Chapter 3

RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE

In the previous chapter we have noticed how man is able to reach an over-world which will grant him a new kind of reality over against the whole remaining domain of existence. But the evidence hitherto brought forth has been that of the nature of man himself. We have in this chapter to inquire whether there is a warrant for such a conclusion within the realm of natural science. Does science give any hint of the presence of spiritual life anywhere in the universe? Eucken answers distinctly in the affirmative.[13]

The conclusions of natural science have, in modern times, come into direct conflict with religion. Traditional religion has grown up on a view of the universe which has been [p.58] utterly discarded by modern knowledge. Religious leaders have often had to be dragged to see the truth of this statement, and, as Eucken points out, many are still far from realising the seriousness of the cleft between knowledge and religion. The theology of the Middle Ages has not yet disappeared, although fortunately there are some signs of a great reconstruction going on in our midst. Fortunately, this naive view of the universe is a theology and not a religion; but doubtless even the religion of the soul suffers when its _knowing_ aspect is perpetually contradicted by scientific knowledge. There is such a close connection between "head" and "heart"--even closer than between body and mind--that the use of discarded theories of the universe and of life cannot but prove injurious to the deepest source of life.

The mental conceptions of religion have, in the course of the ages, undergone many transformations, and there is no reason why another transformation should gradually not come about in the present. In Hebrew and Greek times we discover a polytheism, after a long course of development, emerging into henotheism, and finally, here and there, into monotheism. The old conceptions of gods and spirits present in trees and wells, mountains and air, are overcome. They are not so much destroyed as supplanted by higher conceptions. In pre-Socratic philosophy we find the gods and [p.59] spirits relegated to a secondary place, and Nature is conceived as a system of inner energies and strivings. In these conceptions Man is drawn closer to Nature, and the connection of his life is shown to be closely interwoven with the life of Nature. But the empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the background through the teachings of Socrates and Plato. The "myth" regained some of its pristine power in a new kind of way; and "God transcendent of the world and immanent in the world" came prominently forward as a doctrine of the universe and of life. This is the kernel of the Christian theology, constructed through the blending of Hebrew and Greek philosophies. Such a conception remained very largely the philosophy as well as the theology of the Christian Church until the seventeenth century. During this long interval hardly any progress was made in the investigation of Nature, so that such a theology proved rather a help than a hindrance to the religion of those who understood it. But such a theology has been destroyed, however unwilling many people are to acknowledge the fact. But until this fact is acknowledged, there is very little hope, in Eucken's opinion, of the Christian religion gaining many adherents from the side of those who understand the modern meaning and significance of natural science. The physical universe has become a problem; and the old solution was a matter [p.60] of speculation based upon scarcely any observation and experiment. Eucken marks the stages which have brought about a revolution in our conceptions of the universe as consisting of the change brought about in the science of astronomy through Copernicus in the sixteenth century, the founding of exact science through Galileo in the seventeenth century, and the theory of evolution propounded by Darwin and his followers in the nineteenth century. The whole tendency has been to describe and explain Nature in terms of mechanism, and to extend such mechanism into the life of man. Proof after proof has poured upon us, and has been the means, on the whole, of establishing a kingdom of mechanism within the realm of Nature and of human nature. Theology and speculative philosophy went on their courses unheedful of these developments of physical science, until in our day both have had to reconsider the tenableness of their position, and to see that Nature and its physical manifestations have to enter as all-important factors into their reconstructions. Miracle is now relegated to a secondary place in theology, and it has disappeared altogether from science; a Supreme Being transcendent of, and immanent in, the world is not known to science, however far it reaches into the secrets of Nature. Doubtless the loss to religion has been here incalculable; for although the natural scientist was able to destroy the old building, [p.61] he was unable to construct a new one. And Eucken shows that the natural scientist will remain unable to accomplish this, because the material with which he deals is physical in its nature and constitutes no more than a part--a secondary part--of what is found in the world.

