Thoughts on Religion

by George John Romanes

Hence, the only legitimate attitude of pure reason is pure agnosticism. No one can deny this. But, it will be said, there is this vast difference between our intuitive knowledge of all other first principles and that alleged of the 'first of all first principles,' viz. that the latter is confessedly not known to all men. Now, assuredly, there is here a vast difference. But so there ought to be, if we are here in a state of probation, as before explained. And that we are in such a state is not only the hypothesis of religion, but the sole rational explanation as well as moral justification of our existence as rational beings and moral agents[58].

It is not necessarily true, as J.S. Mill and all other agnostics think, that even if internal intuition be of divine origin, the illumination thus furnished can only be of evidential value to the individual subject thereof. On the contrary, it may be studied objectively, even if not experienced subjectively; and ought to be so studied by a pure agnostic desirous of light from any quarter. Even if he does not know it as a noumenon he can investigate it as a phenomenon. And, supposing it to be of divine origin, as its subjects believe and he has no reason to doubt, he may gain much evidence against its being a mere psychological illusion from identical reports of it in all ages. Thus, if any large section of the race were to see flames issuing from magnets, there would be no doubt as to their objective reality.

The testimony given by Socrates to the occurrence in himself of an internal Voice, having all the definiteness of an auditory hallucination, has given rise to much speculation by subsequent philosophers.

Many explanations are suggested, but if we remember the critical nature of Socrates' own mind, the literal nature of his mode of teaching, and the high authority which attaches to Plato's opinion on the subject, the probability seems to incline towards the 'Demon' having been, in Socrates' own consciousness, an actual auditory sensation. Be this however as it may, I suppose there is no question that we may adopt this view of the matter at least to the extent of classifying Socrates with Luther, Pascal, &c., not to mention all the line of Hebrew and other prophets, who agree in speaking of a Divine Voice.

If so, the further question arises whether we are to classify all these with lunatics in whom the phenomena of auditory hallucination are habitual.

Without doubt this hypothesis is most in accordance with the temper of our age, partly because it obeys the law of parsimony, and partly because it [negatives] a priori the possibility of revelation.

But if we look at the matter from the point of view of pure agnosticism, we are not entitled to adopt so rough and ready an interpretation.

Suppose then that not only Socrates and all great religious reformers and founders of religious systems both before and after him were similarly stricken with mental disease, but that similar phenomena had occurred in the case of all scientific discoverers such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, &c.—supposing all these men to have declared that their main ideas had been communicated by subjective sensations as of spoken language, so that all the progress of the world's scientific thought had resembled that of the world's religious thought, and had been attributed by the promoters thereof to direct inspirations of this kind—would it be possible to deny that the testimony thus afforded to the fact of subjective revelation would have been overwhelming? Or could it any longer have been maintained that supposing a revelation to be communicated subjectively the fact thereof could only be of any evidential value to the recipient himself? To this it will no doubt be answered, 'No, but in the case supposed the evidence arises not from the fact of their subjective intuition but from that of its objective verification in the results of science.' Quite so; but this is exactly the test appealed to by the Hebrew prophets—the test of true and lying prophets being in the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of their prophecies and 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'

Therefore it is as absurd to say that the religious consciousness of minds other than our own can be barred antecedently as evidence, as it is to say that testimony to the miraculous is similarly barred. The pure agnostic must always carefully avoid the 'high priori road.' But, on the other hand, he must be all the more assiduous in estimating fairly the character, both as to quantity and quality, of evidence a posteriori. Now this evidence in the present case is twofold, positive and negative. It will be convenient to consider the negative first.

The negative evidence is furnished by the nature of man without God. It is thoroughly miserable, as is well shown by Pascal, who has devoted the whole of the first part of his treatise to this subject. I need not go over the ground which he has already so well traversed.