Mechanical determinism was characteristic of much nineteenth-century thought in Europe, not only amongst materialists, but also, in certain cases, amongst idealists as well. Against this aspect of contemporary philosophy, the work of James and Bergson has been a revolt. "Indeterminism," i.e. a belief in the reality of freedom and spontaneity, is an essential part of their system. Their indeterminism is indeed the necessary and logical accompaniment of their anti-intellectualism. For determinism is "a fabrication of the intellect," a device which makes reality more manageable, more amenable to logic, more easily systematised. Freedom, like life and motion, eludes the categories of the intellect.

The Mechanical View Assailed.—Such are the lines upon which the new criticism of the mechanical view (the most radical criticism it has had to meet since Kant) proceeds. That view, and the idea of predetermined human action which it involves, is an inevitable product of an intellect naturally incapable of understanding freedom and spontaneity. These, as they destroy its scheme of thought, it casts out as an illusion. "Incorrigibly presumptuous," it insists on interpreting freedom by means of those notions which suit inert matter alone, and therefore always perceives it as necessity. So that all life, far from being subjected to mechanical necessity, as had seemed the inevitable conclusion of naturalistic philosophy, was spontaneity (so to speak) materialised and embodied:

"All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity ... is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death."[61]

We have indeed travelled a long way from the austere abstractions of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The new evolutionism is very different from the old. It substitutes for "mechanism" another conception—that of "dynamism," according to which the process of evolution is something undetermined and impredictable—"creative," in fact. The world of organic life is embodied "creative activity," and what this "creative activity" is, we ourselves experience every time we act freely.

Pluralism.—The philosophy of Bergson is a reaction against the mechanical evolutionism (i.e. naturalism) of the nineteenth century. Closely allied with it is another movement of thought, known as pluralism. This, too, is a reaction, not so much against naturalism, as against certain forms of idealism.

Idealism, it will be remembered, seeks to interpret reality in terms of mind or spirit. And it does this in certain cases—notably in the case of F. H. Bradley—by regarding all phenomena as forms or aspects of the one absolute mind or spirit.

This has seemed to many thinkers a philosophy too abstract and too remote from the world of experience. Hence the question arose whether it might not be possible to interpret nature in terms of mind without being compelled to take refuge in the abstractions of "absolutism." And pluralism is an attempt to solve the problem.

Leibniz Revived.—Leibniz' system of "monads," the nature of which will hardly have been forgotten, has been the model to which philosophers have looked in constructing their new system. And the "Monadology" may be taken as the type to which all modern attempts to construct a "pluralistic" philosophy more or less conform.

The essence of "pluralism"—whether Leibnizian or other—lies in the proposition that there exists an indefinite variety of beings, some higher, some lower than ourselves. The pluralist agrees with the idealist in declaring that the essence of reality is spirit, but differs from him in declining to allow independent spirits to be absorbed by an "all-devouring Absolute."

Pluralism and Theism.—William James himself, in a work A Pluralistic Universe (1909) outlined a philosophy of spirit radically opposed to "Absolute Idealism," which he subjects to a good deal of criticism. Another important work, written from a similar point of view, is Professor James Ward's Pluralism and Theism (1911).[62]

With regard to modern pluralism, the notable features are two. In the first place, it is a philosophy of personality, which it regards as the most fundamental form of reality; and also, that it is theistic in a sense peculiar to itself. It believes in a God who may be termed the supreme monad, i.e. the head of a system of monads; but whose power may be said, in certain respects, to be limited. And indeed some such position seems to be the logical conclusion that follows from the premises with which pluralists start, and also (we may add) from the facts of experience.[63]

Pluralists unite in affirming that their God is (what they deny the idealistic Absolute to be) the God of the religious consciousness. James elaborates this thesis with his usual resourcefulness and skill. The controversy, however, is one into which it does not seem necessary for us to enter. Pluralism and idealism are or may be both definitely spiritual philosophies, and perhaps they appeal to different types of mind. We, at any rate, shall not undertake to judge between them. Both alike are preferable to dogmatic naturalism.

