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013 - Spencer and the Unknowable · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twelve of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: Spencer and the Unknowable. We have already referred to the
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  Speaker 1: use made by religionists of Spencer's Unknowable. This theory was
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  Speaker 1: not without its forerunners, and in England was already in
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  Speaker 1: the field in the teachings of Hamilton and Mansell. Spencer
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  Speaker 1: gave it a still greater vogue as he presented it.
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  Speaker 1: It came before the world with all the prestige attaching
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  Speaker 1: to its association with one of the most comprehensive of
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  Speaker 1: modern thinkers, and one of the most influential in the
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  Speaker 1: schools of evolutionary philosophy. It was also connected with a
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  Speaker 1: world theory that claimed to be strictly scientific in its character.
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  Speaker 1: It became not only a fashion in certain circles, it
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  Speaker 1: founded a school and gained numerous followers in the religious world.
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  Speaker 1: Its author propounded it as a basis on which to
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  Speaker 1: reconcile religion and science, and many were ready to accept
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  Speaker 1: it as such. Printed in all the Glory of capital letters,
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  Speaker 1: appearing sometimes as the Ultimate Reality, sometimes as the Unconditioned,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes as an infinite and eternal energy. It was equally
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  Speaker 1: impressive under all its forms. It provided just that solemn
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  Speaker 1: kind of formula that the religious mind is accustomed to hear.
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  Speaker 1: And if it was as meaningless as the athenation creed,
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  Speaker 1: it was for that reason quite as satisfying. It gave
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  Speaker 1: all the comfort of a religious confession of faith, and
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  Speaker 1: it has been the parent of a whole host of
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  Speaker 1: more recent apologies for God. In itself, the unknowable was
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  Speaker 1: harmless enough. Its philosophic value is not great, its scientific
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  Speaker 1: utility is nil. To say that everything proceeds from an
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  Speaker 1: ultimate reality is not very helpful, and to follow on
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  Speaker 1: with the declaration that we know nothing about it and
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  Speaker 1: that it would be of no use to us if
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  Speaker 1: we did, does not sound very encouraging. It reminds one
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  Speaker 1: of the description of the horse that had only two faults,
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  Speaker 1: one that it was hard to catch, and the other
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  Speaker 1: that it was no good when it was caught. We repeat,
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  Speaker 1: with all solemnity the formula that all things proceed from
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  Speaker 1: an infinite and eternal energy, and that this is the
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  Speaker 1: ultimate reality, and then find that in relation to any
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  Speaker 1: and every question, we are precisely where we were its
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  Speaker 1: acceptance in certain religious circles, and its use later may
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  Speaker 1: be taken as evidence of the fact that what the
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  Speaker 1: pious mind longs for is not sense but satisfaction. Still,
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  Speaker 1: there remains cause for wonder that this unknowable should ever
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  Speaker 1: have been taken as affording foundation for the belief in deity.
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  Speaker 1: The most extreme materialist or atheist need not be in
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  Speaker 1: the slightest degree disconcerted on being told things proceed from
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  Speaker 1: an infinite and eternal energy. It is only what the
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  Speaker 1: atheist has said, minus the capital letters. He has affirmed
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  Speaker 1: his conviction that all phenomena result from the permutations of
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  Speaker 1: matter and force, which are eternal, because no time limit
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  Speaker 1: can be placed to their operations. And you do not
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  Speaker 1: add anything material to the statement by printing it in
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  Speaker 1: capital letters. That the Spencerian abstraction should have been taken
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  Speaker 1: as a substitute for deity proves how desperate the situation is.
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  Speaker 1: Drowning men clutch at straws, and a disintegrating deity hopes
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  Speaker 1: to renew his strength by the lavish use of capital letters.
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  Speaker 1: For after all, what the theist needs is not an
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  Speaker 1: eternal energy, but a personality. An inscrutable existence will not do.
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  Speaker 1: There is no dispute that something exists. There is no
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  Speaker 1: quarrel over mere existence. It is with the nature of
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  Speaker 1: what exists and the mode of its operation that the
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  Speaker 1: issue arises. The theist needs a special kind of energy,
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  Speaker 1: a special form of existence, a special kind of reality.
