Thoughts on Religion

by George John Romanes

Religion, on the other hand, is a department of thought having no less exclusive reference to the Ultimate. More particularly, it is a department of thought having for its object a self-conscious and intelligent Being, which it regards as a Personal God, and the fountain-head of all causation. I am, of course, aware that the term Religion has been of late years frequently used in senses which this definition would not cover; but I conceive that this only shows how frequently the term in question has been abused. To call any theory of things a Religion which does not present any belief in any form of Deity, is to apply the word to the very opposite of that which it has hitherto been used to denote. To speak of the Religion of the Unknowable, the Religion of Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity, and so forth, where the personality of the First Cause is not recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to speak of the love of a triangle, or the rationality of the equator. That is to say, if any meaning is to be extracted from the terms at all, it is only to be so by using them in some metaphorical sense. We may, for instance, say that there is such a thing as a Religion of Humanity, because we may begin by deifying Humanity in our own estimation, and then go on to worship our ideal. But by thus giving Humanity the name of Deity we are not really creating a new religion: we are merely using a metaphor, which may or may not be successful as a matter of poetic diction, but which most assuredly presents no shred of value as a matter of philosophical statement. Indeed, in this relation it is worse than valueless: it is misleading. Variations or reversals in the meanings of words are not of uncommon occurrence in the ordinary growth of languages; but it is not often that we find, as in this case, the whole meaning of a term intentionally and gratuitously changed by the leaders of philosophical thought. Humanity, for example, is an abstract idea of our own making: it is not an object any more than the equator is an object. Therefore, if it were possible to construct a religion by this curious device of metaphorically ascribing to Humanity the attributes of Deity, it ought to be as logically possible to construct, let us say, a theory of brotherly regard towards the equator, by metaphorically ascribing to it the attributes of man. The distinguishing features of any theory which can properly be termed a Religion, is that it should refer to the ultimate source, or sources, of things: and that it should suppose this source to be of an objective, intelligent, and personal nature. To apply the term Religion to any other theory is merely to abuse it.

From these definitions, then, it appears that the aims and methods of Science are exclusively concerned with the ascertaining and the proof of the proximate How of things and processes physical: her problem is, as Mill states it, to discover what are the fewest number of (phenomenal) data which, being granted, will explain the phenomena of experience. On the other hand, Religion is not in any way concerned with causation, further than to assume that all things and all processes are ultimately due to intelligent personality. Religion is thus, as Mr. Spencer says, 'an à priori theory of the universe'—to which, however, we must add, 'and a theory which assumes intelligent personality as the originating source of the universe.' Without this needful addition, a religion would be in no way logically distinguished from a philosophy.

From these definitions, then, it clearly follows that in their purest forms, Science and Religion really have no point of logical contact. Only if Science could transcend the conditions of space and time, of phenomenal relativity, and of all human limitations, only then could Science be in a position to touch the supernatural theory of Religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, she would cease to be Science. In soaring above the region of phenomena and entering the tenuous aether of noumena, her present wings, which we call her methods, would in such an atmosphere be no longer of any service for movement. Out of time, out of place, and out of phenomenal relation, Science could no longer exist as such.

On the other hand, Religion in its purest form is equally incompetent to affect Science. For, as we have already seen, Religion as such is not concerned with the phenomenal sphere: her theory of ontology cannot have any reference to the How of phenomenal causation. Hence it is evident that, as in their purest or most ideal forms they move in different mental planes, Science and Religion cannot exhibit interference.

Thus far the remarks which I have made apply equally to all forms of Religion, as such, whether actual or possible, and in so far as the Religion is pure. But it is notorious that until quite recently Religion did exercise upon Science, not only an influence, but an overpowering influence. Belief in divine agency being all but universal, while the methods of scientific research had not as yet been distinctly formulated, it was in previous generations the usual habit of mind to refer any natural phenomenon, the physical causation of which had not been ascertained, to the more or less immediate causal action of the Deity. But we now see that this habit of mind arose from a failure to distinguish between the essentially distinct characters of Science and Religion as departments of thought, and therefore that it was only so far as the Religion of former times was impure—or mixed with the ingredients of thought which belong to Science—that the baleful influence in question was exerted. The gradual, successive, and now all but total abolition of final causes from the thoughts of scientific men, to which allusion has already been made, is merely an expression of the fact that scientific men as a body have come fully to recognize the fundamental distinction between Science and Religion which I have stated.

Or, to put the matter in another way, scientific men as a body—and, indeed, all persons whose ideas on such matters are abreast of the times—perceive plainly enough that a religious explanation of any natural phenomenon is, from a scientific point of view, no explanation at all. For a religious explanation consists in referring the observed phenomenon to the First Cause—i.e. to merge that particular phenomenon in the general or final mystery of things. A scientific explanation, on the other hand, consists in referring the observed phenomenon to its physical causes, and in no case can such an explanation entertain the hypothesis of a final cause without abandoning its character as a scientific explanation. For example, if a child brings me a flower and asks why it has such a curious form, bright colour, sweet perfume, and so on, and if I answer, Because God made it so, I am not really answering the child's question: I am merely concealing my ignorance of Nature under a guise of piety, and excusing my indolence in the study of botany. It was the appreciation of this fact that led Mr. Darwin to observe in his Origin of Species that the theory of creation does not serve to explain any of the facts with which it is concerned, but merely re-states these facts as they are observed to occur. That is to say, by thus merging the facts as observed into the final mystery of things, we are not even attempting to explain them in any scientific sense: for it would be obviously possible to get rid of the necessity of thus explaining any natural phenomenon whatsoever by referring it to the immediate causal action of the Deity. If any phenomenon were actually to occur which did proceed from the immediate causal action of the Deity, then ex hypothesi, there would be no physical causes to investigate, and the occupation of Othello, in the person of a man of science, would be gone. Such a phenomenon would be miraculous, and therefore from its very nature beyond the reach of scientific investigation.

