Part 25

Here I may add an opinion to like effect which Dr. Tylor quotes from the late Prof. Waitz, also an erudite anthropologist. He says:—

“According to his [the negro’s] view, a spirit dwells or can dwell in every sensible object, and often a very great and mighty one in an insignificant thing. This spirit he does not consider as bound fast and unchangeably to the corporeal thing it dwells in, but it has only its usual or principal abode in it.”[72]

Space permitting I might add evidence furnished by Sir Alfred Lyall, who, in his valuable papers published in the _Fortnightly Review_ years ago on religion in India, has given the results of observations made there. Writing to me from the North-West provinces under date August 1, in reference to the controversy between Mr. Harrison and myself, he incloses copies of a letter and accompanying memorandum from the magistrate of Gorakhpur, in verification of the doctrine that ghost-worship is the “chief source and origin” of religion. Not, indeed, that I should hope by additional evidences to convince Mr. Harrison. When I point to the high authority of Dr. Tylor as on the side of the ghost-theory, Mr. Harrison says—“If Dr. Tylor has finally adopted it, I am sorry.” And now I suppose that when I cite these further high authorities on the same side, he will simply say again “I am sorry,” and continue to believe as before.

In respect of the fetichism distinguishable as nature-worship, Mr. Harrison relies much on the Chinese. He says:—

The case of China is decisive. There we have a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained. It rests entirely on worship of Heaven, and Earth, and objects of Nature, regarded as organized beings, and not as the abode of human spirits.

Had I sought for a case of “a religion of vast antiquity and extent, perfectly clear and well ascertained,” which illustrates origin from the ghost-theory, I should have chosen that of China; where the State-religion continues down to the present day to be an elaborate ancestor-worship, where each man’s chief thought in life is to secure the due making of sacrifices to his ghost after death, and where the failure of a first wife to bear a son who shall make these sacrifices, is held a legitimate reason for taking a second. But Mr. Harrison would, I suppose, say that I had selected facts to fit my hypothesis. I therefore give him, instead, the testimony of a bystander. Count D’Alviella has published a _brochure_ concerning these questions on which Mr. Harrison and I disagree.[73] In it he says on page 15:—

La thèse de M. Harrison, au contraire,—que l’homme aurait commencé par l’adoration d’objets matériels “franchement regardés comme tels,”—nous paraît absolument contraire au raisonnement et à l’observation. Il cite, à titre d’exemple, l’antique religion de la Chine, “entièrement basée sur la vénération de la Terre, du Ciel et des Ancêtres, considérés objectivement et non comme la residence d’êtres immatériels.” [This sentence is from Mr, Harrison’s first article, not from his second.] C’est là jouer de malheur, car, sans même insister sur ce que peuvent être des Ancêtres “considérés objectivement,” il se trouve précisément que la religion de l’ancien empire Chinois est le type le plus parfait de l’animisme organise et qu’elle regarde même les objets matériels, dont elle fait ses dieux, comme la manifestation inséparable, l’enveloppe ou même le corps d’esprits invisibles. [Here in a note Count D’Alviella refers to authorities, notamment Tiele, _Manuel de l’Histoire des Religions_, traduit par M. Maurice Vernes, Liv. II, et dans la _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, la _Religion de l’ancien empire Chinois_ par M. Julius Happel (t. IV. no. 6).]

Whether Mr. Harrison’s opinion is or is not changed by this array of counter-opinion, he may at any rate be led somewhat to qualify his original statement that “Nothing is more certain than that man everywhere started with a simple lead worship of natural objects.”

I pass now to Mr. Harrison’s endeavor to rebut my assertion that he had demolished a _simulacrum_ and not the reality.

