Just because his emotions were so little engaged, the agnostic position seemed to him a very simple and satisfactory one, and we find no evidence that he ever tried to get below the surface of theistic or Christian doctrine. He was so much repelled by particular anthropomorphic and superstitious expressions or formulæ of religious belief that he never appreciated their true inwardness or value. Otherwise, he would never have spoken of "the radical incongruity between the Bible and the order of Nature." Otherwise he would never have written the following passage, "The creed of Christendom is evidently alien to my nature, both emotional and intellectual. To many, and apparently to most, religious worship yields a species of pleasure. To me it never did so; unless, indeed, I count as such the emotion produced by sacred music.... But the expressions of adoration of a personal being, the utterance of laudations, and the humble professions of obedience, never found in me any echoes."
Later Attitude to Religion.—But while it seems to us preposterous to speak of "the religion of Herbert Spencer," beyond a reverence for the mysteries beyond science, it is important to note that in his later years he became more appreciative of the important rôle that religion has filled, and continues to fill in human life. The 'Reflections' at the close of the Autobiography illustrate this change of outlook.
In his earlier days Spencer was an uncompromising critic of many of the established governmental forms, such as the monarchy; in later years, while he did not change his views, he became more acquiescent, feeling that institutions must be judged by their relative fitness to the average characters and conditions of the citizens at any given time. He saw, moreover, that mere morphological changes matter little since the temper of a people alters so slowly. There is a rhythm of change in external forms, but the actual constitution of the social organism varies very little.
"We have been living in the midst of a social exuviation, and the old coercive shell having been cast off, a new coercive shell is in course of development; for in our day, as in past days, there co-exist the readiness to coerce and the readiness to submit to coercion. Here, then, I see a change in my political views which has become increasingly marked with increasing years. Whereas, in the days of early enthusiasm, I thought that all would go well if governmental arrangements were transformed, I now think that transformations in governmental arrangements can be of use only in so far as they express the transformed natures of citizens" (1893).
A similar change marks his ideas about religious institutions. In early days he was an uncompromising critic of particular theological doctrines and religious customs, but a wider knowledge convinced him almost against his will that some sort of religious cult has been an indispensable factor in social progress. Quite aware of the great changes in theological thought which had taken place during his life-time, he looked forward to a stage in which, "recognising the mystery of things as insoluble, religious organisations will be devoted to ethical culture." As Prof. Henry Sidgwick puts it, "Spencer contemplates complacently the reduction of religious thought and sentiment to a perfectly indefinite consciousness of the Unknowable and the emotion that accompanies this peculiar intellectual exercise."
"Thus I have come more and more to look calmly on forms of religious belief to which I had, in earlier days, a pronounced aversion. Holding that they are in the main naturally adapted to their respective peoples and times, it now seems to me well that they should severally live and work as long as the conditions permit, and, further, that sudden changes of religious institutions, as of political institutions, are certain to be followed by reactions.
"If it be asked why, thinking thus, I have persevered in setting forth views at variance with current creeds, my reply is the one elsewhere made: It is for each to utter that which he sincerely believes to be true, and, adding his unit of influence to all other units, leave the results to work themselves out."
Largely, however, Spencer's change of mood in regard to religious creeds and institutions resulted from "a deepening conviction that the sphere occupied by them can never become an unfilled sphere, but that there must continue to arise afresh the great questions concerning ourselves and surrounding things; and that, if not positive answers, then modes of consciousness standing in place of positive answers must ever remain."
"An unreflective mood, he said, is general among both cultured and uncultured, characterised by indifference to everything beyond material interests and the superficial aspects of things."... "But in both cultured and uncultured there occur lucid intervals. Some, at least, either fill the vacuum by stereotyped answers, or become conscious of unanswered questions of transcendent moment. By those who know much, more than by those who know little, is there felt the need for explanation. Whence this process, inconceivable however symbolised, by which alike the monad and the man build themselves up into their respective structures? What must we say of the life, minute, multitudinous, degraded, which, covering the ocean-floor, occupies by far the larger part of the Earth's area; and which yet, growing and decaying in utter darkness, presents hundreds of species of a single type? Or, when we think of the myriads of years of the Earth's past, during which have arisen and passed away low forms of creatures, small and great, which, murdering and being murdered, have gradually evolved, how shall we answer the question—To what end? Ascending to wider problems, in which way are we to interpret the lifelessness of the greater celestial masses—the giant planets and the Sun; in proportion to which the habitable planets are mere nothings? If we pass from these relatively near bodies to the thirty millions of remote suns and solar systems, where shall we find a reason for all this apparently unconscious existence, infinite in amount compared with the existence which is conscious—a waste Universe as it seems? Then behind these mysteries lies the all-embracing mystery—whence this universal transformation which has gone on unceasingly throughout a past eternity and will go on unceasingly throughout a future eternity? And along with this rises the paralysing thought—what if, of all that is thus incomprehensible to us, there exists no comprehension anywhere? No wonder that men take refuge in authoritative dogma!"
"So is it, too, with our own natures. No less inscrutable is this complex consciousness which has slowly evolved out of infantine vacuity—consciousness which, during the development of every creature, makes its appearance out of what seems unconscious matter; suggesting the thought that consciousness in some rudimentary form is omnipresent. Lastly come the insoluble questions concerning our own fate: the evidence seeming so strong that the relations of mind and nervous structure are such that cessation of the one accompanies dissolution of the other, while, simultaneously, comes the thought, so strange and so difficult to realise, that with death there lapses both the consciousness of existence and the consciousness of having existed."
"Thus religious creeds, which in one way or other occupy the sphere that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and fails the more the more it seeks, I have come to regard with a sympathy based on community of need: feeling that dissent from them results from inability to accept the solutions offered, joined with the wish that solutions could be found" (1893).