nemphasise. If experience did not establish the belief, whence came it?\nIf it represents nothing better than an individual guess, why did it\nappeal so persistently to leaders of scientific thought, and by what\nstrange hazard does it turn out to be true? It is certainly curious\nthat Tyndal, in a once famous address to the British Association at\nBelfast, should have sketched the story from Democritus to Lucretius,\nand from Lucretius to 1874, without ever putting these questions to his\naudience, or, so far as I know, to himself.\n\nBut the Atomic Theory is by no means the only example of tendencies\nwhich have played an important part in the evolution of science. There\nare other beliefs, or kinds of beliefs, of the most far-reaching\nimportance which have almost exactly similar characteristics. They\nanticipate evidence, they guide research, and in some shape or other\nthey turn out to be true.\n\nConsider, for example, the group of beliefs which may be described\ngenerally as beliefs in persistence, or beliefs in conservation\u2014the\nkind of belief which has been applied at different periods, and by\ndifferent schools of scientific thought, to matter, mass, bulk, weight,\nmotion, force, heat, and energy. As every one knows, these ascriptions\nhave not always been correct. But this only emphasises the strength of\nthe tendency. Weight was at one time supposed to be invariable. We know\nnow that the weight of a body varies with its position relatively to\nother bodies. It is different, for example, at the poles from what it\nis at the Equator. But how was the error discovered? Not by experiment.\nThere were experiments, no doubt. But those who undertook them already\nbelieved in the law of gravitation; and the law of gravitation made it\nnecessary to distinguish the mass of any given fragment of matter both\nfrom its weight and from the occult quality of gravity, which is one\nof the factors on which its weight in any given situation depends. The\ndesire for conservation was not, however, defeated; since physicists,\ntill within the last few years, regarded both mass and gravity as\nunalterable characteristics of all material bodies.\n\nAgain, consider the case of heat. This also has been regarded by\npowerful schools of scientific thought as a substance that was\n\u201cconserved.\u201d It is so regarded no longer. But is the inclination to\nbelieve in conservation thereby defeated? Not at all. Though heat may\nvanish, energy remains, and heat is a form of energy.\n\nThis doctrine of the conservation of energy is indeed the crowning\ntriumph of the tendency I am discussing, and provides the best\nillustrations of its strength. For natural philosophers, intent on\nfinding conservation wherever they could, started too boldly on their\nquest. Descartes regarded the conservation of motion as a self-evident\ninference from the rationality of God. It is true that he neither\nhad experimental evidence of his doctrine, nor could he, under any\ncircumstances, have obtained it; for the energy of motion, as he\nincorrectly described it, is not conserved. Leibnitz described it\ncorrectly, and had as great a confidence as his predecessor in its\nconservation, and as little proof to support him. So confident indeed\nwas he, and so independent of experimental evidence was his faith, that\nhe dogmatically asserted that, when motion seemed to disappear, what\nwas lost by the bodies which we see, was exactly taken up by their\ncomponent elements which we do not see; so that nothing in the nature\nof what he called _vis viva_ was either lost or created. That this\ntransformation of energy from molar to molecular motion is constantly\noccurring we now have sufficient proof. But Leibnitz had no proof; and\napparently thought none was required other than the Cartesian deduction\nfrom the rationality of God. He made a bold anticipation of experience,\nwith nothing to support him but _a priori_ inclination.\n\nHis anticipation, however, was not only bold; it was fortunate. Kinetic\nenergy may really be transformed from molar to molecular motion, and\nsuffer no variation. It is conserved. On the other hand, it may not. It\nmay altogether cease, and what becomes of conservation then?\n\nThe scientific formula which satisfies both the facts of the case and\nour desire for conservation is well known.[13] Energy, we are taught,\nis of two kinds: kinetic and potential energy\u2014energy in act and energy\nin possibility. Each may turn into the other, and is continually so\nturning. Each, therefore, may vary in quantity, and does vary in\nquantity. It is only their sum which is indestructible.\n\nFew scientific generalisations have been more fruitful; few have been\naccepted on more slender evidence; none are more certain; none more\nclearly illustrate our natural appetite for beliefs of conservation.\nFor, indeed, to the over-critical this sort of conservation must needs\nleave something to be desired. When we assert the indestructibility of\nmatter we mean that a real entity continues through time unchanged in\nquantity. But the word has a less obvious meaning when it is applied\nto energy. The propriety of describing motion as energy seems indeed\nclear enough; and if all energy were energy of motion, and if energy of\nmotion were always conserved, the conservation of energy would be on\nall fours with the conservation of matter. But this is not the case.\nIn spite of Leibnitz, the amount of _vis viva_ is not indestructible.\nWhat, then, happens when some of it is destroyed? In that case, says\nscience, energy changes its form but not its quantity. Energy of\nmotion becomes energy of position. What was kinetic becomes potential;\nand, as the transformation is effected without loss, the principle of\nconservation is saved.\n\nWhen, however, energy thus becomes potential, in what sense does it\nstill exist, and why do we still call it energy? Energy suggests\n\u201cdoings\u201d and \u201chappenings.\u201d In the case of \u201cpotential\u201d energy there are\nno \u201cdoings\u201d and no \u201chappenings.\u201d It is \u201cstored\u201d; and stored it may for\never remain, hibernating (as it were) to all eternity, neither changing\nnor causing change.\n\nI do not quarrel with this; but I ask myself why \u201cenergy\u201d should be\ntreated more leniently than \u201cforce.\u201d Though force is now known not to\nbe \u201cconserved,\u201d ordinary thought attributes to it a certain continuity\nof existence even when it does not show itself in motion. Force may be\nexerted though nothing moves; as, for example, by a book pressing on a\ntable. But this view is profoundly unsatisfactory to many scientific\nthinkers. For them force is nothing apart from \u201cacceleration\u201d; it\ndoes not represent a cause, it only measures an effect. And if\nin our ordinary moments we think otherwise, this (they think) is\nsimply because we illegitimately attribute to matter something which\ncorresponds to muscular effort in man.\n\nIt is not, perhaps, so easy as these critics suppose to extrude from\nscientific thought (I say nothing of scientific language) this notion\nof latent force\u2014force which would produce movement if it could; and is\nactively, though imperceptibly, striving to show itself in motion. But\nwhy should they try? They welcome potential energy\u2014why should they\nanathematise latent force?\n\nI think the answer is to be found in the fact that, whether force has,\nor has not, any being apart from acceleration, it is certainly _not_\nconserved; while, if energy be as real when it is potential as when it\nis kinetic, it certainly _is_ conserved. A lapse into anthropomorphism,\ntherefore, is without excuse in the first case, while a lapse into\nmetaphysics is justified in the second. Any heresy may be forgiven, and\nany evidence is worth respectful attention when conservation is the\nthing to be proved.