MIRACLES
Miracle and natural law—Belief in miracles of savages (fetichism), of semi-civilized (idolatry), of civilized (theism), and of educated people (dualism)—Religious belief in miracles—Apostles' Creed—Article relating to creation—Article relating to redemption—Article relating to immortality—Philosophic belief in miracles—Academic thinkers and Free-thinkers—Dualism of Plato and Kant—Belief in miracles in the nineteenth century, in modern metaphysics, theology, and politics.
In ordinary parlance the word "miracle" means a number of different things. We say a phenomenon is miraculous or wonderful[5] when we cannot explain it and trace its causes. But we say a natural object or a work of art is wonderful when it is unusually beautiful and imposing—when it passes the ordinary limits of our experience. In this work I do not take the word in this relative sense, but in the absolute sense in which a phenomenon is said to transcend the limits of natural law and lie beyond the range of rational explanation. In this sense it means the same as "supernatural" or "transcendental." We can know natural phenomena by our reason and bring them within our cognizance. The miraculous can only be accepted on faith.
The belief in supernatural miracles is in contradiction to pure reason, which lays the foundations of all science. Kant, who won so great a vogue for the term "pure reason," understood by this originally "reason as independent of experience." The phrase was used in a narrower sense subsequently to express independence of dogma and prejudice, as the base of pure and unprejudiced science. In this sense we oppose pure reason to superstition.
I have dealt in the sixteenth chapter of the Riddle with the important question of the relations of knowledge and faith. But I must return to the subject here, as what I said has given rise to a good deal of misunderstanding and criticism. I by no means claimed, as my opponents allege, to "know everything," or to have solved every problem. In fact, I said repeatedly that there are narrow limits to our knowledge, and always will be. I had also expressly stated that the irresistible impulse to learn in the intelligent man, or reason's constant demand to know causes, presses us to fill up the gaps in our knowledge by faith. But I had at the same time pointed out the contrast between scientific (natural) and religious (supernatural) faith. The one leads us to form hypotheses and theories; the other ends in myths and superstition. Scientific faith fills the gaps in our knowledge of natural law with temporary hypotheses; but mystic religious faith contradicts natural law, and transcends its limits in the form of a belief in miracles.
The great triumph of the progress of science in the nineteenth century, its theoretical value in the formation of a rational philosophy of life, and its practical value on the various sides of modern civilization, consist, above all, in the absolute recognition of fixed natural laws. That relation of things to each other, which we call causation, makes it possible for us to understand and explain facts. We feel that our thirst for a knowledge of the causes of things is contented when science points out the "sufficient reason" of them. In the whole province of inorganic cosmology natural law is now generally recognized to be all-powerful; in astronomy, geology, physics, and chemistry all phenomena are reduced to fixed laws, and in the long-run to the all-embracing law of substance, the great law of the conservation of matter and force (Riddle, chapter xii.).
It is otherwise in biology, or the organic section of cosmology. Here we still find miracles set up in opposition to the law of substance, and the transgression of natural laws by supernatural forces. The belief in miracles of this kind, which pure reason calls superstition, is still very wide-spread—much more prevalent than is usually thought. For my part, I hold that superstition and unreason are the worst enemies of the human race, while science and reason are its greatest friends. Hence it is our duty and task to attack the belief in miracles wherever we find it, in the interest of the race. We have to prove that the reign of natural law extends over the whole world of phenomena as far as we can reach it. A general survey of the history of faith on the one hand and of science on the other clearly shows that the advance of the latter has always been accompanied by an increasing knowledge of fixed natural laws and the shrinking of superstition into an ever-lessening area. To-day we convince ourselves of this by an impartial examination of mental culture at the various stages of civilization. For this purpose I take the four chief stages of mental development which Fritz Schultze has given in his Physiology of Uncivilized Races, and Alexander Sutherland in his work, On the Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct: 1, savages; 2, barbarians; 3, civilized races; 4, educated races (cf. chapter i.).
The mental life of savages rises little above that of the higher mammals, especially the apes, with which they are genealogically connected. Their whole interest is restricted to the physiological functions of nutrition and reproduction, or the satisfaction of hunger and thirst in the crudest animal fashion. Without fixed habitation, constantly struggling for existence, they live on the raw produce of nature—fruits, the roots of wild plants, and the animals they fish in the water or catch on land. Their intelligence moves within the narrowest bounds, and one can no more (or no less) speak of their reason than of that of the more intelligent animals. Of art and science there is no question. Their impulse to discover causes is satisfied with the simplest association of phenomena which have a merely external connection, but no intimate relation to each other. Thus arises their fetichism, that irrational trust in fetiches which Fritz Schultze has traced to four distinct causes: their false estimate of the value of an object, their anthropomorphic conception of nature, the imperfect association of their ideas, and the strength of their emotions, especially hope and fear. Any favorite object, a stone or a bone, may work miracles as a fetich and exercise all kinds of good or evil influence, and is therefore honored, feared, and worshipped. At first the worship was paid to the invisible spirit that dwelt in the particular object; but it was often transferred afterwards to the dead object itself. Among the different savage races the belief in fetiches presents a number of stages, corresponding to the beginnings of reason. The lowest stage is found in the lowest races, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Andaman Islanders, Bushmen, and Akkas (of New Guinea). A somewhat higher stage is met in the middle races (Australian negroes, Tasmanians, Hottentots, and Tierra del Fuegians); and a still higher intellectual development is shown by the next group (most of the Indians of North and South America, the aboriginal inhabitants of India, etc.). Modern comparative ethnography and evolution and prehistoric and anthropological research have shown us that our own ancestors, ten thousand and more years ago, were (like the prehistoric ancestors of all races of men) savages, and that their earliest belief in miracles was a crude fetichism.
By barbarians we understand the races that are found between savage and civilized peoples. They show the first beginnings of civilization, and are superior to savages chiefly in the possession of agriculture and the keeping of cattle. They make a provident use of the productive forces of organic nature, artificially produce large quantities of food, and are thus enabled by the abundance of food to turn their minds to other interests. We find that they have the rudiments of art and science. Their religion does not at first rise much above fetichism, but soon reaches the stage of animism, lifeless objects in nature being credited with souls. Worship is no longer paid to favorite dead objects (stones, bones, etc.), but generally to living things, trees and animals, and especially to images of gods which have the form of animals or men, and are believed to possess souls. As demons or spirits, these have a great influence on the fortunes of men. At first this soul is conceived to be purely material; it disappears at the death of the body and lives apart. As the breathing and the beat of the pulse and heart cease when a man dies, the seat of the soul is thought to be the lungs, heart, or some other part of the body. The idea of the immortality of the soul takes on innumerable forms among them, like the belief in the miracles which are worked by the gods, demons, spirits, etc. Evolution again points out a long gradation of forms of faith, if we compare the lower, middle, and higher races.