But now comes the question, who or what is answerable for the Reviewer's misconception,—Spencer or his critics? Is it the poverty of language, or the law of controversial sequency,—a law under which every thought arises as antagonistic to some other thought, and afterwards, when arisen and firmly established so as to become the subject of analysis, is found to yield more than was at first conceived. Then, of course, another antithesis arises respecting it, and we have to decide how much and what is truly meant, a question which often comes before us in this shape:—Is our thought merely the not so and so, or is it a real substantive idea? In the former case it is one-sided and negative; in the latter it is many-sided and affirmative.
At the first blush, it seems natural to blame Mr. Herbert Spencer. Every one must feel astonished to find how much he himself knows of the Unknowable. The following sentences, however, contain a good account of one amongst his principal explanations of this apparent incongruity. Speaking of Mr. Martineau's conception of the Creator,[135] he writes (Essays, Vol. III. p. 299):—
"Finding, as just shewn, that it leaves the essential mystery unsolved; I do not see that it has an advantage over the doctrine of the Unknowable in its unqualified shape. There cannot, I think, be more than temporary rest in a proximate solution which takes for its basis the ultimately insoluble. Just as thought cannot be prevented from passing beyond Appearance, and trying to conceive the Cause behind; so, following out the interpretation Mr. Martineau offers, thought cannot be prevented from asking what Cause it is which restricts the Cause he assigns. And if we must admit that the question under this eventual form cannot be answered, may we not as well confess that the question under its immediate form cannot be answered? Is it not better candidly to acknowledge the incompetence of our intelligence, rather than to persist in calling that an explanation which does but disguise the inexplicable? Whatever answer each may give to this question, he cannot rightly blame those who, finding in themselves an indestructible consciousness of an ultimate Cause, whence proceed alike what we call the Material Universe and what we call Mind, refrain from affirming anything respecting it; because they find it as inscrutable in nature, as it is inconceivable in extent and duration."
There will be to many people much force in this plea for leaving inscrutables amidst their primary obscurities. But it is open to a rejoinder suggested by Mr. Spencer himself,—you cannot prevent the Mind from inquiring; and, in point of fact, Spencer in person leads the way. He places before us the ultimate idea of a self-existent First Cause. Now surely he might reflect that such an Idea not only permits but invites analysis;—it is no empty abstraction, but a substantive thought and a full one. But he bars analysis to his own satisfaction, by saying that the Idea is in its own Nature inscrutable. Respecting this position two questions arise. First, if inscrutable as to its ultimate nature—its highest essence, and deepest thought,—is it so in its attributes? Next, if Spencer's special walk in philosophy ends with the bare positing of this Idea, must all Philosophy do the same? Suppose the Physicist says—"Here I learn to know the Fact of a self-existent universal First Cause," may not the investigator of our Practical human Reason try to discover whether an Ethical view ought or ought not to be taken of this Self-Existent? To answer "No," is either to make physical philosophy the sole philosophy; or it is to dismember and disjoint the universal Body of Truth into departmental carcase-fragments;—a process which never can begin till all Life has been effectually crushed out of the Whole.[136] For every one who takes wide views of Philosophy;—for every inquirer into First Principles;—above all, if Mr. Spencer will permit us to say so, for every Encyclopædic writer like himself, a question must arise the answer to which it is incumbent on all and each to ascertain, "Can we have any conscious idea whatever of a First Cause without including that very fact of Personality from which Spencer appears to shrink?" Nay we may rather put the point thus: "Is not our idea and definition of Causality derived from Personal existence, and apart from this source of derivation, does not the derived idea perish?"—If so, to speak of a non-personal First Cause both of the outside world and of mind itself is to use words to which no thinker can consciously attach any real meaning. There must, says Mr. Spencer, be Power behind Appearance;—in other words, Phenomena imply a Cause behind them,—but to add that this Power or Cause is conceivably impersonal, seems nothing better than to imagine (Hibernicè) at the beginning of the phenomenal chain, a prior phenomenon which in its own nature and ex vi verborum cannot account for a Beginning[137] at all;—cannot, to use Mr. Spencer's expression, be "ultimate"; and, in short, requires to be accounted for, itself.
The truth is, that such ideas as First, Ultimate, Power accounting for appearance, or Cause underlying phenomena, cannot be spoken of as altogether Unknowable; because they imply and contain within themselves certain knowable and strongly defined characteristics. Pressed by his critics, Mr. Spencer becomes painfully aware of this truth; and is fearful of being driven by logic and philosophical consistency to plead guilty of believing in a Personal Author of the Universe, and of making Theism the ultimate word of Science. We see on pp. 292 and 302 of Vol. III. how he manifests a preference for the phrase non-relative, vice Absolute; meaning thereby (if he means anything new) to replace an affirmative idea by a negational abstract, empty enough to land him at once in American Positivism. For, if the non-relative means more than to say that he is unable to predicate relativity of the whole Universe of things—if it means more than an avowal of Positivist ignorance—it really does mean a true Absolute after all; and very few students of Mr. Spencer will doubt that in the sense of an Absolute (not necessarily Hegelian), this ground idea of his must be accepted.
As courteous antagonists, we will endeavour to abstain from joining with Mr. Sidgwick in the severest censure which has yet befallen Mr. Spencer,—the imputation of a "mazy inconsistency," a "fundamental incoherence," and an "inability to harmonize different lines of thought." We rather wish to congratulate him on presenting such an appearance before the eye of a critic so accomplished, and so equitable; it is a sign that we have not as yet heard Mr. Spencer's final utterance. He is, we are quite sure, divided by a wide tract of thought from the American Positivists;—but we are not sure that he may not ultimately be found amid the ranks of Scientific Theists. This at the present moment appears the most natural development of the thoughts maintained in his recently published volume. That the nature of God, considered as the "ultimate cause of what we call the material universe and what we call mind," is to us at present inscrutable;—that clouds and darkness are round about Him;—that His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, no meditative Theist will deny. But, though the Heavens are higher than the Earth, though beatified spirits worship in humble adoration of the Incomprehensible, yet the measureless distance does not hinder us from knowing Him as a Spirit, and therefore as a Person; nor yet from confidently affirming that Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation of His throne.
G.—MR. J. S. MILL AS AN INDEPENDENT MORALIST.
Few passages of Mr. Mill's writings are better worth reading than pages 123, 4, of his "Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy." In these pages the eminent writer asserts his own strong moral sentiments, and throws to the winds that inconsistent Utilitarianism with which he had trained his mind to associate them. He will worship no Unknowable Being whose supreme moral nature does not affirm our human morality. "Why is this?" an opponent might fairly ask; "is it not useful so to do? is not such worship conducive to that noblest final end, the interest of mankind?" By saying "No" you affirm two things: one, the dissociation of Religion from Utility; a second, the indivisible association of Religion with absolute Morality.
Some antagonists may consider the first of these two propositions inadmissible, the second objectionable, or at all events, exceedingly doubtful. Every one who maintains that Natural Theology has, in addition to its other elements, a firm and moral ground, will accept with ready assent the second proposition, and will say that the truth or falsehood of the first depends on the meaning attached to an ambiguous word. We are equally sure that "Godliness is profitable for all things," and that "Honesty is the best policy." But then we are quite sure also, that the final cause of Godliness is not profit, nor its essential nature a love of gain; and that policy is not a true description of honesty, nor the being politic the true and proper aim of the honest man. And Mr. Mill, when his moral sentiments asserted themselves, felt these certainties as elements of his inner life. Rather than worship a Being whose unknown moral attributes fell beneath, not the dictates of Utility, but the purest instincts of his own inmost morality, Mr. Mill goes on to declare that he is willing to suffer the horrors of Eternal death.[138] Hell is better than a violation of his own moral nature. Can this be a declaration deduced from the supreme law of Interest,—is it not rather a foundation maxim of independent morality? Violate such foundation maxims, says the independent moralist, and you need not even speak of "Going to hell," hell will come to you. Sooner or later you will find its undying torments within you.