\n\nI have sometimes amused myself by wondering what would have happened\nabout the year 1842 if the conservation of energy had been a\ntheological dogma instead of a scientific guess. Descartes, as I\nmentioned just now, inferred the conservation of motion from the\nattributes of God. Colding and Joule used the same argument in favour\nof the conservation of energy. Now, if a belief in the conservation of\nenergy had been an integral part of religious orthodoxy in the early\nforties of the last century surely some positivist philosopher would\nhave used Joule\u2019s first investigation on Work and Heat to upset the\nvery dogma they were intended to establish. \u201cHere\u201d (he would have\nsaid) \u201cyou have a believer in these metaphysico-theological methods\nof discovering the laws of nature; and mark what happens. In true\nmedieval fashion he begins with some fanciful deductions from the\nway in which he thinks God must have made the world. Fortunately,\nhowever, though his principles are medieval, his methods are modern.\nNot only is he a most brilliant experimenter, but he has the courage\nto put his own speculations to an experimental test. He takes the\nminutest precautions, he chooses the most favourable conditions, and\nwhat happens? Does he prove his case? Do his results square with\nhis theories? Does he find a fixed relation between work and heat?\nDoes he justify his views of God? Not at all. Between his lowest\ndetermination of the mechanical equivalent of heat, and his highest,\nthere is an immense and lamentable gap. What does he do? He takes their\nmean value:\u2014a very proper method if he knew there _was_ a mechanical\nequivalent of heat; a very improper method if the reality of such an\nequivalent was the thing to be proved. Clearly, if he had not put his\ntheological opinions into his scientific premises when he began his\nexperiment, he never would have got them out again as scientific\nconclusions when he had reached its end.\u201d\n\nFor my own part, I think this imaginary critic would, at that date,\nhave had something to say for himself\u2014supposing always we are prepared\nto accept his presuppositions about scientific method. If sound\nreason and intellectual integrity require us to follow the lead of\nobservation and experiment with no antecedent preference for one class\nof conclusions rather than another, then no doubt Joule and a long line\nof distinguished predecessors were the spoilt children of fortune. They\nmade their discoveries in advance of their evidence, and in spite of\ntheir methods. If they turned out to be right, or, at least, on the\nright road, what can we do but criticise their credulity and wonder at\ntheir luck? unless, indeed, their luck be a form of inspiration.\n\nBefore leaving beliefs of conservation, I must say one more word\nabout the most famous of them all\u2014the belief in the conservation of\nmatter. This was an important article in the scientific creed of the\nearly atomists, who had no better evidence for it than they had for\nthe Atomic Theory itself. The material \u201csubstance\u201d of the medieval\nAristotelians was, I imagine, also conserved; though as all that could\nbe known about it were its qualities, and as these were not necessarily\nconserved, the doctrine in practice did not, perhaps, amount to\nmuch. Then came the theory which, chiefly in the hands of Boyle[14]\nat the end of the seventeenth century, initiated modern chemistry.\nWhat was conserved, according to this view, was not a metaphysical\nsubstance with detachable qualities, but elementary kinds of matter\nwith inseparable qualities; and out of these qualified entities was\ncompounded the whole material universe. I may incidentally observe\nthat a company promoter who should issue a prospectus based on no\nbetter evidence than Boyle could advance for this tremendous theory\nwould certainly be in peril of the law. Yet Boyle was right: and,\nnotwithstanding subsequent developments, his conjecture remains the\ncorner-stone of modern chemical research.\n\nNow, what is it that we intend to assert when we say that matter is\nconserved, or is indestructible? We certainly do not mean that its\nqualities never suffer change: for most of those which are obvious\nand striking are always liable to change. If you sufficiently\nvary temperature or pressure; if you effect chemical composition\nor decomposition, the old characteristics will vanish and new\ncharacteristics will take their place. What, then, is conserved?\n\nIn the first place, the lost qualities can (in theory) always be\nrestored, though not always without the expenditure of energy. Water\nnever ceases to be convertible into steam, nor steam into water. The\ncharacteristics may vanish, but in appropriate conditions they will\nalways reappear.\n\nNow science, as we have just seen, is tolerant of this notion of\nlatency or potentiality, and is ready enough to use it in aid of\nbeliefs in conservation. It was so used in connection with heat when\nheat was regarded as a material substance. It is still so used in\nconnection with energy, which is sometimes described as an immaterial\nsubstance. But (as I have already noted) it has never been so used\nin connection with matter. The reason, I suppose, is that the\nconservation of matter is much more a belief of common sense than the\nconservation of energy. Energy is a conception which has but recently\nbeen disengaged from other conceptions, like force and momentum, and\nhas but recently been associated with heat, with chemical reactions,\nwith changes of physical phase, and with electro-magnetic phenomena.\nIt is, therefore, a remote and somewhat abstract product of scientific\nreflection; and science may do what it will with its own.\n\nThe notion of matter, on the other hand, is the common possession of\nmankind. Whatever difficulties it may present to reflective analysis,\nit presents none to our work-a-day beliefs. We are quite ready to\nregard it as indestructible; but we are not ready to combine this\nconviction with the view that it possesses no single characteristic\nwhich may not be temporarily etherealised into a \u201cpotentiality.\u201d On\nsuch terms the eternal and unchanging identity of this or that parcel\nof matter would seem a difficult and elusive doctrine, inappropriate\nto the familiar and substantial world in which we suppose ourselves to\nlive. A belief in the conservation of matter has therefore always, or\nalmost always, carried with it a belief in the unchanging continuity of\nat least _some_ material qualities; though as to what these qualities\nare there has been much dispute.\n\nDescartes, though not consistent, found unchanging continuity in the\nattribute of size; so also did Hobbes. I presume that the older\natomists, who explained the appearances of matter by the shape of its\nconstituent atoms, would have regarded both atomic form and atomic\nmagnitude as persistent. But it was the assumption that the same piece\nof ponderable matter always possessed the same gravitating power, and\nthat the same gravitating power was always associated with the same\nmass, which, in the hands of Lavoisier, made so great a revolution in\neighteenth-century chemistry. Matter might change its size, its shape,\nits colour, its phase, its power of acting and reacting; but its mass\nand the quality which caused its weight it could not change; these\ncharacteristics were always associated with each other, and were never\nin abeyance.\n\nTo Lavoisier this double principle seemed self-evident. It was not\na hypothesis that required testing, but a touchstone by which other\nhypotheses might safely be tested. If, in the course of some chemical\noperation, weight increased, then no further proof was required to show\nthat mass had increased also, and that matter had been added. If, on\nthe other hand, weight diminished, then no further proof was required\nto show that mass had diminished also, and that matter had been\nsubtracted. Whatever other qualities matter might gain or lose, mass\nand gravity were indestructible and unchanging.