Neither do I greatly hope to influence the trained man of speculation, who has already found a theory of things which satisfies his reason, or is sure that no such theory is within his reach. Even he may, I trust, find in these lectures discussions of some philosophic interest. I ask him to consider whether his system provides an honourable place for the actual beliefs by which his waking life is ruled; whether all the gradations of intuitive probability, from inevitable compulsion to faint inclination, find house-room not merely in his psychology of belief, but in his theory of knowledge; whether he is satisfied with his logic of science, or can bring into one harmonious scheme his creed regarded as a body of rational conclusions and his creed regarded as a bundle of natural effects. If he replies in the affirmative his state is the more gracious. But he is not likely to be interested in my arguments; and assuredly they will not convert him to my views.
I need say nothing about his pretentious imitator, who, under many names, has long been a familiar figure in certain societies. With no deep desire for truth, and poorly equipped for pursuing it, his main ambition is to indicate discreetly that he holds what the fashion of the moment regards as “advanced” views in their most advanced form. Wherein the quality of “advancement” consists, it might be hard to determine; nor is it (in this connection) a subject worthy of investigation. It is enough to say that “advanced” views must have an air of novelty, must be making some stir in the world, must be sufficiently unorthodox to shock the old-fashioned, and either sufficiently plausible to deceive the simple or sufficiently imposing to overawe them. I do not think that I shall find many converts among members of this class; nor is it to them that I desire to speak.
But there are many persons, both earnest and sincere, to whom the conclusions which modern Naturalism extracts from modern science are a source of deep perplexity and intellectual unrest. Their mood, if I rightly read it, is something of this kind. They would agree that a world where God is either denied or ignored is a world where some higher values are greatly impoverished. They would read the lectures I have devoted to Beauty and Morals with sympathy, if not with agreement. Life, they would admit, is but a poor thing if it does no more than fill with vain desires the brief interval between two material “accidents”—the “accident” which brought it into being, and the “accident” which will extinguish it for ever. But this (they will say) is no argument. A wise man faces facts, a good man prefers the hardest truth to the most alluring illusion. If there be no ground for assuming a living purpose behind the indifferent mask of nature, let us not fill the vacancy with a phantasm of our own creation. Let us at least sink back into the nothingness from which we rose with our intellectual integrity undamaged. Let all other values perish, so long as rational values remain undimmed.
Here, according to my view, lies the great illusion. Those who in all sincerity, and often with deep emotion, plead after a fashion like this, profoundly misunderstand the situation. They are indeed worthy of respect. They must not be confounded with those unstable souls who ignore God when they are happy, deny Him when they are wretched, tolerate Him on Sundays, but truly call on Him only when life, or fortune, hangs doubtfully in the balance. They are of a different and more virile temper. But are they less mistaken? They search for proofs of God, as men search for evidence about ghosts or witches. Show us, they say, the marks of His presence. Tell us what problems His existence would solve. And when these tasks have been happily accomplished, then will we willingly place Him among the hypothetical causes by which science endeavours to explain the only world we directly know, the familiar world of daily experience.
But God must not thus be treated as an entity, which we may add to, or subtract from, the sum of things scientifically known as the canons of induction may suggest. He is Himself the condition of scientific knowledge. If He be excluded from the causal series which produces beliefs, the cognitive series which justifies them is corrupted at the root. And as it is only in a theistic setting that beauty can retain its deepest meaning, and love its brightest lustre, so these great truths of æsthetics and ethics are but half-truths, isolated and imperfect, unless we add to them yet a third. We must hold that reason and the works of reason have their source in God; that from Him they draw their inspiration; and that if they repudiate their origin, by this very act they proclaim their own insufficiency.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Written before the war.
[2] As I shall often have to mention “selection” in the course of these lectures, I must observe that it is no part of my business to weigh the comparative merits of competing evolutionary theories. It may be that the hypothesis of small random variations accumulated or eliminated according as they help or hinder survival, is, in the light of recent research, insufficient and unsatisfactory. From my point of view this is immaterial. I use the word “selection” as a convenient name for any non-rational process, acting through heredity, which successfully imitates contrivance. Darwin’s theory, be it true or false, still provides, I suppose, the only suggestion as to how this feat may be accomplished, and his terminology may be used without danger of misunderstanding.
[3] I greatly regret having to stretch the ordinary meaning of the word “æsthetic” to the extent required by the argument of this chapter. I got into trouble in a previous work by the extension I gave to the word “Authority.” And as, in that case, no explanation seemed sufficient to avoid misconception, so I am afraid it will be in the present case.