CHAPTER XII

Collapse of the Atomic Theory.—Dalton's theory of atoms was described in a previous chapter. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance attached by materialists, ever since Lucretius, to the conception of indivisible and indestructible atoms. It was regarded as integral to materialism, and never was the prestige of this theory higher than during the nineteenth century, which "will go down in scientific history as the era of the atomic theory of matter."

Towards the close of the century, the theory collapsed. Atoms were found to be neither indivisible nor indestructible; and the process of the breaking up of the atom has actually been observed.

As is very generally known, it is in the case of a particular element, radium, that this phenomenon occurs. That substance, wherever it occurs, is undergoing a continual process of disintegration; radium atoms are continually breaking up into more elementary bodies.

Were it not for the fact that radium itself is the product of the disintegration of another element, it would be impossible to account for its survival. It continually evaporates (the life of radium is only 2500 years) but it is as continually renewed by the infinitely slower disintegration of uranium.

Electrons.—The particles into which the radium atom disintegrates are known as electrons. And according to the new theory of matter, not only radium atoms, but the atoms of all the other elements (hitherto regarded as irreducible) are composed of electrons, differently grouped. The radium atom is infinitely more unstable than the atoms of the other elements; but it is possible to conceive of the disintegration of these also. They are all alike composed of the same elementary particles—different compounds of the same primitive substance.

Matter a form of Electricity.—And the most remarkable part of the new theory is that these primitive particles of which material atoms are composed, are themselves the units which constitute what we call "electricity." Thus matter and electricity are now expressed in common terms—they are regarded as different manifestations of the same substance. And of the two conceptions—matter and electricity—it is the latter that is the more simple and fundamental. As a high authority puts it:

"Whereas through the greater part of the nineteenth century, 'matter' was the concept which was looked upon as fundamental in physical science, and of which there was a curious accidental property called electricity, it now appears that electricity must be more fundamental than matter, in the sense that our more elementary matter must now be conceived as a manifestation of extremely complex electrical phenomena."[64]

As to whether the electrons themselves, in their turn, are irreducible units, there may be room for doubt. According to Professor J. Larmor the electron is "a nucleus of intrinsic strain in the ether."[65] If this view be sound, matter may be regarded as a manifestation of the ether; "a persistent strain-form flitting through an universal sea of ether." As to the nature of the ether, that is a subject of speculation among physicists. It is variously described as an "elastic fluid," and as "a fairly close packed conglomerate of minute grains in continual oscillation."[66] It may indeed be said that modern physical theories have succeeded in reducing matter, which seems comparatively knowable, to a substance of which little is known and, therefore, of which much can be postulated; it can be called sub-natural, or super-natural, according to taste.

We may, perhaps, satisfy ourselves with the words of Professor Tait: "We do not know, and are probably incapable of discovering, what matter is"; and "The discovery of the ultimate nature of matter is probably beyond the range of human intelligence."[67]

And yet we can agree with Mr. Arthur Balfour when he says[68] "we know too much about matter to be materialists." That, in itself, a generation ago would have been regarded as a large admission from the standpoint of physical science.

Results of the New Physics.—The reduction of knowable and tangible matter to intangible electricity or unknowable ether may not seem to be much of an advance from the point of view of those who are interested in establishing a spiritual theory of the universe. But electricity is a species of energy which can be expressed in terms of will—which is the only kind of energy that we are acquainted with at first hand. "What is objectively energy is subjectively will; or, in other words, manifested energy is the visibility of will."[69] And so far as the "unknowable" ether is concerned, it gives less scope to those powers of dogmatism, the exercise of which characterised scientists of the old materialistic school; and it is the habit of oracular pronouncements which does the harm, by rendering any intellectual or spiritual progress impossible. In any case, whatever be the substitute which is to replace the old theory, we may congratulate ourselves, with Professor J. S. Haldane, that "we have parted once for all with the notion of a real and self-existent Material universe; and we must remember where we now are."[70]