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  Speaker 1: If his case is to be established, it will not
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  Speaker 1: do for mister Spencer to assure him that this ultimate
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  Speaker 1: reality is higher than personal. How mister Spencer knows that something,
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  Speaker 1: the nature of which is unknown, is higher than something else,
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  Speaker 1: is more than one can tell. But that does not matter,
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  Speaker 1: higher or lower. It is all the same either way.
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  Speaker 1: It is different from personal, and if it is different,
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  Speaker 1: it is not the same. It is not personal. Whatever
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  Speaker 1: other qualities this ultimate reality has or lacks, it must
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  Speaker 1: have that one if it is to be of use
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  Speaker 1: to the theist. And to say that it is higher
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  Speaker 1: than personal is to say that it is not personal
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  Speaker 1: at all, and to repeat in a roundabout manner what
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  Speaker 1: the atheist has been saying all the time. What now
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  Speaker 1: is Spencer's theory of an ultimate reality that must forever
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  Speaker 1: remain unknowable, following a line of thought that had been
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  Speaker 1: steadily gaining ground since Hume. Although much older than Hume,
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  Speaker 1: Spencer holds that in final analysis, all our knowledge is
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  Speaker 1: a knowledge of mental states and their relations. Beyond this
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  Speaker 1: we know nothing and can never know anything. Nevertheless, while
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  Speaker 1: we cannot know anything beyond consciousness, the conditions of thinking
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  Speaker 1: oblige us to assume that something exists as the cause
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  Speaker 1: of our states of mind. Just as black implies something
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  Speaker 1: that is not black, hard something that is not hard,
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  Speaker 1: so we must conceive, as against the conditioned relative existence
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  Speaker 1: of our conscious states, an unconditioned absolute existence as their cause.
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  Speaker 1: It is this assumed but completely unknown cause of our
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  Speaker 1: conscious states and of all else that Spencer distinguish as
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  Speaker 1: the unknowable, the unconditioned, the absolute, et cetera, and which
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  Speaker 1: appears to have brought so much consolation to hard pressed theists.
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  Speaker 1: I have no intention of discussing here the philosophic value
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  Speaker 1: of the unknowable, but one may say in passing that
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  Speaker 1: even from that point of view, Spencer is untrue to
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  Speaker 1: his own agnosticism in speaking of the unconditioned as the
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  Speaker 1: cause of phenomena. For causation is a category of the conditioned.
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  Speaker 1: It belongs to the world we know. It is not
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  Speaker 1: something that exists beyond consciousness. It is something that is
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  Speaker 1: supplied by consciousness and which possesses validity only within the
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  Speaker 1: world of phenomena. On Spencer's own theory of relativity, a
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  Speaker 1: cause only exists in relation to an effect. Destroy the one,
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  Speaker 1: and you destroy the other. Thus, if the unknowable is
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  Speaker 1: a cause of phenomena, it ceases to be the unconditioned
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  Speaker 1: and becomes part of the phenomenal order. If, on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, it is not part of the phenomenal sequence,
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  Speaker 1: it cannot stand to phenomena in a genuine causal relation.
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  Speaker 1: It is, however, only fair to point out that between
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  Speaker 1: the Unknowable and the evolutionary philosophy of Spencer, the only
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  Speaker 1: connection between them is that they are both in the
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  Speaker 1: same work. In all probability, it is an unconscious survival
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  Speaker 1: of Spencer's earlier theism, which was active at the time
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  Speaker 1: the synthetic philosophy was originally planned, but which became more
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  Speaker 1: and more attenuated as Spencer grew older and disappears entirely
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  Speaker 1: from the more important volumes of the series. And but
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  Speaker 1: for the help it has been supposed to give the
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  Speaker 1: belief in God, the unknowable would only have ranked as
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  Speaker 1: a harmless speculation of no value to anyone or to anything.
