before Harvard College, contends that the cosmic philosophy is not atheistical, because it asserts in the unknowable an infinite power, being, or reality, that underlies the cosmic phenomena, of which they are the sensible manifestations; yet this does not relieve it, because what is asserted is not God, and is not pretended to be the God of theism, but the reality or substance of the cosmos and indistinguishable from it. It is the real, as the phenomena are the apparent, cosmos.
The author denies that he is a pantheist, for he denies the hypothesis of self-creation; but, if he is not a pantheist, it is only because he does not call the unknowable infinite power or being he asserts as the reality of the cosmos, that is, the real cosmos, by the name of God, Deus, or Theos. But asserting that power as the reality or substance of the cosmic phenomena is precisely what is meant by pantheism. Pantheism, in its modern form, is the assertion of one only substance, which is the reality of the cosmic phenomena, and the denial of the creation of finite substances, which are the real subject of the cosmic manifestations. Pantheism denies the creation of substances or second causes, and asserts that all phenomena are simply the appearances of the one infinite and only substance; and this is precisely what Mr. Spencer undeniably does. The only difference between atheism and pantheism is purely verbal. The atheist calls the reality asserted cosmos or nature, and the pantheist calls it God, but both assert one and the same thing. The power Mr. Spencer asserts is simply the natura naturans of Spinoza, and that is nothing the atheist himself does not accept, and, indeed, assert. Neither asserts, nor does Mr. Spencer assert, any supercosmic being, or power
on which the cosmos depends, and the power they do assert is as much cosmic as the phenomena themselves. Mr. Spencer’s protest betrays rare theological and philosophical ignorance, or is a mere verbal quibble, unworthy a man who even pretends to be a philosopher.
Mr. Spencer hardly once refers to Christian theology, and, without ever having studied it, evidently would have us think that he considers it beneath his attention. Yet he, as evidently, has constructed his system for the purpose of undermining and disposing of it once for all. This may be seen in the fact that, when he refers to religion at all, it is always to some heathen superstition, which he assumes to be the type or germ of all religion, carefully ignoring the patriarchal, Hebrew, or Christian religion. He tells us “the earliest traditions represent rulers as gods or demigods.” This is not true even of heathenism, which is in fact an apostasy from the patriarchal or primitive religion, or its corruption. The apotheosis of Romulus, according to tradition, took place only after his death, and it is only at a later period that the pagan emperors were held to be gods during their lifetime. Mr. Spencer’s real or affected ignorance of the whole order of religious thought is marvellous, and we cannot forbear saying:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
There is no philosophy or science, if God and his creative act are excluded or ignored, because there is no cosmos left, and neither a subject to know nor an object to be known.
Mr. Spencer misapprehends the relations of religion and science, and consequently the conditions of their reconciliation. He says they are the two opposite poles of one and the
same globe. This is a mistake. Religion and science are indeed parts of one whole; but religion, while it includes science, supplements it by the analogical knowledge called faith. The truths of faith and of science are always in dialectic harmony, and between the Christian faith and real science there is no quarrel, and can be none; for religion only supplies the defect of science, and puts the mind in possession of the solution of the problem of man and the universe, not attainable by science.
There is a quarrel only when the scientists, in the name of science, deny or impugn the supplementary truths of revelation, and which are at least as certain as any scientific truths or facts are or can be; or when they reject the great principles of reason itself, which are the basis of all science. Let the scientists confine themselves, as we have said, to the study and classification of facts, or the development and application to them of the undoubted principles of the intuitive reason, and not attempt to go beyond their province or the proper field of scientific investigation, and there will be no quarrel between them and the theologians. The quarrel arises when men like Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and others, profoundly ignorant both of philosophy and of theology, or the teachings of revelation, ignoring them, despising them, or regarding them with sovereign contempt, put forth baseless theories and hypotheses incompatible with the truths alike of reason and faith; and it will continue till they learn that an unproved and unprovable theory or hypothesis is not science, nor a scientific explanation of the facts either of the soul or of the cosmos, and is quite insufficient to warrant a denial of the belief of the great bulk of mankind from the first man down to our own
day. Then there may be peace between the theologians and the scientists, but not till then.