The old mode of conceiving the universe, when driven from its citadel by the new conceptions of physics and astronomy, turned for refuge to the mystery of Life itself. Here it supposed itself to be safe. But the development of modern chemistry and biology shows how dangerous it is to base a theological and religious superstructure on the unfilled clefts of natural science. The lesson here during the past hundred years ought to be a grave warning against its repetition in the future. These clefts have been filled more and more by the investigations and results of modern chemistry and biology, so that the theologian is constantly kept in a state of panic, and has to shift his camp and run away when the tide of knowledge sweeps in with its newly discovered results. The whole situation seems serious, but it is not so disastrous as it appears at first sight. Doubtless the gains of science have been numerous, and have shaken and practically ruined the old theological and metaphysical foundations; but a halt has now been called on science itself, and its limitations have become perceptible even to its own [p.62] leaders. It is not quite so certain that the problem of organic life can be settled in terms of chemical combinations and mechanism. Many scientists[14] are agreed on this point, although they repudiate the claims of neo-vitalists such as Driesch and Reinke.[15] No judgment can be pronounced on this subject at the present day, and probably the problem will take a long time before any important results will accrue. And even these results will not solve the problem of organic life, for the manifestations of life, the higher we mount the scale of being, are not things visible to the senses but express themselves in the forms of meanings and will-relations.

The limits of natural science become clearly perceptible when we enter into the complex problem of the relation of subject and object, [p.63] or of mind and body. The final tribunal in regard to the great questions of life and religion is not natural science. This is not a matter of a mere wish that it should be so on the part of religious teachers who ignore the findings of science, but is a conviction of the scientists themselves.

Natural science has been so busy with the investigation of the physical world that it has had time to remember but little besides objects in the external world. And yet what are objects in the external world without a subject to know them?[16] And what are the hypotheses which science frames in order to explain phenomena but syntheses of factors framed in consciousness?[17] What are laws of Nature but mental constructions framed concerning similar ways of behaviour on the part of a large number of objects? What are the fundamental conceptions which serve as the very groundwork of the whole of science but concepts which are explanations of phenomena and not themselves phenomena?[18]

Wherever we look, we find that our view [p.64] of Nature is in the first place a result as well as a conviction of the content of consciousness; that we do not perceive things and their qualities in a form of immediacy, but only after they have entered into consciousness are we able to know what external objects really are. The constructions of science in the form of hypotheses and laws are a proof that the reality of the physical world and its meaning are known only in so far as they are known by mind, and in so far as the _universal_ (which is a mental content) explains the _particular_ (which may or may not be an object in the external world).

Eucken emphasises this truth in several of his books, and whenever the truth is borne in mind the scientist becomes aware of the existence of a reality beyond that of the objects of sense. And even when the scientist is unaware of the mental qualities which operate in perceiving external objects and of the generalisations formed as the result of the impressions left by the objects in the mind, he uses these all the same. Professor Haeckel (one of Professor Eucken's colleagues in Jena) starts out in _The Riddle of the Universe_ with the strong hope of reducing the whole universe (including God) into a state of material substance, and ends with a kind of peroration on the virtues of the new goddesses, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

[p.65] But an increasing number of scientists to-day are aware of the limits of science. They know that the mental models which they have to frame in order to interpret phenomena are not material things, and exist nowhere except in a world of mind and meaning. Eucken's conclusion then is that what knows and interprets is a mental quality. He would rather call it the life of the spirit of man, or the spiritual life. A non-sensuous power has to operate in order that the physical world may be known at all; that power has, further, in a manner unknown, to gather the fragmentary impressions of the senses, turn them into that which is mental, combine them into what is termed meaning.