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  Speaker 1: This is substantially admitted in a PostScript to the eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety nine edition of First Principles. At the conclusion of
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  Speaker 1: the section entitled the Unknowable, he says, the reader is
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  Speaker 1: not called unto judge respecting any of the arguments or
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  Speaker 1: conclusions contained in the foregoing five chapters and in the
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  Speaker 1: above paragraphs. The subjects on which we are about to
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  Speaker 1: enter are independent of the subjects thus far discussed, and
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  Speaker 1: he may reject any or all of that which has
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  Speaker 1: gone before, while leaving himself free to accept any or
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  Speaker 1: all of that which is now to come. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: the Unknowable is a pure abstraction, having no organic connection
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  Speaker 1: with the synthetic philosophy, or indeed with any philosophy of value.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Spencer's warning to his readers seems to quite justify
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  Speaker 1: mister Bradley's rather caustic comment. I do not wish to
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  Speaker 1: be irreverent, but mister Spencer's attitude towards his Unknowable strikes
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  Speaker 1: me as a pleasantry, the point of which lies in
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  Speaker 1: its unconsciousness. It seems a proposal to take something for
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  Speaker 1: God simply and solely because we do not know what
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  Speaker 1: the devil it can be. Note to page one twenty
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  Speaker 1: four of Appearance and Reality. The curious thing is that
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  Speaker 1: mister Spencer really offers his readers two theories of the
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  Speaker 1: nature of religion. One is contained in his Principles of Sociology,
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  Speaker 1: and so far as it traces all religious ideas to
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  Speaker 1: the delusions and illusions of the primitive savage, is substantially
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  Speaker 1: that held by all modern anthropologists. The other is contained
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  Speaker 1: in his first Principles, and the two theories, like parallel lines,
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  Speaker 1: never meet. Though born in the same brain, they are
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  Speaker 1: quite distinct and even contradictory. The substance of this second
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  Speaker 1: theory may be summarized as follows. One the conditions of
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  Speaker 1: human thought compel the recognition of an unknowable reality, of
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  Speaker 1: which all phenomena are the expression. Two. The function of
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  Speaker 1: religion from the earliest time has been the assertion of
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  Speaker 1: the existence of an unknowable reality, and to keep alive
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  Speaker 1: a consciousnesness of the insoluble mystery surrounding it. Three. The
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  Speaker 1: function of science is to deal with the known and
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  Speaker 1: the knowable, with all that is presented in experience, with
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  Speaker 1: the world of phenomena exclusively four, Religion having for its
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  Speaker 1: subject matter the unknown and unknowable, while science has for
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  Speaker 1: its subject matter the known and the knowable. Religion and
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  Speaker 1: science are not antagonistic, but complementary. Conflicts only arise when
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  Speaker 1: one trespasses on the other's department, and a recognition of
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  Speaker 1: the true line of demarcation effectually reconciles these hitherto hostile forces.
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  Speaker 1: A very obvious criticism of number one is in affirming
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  Speaker 1: a consciousness of an unknowable, its quality of unknowableness is annihilated.
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  Speaker 1: Existence can only be predicated of that which affects consciousness
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  Speaker 1: in some manner, and so far as I have the
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  Speaker 1: slightest apprehension or consciousness of anything existing to that extent,
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  Speaker 1: it ceases to be the unknowable. Our knowledge of it
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  Speaker 1: may be imperfect or altogether erroneous. We may feel it
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  Speaker 1: impossible that we should ever rightly understand it, But so
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  Speaker 1: far as we think about it, we are bound to
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  Speaker 1: assimilate it to the best of our knowledge, even though
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  Speaker 1: it be only under the category of force. In brief,
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  Speaker 1: unknowableness is not a property or quality by which a
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  Speaker 1: thing may be apprehended. It is a name for complete
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  Speaker 1: mental vacuity. It does not refer to the thing itself.
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  Speaker 1: It refers only to us. It is a pure negation
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  Speaker 1: which Spenser, by sheer verbal play converts into a quasi
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  Speaker 1: positive conception. A consciousness of things unknown can never be
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  Speaker 1: more than a consciousness of ignorance. There is only one
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  Speaker 1: way to prove the existence of an unknowable, and that
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  Speaker 1: is to know nothing about it, not even to know
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  Speaker 1: that there is some about which we know nothing, but
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  Speaker 1: says Spencer, quote to say that we cannot know the
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  Speaker 1: absolute is by implication to affirm that there is an
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  Speaker 1: absolute unquote. Certainly, if we take an infirmity of language
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  Speaker 1: to be the equivalent of a necessity of existence, not otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: When I say that we cannot know a four sided triangle,
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  Speaker 1: I do not affirm by implication that a four sided
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  Speaker 1: triangle exists. I am asserting that the phrase a four
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  Speaker 1: sided triangle involves conceptions that cannot be brought together in consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: and so dismiss it as being without meaning. The truth
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  Speaker 1: is that every one of Spencer's attempts to prove the
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  Speaker 1: existence of an unknowable turns out on examination to be
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  Speaker 1: no more than a proof of the existence of an unknown,
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  Speaker 1: and this is not disputed at any time or by
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  Speaker 1: any one. Thus, after being told that a known cannot
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  Speaker 1: be thought of apart from an unknown, we are informed
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  Speaker 1: quote positive knowledge does not and never can fill the
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  Speaker 1: whole region of possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery,
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  Speaker 1: there arises, and must ever arise, the question what lies beyond?