Properly speaking, then, the religious theory of final causes does not explain any of the phenomena of Nature: it merely re-states the phenomena as observed—or, if we prefer so to say, it is itself an ultimate and universal explanation of all possible phenomena taken collectively. For it must be admitted that behind all possible explanations of a scientific kind, there lies a great inexplicable, which just because of its ultimate character, cannot be merged into anything further—that is to say, cannot be explained. 'It is what it is,' is all that we can say of it: 'I am that I am' is all that it could say of itself. And it is in referring phenomena to this inexplicable source of physical causation that the theory of Religion essentially consists. The theory of Science, on the other hand, consists in the assumption that there is always a practically endless chain of physical causation to investigate—i.e. an endless series of phenomena to be explained. So that, if we define the process of explanation as the process of referring observed phenomena to their adequate causes, we may say that Religion, by the aid of a general theory of things in the postulation of an intelligent First Cause, furnishes to her own satisfaction an ultimate explanation of the universe as a whole, and therefore is not concerned with any of those proximate explanations or discovery of second causes, which form the exclusive subject-matter of Science. In other words, we recur to the definitions already stated, to the effect that Religion is a department of thought having, as such, exclusive reference to the Ultimate, while Science is a department of thought having, as such, no less exclusive reference to the Proximate. When these two departments of thought overlap, interference results, and we find confusion. Therefore it was that when the religious theory of final causes intruded upon the field of scientific inquiry, it was passing beyond its logical domain; and seeking to arrogate the function of explaining this or that phenomenon in detail, it ceased to be a purely religious theory, while at the same time and for the same reason it blocked the way of scientific progress[20].

This remark serves to introduce one of the chief topics with which I have to deal—viz. the doctrine of Design in Nature, and thus the whole question of Natural Religion in its relation to Natural Science. In handling this topic I shall endeavour to take as broad and deep a view as I can of the present standing of Natural Religion, without waiting to show step by step the ways and means by which it has been brought into this position, by the influence of Science.

In the earliest dawn of recorded thought, teleology in some form or another has been the most generally accepted theory whereby the order of Nature is explained. It is not, however, my object in this paper to trace the history of this theory from its first rude beginnings in Fetishism to its final development in Theism. I intend to devote myself exclusively to the question as to the present standing of this theory, and I allude to its past history only in order to examine the statement which is frequently made, to the effect that its general prevalence in all ages and among all peoples of the world lends to it a certain degree of 'antecedent credibility.' With reference to this point, I should say, that, whether or not the order of Nature is due to a disposing Mind, the hypothesis of mental agency in Nature—or, as the Duke of Argyll terms it, the hypothesis of 'anthropopsychism'—must necessarily have been the earliest hypothesis. What we find in Nature is the universal prevalence of causation, and long before the no less universal equivalency between causes and effects—i.e. the universal prevalence of natural law—became a matter of even the [vaguest] appreciation, the general fact that nothing happens without a cause of some kind was fully recognized. Indeed, the recognition of this fact is not only presented by the lowest races of the present day, but, as I have myself given evidence to show, likewise by animals and infants[21]. And therefore, it appears to me probable that those psychologists are right who argue that the idea of cause is intuitive, in the same sense that the ideas of space and time are intuitive—i.e. the instinctive or [inherited] effect of ancestral experience.

Now if it is thus a matter of certainty that the recognition of causality in Nature is co-extensive with, and even anterior to, the human mind, it appears to me no less certain that the first attempt at assigning a cause of this or that observed event in Nature—i.e. the first attempts at a rational explanation of the phenomena of Nature—must have been of an anthropopsychic kind. No other explanation was, as it were, so ready to hand as that of projecting into external Nature the agency of volition, which was known to each individual as the apparent fountain-head of causal activity so far as he and his neighbours were concerned. To reach this most obvious explanation of causality in Nature, it did not require that primitive man should know, as we know, that the very conception of causality arises out of our sense of effort in voluntary action; it only required that this should be the fact, and then it must needs follow that when any natural phenomenon was thought about at all with reference to its causality, the cause inferred should be one of a psychical kind. I need not wait to trace the gradual integration of this anthropopsychic hypothesis from its earliest and most diffused form of what we may term polypsychism (wherein the causes inferred were almost as personally numerous as the effects contemplated), through polytheism (wherein many effects of a like kind were referred to one deity, who, as it were, took special charge over that class), up to monotheism (wherein all causation is gathered up into the monopsychism of a single personality): it is enough thus briefly to show that from first to last the hypothesis of anthropopsychism is a necessary phase of mental evolution under existing conditions, and this whether or not the hypothesis is true.