NOTES FOR A WORK ON A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION.
By METAPHYSICUS.
Proposed Mottoes.
'I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by this purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons, one class who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class who have no understanding of them and to whom they will naturally be as idle tales.
'And you had better decide at once with which of the two you are arguing; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time not grudging to either any benefit which they may derive.'—Plato.
'If we would reprove with success, and show another his mistake, we must see from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is generally true: and, admitting this truth, show him the side on which it is false.'—Pascal.
§ 1. Introductory.
Many years ago I published in Messrs. Trübner's 'Philosophical Series,' a short treatise entitled A Candid Examination of Theism by 'Physicus.' Although the book made some stir at the time, and has since exhibited a vitality never anticipated by its author, the secret of its authorship has been well preserved[34]. This secret it is my intention, if possible, still to preserve; but as it is desirable (on several accounts which will become apparent in the following pages) to avow identity of authorship, the present essay appears under the same pseudonym[35] as its predecessor. The reason why the first essay appeared anonymously is truthfully stated in the preface thereof, viz. in order that the reasoning should be judged on its own merits, without the bias which is apt to arise on the part of a reader from a knowledge of the authority—or absence of authority—on the part of a writer. This reason, in my opinion, still holds good as regards A Candid Examination of Theism, and applies in equal measure to the present sequel in A Candid Examination of Religion.
It will be shown that in many respects the negative conclusions reached in the former essay have been greatly modified by the results of maturer thought as now presented in the second. Therefore it seems desirable to state at the outset that, as far as I am capable of judging, the modifications in question have not been due in any measure to influence from without. They appear to have been due exclusively to the results of my own further thought, as briefly set out in the following pages, with no indebtedness to private friends and but little to published utterances in the form of books, &c. Nevertheless, no very original ideas are here presented. Indeed, I suppose it would nowadays be impossible to present any idea touching religion, which has not at some time or another been presented previously. Still much may be done in the furthering of one's thought by changing points of view, selecting and arranging ideas already more or less familiar, so that they may be built into new combinations; and this, I think, I have in no small degree accomplished as regards the microcosm of my own mind. But I state this much only for the sake of adding a confession that, as far as introspection can carry one, it does not appear to me that the modifications which my views have undergone since the publication of my previous Candid Examination are due so much to purely logical processes of the intellect, as to the sub-conscious (and therefore more or less unanalyzable) influences due to the ripening experience of life. The extent to which this is true [i.e. the extent to which experience modifies logic][36] is seldom, if ever, realized, although it is practically exemplified every day by the sobering caution which advancing age exercises upon the mind. Not so much by any above-board play of syllogism as by some underhand cheating of consciousness, do the accumulating experiences of life and of thought slowly enrich the judgement. And this, one need hardly say, is especially true in such regions of thought as present the most tenuous media for the progress of thought by the comparatively clumsy means of syllogistic locomotion. For the further we ascend from the solid ground of verification, the less confidence should we place in our wings of speculation, while the more do we find the practical wisdom of such intellectual caution, or distrust of ratiocination, as can be given only by experience. Therefore, most of all is this the case in those departments of thought which are furthest from the region of our sensuous life—viz. metaphysics and religion. And, as a matter of fact, it is just in these departments of thought that we find the rashness of youth most amenable to the discipline in question by the experience of age.
However, in spite of this confession, I have no doubt that even in the matter of pure and conscious reason further thought has enabled me to detect serious errors, or rather oversights, in the very foundations of my Candid Examination of Theism. I still think, indeed, that from the premises there laid down the conclusions result in due logical sequence, so that, as a matter of mere ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect any serious flaws, especially as this has not been done by anybody else during the many years of its existence. But I now clearly perceive two wellnigh fatal oversights which I then committed. The first was undue confidence in merely syllogistic conclusions, even when derived from sound premises, in regions of such high abstraction. The second was, in not being sufficiently careful in examining the foundations of my criticism, i.e. the validity of its premises. I will here briefly consider these two points separately.