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  Speaker 1: As it is impossible to think of a limit to
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  Speaker 1: space so as to exclude the idea of space lying
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  Speaker 1: outside that limit, so we cannot conceive of any explanation
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  Speaker 1: profound enough to exclude the question what is the explanation
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  Speaker 1: of the explanation? Unquote. With this we can all agree,
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  Speaker 1: but it does not bring us any nearer and unknowable.
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  Speaker 1: It is perfectly true that thought can never be comprehensive
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  Speaker 1: enough to exhaust the possibilities of existence, since it is
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  Speaker 1: of the essence of thinking to limit and define. But
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  Speaker 1: it is a sheer impossibility to think of what lies
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  Speaker 1: beyond the boundary of our knowledge as unknowable. So far
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  Speaker 1: as we think of it at all, we must conceive
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  Speaker 1: it as the unknown, but possibly knowable. The unknown can
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  Speaker 1: only be thought of thus, because it is only as
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  Speaker 1: it is by assumption brought into line with what is
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  Speaker 1: already known, that it can be thought about at all.
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  Speaker 1: We are compelled to think of what lies beyond the
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  Speaker 1: limits of our actual knowledge, in the same way as
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  Speaker 1: a traveler thinks of the fauna and flora of an
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  Speaker 1: untraveled country. The new region may present many new features,
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  Speaker 1: but until actual observation has taken place, these new features
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  Speaker 1: will only be thought of as more or less unusual
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  Speaker 1: combinations of known animal and vegetable life. They are substantially
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  Speaker 1: identical with what is already known. No stranger notion ever
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  Speaker 1: occurred to a great thinker than that religion and science
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  Speaker 1: represent parallel and distinct lines of development, each having its
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  Speaker 1: own sphere of operation. It is all the more remarkable
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  Speaker 1: when we remember that with Spencer, religion means all religion
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  Speaker 1: past and present, and civilized and savage, And no one
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  Speaker 1: is more precise in pointing out how all religious ideas
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  Speaker 1: find their beginnings in the conditions of primitive life. And
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  Speaker 1: that being the case, one wonders whether we are to
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  Speaker 1: picture primitive man as a profound metaphysical philosopher speculating on
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  Speaker 1: that which lies beyond phenomena, contemplating an insoluble mystery and
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  Speaker 1: paying homage to an ultimate reality. Nothing could be more absurd.
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  Speaker 1: Thinking begins in concrete images, not in abstractions. We have
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  Speaker 1: only to note the development of intelligence in children to
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  Speaker 1: realize this. And primitive man, not being a mystic nor
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  Speaker 1: a metaphysician, bases his religion not upon a reality that
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  Speaker 1: transcends experience, but upon a presumed fact and what is
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  Speaker 1: to him the best known of all facts. And even
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  Speaker 1: with modern men, it may safely be said that they
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  Speaker 1: worship God for what they believe they know about him,
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  Speaker 1: not because they believe him to be unknown and unknowable.
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  Speaker 1: Spencer himself may be cited in support of this in
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  Speaker 1: his Principles of Sociology, where the unknowable plays no part whatever.