The New Biology.—But if the results of the new physics have been disturbing to those who had hoped that materialism was a finally established theory, the results of recent biological research have been equally embarrassing to them. The anti-mechanistic trend of recent biological theory is only too evident. The organism is regarded no longer by the majority of biologists as fully explicable in terms of mechanics and chemistry. To quote Professor Haldane again, "The main outstanding fact is that the mechanistic account of the universe breaks down completely in connection with the phenomena of life.... In the case of life, the facts are inconsistent with the physical and chemical account of phenomena."[71]

The organism can no longer be regarded as even an extremely complex kind of machine; that word will not cover the facts, and biologists are compelled to look elsewhere for a less misleading terminology. To describe the organism as a machine, is to give to that word a very comprehensive connotation. For the organism is a machine different in kind from any that has been constructed by man; it is "a self-stoking, self-repairing, self-preservative, self-adjusting, self-increasing, self-producing engine."[72]

The Researches of Driesch.—Just as modern physics is concerned with the infinitely small—the ultra-microscopic, in fact—so modern biologists are concentrating attention upon microscopic organisms, where life is seen at its lowest terms, and where (if anywhere) they may expect to discover what are the differentia of life, i.e. what are the qualities that distinguish living organic from inorganic matter. Perhaps the most notable of the researches conducted in this sphere, of recent years, have been those of Professor Driesch, who expounded his results in the Gifford Lectures for 1907-1908 (The Science and Philosophy of the Organism).

The phenomena upon which Driesch lays considerable stress are those which occur upon a division of certain living embryos. An embryo, when cut in half, displays remarkable powers of self-adjustment and continued development. Each half can, as it were, regulate itself, and make a fresh start; a process which results in two self-contained organisms, though of smaller size than would have resulted from a single undivided organism. The cells which compose the organism seem able to adapt themselves to whatever demands are made upon them. Like workmen building a bridge, all of them can do every single act—if need arise—and the result of their labours is a perfect bridge, even if some of the workmen fall sick or are killed or injured in an accident.

Driesch sums up the results of his researches by saying:

"There is something in the organism's behaviour—in the widest sense of the word—which is opposed to an inorganic resolution of the same (i.e. to its complete expression in terms of chemistry and physics), and which shows that the living organism is more than a sum or aggregate of its parts; that it is insufficient to call the organism 'a typically combined body' (i.e., a machine), without further explanation."[73]

The Problem of Life.—The problem is: What is it in an organism which causes it to behave in a fashion so impossible for any machine? To answer this question satisfactorily would be to have solved the mystery of life. Biologists do not answer the question; they do not say what this peculiar potency is, but they give it a name. Driesch calls it entelechy, i.e. "purposiveness," and he also speaks of psychoids, i.e. "primitive minds." Names do not carry us very far; but the mere fact that biologists have gone to the trouble of providing a name, is important. It constitutes an admission on their part that there is something mysterious about the organism; for it has been a principle of modern science since the days of Galileo never to appeal to mysterious causes if known ones can be found. The deus ex machina method seems to them fundamentally unsound, and so it is. If every difficulty were considered solved merely by the word "mystery," knowledge would never advance. Labelled ignorance is still ignorance. It is not names, but things that are important. But in this particular instance the application of the name entelechy indicates that, in the opinion of such an authority as Driesch, at any rate, something exists which no merely physical or chemical term can completely describe. And Driesch is typical of the trend of much modern biology. It is only the very extreme optimists who now look for a final explanation of the living organism in terms of physics and chemistry.

Results of the New Biology.—But if life resists all attempts to reduce it to matter and motion, we are confronted with the breakdown of the mechanical theory of the universe, which has been slowly but progressively elaborated since the days of Leonardo da Vinci, and applied impartially to the organic and the inorganic spheres. But this ultra-dogmatic theory now seems too cramped to contain the facts; even scientists resent the claims of materialist-mechanical orthodoxy. Some indeed adopt not merely a critical, but a provocative attitude, and seek to discredit the prestige of mechanics. Professor J. S. Haldane not only vindicates the freedom, but prophesies the speedy advance of biology to a position of pre-eminence. Not only are biological phenomena irreducible to terms of mechanics, but it is mechanics that will have to be re-interpreted in terms of biology.

