All omens point towards the steady continuance of just such labour as has already taught us all we know. Perhaps, indeed, in this complex of interpenetrating spirits our own effort is no individual, no transitory thing. That which lies at the root of each of us lies at the root of the Cosmos too. Our struggle is the struggle of the Universe itself; and the very Godhead finds fulfilment through our upward-striving souls.
CHAPTER X
EPILOGUE
Εδὁκει τἱς μοι γυνἡ προσελθοὑσα καλἡ καἱ εὑειδἡς, λευκἁ ἱμἁτια με καἱ ἑιπεἱν, Ὡ Σὡκρατες, Ἡυατἱ κεν τριτἁτω φθἱην ἑρἱβωλον ἱκοιο.—Πλἁτωνος Κρἱτων.
THE task which I proposed to myself at the beginning of this work is now, after a fashion, accomplished. Following the successive steps of my programme, I have presented,—not indeed all the evidence which I possess, and which I would willingly present,—but enough at least to illustrate a continuous exposition, and as much as can be compressed into two volumes, with any hope that these volumes will be read at all.[211] I have indicated also the principal inferences which that evidence immediately suggests. Such wider generalisations as I may now add must needs be dangerously speculative; they must run the risk of alienating still further from this research many of the scientific minds which I am most anxious to influence.
This risk, nevertheless, I feel bound to face. For two reasons,—or, I should perhaps say, for one main reason seen under two aspects,—I cannot leave this obscure and unfamiliar mass of observation and experiment without some words of wider generalisation, some epilogue which may place these new discoveries in clearer relation to the existing schemes of civilised thought and belief.
In the first place, I feel that some such attempt at synthesis is needful for the practical purpose of enlisting help in our long inquiry. As has been hinted more than once, the real drag upon its progress has been not opposition but indifference. Or if indifference be too strong a word, at any rate the interest evoked has not been such as to inspire to steady independent work anything like the number of coadjutors who would have responded to a new departure in one of the sciences which all men have learnt to respect. The inquiry falls between the two stools of religion and science; it cannot claim support either from the "religious world" or from the Royal Society. Yet even apart from the instinct of pure scientific curiosity (which surely has seldom seen such a field opening before it), the mighty issues depending on these phenomena ought, I think, to constitute in themselves a strong, an exceptional appeal. I desire in this book to emphasise that appeal;—not only to produce conviction, but also to attract co-operation. And actual converse with many persons has led me to believe that in order to attract such help, even from scientific men, some general view of the moral upshot of all the phenomena is needed;—speculative and uncertain though such a general view must be.
Again,—and here the practical reason already given expands into a wider scope,—it would be unfair to the evidence itself were I to close this work without touching more directly than hitherto on some of the deepest faiths of men. The influence of the evidence set forth in this book should not be limited to the conclusions, however weighty, which that evidence may be thought to establish. Rather these discoveries should prompt, as nothing else could have prompted, towards the ultimate achievement of that programme of scientific dominance which the Instauratio Magna proclaimed for mankind. Bacon foresaw the gradual victory of observation and experiment—the triumph of actual analysed fact—in every department of human study;—in every department save one. The realm of "Divine things" he left to Authority and Faith. I here urge that that great exemption need be no longer made. I claim that there now exists an incipient method of getting at this Divine knowledge also, with the same certainty, the same calm assurance, with which we make our steady progress in the knowledge of terrene things. The authority of creeds and Churches will thus be replaced by the authority of observation and experiment. The impulse of faith will resolve itself into a reasoned and resolute imagination, bent upon raising even higher than now the highest ideals of man.
Most readers of the preceding pages will have been prepared for the point of view thus frankly avowed. Yet to few readers can that point of view at first present itself otherwise than as alien and repellent. Philosophy and orthodoxy will alike resent it as presumptuous; nor will science readily accept the unauthorised transfer to herself of regions of which she has long been wont either to deny the existence, or at any rate to disclaim the rule. Nevertheless, I think that it will appear on reflection that some such change of standpoint as this was urgently needed,—nay, was ultimately inevitable.
I need not here describe at length the deep disquiet of our time. Never, perhaps, did man's spiritual satisfaction bear a smaller proportion to his needs. The old-world sustenance, however earnestly administered, is too unsubstantial for the modern cravings. And thus through our civilised societies two conflicting currents run. On the one hand health, intelligence, morality,—all such boons as the steady progress of planetary evolution can win for man,—are being achieved in increasing measure. On the other hand this very sanity, this very prosperity, do but bring out in stronger relief the underlying Welt-Schmers, the decline of any real belief in the dignity, the meaning, the endlessness of life.
There are many, of course, who readily accept this limitation of view; who are willing to let earthly activities and pleasures gradually dissipate and obscure the larger hope. But others cannot thus be easily satisfied. They rather resemble children who are growing too old for their games;—whose amusement sinks into an indifference and discontent for which the fitting remedy is an initiation into the serious work of men.