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  Speaker 1: He concludes, after an elaborate survey of the facts, that
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  Speaker 1: the imagination of primitive man is reminiscent, not constructive. His
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  Speaker 1: power of thought is feeble. He is without the quick
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  Speaker 1: curiosity of civilized man. There is an absence of the
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  Speaker 1: conception of causation. He accepts things as they appear, without
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  Speaker 1: any vivid desire to inquire into their real nature or
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  Speaker 1: their connection with other events, and is without abstract ideas. Clearly,
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  Speaker 1: here is not a very promising subject from which to
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  Speaker 1: derive even the germ of the idea of a reality
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  Speaker 1: transcending experience. Spencer also, and quite properly insists that religious
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  Speaker 1: ideas are under the condition of their origin national ideas,
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  Speaker 1: that we must accept the truth that the laws of
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  Speaker 1: thought are everywhere the same, and that, given the data
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  Speaker 1: as known to primitive man, the inference drawn by him
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  Speaker 1: is a reasonable inference. With this, we agree, but it
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  Speaker 1: gives the death blow to the previous statement as to
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  Speaker 1: the essential nature of religion and its essential differentiation from science.
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  Speaker 1: Forgiven the constitution of the primitive mind, its ignorance of causation,
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  Speaker 1: and general lack of knowledge, religion commences not in some
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  Speaker 1: search after an eternal reality, but in a natural misunderstanding
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  Speaker 1: of observed facts. Primitive religion is just a reasoned misunderstanding
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  Speaker 1: of phenomena that in later and better informed ages are
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  Speaker 1: given an altogether different explanation. That this is so Spencer
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  Speaker 1: himself makes plain, for he shows step by step how
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  Speaker 1: the experience of dreams, echoes, shadows, at east, cetera, combined
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  Speaker 1: to produce the belief in unseen agencies differing in no
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  Speaker 1: essential from man, save that of possessing greater power and
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  Speaker 1: in being invisible from dreams and other subjective experiences. He
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  Speaker 1: derives the idea of a double from death that of
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  Speaker 1: a ghost, hence the ceremonies round the grave and the
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  Speaker 1: attention paid to the double of the dead man, which
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  Speaker 1: subsequently develops into ancestor worship. The same train of thought
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  Speaker 1: gives a double to objects other than human beings, hence animism, totemism,
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  Speaker 1: and their numerous subsidiary developments. Spencer insists not only that
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  Speaker 1: all religions have a natural genesis, but also that behind
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  Speaker 1: supernatural beings of all orders, there has been, in every
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  Speaker 1: case a human personality. In other words, every god is
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  Speaker 1: developed from a ghost. Ancestor worship is the root of
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  Speaker 1: every religion. To this he will admit no exception, and,
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  Speaker 1: referring to the Jewish religion, he asks contemptuously quote, must
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  Speaker 1: we recognize a single exception to the general truth thus
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  Speaker 1: far verified everywhere? While among all races, in all regions,
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  Speaker 1: from the earliest times down to the present, the conceptions
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  Speaker 1: of deities have been naturally evolved in the way shown,
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  Speaker 1: must we conclude that a small clan of the Semitic
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  Speaker 1: race had given to it supernaturally a conception which, though
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  Speaker 1: superficially like the rest, was in substance absolutely unlike them.
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  Speaker 1: And in about half a dozen pages he shows conclusively
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  Speaker 1: that the biblical God had exactly a similar origin to
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  Speaker 1: other gods. Now, if this account of religious origins means
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  Speaker 1: anything at all, and in spite of differences between anthropologists,
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  Speaker 1: it is in substance the account of the origin of
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  Speaker 1: religion given by all. It means that instead of religion
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  Speaker 1: and science moving along parallel lines, religion is simply primitive science.
