The principles of metaphysical and ethical science applied to the evidences of religion

Front matter

THE

PRINCIPLES

METAPHYSICAL AND ETHICAL SCIENCE

Preface

The substance of this work was delivered in two courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston, in the winters of 1848-9. These lectures were afterwards published, but the edition of them is now exhausted. Having had occasion to use the work as a text-book of instruction, for the students of Harvard College, in the leading doctrines of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy, considered as bearing upon the Evidences of Religion, I have endeavored to recast the materials in this edition, so as to render it more available for such a purpose. A few abridgments have made room for considerable additions, mostly in the form of notes, which are principally designed to elucidate and criticize at greater length those doctrines and theories on philosophy and science which were but briefly noticed in the lectures. In its present form, the work is designed to be a compend of the principles of Ethics and Metaphysics, so far as these affect the foundations of our religious belief. Some of the notes are merely explanatory, while others are intended, by citations from different writers, to support the positions maintained in the text. I have made free use, for this purpose, of the writings of Isaac Taylor, John S. Mill, Dr. Whewell, and Sir "William Hamilton. In its present form, the work may be regarded as an imperfect supplement to the invaluable treatises of Dr. Butler and Dr. Paley, the principal object being to consider those objections and difficulties in the way of the believer which are of recent origin, or have grown out of recent discoveries and

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speculations in science and philosophy, as well as the important additions to the Evidences of Religion which have been derived from the same source.

In the Preface to the first edition, it was remarked, that though so many volumes have been written upon the Evidences of Religion, it does not appear that the subject is exhausted, or that the productions of a former age are, in every respect, suited to the exigencies of our own times. There are peculiar forms of infidelity, or peculiar causes of latitudinarian opinions in religion, which are more prevalent in one age than another. I have endeavored in this work to meet those objections and difficulties which are most current in our own day ; to meet them with that course of argument and illustration which has seemed most satisfactory to my own mind, and without fear of incurring the charge of a want of originality on the one hand, or of a fondness for novel and abstruse speculations on the other. I have not been afraid, either to follow in the footsteps of others, if then arguments happened to be best adapted to my purpose, or to strike off into a new path, if I might thereby more surely and safely attain the great object in view. Those who find little that is new in this book, may be assured that it was not written for them, but for a class of readers who are less adequately informed upon the subject. Those who dislike abstract speculations, may pass it over for a similar reason ; if they have never been entangled in a web of metaphysical subtilties, a clew to the labyrinth will be of no service to them.

Some repetitions may be found in these pages, as I have been more willing to incur the charge of prolixity and a frequent recurrence to the same line of remark and argument, than of obscurity or an affected abstruseness. The nature of the objections considered has un* avoidably led me into some of the dark corners of speculation ; but I have honestly tried to dissipate rather than increase the obscurity, and for this purpose, have often held up the same subject in many different lights, and looked at it from various points of view, Though the recapitulation, at the beginning of one

PREFACE. V

chapter, of the argument in the preceding one, is not so useful for the reader as the hearer, I have allowed it to remain as it was written, because, when an argument has been once explained at length and with some minuteness, a brief summary of it often makes the connection of its parts more obvious, and the reasoning itself more clear and convincing.

In alluding to some of the novel opinions and theories in science and philosophy, which have gained a little popularity of late both in England and America, though their place of origin must be sought elsewhere, it has not been my wish to provoke controversy. Opinions may be freely discussed without causing offence; I have never referred to the individuals or sects who entertain and defend them. Some of these opinions, I am well aware, are held by many persons who unite with them a lively and steadfast faith, a devotional spirit, and a religious life ; but they have been stumbling-blocks to others, for whom alone I have endeavored to surmount or remove them. The discussion of them has sometimes led me further into the territory of the natural sciences than it was perhaps prudent for one to venture who has only a general acquaintance with these subjects, and has never made them objects of special pursuit. But in these days, when knowledge is so widely diffused that the latest theories and discoveries in. science are familiarly discussed in the newspapers, the bearing of these theories upon the religious belief of the multitude cannot be safely neglected. I have no fears of any conflict between the truths of real science and those either of Natural or Revealed Religion. The voice of nature, when rightly interpreted, never contradicts itself, and the truth that is fully comprehended is always sufficient for its own defence. But when sciolism is almost universal, speculations which usurp the * name and garb of science may often give a rude shock to the convictions of a large class who are not well instructed enough to be able to separate hypotheses from established facts, and who can be dazzled by the fluent use of scientific phraseology. Such speculations are easily exposed in their true character, even by those yi PREFACE.

whose studies have not gone beyond the limit which every educated person at the present day is supposed to have reached.

