Part 12

But to return to our chess-men. A closer study of the game would reveal--in addition to the invariable sequence of Black, White, Black--the fact that the various pieces had various properties and moved in various ways, some only one square at a time, some the whole length of the board; some diagonally, some parallel to the sides of the board. Further, our philosopher would observe that each piece when it moved tended to move according to its own laws: in the absence of counteracting causes, _e.g._ unless some other piece blocked the way, a bishop tended to move diagonally the whole length of the board. As a man of science, he would state these observed uniformities in the hypothetical form rightly adopted by science: if a castle moves it tends to move in such and such a way. Thus eventually he would be able to foretell, whenever any piece began to move, what direction it tended, in the absence of counteracting causes, to take. He might not, indeed, be able to say beforehand which of White's pieces would move in reply to Black, but his knowledge of the game would eventually become so scientific that he would be prepared for most contingencies, _i.e._ be able to say approximately where any piece would move if it did move. That knowledge could be attained without making any assumption as to whether free-will or necessity was the motive force expressed in the game; and it would be equally valid whichever of the two assumptions he chose to make. His science would have nothing to hope or fear from either assumption.

With regard to matter and motion, he would note that a piece might be removed and deposited by the side of the board, but was never destroyed, and he would infer that matter is indestructible and could never have been created. As for motion, the condition, the only invariable and necessary condition, of movement is previous movement, Black must move before White can: the only condition of change in the distribution of the pieces on the board would be some previous change. If the suggestion were made to him that possibly the real condition of all movement and every change was the purpose of an unseen agent, and that real knowledge was impossible without some idea of that purpose, he might as a man of science decline to accept the suggestion. The object of science is not to conjecture why things happen, or with what purpose, but to describe positively the way in which they actually do happen, or perhaps merely to describe the motions of material things in space. It does not matter with what purpose a shot or a mine is fired, or even whether with any or none: the results are just the same, if it is fired in just the same way. Science neither assumes nor denies the existence of purpose, because neither the assumption nor its rejection would in the least help her to discover the things that she wants to know. But are the things she wants to know the only things worth knowing? Every man is entitled to answer that question for himself. Are they the only things that can be known? They are the only things that can be known--on her assumptions. Just as the world can only be explained scientifically on the assumptions of science, so it can only be interpreted morally or religiously on the assumptions made by religion and morality. The only end that could be subserved by assuming a Divine purpose would be at most to enable us in some slight degree to argue what the purpose of some things might be--and that is of no interest or value to science. She declines to look for a final cause: her business is with efficient and mechanical causes.

The suggestion, then, that the chess-men may be moved with a purpose is not rejected, but is set aside as useless for a scientific comprehension of the game. Invisible agents--and we are all invisible, though our bodies are not--moving the chess-men with a purpose, or cross-purposes, are hypotheses valueless for science, which aims only at positive facts, the laws according to which the pieces actually do move. By the aid of these laws our philosopher might succeed in reconstructing the past history of the game which he was watching. From the positions occupied by the pieces now he might infer the positions from which they came (or think he could), and so back, step by step, until he reached the order in which the pieces are arranged at the beginning of a game. When he reviewed the knowledge thus obtained he would see in the process of the game a certain evolution from the relatively simple movements of the pawns which began the game to the highly complex movements of the queen. Then, whatever the order in which the pieces happened to be brought out and their qualities developed in the particular game he was watching, he might argue on the theory of necessity that that was the only order in which those properties could have been evolved. On the principle that efficient and mechanical causes were sufficient to provide a scientific explanation of the game it would follow that the higher powers manifested by castles and queens, the latest pieces to come out into the game, were caused by the previous action and movements of the less highly developed pawns--that life and consciousness are due to material causes. The idea that the movements of queens and pawns alike were due to the will of an unseen agent acting with purpose is, as we have said, a suggestion quite valueless to science, because any conclusions it might lead to would not be scientific knowledge. If we assumed the existence of purpose, and even could conjecture dimly its nature, we still should have made no addition to those positive facts which are the only things that science is concerned to establish: it would be neither more nor less true than before that bishops move diagonally, pawns one square at a time, gravitating bodies at the rate of sixteen feet in the first second, and so on. It would be neither more nor less true than before that pawns actually were the first pieces to move in the game, that lifeless matter preceded the evolution of organisms. Above all, it would be neither more nor less true than before that the conclusions of science are the only conclusions that a rational man will accept.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] To say that my consciousness offers no such evidence is, if true, irrelevant. We are concerned with the consciousness of mankind generally. In astronomy the personal equation is allowed for; and in science generally the observations of one _savant_ are subject to confirmation or correction by others.

