Doubt as distinguished from scepticism.
II. Although the suppression of religious dogma does not lead to scepticism, it decidedly does lead to doubt, and we believe that the modern sense of doubt represents a higher stage of civilization than the faith in dogma that distinguished former times. Religious faith is distinguished from philosophic belief by a subjective difference. If the man of faith is not altogether blind, at least he perceives but one point in the intellectual horizon; he has focussed his intelligence upon some one plot of ground, and the rest of the world does not exist for him; he returns day after day to his chosen corner, to the little nest he has made for his thoughts to dwell in, as we said above—returns as a dove returns to the dovecote and sees but it in the immensity of space. Fanaticism marks a still further degree of contraction in one’s intellectual vision. On the contrary, the greater the progress of reflection in the history of the human race, the more completely religious faith becomes merged in, and subordinated to, philosophic conviction; the two cease to be distinguishable except by a difference in the degree of doubt that they involve, a doubt which itself rests upon a clearness in one’s vision of things. As reflection becomes more profound, it manifests here as everywhere its destructive influence upon instinct; everything that is instinctive, primitive, and naïve in faith disappears, and, along with it, disappears everything that constituted its strength, that made it so powerful in the human heart. True strength lies in the human reason, in complete self-consciousness, in a consciousness of the problems of life, of their complexity, of their difficulties.
Ideal gradation of faith.
Faith, as we have seen, consists in affirming things not capable of objective verification, with the same subjective satisfaction as if they could be verified: in attributing to the uncertain as great a value as to the certain—nay, perhaps a greater value. The ideal of the philosopher, on the contrary, would be a perfect correspondence between conclusiveness of evidence and degree of belief. The intellectual satisfaction that we take in our beliefs, the degree of tenacity with which we hold them, should vary precisely with the completeness and certainty of our knowledge. A primitive intelligence cannot be content to remain in suspense, it must decide one way or the other; it is the mark of a more perfect intelligence to remain in doubt in reference to what is doubtful. Credulity is intellectual original sin.
Uncertainty of metaphysics.
Employing the word certitude strictly for what is certain, and meaning by belief what is plausible or probable only, when one is investigating some mere matter of fact, one may in the end be able to say positively such and such is certain, is what the future will affirm on this point; but, when the degree of certitude involved amounts to no more than to probability or even possibility, and to metaphysical possibility at that, it is ridiculous to say: “I believe such and such a thing; such and such is therefore the dogma that everybody ought to adopt.” Such positive basis for metaphysical inductions as exists is too uneven not to result in a divergence in the lines of the hypotheses which rise from it into the obscure heights of the unknown; no two of our glances toward the infinite are parallel; our attempts at solving metaphysical problems are little more than rockets shot capriciously into the sky. The philosopher can do little more than take cognizance of the divergence of rival hypotheses, and of their equality and equal insufficiency in the eye of reason.
Postulates for purposes of practice.
But the problem of action presents itself to the philosopher no less than to the rest of mankind. For purposes of conduct some one among the diverging lines of human speculation must be chosen; philosophic thought must be left to describe its curves and circles above our heads while we walk, if not sure-footedly at least in some definite direction, upon the earth. One is sometimes for practical purposes obliged to rely on doubtful premises as if they were certain. Such a choice, however, is simply an inferior and exceptional means of choosing among hypotheses which one has neither the time nor the power exactly to test. One cuts loose from one’s doubts, but the expedient is a purely practical one; cutting the Gordian knots of life cannot be adopted as one’s habitual intellectual procedure. Faith which leans with an equal sense of security upon the certain and the uncertain, the evident and the doubtful, should be but a provisional state of mind forced upon one by some practical necessity. One ought never, so to speak, to believe once for all, to subscribe one’s allegiance forever. Faith should never be regarded as more than a second best, and a provisional second best. The instant that action is no longer necessary, one must revert to one’s doubt, to one’s scruples, to all the precautions of science. Kant did violence to the natural order of things when he ascribed to faith and morals a predominance over reasoning; when he gave to the practical reason, whose commandments may be the expression simply of acquired habits, control over the critical and scientific reason. His moral philosophy consists in erecting a foregone conclusion into a rule, whereas, as a matter of fact, one ought not to make up one’s mind definitely until all the evidence is in, until every alternative choice has been considered and rejected, if at all, on good grounds; our beliefs should be relied upon in practice exactly in proportion to their probability in the actual state of our knowledge. Alternatives do not exist in the outer world, they do not exist in a state of complete knowledge. The moral ideal is not to multiply them, nor to make a leap in the dark the habitual method of intellectual procedure. There is no such thing as a categorical imperative or a religious credo for the traveller under unknown skies; he is not to be saved by faith but by active and constant self-control, by the spirit of doubt and criticism.
Doubt and the religious sentiment.