The business of a writer upon the Evidences is to reason, and not to preach. I have endeavored to show, that the fundamental doctrines of religion rest upon the same basis which supports all science, and that they cannot be denied without rejecting also the familiar truths which we adopt almost unconsciously, and upon which we depend for the conduct of life and the regulation of our ordinary concerns. The application of these doctrines to the heart and the life, is the business of the professed teachers of Christianity, into whose province I have not felt competent to intrude. Some may think that I have been too cautious in this respect, and^ have placed too little stress upon sentiment, and too much upon argument, as if religion were less an affair of the heart than of the intellect. To this objection it may be answered, that belief is one thing, and the regulation of conduct according to that belief is another. A cold and passive assent to the doctrines of Christianity, is not enough to constitute a religious life ; but no one will maintain, that a Christian life is compatible with a denial of those doctrines, or with indifference upon the question whether they are true or false. Emotion which is not directed towards any object, nor excited by the contemplation of any truth, may spring from a source as low as mere physical stimulus ; it is then animal rather than spiritual in its nature. Religious emotions must rest upon religious ideas and convictions, or they will be as transitory as they are vehement. The heart and the intellect must move together and in concert, for nothing can be more barren than their separate action, or more pitiable than a conflict between them. If there are any whose enjoyment of spiritual truth is never darkened or perplexed by doubts and questionings, they are those who have first acquired clear and distinct conceptions of what that truth is, and have then satisfied themselves, by study and experience, that it is founded upon a rock. It is doing no honor to our religious faith to place it upon the footing of a necessary prejudice.

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But as this subject is considered at length in some of the following chapters, there is no occasion to pursue it here. I wished only to express my earnest dissent from the doctrine which is now not infrequently avowed, even from the pulpit, that any study of the Evidences of Religion is unprofitable and vain. On the contrary, I believe that there has seldom been a time when such study has been more necessary than it is at the present day. Religious fanaticism has given way to religious indifference ; the strife of sects with each other has somewhat cooled, but the strife of opinions upon all the great subjects that are interesting to humanity is more active and universal than ever. The thirst for innovation has greatly increased, and all restraint upon speculation in science, philosophy, politics, and social economy is taken away. In France and Germany, at this hour, [1849,] we see the mournful consequences of this chaotic state of public opinion, this upheaval of the foundations of belief. The best minds of the former country are even now engaged in an attempt to undo their own work, and to resettle the belief of the people upon those subjects in relation to which they had formerly conspired to shake it. The philosophical party in the French Institute, after being at open war with the clergy for a century, are now zealously cooperating with them in the endeavor to teach the fundamental truths of religion to a deluded and exasperated people. If society in our own country is not to experience a similar crisis, it must be through the efforts of the educated laity, working in concert with the clergy, to erect a barrier against the licentious and infidel speculations which are pouring in upon us from Europe like a flood. The time seems to have arrived for a more practical and immediate verification than the world has ever yet witnessed of the great truth, that the civilization which is not based upon Christianity is big with the elements of its own destruction.

Cambridge, January 10, 1855.

Chapter I. The Distinction Between Physical And Metaphysical Science

Supposed conflicting claims of Philosophy and Religion. — According to a common opinion, Philosophy and Theology are sister sciences, so closely allied that it is often difficult to make a distinction between them. Every person must hold some opinions relative to each ; and these opinions form two mutually dependent creeds, which may be, in a greater or less degree, peculiar to himself, and of which the action and reaction are so nearly equal, that it is often difficult to determine which is the parent of the other. Every theory respecting the origin and first principles of human knowledge must bear a close relation to that subject in regard to which knowledge is of the highest value, — the doctrine of God, duty, and immortality. The religion of the Greeks and Romans, so far as it existed in a definite and consistent form, — that is, as it was conceived by enlightened and thinking men among them, — was wholly drawn from their philosophical tenets, or, more properly speaking, it was identical with those tenets. And so it has been in modern times. Skepticism in philosophy and skepticism in religion, if not the same thing, at least usually go together.