\n\nMen of science seemed, on the whole, content silently to assume these\nprinciples of conservation without inconveniently raising the question\nof evidence. Philosophers have not always been so cautious. Kant\nsupposed himself to have demonstrated them _a priori_. Schopenhauer\nfollowed suit. Spencer declared their contraries to be inconceivable.\nMill said they were proved by experience. In short, all these eminent\nthinkers vied with each other in conferring upon this doctrine the\nhighest honours permitted by their respective philosophies. But\napparently they were hasty. Recent discoveries have changed our point\nof view. Mass (it seems) is no longer to be regarded as unchanging.\nWhen bodies move at speeds approaching the velocity of light their\nmass rapidly increases; so that this quality, which is peculiarly\ncharacteristic of matter, must be removed from the category of those\nwhich persist unchanged, and placed in the category of those which\nchange but can always be restored. Are we so to class gravitation?\nWould the weight of a body moving nearly at the speed of light increase\nas, in like circumstances, its inertia increases? If the answer is\n\u201cno,\u201d then the link is broken which has for long been thought to\nconnect gravity and mass. If the answer is \u201cyes,\u201d then what Kant\nregarded as certain _a priori_ is false; what Spencer regarded as\n\u201cinconceivable\u201d is true; another carrier of \u201cpersistence\u201d is lost, and\nsome fresh characteristic must be found which will remain unchanged\nthrough all time, and under all conditions.\n\nIf this characteristic should turn out to be electric charge, what\na curious light it will throw upon our tendency to \u201cbeliefs of\nconservation\u201d[15]. After long seeking for some indestructible attribute\nof matter; after taking up and rejecting size, shape, weight, mass,\nand (perhaps) impenetrability, we shall at last find the object of our\nquest in a conception which has (I suppose) been clearly realised only\nwithin the last hundred years, about which our senses tell us nothing,\nand of which the general run of educated mankind are still completely\nignorant!\n\n\nIII\n\nIt is possible, but not, I hope, probable, that some hasty reader may\nsuppose that in this and the preceding lectures I am recommending a\nnew method or instrument of discovery. \u201cIf you want to reach truth,\nfollow your unreasoned inclination,\u201d may be his summary of my doctrine:\nbrief\u2014but also unjust.\n\nOf the manner in which discoveries are going to be made I say nothing,\nfor I know nothing. I am dealing with the past: and in the historic\nmovements of scientific thought I see, or think I see, drifts and\ncurrents such as astronomers detect among the stars of heaven. And,\nas the law of gravitation will hardly (I suppose) explain the last,\nso observation, experiment, and reasoning will hardly explain the\nfirst. They belong to the causal, not to the cognitive, series; and the\nbeliefs in which they issue are effects rather than conclusions.\n\nThose who feel little sympathy for such a view may be inclined to\nregard the relatively faint inclinations dealt with in this lecture\nas ordinary scientific hypotheses confirmed by ordinary scientific\nmethods. This view, as I have already observed, is not applicable\nto the inevitable beliefs dealt with in earlier lectures. Whatever\nphilosophers may say after the event the conviction that we live in an\nexternal world of things and persons, where events are more or less\nregularly repeated, has never been treated as a speculative conjecture\nabout which doubt was a duty till truth was proved. Beliefs like these\nare not scientific hypotheses, but scientific presuppositions, and all\ncriticism of their validity is a speculative after-thought. The same\nmay be said, though with less emphasis and some qualification, about\nbeliefs fostered by the intellectual tendencies considered in this\nchapter. These, as we have seen, are many. They are often inconsistent;\nthey are never inevitable; and they perpetually change their form under\nthe pressure of scientific discovery. Atomism in one shape follows\natomism in another; doctrines of conservation rise, fall, and rise\nagain; incredulity about \u201caction at a distance\u201d breeds explanations\nwhose failure (in the case of gravity) leaves the hope of final success\nuntouched.\n\nNow, it would be an error to say that science does not, when it can,\napply to these various theories its ordinary methods of verification.\nThey are in a different position from inevitable beliefs, which can\nhardly be verified because the process of verification assumes them.\nYet they must not be confounded with ordinary scientific hypotheses,\nfor they are something more and something different. Like these, they\nare guesses, but they are guesses directed, not by the immediate\nsuggestion of particular experiences (which indeed they sometimes\ncontradict), but by general tendencies which are enduring though\nsometimes feeble. Those who make them do not attempt the interrogation\nof Nature wholly free from certain forms of bias. In cross-examining\nthat most stubborn and recalcitrant of witnesses they never hesitate\nto ply her with leading questions; and, whether this procedure be\nlogically defensible or not, no lover of truth need regret its results.\n\nReaders of M. Bergson\u2019s \u201cCreative Evolution\u201d may remember the picture\nhe draws of the _\u00e9lan vital_\u2014the principle of life\u2014forcing its way\nalong different paths of organic evolution, some without issue or\npromise of progress; others leading on through regions hitherto\nuntraversed to ends remote and unforeseen. The secular movements of\nscience, as I conceive them, somewhat resemble this process, even\nthough it be faintly and at a distance. There is in both a striving\ntowards some imperfectly foreshadowed end; and in both the advance is\nirregular, tentative, precarious, with many changes of direction, and\nsome reversals. Yet I would not press the parallel over-far or plunge\ntoo deeply into metaphor. It is enough to say that as, according to M.\nBergson, the course followed by organic evolution cannot be wholly due\nto Selection, so the course followed by scientific discovery, as I read\nits history, cannot be wholly due to reasoning and experience. In both\ncases we seem forced to assume something in the nature of a directing\ninfluence, and (as I should add, though perhaps M. Bergson would\nnot) of supramundane design. And if \u201ca Power that makes for truth\u201d\nbe required to justify our scientific faith, we must surely count\nourselves as theists.\n\n\nNOTE\n\n _Extracts from a letter from Sir Oliver Lodge on certain passages in\n this lecture relating to Energy and its transformations._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n You say, on page 226, \u201cEnergy, we are taught, is of two kinds: kinetic\n and potential energy\u2014energy in act and energy in possibility.\u201d\n\n So long as emphasis is laid upon the words \u201cwe are taught,\u201d I have\n no objection. People _have_ taught that, though I strongly object to\n such teaching, because I object to the idea \u201cEnergy in possibility\u201d or\n \u201cpossible Energy\u201d of any kind. I teach the identity of Energy in much\n the same terms as the identity of Matter; not merely the conservation,\n with the idea that one quantity can disappear and another quantity\n reappear. It is not another quantity, but the same; though it may\n have been locked up for any length of time. But then it has not been\n usually taught so, and I think you are dealing with what is usual.