Naturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle that nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths which every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as self-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for practical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical, that is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and because they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a hearing, and then humbly wait for the placet of the sovereign people. But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition, imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and sparkling with the show of wit and reason.
Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as good specimens of a class which is historically rather than philosophically interesting.
We have before us three of his most popular books: Modern Science and Modern Thought (nineteenth thousand), Problems of the Future (thirteenth thousand), Human Origins (twelfth thousand), to which we shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the responsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified.
Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed levity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which breaks,
At seasons, through the gilded pale,
and which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the philosophical value of such works.
Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1] that he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and ten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to us incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after so many years, find life without God, without immortality, without definite meaning or assignable goal, "worth living," and that "to be born in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for which a man can never be sufficiently thankful." [2] [Thankful to whom? one might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist, and has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is not an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition "of those digestive organs upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly depends." "It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive nerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of pessimism." [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects, coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his sanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in despair: "Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live again?" "I'm cock-sure of it," answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his assurance is the healthiness of his liver.
Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren, brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that "he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much. "For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals who enjoy the mens sana in corpore sano." [5] However, there are some pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought "behind the veil, behind the veil,"—to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite line from his favourite poem. These are not only "social swells, would-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison." "Religion, they say, is becoming extinct…. Without a lively faith in such a personal, ever-present deity who listens to our prayers, … there can be, they say, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only support for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of the Bible and the Divinity of Christ." "Destroy these and they think the world will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest sanction of morals, but … the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &c. [7] "To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and categorical denial … Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern life." [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can hold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the "result of advancing civilization" and of the materialistic psychology is "a clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every human soul;" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or, as he calls it, "Christian agnosticism">[, shall retain the essential spirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible even the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may appear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how Mr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether believing or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt deeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's soul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the inevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a materialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but then it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without thought, reflection, or aspiration, i.e., materialistically. Mr. Laing no doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in what he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself everywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every direction, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things, so easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as not to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual labours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes, eminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established cause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone before him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed, he is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10] he has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and published the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him with an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or not depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He admits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, "some may find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own fate." [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his large-type platitudinous maxim, "Fear nothing, make the best of everything." [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and never can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are told calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that their misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier posterity. This is the new gospel: Pauperes evangelizantur—"Good news for the poor." [14] "Progress and not happiness" is the end we are told to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is never explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we choose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or talk to us of "oughts"?
And now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very cheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no God, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can know nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our "religion," on a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be able to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation, in a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of hereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all authority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so far as they seem to be of higher than human origin.
Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, "the greatest living master of English prose" (though why his mastery of prose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). "Such ideas evidently come from education, and are not the results either of inherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift…. Given a being with man's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, it is easy to see how … rules of conduct … must have been formed and fixed by successive generations, according to the Darwinian laws." [16]