XI.

THE COMMON FAITH OF MANKIND

It is an article of the common faith of mankind that consciousness is good and trustworthy evidence of the reality of that of which we are conscious. It is also characteristic of that common faith to believe in the trustworthiness of the Power which manifests itself in that of which we are conscious. The man of science shares in the common faith of mankind up to a certain point: he accepts the testimony of consciousness to the reality of material things, and he believes that the Power which manifests itself in them can be trusted to behave when it is (in time or space) beyond the range of his observation in exactly the same way as it does within. But to walk in the common faith further than this point is unscientific. It is rational to trust the evidence of consciousness when it testifies to the reality of material things, but not when it testifies to the reality of our moral ideals, or the freedom of the will or the reality of God. It is scientific to trust the Power which manifests itself in consciousness to behave with the same uniformity in the future as it has done in the past, and rational to formulate our science and stake our material interests on that uniformity. But it is not rational or scientific to trust that Power to will freely the good of all things, or to trust our lives to that will.

The reason of this sharp division between science and faith is the mistaken idea that science involves no faith and is a body of knowledge built up without any assumption. But even if we got the man of science to admit that science would be impossible if things were not real and Nature not uniform, it would still be open to him to say that he considered any other assumptions unnecessary; and there is a way in which he could prove them to be unnecessary. He might show that they were no assumptions at all, but logical consequences from established scientific facts. That was in effect the object aimed at, as far as our moral ideals are concerned, by the optimistic philosophy of evolution.

For the optimistic philosopher, then, who refuses to begin by taking the difference between right and wrong on faith, the problem is, granted the reality of material things and the uniformity of Nature, to show that the moral law is simply one particular case of the uniformity of Nature.

The means by which this demonstration is supposed to be effected is the law of the survival of the fittest. It is shown that the law of organic life is the survival of the fittest, and that survival is the consequence of adaptation to environment. These two laws are of course uniformities of Nature. It follows, then, that there must be a constant tendency on the part of the environment to secure better and better results in the way of organic life, for it only permits the survival of the fittest and the increasingly fittest. Man is an organism, and man's good therefore consists in his adapting himself to his environment. Thus the laws of morality are shown to be but one special case of a certain uniformity of Nature, viz. the law of adaptation to environment, which applies to all organisms and not merely to man's.

The argument, however, is in the first place circular: "fittest to survive" simply means "best adapted to the environment." Doubtless the best adapted to the environment are best adapted to the environment, but it does not in the least follow that they are therefore morally or æsthetically best. There is, therefore, no such constant tendency on the part of the environment to secure moral progress as is required by the Optimistic Evolutionist.

In the next place, on its own showing, the argument ends by proving that morality--what ought to be--is nothing more or less than what is. And though that is exactly what the optimist undertook to show--and exactly what is undertaken by every one who engages to show that faith is unnecessary in morality because the laws of morality can be deduced from the facts of science--still it may be doubted whether the conclusion "whatever is, is right" is exactly either a law of morality or a uniformity of Nature.