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n Again, you say on page 227, \u201cEnergy suggests \u2018doings\u2019 and\n \u2018happenings.\u2019\u201d No, say I, _activity_ suggests doings and happenings,\n and activity is Energy in transformation. Energy alone is something\n stored, like Capital. The earth\u2019s rotational energy, for instance, is\n stored just as really as, and for a longer time than, the vegetation\n of the carboniferous epoch.\n\n Lower down you observe that \u201cForce may be exerted though nothing\n moves.\u201d Certainly it may, when resisted by an equal opposite force.\n But I fully admit that a lot of nonsense has been talked about the\n acceleration measure of force, as if it were the only measure, and\n that some criticism on this procedure is useful. But I should not\n speak of \u201clatent\u201d force; it is real force you have in mind, or at\n least real stress\u2014_i.e._ two equal and opposite forces. It is latent\n Activity which becomes active when the other factor, viz. Motion,\n is supplied or allowed\u2014_e.g._ by the release of a bent bow, or a\n wound-up spring, or a raised weight.\n\n So it is also with the Energy of a fly-wheel. That, too, is latent\n Activity until the other factor, viz. Force, is supplied, _i.e._\n when it is employed to overcome resistance, and therefore do work.\n Otherwise its Motion will be stored to all eternity.\n\n In short, activity, or doing of work, has two factors, Force and\n Motion. When both are present, work is done; when either is present\n alone, Energy is stored. Static Energy is the Force factor, with the\n possibility of a certain range of effectiveness understood; like a\n head of water, for instance, a certain height above the sea. Kinetic\n Energy is the Motion factor, with a certain inertia or possibility of\n Force understood; not Motion alone, but a mass in motion, so that it\n may be able to overcome resistance.\n\n There is no real reason why one form of Energy should be considered\n more \u201cactual\u201d or real than another; our eyes appreciate the one form,\n our muscles could appreciate the other.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n In considering cases of Potential Energy, it is wise to realise that\n our knowledge about Gravitation is altogether too vague to make the\n case of a raised weight useful. And our knowledge of solid elasticity,\n though not so insignificant, is small enough to make the case of a\n bent bow or wound spring not very easy for fundamental contemplation.\n A case of chemical Energy, like gun-cotton, is in much the same\n predicament.\n\n But a typical and satisfactory example of Potential Energy is the\n case of a vessel of compressed air. Here is Energy stagnant enough,\n and violent enough when released, and one that can be locked up\n apparently to all eternity, and yet released by the pulling of a\n trigger. It represents, however, a case of which we know something\n concerning the internal mechanism; and we have learnt that in this\n case the force statically exerted on the walls of a vessel is really\n a kinetic bombardment of the molecules. In other words, we recognise\n in this case that Potential Energy is ultimately resolvable into\n Kinetic. It may be so in the other cases. And on Kelvin\u2019s Kinetic\n Theory of Elasticity, which he showed a tendency in later life to\n abandon, all strain or stress in Ether may be ultimately due to its\n ultramicroscopic vortex circulation.\n\n But none of this is yet proven.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n The general argument of your lecture deals with the ease with which\n certain general propositions are accepted as it were intuitively,\n without real conclusive evidence. I am entirely with you. And the way\n we feel secure about general laws, when adequate evidence for them is\n really impossible, has often struck me as remarkable. Even when facts\n appear to go against them, we question the facts, and find after all\n that in so doing we have been right.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] See Lecture VI.\n\n[13] See note at the end of the Lecture.\n\n[14] I got this view of Boyle\u2019s relation to modern chemistry from\nOstwald\u2019s work.\n\n[15] In this chapter, especially in that part of it which deals with\nbeliefs of conservation, I am greatly indebted to Meyerson\u2019s \u201cIdentit\u00e9\net R\u00e9alit\u00e9.\u201d This acute and learned work is not written from the\nsame point of view as that which I have adopted; but this in no way\ndiminishes the amount of my obligation to its author.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\n_SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION_\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE X\n\nSUMMARY AND CONCLUSION\n\n\nI\n\nNow that we have reached our closing lecture, those who have followed\nthe course from the beginning may, on looking back, find themselves\nsomewhat bewildered by the variety of subjects which I have asked\nthem to consider. Art, History, Morals, the Theory of Probability,\nthe Logic of Perception, the presuppositions of Science, have all\nbeen touched on. Themes that might fill volumes\u2014nay, that have filled\nvolumes\u2014are made the text for an hour\u2019s discourse. Introduced one after\nthe other with breathless rapidity, each for a moment has been shown\nunder the limelight, and then hurried off the stage to make room for\nits successor. It seems hard to believe that with such diversity of\nmaterials there can be continuity of argument. But the critic who would\njudge the matter fairly must bear in mind the title of the course,\nand the purpose for which it has been delivered. My desire has been\nto show that all we think best in human culture, whether associated\nwith beauty, goodness, or knowledge, requires God for its support,\nthat Humanism without Theism loses more than half its value. Though,\ntherefore, the subjects discussed are embarrassing in their variety,\nno diminution of their number seems possible. The argument would have\nbroken down had I confined myself to a narrower scope\u2014had I, for\nexample, been content to show the importance of Theism for morality,\nleaving untouched its importance for science and \u00e6sthetic. Such a\nlimitation would have shattered the whole design. No doubt there are\nprecedents for such a procedure. Kant, for instance, kept God out of\nthe critique which dealt with ordinary knowledge, while giving Him a\nplace of honour in the critique which dealt with the moral law. But\nthe procedure has always seemed to me singularly artificial, even in a\nphilosophy which is artificial through and through. In any case, such\na limitation is quite inconsistent with the scheme of these lectures.\nThis could not be accomplished by setting up a departmental Deity\u2014even\nwere his department the whole province of ethics. Right conduct is\nmuch, but it is not all. We not only act, but we know, and we admire;\nnor could I be quite content with any form of Theism which did not\nsustain in every essential part the full circle of human interests.\n\n\nII\n\nBut when all explanations have been given, and all excuses made,\nI am well aware that in the actual presentation of my case I have\nintroduced so much illustrative material, and of this material so much\nis disputable, that some of my hearers may feel themselves distracted\nrather than enlightened by the number of seemingly subsidiary points\nof which they are asked to take account. I trust such persons are in a\nminority; and that, on the whole, my main contention will seem enriched\nand strengthened, not embarrassed or confused, by the manner of its\nexposition. Nevertheless, it may not be amiss, before I bring the\ncourse to an end, to restate the most important points in the general\ncase I have endeavoured to present.