"It is at least evident that the extension of biological conceptions to the whole of nature may be much nearer than seemed conceivable even a few years ago. When the day of that extension comes, the physical and chemical world as we now conceive it—the world of atoms and energy—will be recognised as nothing but an appearance ... it will stand confessed as a world of abstractions like that of the pure mathematicians."[74]

The New Psychology.—Not only physical and biological, but psychological science will contribute very largely to the reconstruction of view which is now taking place. Particular attention is due to those branches of psychology which deal experimentally with the subconscious, with instincts, with the phenomena of thought transference, psychotherapy, and of so-called "spiritualism." In none of these spheres can research yet be said to have proceeded far enough to justify the luxury of dogmatising over results. Considerable confusion of opinion may still exist, but it is now generally recognised that there is a wide sphere of research in psychical regions which is practically a terra incognita. And those most competent to judge of results seem to be most cautious in their statements. We are in the position of not knowing what a day may bring forth; and an expectant agnosticism with regard to many problems is perhaps the right attitude to adopt. The somewhat arrogant negations of the last generation are now out of place; they were never, in the strict sense, scientific, and they are now demodés. It is extremely difficult to imagine a return to the view which dismisses "mind" from the universe as being an obscure by-product of matter, or a comparatively insignificant "epiphenomenon" accompanying certain obscure chemical or mechanical processes. The old theories, gratifying in their simplicity, will no longer cover the facts.

Psychical Research.—One particular branch of experimental psychology, which has attracted a large measure of public attention, calls for a few remarks. The attempt has been made to give experimental proof of the existence of "disembodied spirits," human or otherwise. The whole subject, exceptionally exposed as it is to the influence of prejudices of various kinds, requires to be treated with great caution, and it is inadvisable, in the present condition of the problem, to make dogmatic statements in any direction.

What appears to be certain is that the occurrence is well established of various phenomena which it is extremely difficult to explain in accordance with our present knowledge of matter, of space, or of mental action.

The occurrence of such phenomena is no longer disputed; but it is over the explanation of them that controversy is active. And it seems quite certain that the very least in the way of concessions that these new facts will force from conservative scientists is a radical revision of current notions of the range of human mental action. The mind is evidently capable of producing certain effects—even upon matter—which would have seemed incredible a short while ago.

So much is the least that may be expected. But in the view of many competent and highly scientific observers, some far more radical revision of our notions may be necessary. Some scientists of good repute (e.g. Sir Oliver Lodge, in England, and Flammarion and others on the Continent) are convinced that the facts can only adequately be explained by reference to another world—interlocked, as it were, with this.[75] And it has to be admitted that this, what may be called more "advanced" explanation, is more in accordance than the other with a rather universal tradition or assumption of mankind in all ages.

It will be easily seen that the whole subject is one of the most extreme difficulty. There is a general hesitancy in accepting what is called the "spirit hypothesis," so long as any other can be found; a hesitancy justified in view of the extreme complexity of the world we live in (where so much is even yet unknown), and in view of the great difficulty which there seems to be in adducing exact proofs of the "spirit theory."

A Reasonable Attitude.—We shall, no doubt, be wise at present to refuse to cry "Proven," and whilst admitting that all things are possible—perhaps even probable—to await with patience the results of further investigation.

It has to be admitted that, while many people are superstitious and easily attracted by picturesque theories, there are others who are as prejudiced, in their way, against new ideas, as were those astronomers who, being committed to Ptolemaic views, refused to look through Galileo's telescope. It is not only theologians who have, in the history of thought, been guilty of obscurantism. In the early days of hypnotic experiments the scientific world in general "pooh-poohed" the idea of hypnotism; and it took a considerable time before it would allow itself to be convinced that such a thing was possible. Facts, in the end, were too strong even for prejudice. It is facts, eventually, that decide matters; and, no doubt, before a very long period has elapsed, sufficient facts will have accumulated to allow the scientific world to form more definite and better-grounded opinions than are possible to-day.