The question at issue between science and faith is, as we have said, not whether it is possible to gain trustworthy knowledge of the world without faith, without making assumptions, for science itself is built on faith in the reality of things and the uniformity of Nature, but whether the assumptions of science are the only assumptions that we need make. One way of proving that they need not be assumed would be to show that they can be proved by science. But that way failure lies, as is shown by the optimist's ill-success. But there is yet another way of cutting down the common faith of mankind to the narrower creed of science, and that is to show that the remaining articles of faith, the assumptions not necessary to science, are inconsistent with science. That is the method adopted by the Pessimistic Evolutionist. He does, indeed, go further with the common faith than the optimist did. Impressed by the failure of the optimist to exhibit the laws of morality as the mere outcome of the laws of Nature, and the reality of our moral ideals as derived from the reality of material things, he accepts the common faith of mankind in the law of morality as being just as rational as his and their faith in the uniformity of Nature. But having taken this one step, having adopted this additional article of faith on faith, he refuses to go any further. He accepts without evidence the assumption that there are certain things which we ought to do, just as he accepts without evidence the assumption that Nature is uniform. But he refuses to accept the assumption that will is free, because that is opposed to the evidence. He admits that we ought to choose certain things, but denies that we can choose them; and his forecast of the future is in accordance with the premises from which it is inferred. It is a pessimistic picture of man being steadily driven to do the things that he ought not, ending with the triumph of what must be over what ought to be, of physical necessity over the morally right.

The object of science is to discover what we ought to believe, to substitute reasoned knowledge for ignorant conjecture; and the fundamental faith of science is that we ought not to believe anything that is contrary to the uniformity of Nature. Nothing ought to shake our faith in that article of our creed: no amount of evidence will convince a really scientific man, a true believer in the faith, that any alleged violation of the uniformity of Nature can be real. No amount of evidence would be sufficient, for instance, to warrant the belief in miracles. Either the alleged violation is only apparent, and will, with further knowledge, turn out to be a fresh instance of the truth that Nature is uniform; or else the evidence will prove on examination to be untrustworthy. To admit that any evidence could suffice for such a purpose would be to admit that the uniformity of Nature is not the fundamental reality in the world of science, or the ultimate base of our knowledge of what does actually take place in Nature.

A little reflection is enough to show that this is an entirely self-consistent line to take up. No amount of evidence can shake what is itself built on no evidence. If the belief in the uniformity of Nature depended on evidence in its favour, then evidence against it might overthrow it. But, as it rests on faith, it is superior to evidence.

Now, what is true and self-consistent in the case of science in its own sphere is equally so in the case of morality. It is the common belief of mankind that we can, and are able to, choose what is right; and just as no amount of evidence will convince a really scientific mind that a violation of the uniformity of Nature is possible, so there is no evidence which will convince a really moral man that he could not have done right when he did do what was wrong. "We ought, therefore we can," does not exactly express the facts. Rather, it is the other way: we can love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of Him "whose service is perfect freedom."

The pessimist, then, who thinks, by producing evidence, to show that what ought to be cannot be, is adopting in morality a form of argument which in science, when it is a question of miracles, he condemns as inherently vicious and illogical. Further, the evidence which he does produce is not altogether above suspicion. It takes the form of the statement that the uniformity of Nature is a uniformity of necessity and not of a will freely purposing a good end by means of a voluntary uniformity.

If that statement could be proved to be a logical consequence from the facts of science, then it would indeed be proved that one article in the common creed of mankind was inconsistent with the rest. But, as we have argued already, it is not implied either in the admitted uniformity of Nature or in any of the facts deducible from it. To revert to the simile of the chess-board, it is as though one should say that because Black could not have moved his knight unless White had moved his pawn, therefore White was bound to move the pawn.

We cannot, therefore, consider that the pessimist has succeeded in showing that the articles of the common faith which he accepts require in their logical consequences the rejection of the rest. In saying that man ought to choose the right, but has no choice between right and wrong, he is not formulating a consequence of the facts of science, he is simply assuming without evidence the existence of a universal necessity of which the changes in Nature and the actions of man are but the varying though inevitable expression--an assumption which invalidates morality without adding to the truth of science.

There are those whose belief in demonology furnishes them with a reason and an excuse for the misdeeds of man. The belief in necessity exhibits demonology as a doctrine of science: man would fain do right, but the uniformity, which is the necessity, of Nature allows him no choice. It is Nature, the environment, which is the abode and headquarters of necessity, the enemy of the ethical process, the arch-demon of scientific demonology. And the proof that he exists is that he must. What must be, must be, because it must.