\n\nThe root principle which, by its constant recurrence in slightly\ndifferent forms, binds together, like an operatic leit-motif, the\nmost diverse material, is that if we would maintain the value of\nour highest beliefs and emotions, we must find for them a congruous\norigin. Beauty must be more than an accident. The source of morality\nmust be moral. The source of knowledge must be rational. If this be\ngranted, you rule out Mechanism, you rule out Naturalism, you rule out\nAgnosticism; and a lofty form of Theism becomes, as I think, inevitable.\n\nIt is, I imagine, the application of this method to knowledge which\nwill be most generally resented by those who refuse to acknowledge its\nvalidity. In the case of beauty, for example, the point will seem of\nsmall importance to those for whom art means little. It may not greatly\nimpress many of those for whom art means much. For it proclaims no new\ncanons of taste. It belittles no \u00e6sthetic school. It asks no critic to\nrevise his judgments. It touches the interests neither of artist nor\nauthor. It may well be ignored.\n\nWith ethics the case is somewhat different. There are, no doubt,\nsceptics in religion who treat scepticism as a luxury which can be\nsafely enjoyed only by the few. Religion they think good for morals;\nmorals they think good for society; society they think good for\nthemselves. Such persons may well treat the opinions expressed in\nthe lecture on ethics with benevolent disagreement. But there are\nmore robust thinkers who will not be so lenient. They will reject as\nintolerable the idea that the morality they desire to preserve depends\non a religion they desire to destroy; and any doctrine which, like\nthe present, binds the two more closely together will encounter their\nuncompromising hostility.\n\nNevertheless, it is the lectures dealing with intellectual values that\nwill rouse, as I suppose, the most serious opposition. The endeavour\nto treat our beliefs about the world and our beliefs about God as\ninterdependent will seem to many extravagant, even unnatural. It will\nbe urged that, for all reasonable beings, reason must be the supreme\njudge in matters of belief. It can neither resign its office nor\ndelegate its authority. Let it then endorse Science, as it must; and\nestablish Theism, if it can; but do not require it to commit the folly\nof treating truths about which opinions are agreed as dependent on\nconjectures about which opinions are divided.\n\nThis may be excellent advice; but it is hardly to the point. I ask\nfor nothing better than the supremacy of reason: not one of its\nprerogatives do I desire to curtail. Indeed (as I have already\ncomplained) it is the agnostic empiricists who most obstinately shrink\nfrom following it to conclusions they dislike, who mutiny, like some\nold-time mariners, whenever they are required to navigate unfamiliar\nseas.\n\nI have no sympathy with the singular combination of intellectual\narrogance and intellectual timidity so often presented by this\nparticular school of thought. I like it no better than I like the\nattitude of those who declare that, since reason is bankrupt, authority\nshould take over its liabilities, however small be the prospect of\ndischarging them in full. My point of view is utterly different. And if\nI urge that the criticism of common knowledge brings us ultimately to\nTheism, this involves no intolerable paradox, nor indeed anything very\nnew or strange.\n\nDescartes, for example, thought that all knowledge was based on clear\nand distinct ideas, and that clear and distinct ideas could be trusted\nbecause, being due to God, they were guaranteed by His truthfulness.\nThat there is a God possessing every perfection was independently\nestablished by an _a priori_ argument into which I need not enter. But\nthe point of interest is that, though Descartes conceived himself to\nhave found a refuge from scepticism in the famous \u201cI think, therefore I\nam,\u201d he could only get from this narrow assurance to general knowledge\nby the use of \u201cclear and distinct ideas\u201d certified by divine veracity.\nIf, therefore, belief in one\u2019s self was the first of truths, belief in\nGod was the second; and on this second truth all subordinate beliefs,\nmathematical, physical, and metaphysical, were, in his opinion,\nultimately founded. In one sense, and from one point of view, this\nis no doubt an exact inversion of the argument developed in these\nlectures. Descartes rests the belief in science on a belief in God. I\nrest the belief in God on a belief in science. Nevertheless, beneath\nthis contrast there is deep-lying agreement. Both views reject the\nnotion that we possess in the general body of common-sense assumptions\nand scientific truths a creed self-sufficing and independent, to\nwhich we may add at our pleasure Theism in such doses as suit our\nintellectual palate. Both views, therefore, are profoundly divided, not\nmerely from all that calls itself agnostic, but from much that calls\nitself religious.\n\nI must not, however, press the parallel too far. Descartes did not,\nand could not, regard our beliefs as a developing system, which is\nnot merely increasing by external accretion, like a crystal in its\nmother-liquid, but is growing and changing through and through like\na living organism. Such conceptions were not of his age or country,\nnor, if they had been, could they have been easily accommodated to\nhis peculiar genius. His was the mathematical temperament, always\nstriving for precise definitions and rigorous proof; always tolerant\nof any simplification of the concrete complexities of reality, which\nwould make them amenable to deductive treatment. Of this, as a method,\nwe need make no complaint. Within due limits it is invaluable. But\nDescartes, so to speak, \u201cobjectified\u201d it. He assumed that any judgment\nwhich could properly be described as \u201cclear and distinct\u201d was not only\nconvenient in form, but true in substance. The world, alas! is not so\nmade. The things which are clear and distinct are usually things of\nour own creation. Definitions, abstractions, diagrams, syllogisms,\nmachines\u2014such and such like are, or may be, \u201cclear and distinct.\u201d But\nthe great facts which we have not made\u2014these, at our present level of\nknowledge, are never clear and never distinct. Life, the organism,\nthe self, the state, the world, freedom, causality, the flow of time,\nthe relation between mind and body, between perceiver and perceived,\nbetween consciousness and sub-consciousness, between person and person\n(I say nothing of beauty, of virtue, or of God)\u2014who is there will dare\nto say that he either finds in these notions, or can put into them\nwithout injury, the qualities which Descartes deemed the inevitable\nmarks of real and certain knowledge? Truth, for us, is a plant of\na different and of a slower growth. How much indeed of that growth\nconsists in discovering that what we thought was clear is in fact\nobscure; what we thought was simple is in fact complex; what we thought\nwas distinct is in fact confused; and how helpful are such discoveries\nto the augmentation of learning!\n\nHowever this may be, there is nothing in the doctrine of \u201ccongruity\u201d\nwhich should shock those who are jealous for the supremacy of reason\nand the dignity of science. It is science itself which assures us that\nall premises, all conclusions, and all the logical links by which they\nare connected must be regarded as natural products. It is science\nitself which assures us that they belong, like all natural products, to\nthe tissue of causes and effects whose lengthening web is continuously\nthrown off by the loom of time. It is science itself which requires us\nto harmonise these two aspects of the knowing process\u2014the one logical\nand timeless; the other causal and successive.