Pessimism will be treated of along with other anti-theistic theories. The fact that religion is a natural and universal phenomenon, as widespread as humanity and as old as its history, and the fact insisted on in the lecture, that religion can only realise its proper nature in a theistic form, give us, when adequately established, the modern and scientific statement of the old argument—e consensu gentium. This argument, which we already meet with in Cicero (De Nat. Deor., i. 17; Tusc. Ques., i. 13; De Leg., i. 8) and Seneca (Epist. 117), in Clement of Alexandria (Strom., v. 14) and Lactantius (Div. Inst., i. 2), has gradually grown into the science of comparative theology. An instructive essay might be written on its development.
Mr J. S. Mill, who had obviously no suspicion that there had been any development of the kind, criticised the argument in his essay on Theism, pp. 154-160. He was entirely mistaken in representing it as an appeal to authority—"to the opinions of mankind generally, and especially of some of its wisest men." It has certainly very rarely—probably never—been advanced in a form which could justify such an account of it. He was also mistaken in supposing that it had any necessary connection with the view which ascribes to men "an intuitive perception, or an instinctive sense, of Deity." I agree with his objections to that view; but the argument does not imply it. If it prove that man's mental constitution is such that, in the presence of the facts of nature and life, religion necessarily arises, and that the demands of reason, heart, and conscience, in which it originates, can only be satisfied by the worship and service of one God, with the attributes which theism assigns to Him, it has accomplished all that can reasonably be expected from it.
Mr Mill was, however, it seems to me, perfectly correct in holding that the mere prevalence of the belief in Deity afforded no ground for inferring that the belief was native to the mind in the sense of independent of evidence. In no form ought the argument from general consent to be regarded as a primary argument. It is an evidence that there are direct evidences—and when kept in this its proper place it has no inconsiderable value—but it cannot be urged as a direct and independent argument. This is a most important consideration, which is in danger of being overlooked in the present day. Some authors would actually contrast the argument for theism or Christianity derivable from the comparative study of religion with the ordinary or formal proofs, and would substitute it for them, not seeing that, although powerful in connection with, and dependence on, these proofs, it has little relevancy or weight when dissociated from them.
The two recent writers who have made most use of the argument are, perhaps, Ebrard, who has devoted to it the whole of the second volume of his Apologetics, and Baumstark, whose 'Christian Apologetics on an Anthropological Basis' has for its exclusive aim to prove that man has been made for religion, and that the non-Christian religions do not, while Christianity does, satisfy his religious cravings and needs. In this country we ought not to forget the service which Mr Maurice rendered by his 'Religions of the World,' and Mr Hardwicke by his 'Christ and other Masters.'
The position maintained by Sir John Lubbock, that religion is not a universal phenomenon, and that advocated by Comte, that it is a temporary and transitional phenomenon, will be examined in the volume on Anti-theism.
Note IX., page [75].
The Theistic Evidence Complex and Comprehensive.
Cousin has said, "There are different proofs of the existence of God. The consoling result of my studies is, that these different proofs are more or less strict in form, but they have all a depth of truth which needs only to be disengaged and put in a clear light, in order to give incontestable authority. Everything leads to God. There is no bad way of arriving at Him, but we go to Him by different paths."