Meanwhile, the ordinary man will do well to remember that the universe is really a very wonderful place, and that the knowledge of the wisest of us about it can only be described as infinitesimal. The traditions of nineteenth-century materialism are still strong amongst us, even with those who are least conscious of them. But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that philosophy.

Results.—These new conceptions of matter, of life, and of mind, which are the products of the new physics, the new biology, and the new psychology respectively, may be confidently left to themselves to work out their own salvation. They have the strength of youth. What is evident is that we have crossed the threshold of a new era in the history of science. The outlook of the future will be as different from that of the recent past as was the new science of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton from the dogmatic but fanciful notions which the Scholastic theologians had borrowed from Aristotle, and sought to impose as a permanent revelation.

The current of thought is never stayed. The future is obscure, but one thing is certain, that the coming generations will see catastrophic changes in the outlook of science; and the materialistic and mechanistic weltanschauung, which lately seemed so formidable, may soon become as superannuated as astrology. The theory which overshadowed the religious life of a century, and which had become more and more menacing as scientific knowledge increased in extent and popularity, has fallen into discredit. Its prestige will not revive.

CHAPTER XIII

But surely we are entitled to believe that it is not the crude appetite for metaphysical dogma that attracts men to the history of philosophy. Its fascination rather resembles that of the history of religion: both are, as it were, Odysseys of the human spirit; nor is there any activity of man that has not its appeal to the human heart: for cor ad cor loquitur.

And, again, we should reflect that those who ask for final conclusions, forget that the search for truth may be, in and for itself, of the highest spiritual value. The best starting-point for the history of philosophy is a famous passage from Lessing.

"Not the truth which is at the disposal of every man, but the honest pains he has taken to come at the truth make the worth of a man. For not through the possession, but through the pursuit of truth do his powers increase, and in this alone consists his ever-increasing perfection. Possession makes us quiet, indolent, proud.... If God with all truth in His right hand, and in His left the single, unceasing striving after truth, even though coupled with the condition that I should ever and always err, came to me and said, 'Choose!' I would in all humility clasp this left hand and say, 'Father, give me this! Is not pure truth for Thee alone?'"[76]

But there is another respect in which some knowledge of the history of thought may be an important advantage. It may not bestow upon us the liberty of dogmatising ourselves, but it does bestow upon us a certain imperturbability in the face of the dogmatisms of others. Airs of systematic omniscience, "the pride of a pretended knowledge," will leave us unimpressed and undismayed. The latest pretentious product of popular philosophy will, in the majority of cases, be recognised as an old heresy in a new garb; "new" thought will not impress (at least, by its novelty) those who know that it is old.

But it is against the crudities of materialistic naturalism that even a slight acquaintance with the history of ideas will form an antidote. The various exposures of it, from Hume and Kant to Bergson, will be to some extent familiar; and it will be a recognised fact that its chief popular attraction is at the same time its chief philosophic weakness; and this is that it is nothing more or less than a systematisation of the prejudices of common sense. "As a theory of first principles, the best that can be said of its pretensions is that they are ridiculous."[77]

Some Deductions from History.—But, it may be asked, what definite conclusions have the foregoing chapters to offer? Some, if we are not mistaken, of a genuinely positive character. It will be necessary to recall certain facts and reflections to the minds of our readers.

In the early chapters we noted the rise of an independent science, and the collapse of the medieval world view with which popular religious notions were associated so closely, that many conservative thinkers expected to see both involved in a common ruin. Science seemed to threaten the existence of a religion bound up with conceptions of space and of force which were being brought into discredit.

These misgivings turned out, however, to be ill-founded. Certain advantages, no doubt, of simplicity and definiteness, which had belonged to the old notions, had been irrecoverably lost; but thinkers like Giordano Bruno showed that the conception of an infinite universe was by no means hostile to religion; but that, on the contrary, it might be a conception of the highest spiritual value. Such are the sentiments expressed in some sonnets which precede Bruno's dialogue "On the Infinite Universe."