\n\nBut how are they to be harmonised if the causal series is fundamentally\nnon-rational? Suppose yourself able to observe the development\nof beliefs in some alien being (say an inhabitant of Mars) as a\nbacteriologist observes a growing colony of microbes: suppose, further,\nthat your observation showed how these beliefs arose from causes which\nhad in them no tincture of reason, and that, so far as you could see,\nthey were quite unsupported by any independent evidence which\u2014_for\nyou_\u2014had weight or even meaning. Would you rate their value high?\nSurely not.\n\nNow it is quite true that when we examine our own system of beliefs\nwe cannot imitate this attitude of complete detachment, since in the\nvery act of examination some of these beliefs are assumed. But we\n_can_ examine the beliefs of other people, and we _do_, as a matter of\ncommon-sense practice, rate low the value of the beliefs whose sources\nwe perceive to be non-rational. How, then, can we refuse to apply to\nourselves a principle of judgment which we thus apply without scruple\nto our neighbours?\n\nWhenever we do so apply it, we shall, I think, be forced to admit\nthat all creeds which refuse to see an intelligent purpose behind the\nunthinking powers of material nature are intrinsically incoherent. In\nthe order of causation they base reason upon unreason. In the order of\nlogic they involve conclusions which discredit their own premises. Nor\nis there, as far as I can see, any mitigation of this condemnation to\nbe looked for except by appealing to the principle of Selection. And\nhow far will this help us out of the difficulty?\n\nJust so far as an imitation of intelligent purpose can be a substitute\nfor its reality, but no further. And how far is this? At first sight\nwe might suppose that, at the worst, the cognitive series and the\ncausal series might be harmonised on the basis of natural selection if\nknowledge never aspired to rise above the level which promoted race\nsurvival, if no faculties of knowing were trusted beyond the point\nwhere they ceased effectively to foster the multiplication of the\nspecies. Up to this point it would seem that, if selection be true,\nthere is congruity between beliefs and their origin. The sequence of\nevents which brought them into being suggests no doubt about their\nvalue. This scheme of thought, therefore, though narrowly restricted,\nis apparently coherent.\n\nYet even this modest claim must be deemed excessive: for the\nspeculation on which it rests does violence to its own principles.\nManifestly we cannot indulge ourselves in reflections upon the\nlimits of the \u201cknowable\u201d without using our intellect for a purpose\nnever contemplated by selection. I do not allege that our intellect\nis therefore unequal to the task. I only say that, if it be indeed\nequal to it, we are in the presence of a very surprising coincidence.\nWhy should faculties, \u201cdesigned\u201d only to help primitive man, or his\nanimal progenitors, successfully to breed and feed, be fitted to solve\nphilosophic problems so useless and so remote? Why, indeed, do such\nproblems occur to us? Why do we long for their solution?\n\nTo such questions Naturalism can neither find an answer nor be content\nwithout one. Wearied with unavailing efforts to penetrate the unknown,\nmany not ignoble spirits have preached the wisdom of dulling unhealthy\ncuriosity by the aid of healthy labour. \u201cLet us cultivate our gardens\u201d\n(they say), seeking no solution of the insoluble.\n\nBut the advice is ambiguous. Will the proposed remedy, in their\nopinion, cure the ill, or only help us to forget it? If the latter,\nthen, in some circumstances and with some patients, it will doubtless\nfulfil its promise. Oblivion may be attained by growing vegetables, as\nby other less reputable expedients. But if absorption in daily labour\nbe recommended as the final stage of a rational cure, it cannot be\neffectual. No rational cure is, on naturalistic principles, within\nour reach. Could we empty ourselves of all that makes us men, could\nwe lower our intellectual level to the point where the scope of our\nmental activities harmonised with their naturalistic source, we should\ndoubtless free ourselves from the malady of vain speculation. But\nthough the remedy, if applied, would be effectual, it would not be\nrational. Reflective Agnosticism cannot be combined with scientific\nNaturalism, because reflective Agnosticism is the product of a\nprocess which Naturalism inevitably discredits. And if Naturalism be\nincompatible even with reasoned ignorance, how can we hope to harmonise\nit with the claims of reasoned knowledge?[16]\n\nThe best imitation of creative purpose, therefore, which Naturalism can\nprovide breaks down where it is most required\u2014namely, at the highest\nlevels of value. I have just shown this in connection with our powers\nof thought, and the beliefs to which they lead. But the failure is not\nconfined to them. It is as wide as Humanism itself. Wherever we find\ngreat intrinsic worth, there we are in a region where the direct effect\nof selection is negligible. The noblest things in speculation, in art,\nin morals, possess small survival value; and, though the geniuses to\nwhom we owe them have added greatly to the glory of their race, they\nhave added but little to its animal successes. In the language of these\nlectures, they are \u201caccidental\u201d\u2014due neither to purpose nor to any\narrangement of causes by which purpose is successfully copied.\n\n\nIII\n\nYou are now in a position to judge how far the hopes held out to you at\nthe beginning of this course have been fulfilled, and to measure the\nmerits and the demerits, the claims and the limitations, of the scheme\nI have endeavoured to expound.\n\nI disowned, as you remember, any intention of providing you with a\nphilosophical system\u2014not because I despise philosophical systems or\nthose who labour to construct them, but in part because I have none to\nrecommend, and in part because it seems to me doubtful whether at our\npresent stage of development a satisfactory system is possible.\n\nBut how (you may ask) does my point of view differ from a philosophical\nsystem? It may be a bad system, as it certainly is a most imperfect\none. Yet, seeing that it touches on everything in heaven and earth,\nseeing that its very title embraces God and man, why should it\nrepudiate a description which seemingly is not a whit in excess of its\npretensions?\n\nThe question thus raised is more than a merely verbal one, and a few\nobservations upon it may fittingly conclude the course. Note, then,\nin the first place, that my scheme of beliefs does not show itself\nunworthy to be considered systematic merely because it is incomplete.\nAll systems are incomplete. All systems, however ambitious, admit\ntheir inability to exhaust reality. Nor is its unworthiness due to any\nmere accident of execution, such as inferior workmanship or defective\nlearning. Its failures are essential and irremediable. They are\ninseparable from \u201cthe point of view.\u201d\n\nLet me explain. Every system that deserves to be described as a\nconstructive philosophy\u2014be it dogmatic, critical, empirical, idealist,\nwhat you will\u2014conceives itself not merely to be rooted in reason, but\nto be rationalised throughout. The conceptions with which it works\nshould be sifted, clarified, defined. It should assume nothing which\nrequires proof. It should rest nothing (in the last resort) on faith or\nprobability. It should admit no inexplicable residues.