We are led back to the point made so clear by Descartes--to his insistence on the presence of a thinking subject as the starting-point for the knowledge of all existence. This truth was elucidated later by Kant in a manner which the world can probably never get rid of. Therefore, if so much happens in the mind in connection with the knowledge and interpretation of the world, our view of the world _after_ this happens in the mind is entirely different from the view which exists _before_ it happens. Thought stands over against the sensuous object, transforms the object into a logical construction of meaning. When one becomes aware of this, not only do the objects themselves become most problematic [p.66] in their relation to consciousness, but the very tools with which the scientist works--_e.g._ space and time--become so puzzling that only by a return to a metaphysic do they become partially explainable. And thus we are landed in a region of idealism in the very midst of the work of natural science. Naturalism has arisen only because the subject was forgotten in the enchantment of the object. The attention has been turned so long on the object that the nature and the results of the attention itself are quite left out of account. We can all believe in what naturalism has to say concerning organic and inorganic objects; but it has not said enough when it leaves the power that knows the meaning of what it says out of account.

The conclusion Eucken arrives at is, then, that we must ascribe reality to the quality that knows and interprets as well as to the thing that is known. He ascribes reality to the physical world, but this is not the whole of reality. This cannot be so, simply because we could not know that the physical world was real had it not been that there was implanted in us a mental organisation to know all this. The other reality is that of consciousness and the meanings it formulates. Thus natural science itself announces the presence of _more_ than sensuous nature. This _more_ which knows the external world is the _more_ which has constructed civilisation, culture, and [p.67] religion. This _more_ has formed an independent inner life over against the natural world. Had it not been for this power of the _more_ to construct its inner world, Life would have been no more than the life of sensuous nature--shifting from point to point, and entirely at the mercy of a physical environment. But the progress of mankind shows everywhere the growth of a life higher in nature than that of physical or animal existence. Some kind of total-life has been formed in which the individual can participate; and in the participation of which he can be carried far beyond physical things and beyond his own individual interests. Mankind has striven after truth, and has discovered something that is beyond the opinions of individuals, that does not serve his own petty interests, but overcomes them and reaches out after truths which are valid and good for all.

What is all this that has happened? What has brought it about? What is the individual potency that knows the world and passes beyond it? What are the ideals and norms which revealed themselves in the co-operative movements of humanity, and only revealed themselves when humanity was at its highest attainable level? Enough has been said to show that it is _more_ than Nature, that characteristics are found within it entirely unknown in Nature. We are bound to take this _more_ into account, for it has constructed all the gains of mankind. [p.68] What can it be, in the individual efforts of the soul and in the ideal constructions of science and the higher ethical and religious constructions of life, but a reality higher than sense and outside the categories of space and time? What better name can be given to it than a Spiritual Life in contradistinction to the life of Nature?

When this life of the mind and spirit of man is acknowledged, it is seen to be the beginning of a new order of existence. There appears within it a new kind of reality. It is the standpoint from which natural science itself has arisen. Such an acknowledgment of life as a new kind of reality alters in an essential manner the whole view of the world. Nature now signifies not the whole of things, but only a step beyond which the cosmic process progresses. Two worlds, instead of one world, now appear--one growing out of the other, but keeping a connection still with the other. Nature consequently gains a deeper significance of meaning when we recognise that it gives birth to mind and spirit --characteristics which merge into consciousness, values, and ideals. Nature is not discarded in our new view, but it takes a secondary place. The primary place must be given to the spiritual life--the life which is active as an organisation in knowing and being and doing. And when this truth is realised, this life of mental and spiritual activity becomes the [p.69] centre from which the new reality will obtain an ever greater content. The deepest aspect of reality is then discovered, not without but within. This reality is now conceived as something which belongs to a new kind of world, and this new world stands above the physical world. Man, when he conceives of things in this manner, will be able to bear the indifference of the physical course of existence towards the spiritual potencies of his being. The natural process may seem to harass and even destroy him; it matters not, for he has been led to a conviction of the possession of qualities which have not come into activity and power in any world _below_ him, and which have laws of their own and goals spiritual in their nature. But all this will not come about as a shower of rain descends. The spiritual life has to insist on its superiority to the natural process, and to construct, with the deepest energy of its being, ever richer moral and spiritual contents for itself; for it is these contents which constitute the growth of the meaning and value of the new world, as well as of its indestructible reality beyond the process of Nature.

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