CHAPTER III.
THEISM.
Review of the Principal Metaphysical Hypotheses which will Replace Dogma.
I. Introduction—Progress of metaphysical hypothesis—Metaphysical hypotheses destined to increasing diversity in details, and increasing agreement on essential points—Importance of the moral element in metaphysical hypotheses—The part played by conscience in human morality will not diminish, as Mr. Spencer says—Sympathetic groups under which divers systems of metaphysics will be ranged.
II. Theism—1. Probable fate of the creation hypothesis—The author of the world conceived as a prime mover—Eternity of movement—The author of the world conceived as a creator properly so called—Illusion involved in the conception of nothing—Criticism of the creation hypothesis from the point of view of morals: the problem of evil and of the responsibility of the creator—Attempts to save optimism—Hypothesis of a God creating free agents, “workmen” and not “work”—Reciprocal determinism and the illusion of spontaneity—Immorality of the temptation—Hypothesis of the fall, its impossibility—God the tempter—Lucifer and God—2. Probable fate of the notion of Providence—Hypotheses to explain a special Providence and miracles thus insufficient—Hypothesis of a non-omnipotent God proposed by John Stuart Mill—The God of Comtism—Religion should be not solely human but cosmic—The fate of the philosophical idea of God—Rational religion proposed by the neo-Kantians—Ultimate transformation of the notion of Divinity and of Providence—Human Providence and progressive Divinity in the world.
I. Introduction—Progress of metaphysical hypothesis.
Trend visible in metaphysical speculation.
To say that humanity, in its search for a plausible explanation of the world, finds itself in the presence of a great number of hypotheses among which it must choose does not mean that these hypotheses should be regarded with a benevolent neutrality, that they are equivalent in the eyes of reason. Far from it: we believe that metaphysical hypotheses already are following a certain general direction and will continue to do so in the future. Our conception of the unknown will become precise as our knowledge of the knowable becomes complete. Even morals, which vary so markedly from country to country, tend to approach a single type and to become identical among all civilized peoples. The same may be said of the practical part of all religions. Rites become every day simpler, and dogmas do the same, and metaphysical hypotheses will do the same. By the progress of human thought, the avenues that lead to truth will be better known. We regard it as certain, for example, that all effort will be abandoned, if it has not been abandoned already, to conceive mankind’s ideal as embodied in the jealous and evil God of the Bible.
Number of metaphysical hypotheses not destined to decrease.
The angle at which different human beings look out upon the ideal will continually diminish; and as the angle diminishes, the power of vision will increase, and this unexpected result will follow: that metaphysical hypotheses concerning the world, and its destiny will never be less numerous nor less varied, in spite of the increasing convergence. Human thought may even become more personal, more original, fuller of delicate distinctions, and at the same time less inconsistent as one passes from mind to mind. As mankind approximates the truth its details will become more various, and the beauty of the whole more marked. An approach to certitude augments the dignity and probability of the possible hypotheses without diminishing their number. Astronomy, for example, has increased the sum of the known truths about celestial bodies and at the same time multiplied the number of possible hypotheses concerning them; the most definite knowledge may thus be the most fertile in views of every sort, even of obscure ones. As the human mind progresses it will see the aspects of nature diversify and the laws of nature unify. This evening from Sermione, the peninsula dear to Catullus, I saw on the surface of Lago di Garda the reflection of as many stars as I could have seen had I lifted my eyes to heaven. Each star reflected in the lake was in reality nothing but a brilliant drop of water, close to my hand; each of the stars in heaven is a world separate from me by an infinite reach of space; the stars of heaven and of the lake were, however, to me the same. The real distance of things and the depth of the universe escape the human eye. But science corrects the eye, measures distances at their just worth, probes ever deeper into the vault of heaven, distinguishing objects from their reflections. Science takes account at once of the place of the ray in the water and of its origin in the sky. It will perhaps one day discover, in an infinitely magnified expanse of thought, the primitive and central spring of light which as yet communicates with us only by reflection and broken rays and flying scintillations from some unstable mirror.