\n\nPhilosophers seem to me entirely right if they think that this is what\na system ought to be; but not entirely right if they think that this\nis what any system is, or has ever been. In any case, no description\ncould be less applicable to the point of view which I am provisionally\nrecommending. The philosopher refuses\u2014in theory\u2014to assume anything\nwhich requires proof. I assume (among other things) the common-sense\noutlook upon life, and the whole body of the sciences. The philosopher\nadmits\u2014in theory\u2014no ground of knowledge but reason. I recognise that,\nin fact, the whole human race, including the philosopher himself, lives\nby faith alone. The philosopher asks what creed reason requires him to\naccept. I ask on what terms the creed which is in fact accepted can\nmost reasonably be held. The philosopher conceives that within the\nunchanging limits of his system an appropriate niche can be found for\nevery new discovery as it arises. My view is that the contents of a\nsystem are always reacting on its fundamental principles, so that no\nphilosophy can flatter itself that it will not be altered out of all\nrecognition as knowledge grows.\n\nThis last statement may look like a truism; but it is a truism which\nfew philosophers are, in practice, disposed to accept; and the\ngenerality of mankind are perhaps even less disposed to accept it\neven than philosophers. That there are beliefs which can and should\nbe held, with the same shade of meaning, by all men, in all ages,\nand at all stages of culture, is a view to which by nature we easily\nincline. But it is, to say the least, most doubtful. Language is here\nno true or certain guide. Even when beliefs have not outgrown the\nformulas by which they have been traditionally expressed, we must\nbeware of treating this fixity of form as indicating complete identity\nof substance. Men do not necessarily believe exactly the same thing\nbecause they express their convictions in exactly the same phrases. And\nmost fortunate it is, in the interests of individual liberty, social\nco-operation, and institutional continuity that this latitude should\nbe secured to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or\ndivines, but by the inevitable limitations of language.\n\nThis, however, by the way. The point I wish to press is that, speaking\ngenerally, we must not conceive the development of knowledge as a\nprocess of adding new truths to old truths, in the course of which old\ntruths are supplemented but are not changed. It rather resembles the\nincrease of some plastic body which, wherever it takes place, involves\na readjustment of every part. Add brick to brick, and you may finish\nyour house, yet never alter its foundation. Add belief to belief, and\nyou will set up strains and stresses within your system of knowledge\nwhich will compel it to move towards some new position of equilibrium.\n\nSometimes, no doubt, the process is more violent and catastrophic than\nthis metaphor naturally suggests. Then occurs in the moral world the\nanalogue of the earthquake, the lava flood, and the tidal wave, which\nshatter mountains and sweep cities to destruction. Men\u2019s outlook on the\nuniverse suffers sudden revolution: the obvious becomes incredible, and\nthe incredible obvious; whole societies lose their balance, and stately\nsystems are tumbled in the dust.\n\nMore often, however, the movements of belief are gradual. They resemble\nthe slow rise or fall of ancient coast-lines, where, by imperceptible\ndegrees, sea turns into land, or land into sea. So, without shock or\nclamour, man smoothly modifies his point of view, till, gazing over the\nspaces he has traversed, he greatly marvels at the change.\n\nBut we must look forward as well as backward. The spaces still to be\ntraversed far exceed those that have been traversed already. We can\nset no limits to the intellectual voyage which lies before the race.\nEven if we arbitrarily limit the life of men to that which is possible\nunder terrestrial conditions, we must anticipate transformations of\nbelief comparable in magnitude with those which already divide us\nfrom primitive mankind. How, in circumstances like these, can we hope\nto sketch, even in outline, an enduring system of philosophy? Why\nshould we succeed where under similar conditions the greatest of our\nforefathers have already failed?\n\nIf, then, we cannot attain to a scheme of belief which, whatever be\nits shortcomings, is good (so far as it goes) for all time, we must be\ncontent with something less. We must put up with what I have called in\nthese lectures \u201ca point of view.\u201d We must recognise that our beliefs\nmust be provisional, because, till we approach complete knowledge, all\nbeliefs are provisional. We cannot claim that they are good \u201cso far as\nthey go\u201d; but only that they are as good as we are at present able to\nmake them. And we must recognise that the two statements are profoundly\ndifferent.\n\nNow, if I were asked what categories or conceptions such a \u201cpoint of\nview\u201d required for its expression, I should answer Providence and\nInspiration\u2014categories for which systematic philosophy has so far\nfound no great use. These terms, it must be owned, are now a little the\nworse for wear. Defaced and battered by centuries of hard usage, they\nhave suffered the fate which the current coin of popular discussion\ncannot easily avoid. But they have merits negative and positive, which\nmake them peculiarly apt for my present purpose.\n\nIn the first place, they do not suggest a philosophy of the universe.\nThey openly evade the great problems of theological metaphysics. No\none, for example, would employ them in discussing the essential nature\nof an Absolute God, or His relation to time, to the act of creation, to\nthe worlds created. They belong to a different level of speculation.\n\nIn the second place, they concentrate attention on the humanistic side\nof Theism, on the relation of God to man, and to man\u2019s higher spiritual\nneeds. Divine \u201cguidance\u201d\u2014the purposeful working of informing Spirit\u2014is\nthe notion on which emphasis is specially laid. The term \u201cProvidence\u201d\nsuggests this in a broad and general way. The term \u201cInspiration\u201d\nsuggests it in the narrower sphere of beliefs and emotions. And do not\ncomplain that no endeavour is made to explain the mode in which divine\nguidance works either on matter or on spirit. These are mysteries\nas hard of solution as those which surround the action of mind on\nmatter, and of mind on mind. But the difficulties are difficulties of\ntheory, not of practice. They never disturb the ordinary man\u2014nor the\nextraordinary man in his ordinary moments. Human intercourse is not\nembarrassed by the second, nor simple piety by the first. And perhaps\nthe enlightened lounger, requesting a club-waiter to shut the window,\nbrushes aside, or ignores, as many philosophic puzzles as a mother\npassionately praying for the safety of her child.\n\n\nIV\n\nTo some this conclusion of a long and intricate discussion will seem\ncuriously trivial in its unambitious simplicity. Especially will\nthis be true of those who accept empirical Naturalism in any of its\nforms. \u201cThere is (they may admit) something grandiose about the\ngreat metaphysical systems which appeals even to those who are least\nable to accept them. It was no ignoble ambition which inspired their\narchitects. It was no light labour, or trivial ingenuity, which brought\nthem into being. On the other hand (they will say), if naturalistic\nmethods are more modest, naturalistic results are more secure. They aim\nlower, but they reach the mark. If the long-drawn \u201cconflict between\nreligion and science\u201d has robbed us of some illusions which we abandon\nwith regret, the knowledge it has spared us we may hold with assurance.\nBut when we turn to the narrow Theism of these lectures, fittingly\ncouched in the outworn language of the pulpit and the Sunday-school,\ncan we find in it either the glory of metaphysical speculation or the\nsecurity of positive knowledge? It has not the courage to explore the\nunknowable, nor the power to add to the known. It dare not fly; it will\nnot walk. It is neither philosophy nor science; nor does it seek the\nmodest security of some middle way. How, then, are we to class this\nstrange amalgam of criticism and credulity? What purpose can it serve?