This, I say, is the common view of the subject ; and we might therefore well expect, what often happens, that the claims of the two sciences, so called, should seriously conflict. Men are drawn different ways by opposite fears, — by their dread, on the one hand, of an irreligious philosophy, and on the other, of an unphilosophical religion. Loyalty to truth, which is the highest claim that can be made upon human reason, is drawn into open hostility with our sense of duty to God, which is the most awful and imperative of all obligations. The course of the student of science, the honest and sincere inquirer after knowledge, often appears adverse or injurious to the feelings or the faith — the prejudices, if you like — of the religious believer, the devout worshipper of an Omnipotent Father and Friend. And even where direct opposition is avoided, a disputed claim to precedence is set up, and sometimes brings with it an intolerable burden of anxiety and doubt. On the one hand, it is maintained that every religious creed must be tried at the bar of human science, and its doctrines accepted or rejected according to their agreement with the speculative dogmas which the unaided reason has evolved as the limits and criteria of truth ; on the other, the sacredness of the subject is unwarily held up to shield theology from all investigation, and, not infrequently, discoveries in science and theories in philosophy are denounced, if they are at variance with the supposed dictates of revelation. If metaphysics are made a test of the truth of Christianity, it seems but equal justice to make Christianity a test of the correctness of metaphysics. Sometimes a compromise is proposed, which is no less shocking to the feelings of the believer than a contumelious rejection of his faith. Philosophy is represented as candid and liberal ; as superseding religion, it is true, in the minds of the cultivated and reflecting classes, but continuing to respect it, as an imperfect likeness of itself, in the bulk of mankind. According to this theory, there are many stages of progress for the human intellect, and men pass on from religion to philosophy, as they do from barbarism to civilization.

Now, before conflicting claims like these can be reconciled, it is necessary to get clearer ideas of the subjects of dispute, to determine their respective boundaries, to see how far, if at all, they encroach upon each other, and, if possible, to settle the logic of the inquiry. Perhaps it will be found, after all, that the provinces of Philosophy and Theology are entirely distinct, so that there is no proper interference, and no cause for controversy between them. To establish this point is the object of the present chapter. We must begin with definitions, and if these appear somewhat abstruse at first, I hope they will become clearer as we go on.

Classification of the objects of Knowledge. — The simplest, as well as the most comprehensive, classification of all objects of knowledge, is that which separates them into relations of ideas and matters of fact. I borrow the language of him who was at once the most subtile logician and the most consistent skeptic of modern times : "All the objects of human reason or inquiry," says Hume, " may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact." This coincides very nearly with the familiar distinction between physics and metaphysics, except that the meaning of the latter must be so far extended as to embrace the cognate sciences of grammar, logic, and mathematics. Stating the proposition in other words, we say that all science may be reduced to two branches : — 1. The study of things physical, or those which exist distinct from our thoughts ; 2. The study of things metaphysical, or those which do not exist apart from our thoughts.

No one can fail to see an essential difference between a fact and an abstraction, or a pure idea, like that of cause, goodness, 'power, existence, and the like. The former is an object of sense, something which can be seen, heard, felt, or touched, — whether we have had sensible evidence of it ourselves, or rely upon the testimony of others who have had such evidence, or infer its existence from inductive reasoning, or from the presence of its effects. The latter is a pure mental conception, which has no existence except in relation to the mind which forms it. Such conceptions are called realities only by a figure of speech ; they are so called to mark our strong sense of the correctness with which a certain quality is attributed to a substance or an action.

Thus, virtue is said, figuratively, to be a reality, only to mark our firm belief that there are such things as virtuous actions. In this class must be ranked all the abstractions of the geometer and the algebraist. There are no such things in nature as circles and triangles ; the only proper realities are circular objects and triangular objects.

Two classes of matters of fact. — But the nature of these abstractions may be most clearly apprehended by considering, in the first place, what we mean by matters of fact. These may be distinguished into things ivhich exist, and events which take place, All the objects of natural history and physical science — stones, shells, plants, and animals — are ranked in the former class ; all the laws, so called, of physical science, — the laws of motion, for instance, — all the habits observed by the naturalist, such as the modes of growth and reproduction of plants and animals, are comprehended in the latter. Both alike are matters of fact. It is a fact that the earth exists, or is ; it is equally a fact that the earth moves. That there is a sun in the heavens is a fact of one order ; that this sun illumines objects on the earth is a fact of a different order, — it is an event which takes place. We have sensible evidence of both.*