I pointed out that he had inverted my meaning by representing as negative that which I regarded as positive. What I have everywhere referred to as the All-Being, he named the All-Nothingness. What answer does he make when I show that my position is exactly the reverse of that alleged? He says that while I am “dealing with transcendental conceptions, intelligible only to certain trained metaphysicians,” he is “dealing with religion as it affects the lives of men and women in the world;” that “to ordinary men and women, an unknowable and inconceivable Reality is practically an Unreality;” and that thus all he meant to say was that the “Everlasting Yes” of the “evolutionist,” “is in effect on the public a mere Everlasting No,” (p. 354). Now compare these passages in his last article with the following passages in his first article:—“One would like to know how much of the Evolutionist’s day is consecrated to seeking the Unknowable in a devout way, and what the religious exercises might be. How does the man of science approach the All-Nothingness” (p. 502)? Thus we see that what was at first represented as the unfitness of the creed considered as offered to the select is now represented as its unfitness considered as offered to the masses. What were originally the “Evolutionist” and the “man of science” are now changed into “ordinary men and women” and “the public;” and what was originally called the All-Nothingness has become an “inconceivable Reality.” The statement which was to be justified is not justified but something else is justified in its stead.

Thus is it, too, with the paragraph in which Mr. Harrison seeks to disprove my assertion that he had exactly transposed the doctrines of Dean Mansel and myself, respecting our consciousness of that which transcends perception. He quotes his original words, which were “there is a gulf which separates even his all-negative _deity_ from Mr. Spencer’s impersonal, unconscious, unthinkable Energy.” And he then goes on to say “I was speaking of Mansel’s Theology, not of his Ontology. I said “_deity_,” not the Absolute.” Very well; now let us see what this implies. Mansel, as I was perfectly well aware, supplements his ontological nihilism with a theological realism. That which in his ontological argument he represents as a mere “negation of conceivability,” he subsequently re-asserts on grounds of faith, and clothes with the ordinarily-ascribed divine attributes. Which of these did I suppose Mr. Harrison meant by “all-negative deity”? I was compelled to conclude he meant that which in the ontological argument was said to be a “negation of conceivability.” How could I suppose that by “all-negative deity” Mr. Harrison meant the deity which Dean Mansel as a matter of “duty” rehabilitates and worships in his official capacity as priest. It was a considerable stretch of courage on the part of Mr. Harrison to call the deity of the established church an “all-negative deity.” Yet in seeking to escape from the charge of misrepresenting me he inevitably does this by implication.

In his second article Mr. Harrison does not simply ascribe to me ideas which are wholly unlike those my words express, but he ascribes to me ideas I have intentionally excluded. When justifying my use of the word “proceed,” as the most colorless word I could find to indicate the relation between the knowable manifestations present to perception and the Unknowable Reality which transcends perception, I incidentally mentioned, as showing that I wished to avoid those theological implications which Mr. Harrison said were suggested, that the words originally written were “created and sustained;” and that though in the sense in which I used them the meanings of these words did not exceed my thought, I had erased them because “the ideas” associated with these words might mislead. Yet Mr. Harrison speaks of these erased words as though I had finally adopted them, and saddles me with the ordinary connotations. If Mr. Harrison defends himself by quoting my words to the effect that the Inscrutable Existence manifested through phenomena “stands towards our general conception of things in substantially the same relation as does the Creative Power asserted by Theology;” then I point to all my arguments as clearly meaning that when the attributes and the mode of operation ordinarily ascribed to “that which lies beyond the sphere of sense” cease to be ascribed, “that which lies beyond the sphere of sense” will bear the same relation as before to that which lies within it, in so far that it will occupy the same relative position in the totality of our consciousness: no assertion being made concerning the mode of connexion of the one with the other. Surely when I have deliberately avoided the word “create” to express the connexion between noumenal cause and the phenomenal effect, because it might suggest the ordinary idea of a creating power separate from the created thing, Mr. Harrison was not justified in basing arguments against me on the assumption that I had used it.

But the course in so many cases pursued by him of fathering upon me ideas incongruous with those I have expressed, and making me responsible for the resulting absurdities, is exhibited in the most extreme degree, by the way in which he has built up for me a system of beliefs and practices. In his first article occur such passages as—“seeking the Unknowable in a devout way” (p. 502); can anyone “hope anything of the Unknowable or find consolation therein?” (p. 503); and to a grieving mother he represents me as replying to assuage her grief, “Think on the Unknowable” (p. 503). Similarly in his second article he writes “to tell them that they are to worship this Unknowable is equivalent to telling them to worship nothing” (p. 357); “the worship of the Unknowable is abhorrent to every instinct of genuine religion” (p. 360); “praying to the Unknowable at home” (p. 376); and having in these and kindred ways fashioned for me the observances of a religion which he represents me as “proposing,” he calls it “one of the most gigantic paradoxes in the history of thought” (p. 355). So effectually has Mr. Harrison impressed everybody by these expressions and assertions, that I read in a newspaper—“Mr. Spencer speaks of the ‘absurdities of the Comtean religion,’ but what about his own peculiar cult?”