\nTo whom will it appeal? Whose beliefs will it alter even by a hair\u2019s\nbreadth?\u201d\n\nThese are pertinent questions. Let me try to answer them.\n\nThe customary claims of Naturalism, which I have here put into the\nmouth of my imaginary critic, seem to me (as you know) to be quite\nunreasonable. Otherwise I have no great objection to the statements\ncontained in his indictment\u2014however little I may agree with its\nspirit. In particular I admit the charge that the argument of these\nlectures, elaborate as it may appear, does not after all carry us far\nbeyond the position occupied by uncritical piety and simple faith.\nCould it be otherwise? If we build, as I build, upon our common-sense\nbeliefs about the natural world, our theories of the supernatural\nworld will surely share the defects inherent in their foundation. It\nmay\u2014or may not\u2014be possible to know all about the evolution of God as\nthe Absolute Idea, while lamentably ignorant of much that pertains\nto the Particular. But if we begin with the Particular\u2014and that most\nimperfectly apprehended\u2014we cannot hope to grasp the full reality of the\nAbsolute. On this line of advance the philosopher will not far outstrip\nthe peasant.\n\nWhen, therefore, my supposed critic satirically asks who it is that I\nhope to influence, I grant at once that it is not the plain man who\nalready accepts without doubt or commentary a theistic view of the\nUniverse. He is beyond my arguments;\u2014perhaps above them.\n\nNeither do I greatly hope to influence the trained man of speculation,\nwho has already found a theory of things which satisfies his reason,\nor is sure that no such theory is within his reach. Even he may, I\ntrust, find in these lectures discussions of some philosophic interest.\nI ask him to consider whether his system provides an honourable place\nfor the actual beliefs by which his waking life is ruled; whether all\nthe gradations of intuitive probability, from inevitable compulsion\nto faint inclination, find house-room not merely in his psychology of\nbelief, but in his theory of knowledge; whether he is satisfied with\nhis logic of science, or can bring into one harmonious scheme his creed\nregarded as a body of rational conclusions and his creed regarded as a\nbundle of natural effects. If he replies in the affirmative his state\nis the more gracious. But he is not likely to be interested in my\narguments; and assuredly they will not convert him to my views.\n\nI need say nothing about his pretentious imitator, who, under many\nnames, has long been a familiar figure in certain societies. With no\ndeep desire for truth, and poorly equipped for pursuing it, his main\nambition is to indicate discreetly that he holds what the fashion\nof the moment regards as \u201cadvanced\u201d views in their most advanced\nform. Wherein the quality of \u201cadvancement\u201d consists, it might be\nhard to determine; nor is it (in this connection) a subject worthy\nof investigation. It is enough to say that \u201cadvanced\u201d views must\nhave an air of novelty, must be making some stir in the world, must\nbe sufficiently unorthodox to shock the old-fashioned, and either\nsufficiently plausible to deceive the simple or sufficiently imposing\nto overawe them. I do not think that I shall find many converts among\nmembers of this class; nor is it to them that I desire to speak.\n\nBut there are many persons, both earnest and sincere, to whom the\nconclusions which modern Naturalism extracts from modern science are\na source of deep perplexity and intellectual unrest. Their mood, if\nI rightly read it, is something of this kind. They would agree that\na world where God is either denied or ignored is a world where some\nhigher values are greatly impoverished. They would read the lectures I\nhave devoted to Beauty and Morals with sympathy, if not with agreement.\nLife, they would admit, is but a poor thing if it does no more than\nfill with vain desires the brief interval between two material\n\u201caccidents\u201d\u2014the \u201caccident\u201d which brought it into being, and the\n\u201caccident\u201d which will extinguish it for ever. But this (they will say)\nis no argument. A wise man faces facts, a good man prefers the hardest\ntruth to the most alluring illusion. If there be no ground for assuming\na living purpose behind the indifferent mask of nature, let us not fill\nthe vacancy with a phantasm of our own creation. Let us at least sink\nback into the nothingness from which we rose with our intellectual\nintegrity undamaged. Let all other values perish, so long as rational\nvalues remain undimmed.\n\nHere, according to my view, lies the great illusion. Those who in all\nsincerity, and often with deep emotion, plead after a fashion like\nthis, profoundly misunderstand the situation. They are indeed worthy\nof respect. They must not be confounded with those unstable souls\nwho ignore God when they are happy, deny Him when they are wretched,\ntolerate Him on Sundays, but truly call on Him only when life, or\nfortune, hangs doubtfully in the balance. They are of a different\nand more virile temper. But are they less mistaken? They search for\nproofs of God, as men search for evidence about ghosts or witches.\nShow us, they say, the marks of His presence. Tell us what problems\nHis existence would solve. And when these tasks have been happily\naccomplished, then will we willingly place Him among the hypothetical\ncauses by which science endeavours to explain the only world we\ndirectly know, the familiar world of daily experience.\n\nBut God must not thus be treated as an entity, which we may add to, or\nsubtract from, the sum of things scientifically known as the canons\nof induction may suggest. He is Himself the condition of scientific\nknowledge. If He be excluded from the causal series which produces\nbeliefs, the cognitive series which justifies them is corrupted at\nthe root. And as it is only in a theistic setting that beauty can\nretain its deepest meaning, and love its brightest lustre, so these\ngreat truths of \u00e6sthetics and ethics are but half-truths, isolated and\nimperfect, unless we add to them yet a third. We must hold that reason\nand the works of reason have their source in God; that from Him they\ndraw their inspiration; and that if they repudiate their origin, by\nthis very act they proclaim their own insufficiency.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[16] Let me here parenthetically remind you that again (as I observed\nin an earlier lecture) the Naturalism of which I speak is Naturalism\nin what, from our present point of view, must be regarded as its most\nplausible shape. Those who have followed, even at a distance, the trend\nof biological thought are aware that many naturalists of the highest\nauthority are shaken in their allegiance to natural selection. They do\nnot, indeed, exclude it from the evolutionary drama, but they reduce\nits r\u00f4le to insignificance. Why then, you may ask, do these lectures\nso constantly refer to selection, but say never a word about other\ntheories of organic evolution?\n\nThe answer is that selection, and only selection, really imitates\ncontrivance. Other theories may deal, and do deal, with variation and\nheredity. But selection alone can explain adjustment; whence it follows\nthat selection alone can imitate design.\n\n\n       _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,\n                        London and Aylesbury._","title":"Theism and Humanism: Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1914","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":53420}