Mode of inquiry and reasoning about abstract ideas. — I am dwelling too long, perhaps, on a very familiar distinction ; but it is one that is fundamental to the present inquiry, which cannot proceed without the fullest and clearest comprehension of it. These two classes, which comprehend all objects of knowledge, are distinguished from each other, not merely by the broad and obvious lines of distinction inherent in their nature, which have been already explained, but by radical differences in the modes of inquiry and reasoning ivhich are respectively

* " The communication of this kind of knowledge," says Whatcley, " is most usually, and most strictly, called information. Y?e gain it from observation and from testimony. No mere internal workings of our own minds (except when the mind itself is the very object to be observed), or mere discussions in words, will make a fact known to us." — Logic, p. 268.

applicable to them. The relations of ideas — that is, of abstractions, or pure ideas — are made known to us by intuition or reflection ; and reasoning about them proceeds by the demonstrative method, the conclusions at which we arrive being absolutely certain. According to the absolute laws of the human understanding, — I speak it reverently, — it is not within the power of Omnipotence to disprove these results, or even to render them doubtful. Their falsity would involve a contradiction ; to maintain that they are untrue, is to say, that it is possible for a thing to be and not to be at one and the same moment. All the truths of pure mathematics, pure logic, and pure reason are metaphysical truths, and we can no more doubt them than we can question the accuracy of the multiplication table. Their falsity is inconceivable. This attribute of logical certainty proceeds from the pure, abstract, and perfectly simple or uncompounded nature of the ideas which enter into such reasoning. These ideas are pure creations of the intellect ; in their uncompounded and abstract character, they are not derived from observation, and are therefore not perverted by that great source of error, the imperfection of our senses, or the limitations of our power of perception. When we entertain these ideas, or reason about them, the mind is closed to all outward impressions, and freed even from the memory of their former occurrence.* The ideas that are contemplated, then, are contemplated in their entireness ; for, being uncompounded, if they are apprehended at all, they must be perfectly apprehended, and consequently the relations between them are discerned at once, or by intuition. Demonstrative reasoning proceeds by a series of such intuitions, and hence the absolute character of its results. If the chain of such reasoning be too far extended, indeed, without a system of notation, the

* "A clever man," says Sir J. Herschel, " shut up alone, and allowed all unlimited time, might reason out for himself all the truths of mathematics, by proceeding from those simple notions of space and number of which he cannot divest himself -without ceasing to think; but he could never tell by any effort of reasoning, what would become of a lump of sugar if immersed in water, or what effect would be produced on his eye by mixing the eolors yellow and blue/'

1* imperfections of memory may come in, some steps may be forgotten, and mistakes will be committed. But this cause of error never affects a simple intuition, or a step in the process when taken by itself. Here the certainty is absolute.

Mode of inquiry and reasoning about matters of fact. — Now, what is the method of inquiry or procedure for the other class of objects of knowledge, — for matters of fact ? We enter upon totally different ground here. . Instead of abstractions, we have realities ; instead of shutting out sensible evidence altogether, we are obliged to rely upon it exclusively; instead of intuitions, we have observations and experiments ; instead of demonstration, we have induction ; instead of the objects of inquiry being perfectly simple and uncompounded, they are made up of an unknown and unknowable number of elements and qualities ; and instead of arriving at conclusions which are absolutely true, we gain those only which are morally certain. I speak now of both kinds of matters of fact, — both of things which exist, and of events which take place. The imperfections of the senses come in here to their full extent, as causes of possible error. The objects of physical science must always be imperfectly known ; we never can be sure that our analysis of them is complete, or that our observation has taken in all their outward qualities. The attractive power of the loadstone was known for ages before its attribute of polarity was discovered ; yet what is apparently more simple and obvious than this quality, which can be detected at once by floating a magnet on a piece of cork in a basin of water ? Down to the times of Watt and Cavendish, water was supposed to be a simple element, and it figures as such in some of the most remarkable of the ancient theories of cosmogony ; these chemists, about a century ago, discovered that it was compounded of two gases. But it is useless to multiply instances. The chemist will tell you that it is not impossible, that it is even probable, that every one of the sixty substances now counted as elementary will ultimately be decomposed. Of course, the vast number ""of compounded objects of which Natural History takes cognizance are still more imperfectly known in their qualities and relations, than those substances tvlrich, as vet, are reckoned elementary. This limited acquaintance with the subjects of investigation must lead only to qualified, and, in the logical meaning of the term, uncertain, conclusions respecting them.

