Footnotes
[3] The Idea of God as affected by Modern Knowledge, Boston, 1885.
III
Weakness of Materialism
Just here comes along the materialist and asks us some questions, tries to serve on us a kind of metaphysical writ of quo warranto. If modern physics leads us inevitably to the conception of a single infinite Power manifested in all the phenomena of the knowable Universe, by what authority do we identify that Power with the indwelling Deity as conceived by St. Athanasius? The Athanasian Deity is to some extent fashioned in Man's image; he is, to say the least, like the psychical part of ourselves. After making all possible allowances for the gulf which separates that which is Infinite and Absolute from that which is Finite and Relative, an essential kinship is asserted between God and the Human Soul. By what authority, our materialist will ask, do we assert any such kinship between the Human Soul and the Power which modern physics reveals as active throughout the universe? Is it not going far beyond our knowledge to assert any such kinship? And would it not be more modest and becoming in us to simply designate this ever active universal Power by some purely scientific term, such as Force?
This argument is to-day a very familiar one, and it wears a plausible aspect; it is couched in a spirit of scientific reserve, which wins for it respectful consideration. The modest and cautious spirit of science has done so much for us, that it is always wise to give due heed to its warnings. Let us beware of going beyond our knowledge, says the materialist. We know nothing but phenomena as manifestations of an indwelling force; nor have we any ground for supposing that there is anything psychical, or even quasi-psychical, in the universe outside of the individual minds of men and other animals. Moreover, continues the materialist, the psychical phenomena of which we are conscious—reason, memory, emotion, volition—are but peculiarly conditioned manifestations of the same indwelling force which under other conditions appears as light or heat or electricity. All such manifestations are fleeting, and beyond this world of fleeting phenomena we have no warrant, either in science or in common sense, for supposing that anything whatever exists. This world that is cognizable through the senses is all that there is, and the story of it that we can decipher by the aid of terrestrial experience is the whole story; the Unseen World is a mere figment inherited from the untutored fancy of primeval man. Such is the general view of things which Materialism urges upon us with the plea of scientific sobriety and caution; and to many minds, as already observed, it wears a plausible aspect.
Nevertheless, when subjected to criticism, this theory of things soon loses its sober and plausible appearance and is seen to be eminently rash and shallow. In the first place, there is no such correlation or equivalence as is alleged between physical forces and the phenomena of consciousness. The correlations between different modes of motion have been proved by actual quantitative measurement, and never could have been proved in any other way. We know, for example, that heat is a mode of motion; the heat that will raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree of Fahrenheit is exactly equivalent to the motion of 772 pounds falling through a distance of one foot. In similar wise we know that light, electricity, and magnetism are modes of motion, transferable one into another; and, although precise measurements have not been accomplished, there is no reason for doubting that the changes in brain tissue, which accompany each thought and feeling, are also modes of motion, transferable into the other physical modes. But thought and feeling themselves, which can neither be weighed nor measured, do not admit of being resolved into modes of motion. They do not enter into the closed circuit of physical transformations, but stand forever outside of it, and concentric with that segment of the circuit which passes through the brain. It may be that thought and feeling could not continue to exist if that physical segment of the circuit were taken away. It may be that they could. To assume that they could not is surely the height of rash presumption. The correlation of forces exhibits Mind as in nowise a product of Matter, but as something in its growth and manifestations outside and parallel. It is incompatible with the theory that the relation of the human soul to the body is like that of music to the harp; but it is quite compatible with the time-honoured theory of the human soul as indwelling in the body and escaping from it at death.
In the second place, when we come to the denial of all kinship between the human soul and the Infinite Power that is revealed in all phenomena, the materialistic theory raises difficulties as great as those which it seeks to avoid. The difficulties which it wishes to avoid are those which inevitably encumber the attempt to conceive of Deity as Personality exerting volition and cherishing intelligent purpose. Such difficulties are undeniably great; nay, they are insuperable. When we speak of Intelligence and Will and Personality, we must use these words with the meanings in which experience has clothed them, or we shall soon find ourselves talking nonsense. The only intelligence we know is strictly serial in its nature, and is limited by the existence of independent objects of cognition. What flight of analogy can bear us across the gulf that divides such finite intelligence from that unlimited Knowledge to which all things past and future are ever present? Volition, as we know it, implies alternative courses of action, antecedent motives, and resulting effort. Like intelligence, its operations are serial. What, then, do we really mean, if we speak of omnipresent Volition achieving at one and the same moment an infinite variety of ends? So, too, with Personality: when we speak of personality that is not circumscribed by limits, are we not using language from which all the meaning has evaporated?