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  Speaker 1: Religion and science, as a very able theistic writer says,
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  Speaker 1: touch and oppose each other as rival methods of explaining
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  Speaker 1: not solely or mainly the life and nature of man,
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  Speaker 1: but the universe taken as a whole, man forming a
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  Speaker 1: part of it. W. H. Malick religion as a credible doctrine,
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  Speaker 1: page Roman Numeral two. Both are concerned with the same facts,
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  Speaker 1: and their respective claims to consideration depend entirely on their
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  Speaker 1: ability to explain the facts. For the reasons given by Spencer,
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  Speaker 1: Man's earliest interpretation of things is inevitably vitalistic ghosts. The
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  Speaker 1: primitive protoplasm from which the gods are made, are assumed,
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  Speaker 1: and once assumed, dominate the savage intelligence. Fear combines with
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  Speaker 1: ignorance to resist any conception that will wrest power from
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  Speaker 1: the hands of these extra natural agents. Nature's haughty lords
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  Speaker 1: rule all, and their dynasty is the hardest of all
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  Speaker 1: to overthrow. In Despite, however, of all opposition, the mechanical
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  Speaker 1: theory of things develops, and in developing establishes a clear
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  Speaker 1: division between the two conceptions of nature. But the line
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  Speaker 1: of demarcation is not that stated by Spencer. Religion no
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  Speaker 1: more asserts the existence of an unknown verity than it
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  Speaker 1: asserts a fourth dimension of space. Nor is science concerned
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  Speaker 1: with denying the existence of something of which we know
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  Speaker 1: nothing and can never know anything. The essential feature of
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  Speaker 1: religion is that it offers a vitalistic explanation of the
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  Speaker 1: world as against the mechanical explanation offered by science, and
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  Speaker 1: in this religion stands for the earlier as against the
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  Speaker 1: later expression of human knowledge. It is the eternal champion
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  Speaker 1: of savage thought against civilized intelligence. Its whole significance lies
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in the persistence of animistic modes of thinking under civilized conditions.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: This conclusion be it observes, is one that is quite
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: borne out by Spencer's own explanation of the nature of religion.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Nor do we know of a more remarkable instance of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a front rank thinker propounding in one part of his
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: work a theory bearing no relation whatever to the remaining portion,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and in addition, disproving his own theory at every point.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Spencer's reconciliation of science and religion, which in one form
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: or another is continually in evidence, is only one degree
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: less remarkable than the fact of its being accepted by
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: so many religionists as satisfactory. Following the line of his
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: untenable theory that religion and science pursue parallel lines, he
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: points out that the agent which has affected the purification
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: of religion has been science. That is, the growth of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the mechanical theory has driven back the vitalistic one. This
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: is purification only in the sense that a defaulting cashier
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: purifies the firm. He robbed quote as fact or experience
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: proves that certain familiar changes always happen in the same sequence.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: There begins to fade from the mind the conception of
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a special personality to whose variable will they were before ascribed.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: This process of annexation is, says Spencer, science teaching religion
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: its true function. As a matter of fact, science has
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: given religion no instruction. It has merely issued prohibitions. It
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: has warned religion that there are certain things it must
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: not meddle with, certain departments on which it must not encroach.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: In this way, religion has been forced farther and farther back,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: until it is left with what, not with anything that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: can be known or is known. It is left supreme
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in the kingdom of nowhere, ruling over an empire of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: nothing at all. And so long as religion strives for
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a more tangible possession, so long must there be a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: conflict between science and nat religion. But quote as the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: limits of possible cognition are established, the causes of possible
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: conflict will diminish, and a permanent peace will be reached
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations are proximate
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and relative, while religion becomes fully convinced that the mystery
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it contemplates is ultimate and absolute. So when science has
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: monopolized the entire field of human knowledge, actual and possible,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and when religion is satisfied that it knows nothing and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: never can know anything of the object of its worship,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that it can offer nothing in the shape of counsel
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: or advice, but that its function is to sit in
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: owl like solemnity, contemplating nothing, meanwhile offering man an eternal
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: conundrum that he must everlastingly give up then and not
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: till then, there will be peace between science and religion.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And this is called a reconciliationation. Mister Spencer finds two
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: combatants engaged in deadly conflict. He murders one and offers
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the other the corpse, with the hope that now they
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: will live peacefully together. The scientist is asked to be
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: content with all there is. The religious man is asked
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to find comfort in the reflection that science must eventually
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: monopolize the entire field of knowledge, but that in return,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: religion will be left free to work in an unknowable region,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: to occupy itself with an unknowable object, and to eternally
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: cry all is mystery. In an amended philosophic version of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the Athenasian Creed as a piece of humor, this is superb.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So also is the following quote. Science has been obliged
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to abandon the attempt to include within the boundaries of
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: knowledge that which cannot be known, and so has yielded
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: up to religion that which of right belonged to it
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: capital Science gives up to religion that which cannot be known,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and as it does not know what it is and
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that cannot be known, it surrenders to religion absolute vacuity
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: as the proper sphere for its operations. And even this