"It seemed to Bruno as if he had never breathed freely until the limits of the universe had been extended to infinity, and the fixed spheres had disappeared. No longer now was there a limit to the flight of the spirit, no 'so far and no further'; the narrow prison in which the old beliefs had confined men's spirits had now to open its gates and let in the pure air of a new life."[78]

The scientific did not seem to him incompatible with a fundamentally religious conception of the world, at least for those who were not afraid "to take ship upon the seas of the infinite."

Dangers of the "Mechanical View."—Thus it was not science that was hostile to religion. This was not the case until science began to be associated with a certain fairly definite philosophy of a mechanistic, and later of a materialist, description. Religion could not have survived the final establishment of such a philosophy as this, for the indispensable element in a religious attitude of life is the idea that somehow there lies behind things a power or essence that has something in common with our own natures—something that can, without an abuse of language, be called personal. Any philosophy that rules out this idea creates an atmosphere in which religion cannot breathe.

And it was just this atmosphere that the mechanistic view, unless amplified by considerations of another kind (as it was e.g. in the case of Spinoza) tended to create.

The "Mechanical View" Never Unchallenged.—And with regard to this mechanistic philosophy, we have to observe that it never seems to have commended itself, as a final and complete solution, to the best minds. In the seventeenth century, it will be remembered, the mechanical conception was transcended (though in entirely different ways) by Spinoza and by Leibniz, and the religious consciousness of the age, in the person of Pascal, protested against it.

And although, during the eighteenth century, this philosophy persisted, and was considerably reinforced (with the help of further discoveries in the realm of physics) by the school of Holbach and Diderot, yet it had still to face the radical criticism of Kant. This criticism, as we shall remember, indicated that the mechanical view is a way in which the human mind—owing to its constitution—regards phenomena. If it is to understand them, the human mind cannot help viewing them in that fashion; it must subject things to the mould in which all its thought is cast. Mechanism is the medium through which the mind understands phenomena. It belongs not to the things in themselves, but to our way of understanding them. And attached to this radical criticism of mechanical notions, was an idealistic philosophy of the most genuinely religious and spiritual character. Kantian idealism is one of those contributions to human thought behind which we shall not again regress. It is a phenomenon of incalculable value and importance.

The immediate results of Kant's critical idealism was a luxuriant growth of a spiritual type of philosophy upon the ground he had cleared and prepared. Romanticism may be regarded as a revolt of those sides of human nature upon which the tyranny of mechanism pressed hardest—religion, speculation, poetry, music, art. "You may expel nature with a pitchfork, but she persists in returning." The Horatian remark is true also of the human mind; you may try to weed out religion and poetry, but your success will only be temporary; for nature herself is more persistent than the most earnest of materialists and (what is more) she outlives him.

And with regard to the materialist or mechanistic view, it is highly interesting to note that its greatest attraction has consisted in something which, strictly speaking, is not its own property. In the eighteenth century in France, and in the nineteenth century in Germany and England, the popularity of this view was derived from its altogether illegitimate association with a high moral and social idealism, which (it is only too evident) had been borrowed—without sufficient acknowledgment—from the Christian tradition. The rather self-conscious atheism (for instance) of Shelley or Byron—which they had presumably derived from Diderot and his contemporaries—was less a denial of God than an affirmation of the rights of humanity. This generous philosophy of revolt from contemporary tyranny and pharisaism is atheistic only in name. The callous and cynical powers, both political and ecclesiastical, that were the object of their bitter attacks were the embodiments of atheism, for "He alone is the true atheist to whom the predicates of the Divine Being, e.g. love, wisdom, justice, are nothing."[79]

The Present Situation.—During the nineteenth century the mechanical view received some accession of strength owing to the reduction of biology to what seemed like subjection. But, at the same time, an idealistic philosophy had taken a strong hold in England, and towards the end of the century critical students of scientific method cast doubt upon the finality of the mechanical view. They regarded it as artificial, abstract, and symbolic only of reality. This critical movement may be associated with the names of Mach, Boutroux, and (perhaps above all) of Bergson.