Now the whole of this is a fabric framed out of Mr. Harrison’s imaginations. I have nowhere “proposed” any object of religion.” I have nowhere suggested that anyone should “worship this Unknowable.” No line of mine gives ground for inquiring how the Unknowable is to be sought “in a devout way,” or for asking what are “the religious exercises;” nor have I suggested that anyone may find “consolation therein.” Observe the facts. At the close of my article “Religion; a Retrospect and Prospect,” I pointed out to “those who think that science is dissipating religious beliefs and sentiments” that whatever of mystery is taken from the old interpretation is added to the new;” increase rather than diminution being the result. I said that in perpetually extending our knowledge of the Universe, concrete science “enlarges the sphere for religious sentiment;” and that progressing knowledge is “accompanied by an increasing capacity for wonder.” And in my second article, in further explanation, I have represented my thesis to be “that whatever components of this [the religious] sentiment disappear, there must ever survive those which are appropriate to the consciousness of a Mystery that cannot be fathomed and a Power that is omnipresent.” This is the sole thing for which I am responsible. I have advocated nothing; I have proposed no worship; I have said nothing about “devotion,” or “prayer,” or “religious exercises,” or “hope,” or “consolation.” I have simply affirmed the permanence of certain components in the consciousness which “is concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense.” If Mr. Harrison says that this surviving sentiment is inadequate for what he thinks the purposes of religion, I simply reply—I have said nothing about its adequacy or inadequacy. The assertion that the emotions of awe and wonder form but a fragment of religion, leaves me altogether unconcerned: I have said nothing to the contrary. If Mr. Harrison sees well to describe the emotions of awe and wonder as “some rags of religious sentiment surviving” (p. 358), it is not incumbent on me to disprove the fitness of his expression. I am responsible for nothing whatever beyond the statement that these emotions will survive. If he shows this conclusion to be erroneous, then indeed he touches me. This, however, he does not attempt. Recognizing though he does that this is all I have asserted, and even exclaiming “is that all!” (p. 358) he nevertheless continues to father upon me a number of ideas quoted above, which I have neither expressed nor implied, and asks readers to observe how grotesque is the fabric formed of them.

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I enter now on that portion of Mr. Harrison’s last article to which is specially applicable its title “Agnostic Metaphysics.” In this he recalls sundry of the insuperable difficulties set forth by Dean Mansel, in his _Bampton Lectures_, as arising when we attempt to frame any conception of that which lies beyond the realm of sense. Accepting, as I did, Hamilton’s general arguments, which Mansel applied to theological conceptions, I contended in _First Principles_ that their arguments are valid, only on condition that that which transcends the relative is regarded not as negative, but as positive; and that the relative itself becomes unthinkable as such in the absence of a postulated non-relative. Criticisms on my reasoning allied to those made by Mr. Harrison, have been made before, and have before been answered by me. To an able metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, I made a reply which I may be excused here for reproducing, as I cannot improve upon it:—