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: is accompanied by the proviso that if it happens to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: have made a mistake, the seated territory will be at
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: once reclaimed. Science would certainly be vindictive if, after having
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: murdered religion, it declined to live peaceably with its corpse.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: The distinction between science and religion is in truth, neither
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: fundamental nor original. It is one that arises gradually in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the history of mental development. And therefore, when a man
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: such as Professor Arthur Thompson describes religion as being concerned
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: with the recognition of the existence of an independent spiritual reality,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the reply is that religion commences as just an explanation
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of nature in terms of the then existing knowledge and colorture.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Religion is just a crude form of science. The separation
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of the world into a religious and a scientific sphere
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: arises when the religious interpretation of natural happenings gets discredited
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: by advancing knowledge. If one takes such an illustration as
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that of witchcraft, the nature of the process is clear.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: First we have the interpretation of certain forms of dementia
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and delusion in terms of religion. Later we have the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: same facts interpreted in terms of positive knowledge, and the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: religious explanation is rejected. And that, in a sentence, is
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the whole history of religion. Once we have cleared away
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the verbiage with which the subject is surrounded, the truth
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of what has just been said is often obscured by
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: unintelligible talk of growth. In religion. It is claimed that
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: we acquire truer views of deity, and a process of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: growth is asserted analogous to that which meets us in
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: knowledge in general. Let us see what truth there is
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in this. In ordinary instances, when we speak of growth,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: we imply one of three things. Either there is increase
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: in size, or there is an enlargement of function, or
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: there is an increase in knowledge. So long as we
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: keep to these plain meanings of growth, there can be
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: no confusion. But none of these meanings fit the case.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Of religion. Certainly, there has been no increase in the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: size of religion. It does not, that is, cover a
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: larger area. On the contrary, it is continually being warned
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: off more and more territory. It becomes more and more
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: a negligible quantity. One need not go back to primitive
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: times to prove this. Any country will supply instances. The
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: displacement of religious by other considerations is observable on all sides.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: There has certainly been no growth in the functions exercised
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: by religion. Its function as lawgiver in the physical world
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: is now definitely abandoned, and all it asks is that
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: science will let it alone. In ethics and sociology. It
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: still maintains a precarious kind of an existence, but it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: no longer claims supreme power. It is content to urge
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: its utility as a source of inspiration, to rank as
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: one among a number of other forces that are frankly
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: secular in nature. Finally, there has been no growth in
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the shape of an extension of knowledge of the object
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of religious belief. Of the nature of deity. We know
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: no more than did our earliest ancestors in earlier generations.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: The nature of God his aims and intentions were discussed
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: with the same degree of confidence that one now sees
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: displayed in discussing schemes of sanitation. The modern believer is
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: now more anxious to impress upon the world how little
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: he knows about God, or how little it is possible
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: for him to know. This is not surprising except in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is called religious growth. And if
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: this be a sign of growth, one wonders what would
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: be considered indications of decay. Historically, religious life presents us
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: not with a process of growth, but one of shrinkage.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: To reduce the gods from many to few, and from
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a few to one is not growth. To limit the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: functions of deity from those of a direct, particular and
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: universal character to an indirect general form is not growth.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: To refine the idea of a personal deity until it
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: becomes that of a mere abstract force is not growth.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: All these are so many modifications of the religious idea
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: under pressure of advancing knowledge, so many attempts to state
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: religion in such a way that it can conflict with
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: nothing we know to be true, because it answers to
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: nothing of which we are certain. The idea of God,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the idea of religion does not begin in a mystery
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: or in some abstract conception, but in an assumed knowledge
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of certain concrete facts of experience. Man believes in the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: gods because of what he thinks he knows about them,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: not because of what he does not know. The talk
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of a mystery is the jargon of a priesthood which
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: finds it profitable to keep the lay mind at a distance.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Increased emphasis is placed on mystery because religious teachers are
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: alive to the danger of basing their beliefs upon matters
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that can be brought to the test of experience. Mystery
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: mongering is not the beginning of religion, but a sign
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: of its approaching demise. Mysticism, too, is no more than
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a cover for a sanctuary that has been emptied of
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: all worthy of respect. But if religion is to really live,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: it must have some knowledge, no matter how little or
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: how imperfect, of the subject with which it professes to deal.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: A religion that does not possess this, but is compelled
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to hand over the whole of life to secular science,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: signs its own death warrant. It commits suicide to save
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: itself from execution, and as people realize this they turn
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to clear eyed science for guidance, leaving religion to such
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: representatives of primitive animism as still survive in a civilized community.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter twelve.