Moreover, towards the end of the century, a number of new facts in physics, biology, and psychology came to light and tended to discredit the mechanical view as a final explanation of reality. The indestructibility of matter, even the conservation of energy and of mass (corner stones of the mechanico-materialist view) began openly to be questioned, not by metaphysicians, but by men of science themselves. The foes of materialism were those of its own household.[80]

Thus assailed from without by the philosophers, and from within by the scientists themselves, the mechanical view, after a reign of three centuries (disturbed though these may have been by successive rebellions) seems destined to disappear. It may indeed subsist as an approximate and convenient way of regarding reality, of which it will no longer pretend to give an absolute and complete account. It will continue to reign as a constitutional monarch, but the days of its tyranny are at an end. And it is not unlikely that future generations will look with surprise upon our respect for a theory which to them will wear something of the same aspect as medieval astrology now presents to ourselves.

Some Deductions.—If the history of thought showed no other results than the impaired prestige of naturalism, it would be worth attention and study. The facts undoubtedly compromise that prestige, for history indicates that at no period has naturalism been able to impose itself permanently. If there has been a movement in that direction, it has elicited a corresponding reaction. The human mind seems unable to remain satisfied with the negations which systematised common sense seeks to impose upon it. There is an instinctive appetite in humanity for a spiritual view of things, and Sabatier was undoubtedly right in observing that mankind is "incurably religious." Neither Hobbes, nor Holbach, nor Büchner, with the best will in the world, can exorcise from the human heart that instinct which seeks for itself personal relations with the universe—which sees a mind behind phenomena. This is one of those instincts of which it is true that the more you repress them the more insurgent they become—they will have their way in the end.

Thus naturalism, blind to the mutilation of our nature of which it is guilty, is psychologically unsound. And yet, our nature is not so easily mutilated after all. Naturalistic dogmatism has it in its power to create an atmosphere which is unhealthy for religion, but that growth has its roots too deep for it to be easily destroyed. Springing as it does from the depths of our nature, it will prove as permanent as humanity itself.

This is not to deny that this type of dogmatism may do, as it actually has done, a great deal of harm. A plant may be strong and vigorous, but under unceasing bitter weather, it will tend to become discouraged. Otherwise it would not be worth while to write criticisms of naturalism.

Freedom.—Perhaps the best service we can do is to protest against indulging an appetite for negative dogmatism. Such an attitude is a negation of the freedom of thought. And it is in an atmosphere of freedom that both religion and science flourish best. A hard and fast naturalistic outlook may prove, and actually has proved, an incubus from which even scientists themselves may pray to be delivered.

Nor has religion always enjoyed that full measure of freedom which is indispensable to its vigorous life. The curious and sad fact is that the human mind seems to delight in creating prisons for itself. The scientific spirit created a mechanico-materialistic scheme which has ended by becoming the enemy of scientific research, and which (besides this) asks, as a sacrifice, the mutilation of our spiritual instincts.

And so with religion. The religious instinct (like the scientific) tends to create its prisons. The pride of, a pretended knowledge reduces to a mechanical scheme the mysteries of life and death; it provides superficial standardised solutions for the problems of existence.

Of course, it is clear enough, that in religion as in science, we cannot, even if we would, start each of us from the beginning. We have to accept and to revere the riches of knowledge and experience accumulated by those who have gone before. And yet, in religion as in science, life consists in movement; we must go forward. The past may be an inspiration, but it must not be the limit of our thought, or it becomes an incubus. The glance must be forward not backward; the stream flows, and we are borne on its bosom. Humanity, like an explorer, has its face set towards the unknown. Both science and religion are children of freedom, without which the creative spirit in man is crushed.

And here, with this note of warning (though perhaps rather of encouragement) we may close.

FOOTNOTES: