I HAVE TAKEN THE case of Disease because it is less open to the ambiguities and difficulties which beset a moral problem, but a similar discrepancy might be pointed out between the theological precepts and the moral practices. Here, as everywhere, it is patent that as knowledge advances, Theology loses its hold; and Morality, instead of remaining stationary like Theology, advances with an enlarging insight into the healthy conditions of human relations. Science is often taunted with its imperfections and its inability to explain the mysteries of life. Imperfect it is, and that is why we should all strive to make it less so. Mysteries will doubtless for ever encompass us. But Science may answer the taunt by challenging Theology to show that its explanation of the mysteries has any claim to our acceptance. The question is not whether an explanation can be given, but whether the given explanation has any verifiable evidence. Kant has truly said that now Criticism has take its place among the disintegratory agencies, no system can pretend to escape its jurisdiction. The Church has it texts, and has decided once for all what meaning these texts must bear. But the criticism of scientific method asks for the evidence which can prove these interpretations to be in agreement with fact. In both respects the answer is unequivocal. There is no evidence to prove the texts. The interpretations are discordant with experience. Thus the Catholic who accepts Galileo and Newton must give up the texts, or take the first step towards Protestantism, which asserts the right of interpreting the texts according to private judgment. And the Protestant who asserts this right of interpretation, and forsakes the literal meaning of the texts, has taken a step towards Rationalism, and implicitly disavowed the authority of the texts, since what he obeys is not their teaching, but the teaching of the culture of his day and sect. The Rationalist, in turn, has taken a step towards the scientific position; he regards the texts as symbols of an earlier stage of culture, which need the interpretation of our present culture; and when he learns—as easily he may learn—that all the facts of the moral world are to be investigated and systematised on the same principles as the facts of the physical world, setting aside in the one as in the other all supernatural and metempirical conceptions, because these cannot enter into the framework of Knowledge, he will learn that Science, in the true meaning of the term, embraces Nature and Human Nature, and moreover that it expresses what is known of both, whereas Theology is only “the false persuasion of knowledge.”
Many readers may vehemently deny the assertion just made. They will maintain the validity of theological explanations, all the more because, persisting in the old confusion of Theology with Religion, they refuse to acknowledge that a science of Nature and Human Nature, if truly expressing the facts, must be a better foundation for Religion than a Theology which untruly expresses those facts. The whole contest lies between the two modes of explanation and the results reached by such modes. I accept the appeal to History. This shows how in proportion as knowledge because exact and orderly in each department of inquiry, the supernatural and metempirical explanations were silently withdrawn in favour of natural and experiential explanations. Nowadays, among the cultivated minds of Europe, it is only in the less-explored regions of research, where argument is made to do duty for observation, that the supernatural and metempirical explanations hold their ground. When Science has fairly mastered the principles of moral relations as it has mastered the principles of physical relations, all Knowledge will be incorporated in a homogeneous doctrine rivalling that of the old theologies in its comprehensiveness, and surpassing it in the authority of its credentials. “Christian Ethics” will then no longer mean Ethics founded on the principles of Christian Theology, but on the principles expressing the social relations and duties of man in Christianised society. Then, and not till then, will the conflict between Theology and Science finally cease; then, and not till then, will the dread and dislike of Science disappear.
– No. CXXXVIII N.S. 1878. Minor edits. Manually transcribed exclusively for the New Series. To obtain the unedited text or for complete bibliographical information, please see the copyright page for instructions. Please note The Fortnightly Review [New Series] and fortnightlyreview.co.uk in citations based on this transcription.
Anthony Trollope’s obituary of G.H. Lewes, published in The Fortnightly Review on 1 January 1879 (and republished in an abridged version in The New York Times on 16 February 1879), is available online at Ellen Moody‘s website.
[1]<!–[endif]–> When one observes those who believe Hospitals and Colleges to be important institutions, socially beneficial, threatening to withdraw all support unless the teachers openly declare what they do not believe, namely, that vivisection for scientific ends is unjustifiable, one is reminded of the recent outbreak of fanaticism on the part of the Jains. This Hindoo sect has such a horror at the destruction of animal life that a group of the most fervent murdered all the Mussulman butchers in the neighbourhood.
One Comment
Scientific Religion: An Old Question.
“In the centre of the world-whirlwind, verily now, as in the oldest days, dwells and speaks a God.” – Carlyle.
“Our little systems have their day; They have their day, and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee. And thou, O Lord, art more than they.” – “In Memoriam”.
…Mr. George Henry Lewes pours out his sorrow at the perversity of many of his fellow men; in that they foolishly rail at and even express a dread of science as science, although their daily life, with its struggles and sorrows, is continually aided and relieved by the many successful results of scientific research. “There are men of culture,” says Mr. Lewes, “who take pride in expressing their indifference to science.” They are too fond of saying, with the morbid hero of Maud, that the man of science is “fonder of glory, and vain,” and even go on to declare that, though his eye is “well-practised in nature” yet his spirit is “bounded and poor.”
The scientific man refrains from continuing the quotation (which might snub an ordinary man of culture) — “the passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice” — not so much because he thinks it untrue, but simply because it is insufficient to express all his contempt for the benighted devotee of culture, and culture alone. However, it may at once be granted that a man who says he despises science is a very foolish man. Nor, of course, would Mr. Lewes have a very high opinion of a scientific prig, who declared that the time spent in studying literature was time wasted. Neither the one nor the other is to be despised.
But is there any real antagonism? Let us follow Mr. Lewes through some of his arguments.
He first endeavours to prove his assertion — that there does exist a dread and a dislike of science; and then he proceeds to give what he considers to be the causes. Mr. Lewes grants at once that science was never so popular as at present. But he complains that there are still persons who harbour unreasonable prejudices against it, based on misconceptions, which are the causes of a strong dislike. The anti-vivisectionists are some of these prejudiced persons — such at least as object to vivisection, because the experiments are made for scientific purposes alone. Those who sympathize with animal suffering, and endeavour to repress all unnecessary infliction of it are fully respected by Mr. Lewes; but too often the men who object to vivisection on these grounds are (perhaps thoughtlessly) tolerant of an enormous amount of torture yearly inflicted on animals, either to please their palate, or gratify their desire for sport. Mr. Lewes of course puts his point forcibly; and, we must say, we think he has the best of the argument. We ought not to charge scientific men with the “selfish motive of acquiring reputations;” though in some few cases (and those are, for the most part, foreign ones) the charge may not have been quite undeserved. Wars, and other evils, are tolerated without complaint, if the motive is commercial advantage; all these things are so because science is not recognised as a social benefit.
Having thus shown the existence of this dislike, Mr. Lewes proceeds to give the reason for it. The first cause, he says, is a misconception of what science is. “Science is simply knowledge classified, systematised, made orderly, impersonal, and exact; instead of being left unclassified, fragmentary, personal and inexact.” It has been called “Common Sense methodised and extended.” Since no one would hesitate to place knowledge above ignorance as a guide in life and conduct, Mr. Lewes supposes that science thus correctly conceived will excite no dislike and cause no dread.
But even when it is admitted that science is this systematised common sense it still arouses in some a dislike; for it is systematisation itself that gives so many of us annoyance. We are indolent, and exactness is troublesome. To jump at conclusions by guessing is much more easy (and, we fear, much more natural !) than arriving at them by patient observation. As knowledge advances we shall readily admit that accuracy is not to be cried down merely because it is less trouble to be inaccurate and vague in our assertions; and we shall at once see that there is no right of private judgment, without evidence to guide us.
Now comes an important sentence. When this advance has been made “there will disappear certain mistaken pretensions of scientific men too ready to step beyond their own domain.”
“This it is,” continues Mr. Lewes, “which causes the distaste of artists, men of letters, and moralists ; and their opposition to the spread of scientific teaching.” This opposition, Mr. Lewes acknowledges to be rational. It is an offence against scientific method. For science is taken as meaning first “a general method, or logic of search, applicable to all departments of knowledge; and secondly, a doctrine, or body of truths and hypotheses, embracing the results of search.” Having seen what objection to the spread of scientific teaching is rational, we will see what objection is irrational. “It is irrational when protesting against the rigorous application of one logic to all enquiries.” He adds: “Those, therefore, who sneer at science, and would obstruct its diffusion, are sneering at the effort to make all knowledge systematic, and are obstructing the advance of civilisation.”
And here we come to the well-worn arguments on the conflict between science and theology. To attempt to apply the same logic to theology and to our faith which is applied to other matters would apparently reason away our religion. But faith cannot be so argued about. Our religion is rational in all practical matters — the promotion of goodness, the enjoining of grace and peace. But when we come to give our reasons for our belief in a Personal God, and in a future life, we may confess that they are not satisfactory as strict proofs. We cannot prove the existence of a God: we believe that there is one; we believe it intuitively (unsatisfactory reason for the sceptic perhaps !), and so believing, we pass on to have a solemn hope of a life beyond the grave. On the other hand no logical arguments can prove that a Personal God does not exist, or even if to his own satisfaction a man could logically prove this non-existence, we should still cling to our belief; no logic can do away with God if there be one, and no logic could really shake our earnest trust in Him. Where proofs and reasons begin, there faith ends of necessity, for this belief of ours is no conviction based on logic; it is with us an instinct. It is a question too wide and too deep for us fairly to enter upon here.
“In the struggle of life with the facts of existence science is a bringer of aid; in the struggle of the soul with the mystery of existence science is a bringer of light.” All will agree with the first part; can we expect those to whom God is a reality — a friend and guide — to accept this last assertion, that science is a bringer of light? If they could be convinced that there was no God, that their beliefs were folly, and their prayers emptiness, would that be to them light? It would be the light which just serves to show how great the darkness is. But if on this point — the existence of a God — science and religion seem to be antagonistic, it need be but a passive antagonism. If it be agreed that we cannot, according to our laws of logic, prove the existence of a Personal God, and that by applying those same laws no definitely negative result can be obtained, we may at least leave the discussion and consider it a drawn battle. In practical matters there is no conflict between science and Christianity. The principles of forbearance, and of kindness; of charity – in short, in its widest sense, are honoured and valued by scientific men, who may, at the same time, reject and despise our system of theology. In fact, to repeat what Mr. Lewes says: “In the struggle of life with the facts of existence, science is a bringer of aid.”
In searching after moral excellence, in striving for that true culture which chiefly consists in “self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,” science is not against us. Scientific men desire these things, and prize them when gained, as much as we do; though their desire for them may be based on grounds widely differing from ours. We have seen, therefore, that the dread and dislike of science or knowledge, merely because it is science, is utterly irrational ; and, we believe, is nearly extinct. The dislike which literary men express towards it has been acknowledged in most cases to be rational; seeing that it is not a dislike of science, but of certain students of special branches who are too often ready to misapply their knowledge, and give judgment on points beyond their reach.
We have seen, too, that in practical matters science and religion go hand in hand, while between science and Theism the dislike, if dislike there be, or rather the antagonism which exists, is really a passive antagonism, because the very nature of the conflict prevents either side from claiming a complete — or even nearly complete — logical victory. For us Christians the words of the introduction to “In Memoriam” are profoundly true: “We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from Thee, A beam in darkness let it grow.”
For all serious and thoughtful minds, Christian or non-Christian, these lines will be full of comfort, full of suggestion. Let us, then, leave a much-vexed question with those for our last words.
– P. Anderson-Morshead.
St James’s Magazine, July 1878.
Post a Comment