If this is the case with things which exist, it holds still more obviously true of events which take place. Our knowledge of past events depends either on memory, with its acknowledged manifold defects, or on the testimony of others, with the multiplied causes which bring either their intelligence or their veracity into doubt. As to future occurrences, the field of positive science is yet more limite-d ; the truth of every proposition respecting them depends on the axiom, that the course of nature is uniform, and under similar circumstances we may look for similar effects. Now, in the first place, we never can be sure that the circumstances are perfectly similar ; and, secondly, the truth of the axiom itself depends wholly on empirical evidence. It is possible, that is, it is conceivable, that the sun may not rise to-morrow ; but it is not conceivable that two and two should make five, or that a straight line should not be the shortest distance between two points. The laws of motion are instances of the highest generalization and of the most cautious and rigid induction, which the whole field of physical science can afford ; but what assurance have we that these laws will hold good for one moment beyond the present time ? Obviously, we can have only a moral certainty of their future operation ; intuition or demonstration is here out of the question.

The two methods afford equally safe grounds of belief — There is, then, a radical difference, or a difference in kind, between the two methods of investigation which are applicable respectively to physical and to metaphysical science. But so far as the truth of the conclusions, in either case, is concerned, this difference is not one of degree ; our conviction is just as firm in the one case as in the other. No one complains of the insufficiency of the evidence on which rest all the truths of physical science and all the facts of history. Our persuasion of the reality of our past experience, and of the truths which depend on that experience, would not be affected, certainly would not be increased in the slightest degree, by a technical demonstration of that reality or of those truths. In fact, the theorems of geometry are received, and practically applied, by multitudes who are incapable of demonstrating them. The carpenter, for instance, makes almost daily use of the forty-fifth proposition of Euclid, though he is not usually able to supply the steps of its logical proof; he knows that it is correct by the results of his application of it, and because he is told that others have demonstrated it, and that he could easily follow out the demon. stratum himself, if he were to give the requisite time and atten tion to the process. The mariner, also, steers his ship by the aid of his Practical Navigator and Nautical Almanac, though he cannot give the rationale of one of his own calculations. Instruct him in this respect, teach him trigonometry enough to demonstrate the rules of plain sailing, and you will enlarge the sphere of his ideas and add to his sources of intellectual enjoyment ; but you will not increase by one iota the strength of his belief in the correctness of the processes.* The moral evidence

* Mr. Stewart remarks, that the mathematician himself is obliged to admit the evidence of testimony while engaged in his most abstruse investigations. " In astronomical calculations, for example, how few are the instances in which the data rest on the evidence of our own senses ; and yet our confidence in the result is not, on that account, in the smallest degree weakened. On the contrary, what certainty can be more complete than that with which we look forward to an eclipse of the sun or the moon, on the faith of elements and of computations which we have never verified, and for the accuracy of which we have no ground of assurance whatever, but the scientific reputation of the writers from whom we have borrowed them. An astronomer who should affect any scepticism with respect to an event so predicted, would render himself no less an object of ridicule, than if he were disposed to cavil about the certainty of the sun's rising to-morrow.

" Even in pure mathematics, a similar regard to testimony, accompanied with a similar faith in the faculties of others, is by no means uncommon. Who would scruple, in a geometrical investigation, to adopt as a link in the chain, a theorem of Apollonius or of Archimedes, although he might not have leisure at the moment to satisfy himself, by an actual examination of their demonstrations, that they had been guilty of no paralogism, either from accident or design, in the course of their reasonings ? "

on which it formerly rested in his mind was sufficient; the strength of the conviction produced by it could not be increased.

It is more pertinent to my present object to remark, that the conduct of human beings is governed exclusively by the evidence and the reasoning which are applicable to matters of fact, or, in other words, by experience. It is the only proof they have that food will nourish, fire burn, or water drown them, — that any place exists which they have never visited, or that any person lives with whom they have not conversed. These contingent truths enter into all our inferences from the past, and all our calculations for the future ; man's life is guided by them, from the cradle to the grave. If it be objected to this view, that our convictions of duty are intuitive, and therefore absolute, I answer, that duty relates only to motives and a choice of ends ; action is always a use of means, and the selection of means is the work of experience. The moral law, for instance, bids me cultivate honest and humane intentions towards my fellow man ; how those intentions shall be most properly manifested in outward conduct, is a question for the intellect, and one that can be answered only by the lessons of experience. The sense of obligation stops short with the active intent.