Always implying terms in relation, thought implies that both terms shall be more or less defined; and as fast as one of them becomes indefinite, the relation also becomes indefinite, and thought becomes indistinct. Take the case of magnitudes. I think of an inch; I think of a foot; and having tolerably-definite ideas of the two, I have a tolerably-definite idea of the relation between them. I substitute for the foot a mile; and being able to represent a mile much less definitely, I cannot so definitely think of the relation between an inch and a mile—cannot distinguish it in thought from the relation between an inch and two miles, as clearly as I can distinguish in thought the relation between an inch and one foot from the relation between an inch and two feet. And now if I endeavor to think of the relation between an inch and the 240,000 miles from here to the Moon, or the relation between an inch and the 92,000,000 miles from here to the Sun, I find that while these distances, practically inconceivable, have become little more than numbers to which I frame no answering ideas, so, too, has the relation between an inch and either of them become practically inconceivable. Now this partial failure in the process of forming thought relations, which happens even with finite magnitudes when one of them is immense, passes into complete failure when one of them cannot be brought within any limits. The relation itself becomes unrepresentable at the same time that one of its terms becomes unrepresentable. Nevertheless, in this case it is to be observed that the almost-blank form of relation preserves a certain qualitative character. It is still distinguishable as belonging to the consciousness of extensions, not to the consciousnesses of forces or durations; and in so far remains a vaguely-identifiable relation. But now suppose we ask what happens when one term of the relation has not simply magnitude having no known limits, and duration of which neither beginning nor end is cognizable, but is also an existence not to be defined? In other words, what must happen if one term of the relation is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively unrepresentable? Clearly in this case the relation does not simply cease to be thinkable except as a relation of a certain class, but it lapses completely. When one of the terms becomes wholly unknowable, the law of thought can no longer be conformed to; both because one term cannot be present, and because relation itself cannot be framed.... In brief then, to Mr. Martineau’s objection I reply, that the insoluble difficulties he indicates arise here, as elsewhere, when thought is applied to that which transcends the sphere of thought; and that just as when we try to pass beyond phenomenal manifestations to the Ultimate Reality manifested, we have to symbolize it out of such materials as the phenomenal manifestations give us; so we have simultaneously to symbolize the connexion between this Ultimate Reality and its manifestations, as somehow allied to the connexions among the phenomenal manifestations themselves. The truth Mr. Martineau’s criticism adumbrates, is that the law of thought fails where the elements of thought fail; and this is a conclusion quite conformable to the general view I defend. Still holding the validity of my argument against Hamilton and Mansel, that in pursuance of their own principle the Relative is not at all thinkable _as such_, unless in contradiction to some existence posited, however vaguely, as the other term of a relation, conceived however indefinitely; it is consistent on my part to hold that in this effort which thought inevitably makes to pass beyond its sphere, not only does the product of thought become a dim symbol of a product, but the process of thought becomes a dim symbol of a process; and hence any predicament inferable from the law of thought cannot be asserted.[74]

Thus then criticisms like this of Mr. Martineau, often recurring in one shape or other, and now again made by Mr. Harrison, do not show the invalidity of my argument, but once more show the imbecility of human intelligence when brought to bear on the ultimate question. Phenomenon without noumenon is unthinkable; and yet noumenon cannot be thought of in the true sense of thinking. We are at once obliged to be conscious of a reality behind appearance, and yet can neither bring this consciousness of reality into any shape, nor can bring into any shape, its connexion with appearance. The forms of our thought, moulded on experiences of phenomena, as well as the connotations of our words formed to express the relations of phenomena, involve us in contradictions when we try to think of that which is beyond phenomena; and yet the existence of that which is beyond phenomena is a necessary datum alike of our thoughts and our words. We have no choice but to accept a formless consciousness of the inscrutable.

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I cannot treat with fulness the many remaining issues. To Mr. Harrison’s statement that it was uncandid in me to implicate him with the absurdities of the Comtean belief and ritual, notwithstanding his public utterances, I reply that whereas ten years ago I was led to think he gave but a qualified adhesion to Comte’s religious doctrine, such public utterances of his as I have read of late years, fervid in their eloquence, persuaded me that he had become a much warmer adherent. On his summary mode of dealing with my criticism of the Comtean creed some comment is called for. He remarks that there are “good reasons for declining to discuss with Mr. Spencer the writings of Comte;” and names, as the first, “that he knows [I know] nothing whatever about them” (p. 365). Now as Mr. Harrison is fully aware that thirty years ago I reviewed the English version of those parts of the Positive Philosophy which treat of Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics; and as he has referred to the pamphlet in which, ten years later, I quoted a number of passages from the original to signalize my grounds of dissent from Comte’s system; I am somewhat surprised by this statement, and by the still more emphatic statement that to me “the writings of Comte are, if not the Absolute Unknowable, at any rate the Absolute Unknown” (p. 365). Doubtless these assertions are effective; but like many effective assertions they do not sufficiently recognize the facts. The remaining statements in this division of Mr. Harrison’s argument, I pass over: not because answers equally adequate with those I have thus far given do not exist, but because I cannot give them without entering upon personal questions which I prefer to avoid.