Furthermore, by declaring the phenomenal cannot be thought in and by itself without the Infinite Something that underlies it as its ground or reality, and then declaring that something to be unknowable, unthinkable even, the new system declares that there is no knowable, and consequently no science or knowledge at all. The new system of philosophy, then, reconciles science and religion only in a universal negation, that is, by really denying both. This can hardly satisfy either a scientist or a Christian.
In the second part, Mr. Spencer defines philosophy to us, as near as we can come at his sense, to be the unification of the several religions and several sciences in their respective or special generalizations in a generalization that comprehends them all. Generalization with him means the elimination of the differentia, or abstraction. He therefore, in making philosophy a generalization, makes it an abstraction, and, so to speak, the abstraction of all particular abstractions. But abstractions in themselves are nullities, and consequently philosophy is a nullity, and science and religion are nullities. Mr. Spencer maintains that we have “symbolic conceptions,” in which nothing is conceived—symbols which symbolize nothing. Is his “new system of philosophy” anything but a generalization and unification of these “symbolic conceptions”?
Mr. Spencer starts with the assumption that all religions, including atheism, have a verity in common as well as an error. The verity must be that in which they all agree; the error, in their differences, or in the matters in which they do not agree. Eliminate the differences and take what is common to them all,
and you will have the universal verity which they all assert. But what verity is common to truth and falsehood, to theism and atheism? The verity common to religion and science, that the solution of the cosmic mystery is unknowable? But that is not a verity; it is a mere negation, and all truth is affirmative.
Atheism is not a religion, but the negation of all religion. Exclude that, take all religions from fetichism to Christianity inclusive; eliminate the differentia, and take what they all agree in asserting. Be it so. All religions, without a single exception, however rude or however polished, agree in asserting the supernatural, and that, if the cosmic mystery is inexplicable by human means, it is explicable by supernatural means. A true application of Mr. Spencer’s rule, the consensus hominum, would assert as the common verity the supernatural, that is, the supercosmic, which is precisely what the cosmic philosophy denies and is invented to deny. Mr. Spencer does not appear to be master of his own tools.
All religions concede that the cosmic mystery is inexplicable by our unassisted powers, by secondary causes, or by physical laws; but none of them admits that it is absolutely inexplicable, for each religion professes to be its explanation. Mr. Spencer is wrong in asserting that all are seeking to solve the cosmic mystery; for each proposes itself as its solution, and it is only as such that it claims to be or can be called a religion. The question for the philosopher is, Do any of these religions give us a solution which reason, in the freest and fullest exercise of its powers, can accept, and, if so, which one is it?
Mr. Spencer tells us, p. 32: “Respecting the origin of the universe, three verbally intelligible suppositions may be made. We may assert that
it is self-existent, or that it is self-created, or that it is created by an external agency.” The second supposition he rejects as the pantheistic hypothesis, which is a mistake, for no pantheist or anybody else asserts that the universe creates itself. The pantheist denies that it is created at all; and the philosopher denies that it creates itself; for, since to create is to act, self-creation would require the universe to act before it existed. The third supposition, which the author calls “the theistical hypothesis,” he denies, because it explains nothing, and is useless. He explains it to mean that the universe is produced by an artificer, after the manner of a human artificer in producing a piece of furniture from materials furnished to his hand. “But whence come the materials?” The question might be pertinent if asked of Plato or Aristotle, neither of whom was a theist; but not when asked of a Christian theologian, who holds that God creates or created all things from nothing, that is, without pre-existing materials, by “the sole word of his power.”
The first supposition, the self-existence of the universe, the author denies, not because the universe is manifestly contingent and must have had a beginning, and therefore a cause or creator; but because self-existence is absolutely inconceivable, an impossible idea. He says, p. 35: “The hypothesis of the creation of the universe by an external agency is quite useless; it commits us to an infinite series of such agencies, and then leaves us where it found us.” “Those who cannot conceive of the self-existence of the universe, and therefore assume a creator as the source of the universe, take it for granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator. The mystery of the great fact surrounding them
on every side they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact, and then suppose they have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves, as was proved in the outset of the argument. Self-existence is rigorously inconceivable, and this holds true whatever be the nature of the object [subject] of which it is predicated. Whoever argues that the atheistical hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistical hypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible idea.” But who ever argued that the atheistical hypothesis is untenable because it involves the idea of self-existence? Atheism is denied because it asserts the self-existence of that which cannot be, and is known not to be, self-existent.