The attempt to render morality scientific ends in a result fatal to morality; and the reason seems clear. It is that science is not morality, nor are the principles of science those of morality. Science is knowledge, morality is action. Knowledge, to be knowledge, has to presuppose that Nature is uniform and that the things it deals with are real. So, too, action, to be moral, requires the belief that our moral ideals are real and that we are free to choose between good and evil. The optimist who would have us believe that science includes all the remaining articles of the common faith, and the pessimist who argues that it excludes them, alike fall into the error of imagining that science, the knowledge of what is, is the whole of knowledge, and that the assumptions which are required in order to describe what is will enable us to do and to know what ought to be. Science, which is a true description of part of our experience, becomes a misleading half-truth when it is offered as an exhaustive account of the whole. If, knowing the rules of chess and having a record of the moves in a solitary (and unfinished) game, we refused to inquire why the pieces moved, on the ground that if we succeeded in the inquiry we should have made no addition to our knowledge of the way in which the pieces do move, we should never understand the game. But we should be nearer the truth than if we assumed that a piece caused its own movements or those of the other pieces; and that will or purpose was quite incompatible with the uniformity of their movements.

The fact is that we have to play the game--we are not merely spectators--and as a matter of fact, also, men do assume that they can freely choose what moves they will make and that there are certain moves which they ought to make. The assumptions which they make, not exactly for the sake of playing the game, but in the act of playing it, are neither included in the assumptions of science nor excluded by them. To play the game at all, it is necessary to have some knowledge (or to act as though we had some knowledge) of how the pieces move, to know that bishops move diagonally, that bodies tend to gravitate at a certain rate. Man cannot indeed act or make the slightest movement without deflecting or starting some of the processes of Nature and of his own psychological mechanism: it is through them that he operates, and by means of them that he plays the game. In the beginning he has but little knowledge of what the consequences will be if he touches this or that spring of the mechanism. Yet the knowledge is necessary for him, if he is to play the game as he ought, _i.e._ to attain the moral ideals of which he is more or less (less at first) conscious. In acquiring this knowledge he uses his faculty of abstraction, that is his power of concentrating his attention on one aspect of a thing or problem, to the exclusion of the rest, in order to gain a clearer knowledge of it by giving it his undivided and undistracted attention. Thus, in order to understand how the mechanism of Nature or human nature actually does act, he concentrates his attention on the working of that mechanism in the abstract, _i.e._ wholly apart from the fact that it is at times started, at times interrupted, or redirected for the sake of realising (or thwarting) his ideals. The knowledge thus gained is science, and is, according to the agnostic, the optimist, and the pessimist, the only knowledge that man can have.

But it is clear that man can and does reflect, not only on the way in which the mechanism acts, but also on the use to which he puts it and the relation of that use to his ideals. These reflections may add nothing to his science, to his knowledge that rooks when moved must be moved parallel to the sides of the board, but they do add to his knowledge of the game. In fine, man gains a more important part of that knowledge by or in playing the game than he does by studying the rules. The rules acquaint him with the resources which are at his disposal, the capacities of the various pieces and the powers of the various forces of Nature or human nature. But it would be absurd to pass this off as a complete knowledge of the game. We may, by playing the game, add only to our knowledge of how the game ought to be played, of how the mechanism of Nature and human nature ought to be used, and not add to our knowledge of the fact that if and when the mechanism is set agoing it acts in the way described by science. But the one kind of knowledge, though not science, is just as true as the other, on the same terms, viz. if you accept the assumptions presupposed by it.

Science, then, is from the very terms of its constitution abstract, _i.e._ essentially incomplete. The very terms on which alone science is possible are that it shall study one aspect only of Nature, the mechanical, and shall ascertain what conclusions follow if we confine our attention to the mechanical factors and neglect certain other factors--the freedom of the will, final causes, and the moral and æsthetic ideals--which, though voluntarily neglected for the moment, are yet known to be important factors in the game of life as it is played by us. As often as we act, however, we set those factors, temporarily neglected by science, in action; and there is no reason why, when we have acted, we should not reflect upon our action, disengage the assumptions which are presupposed by our actions, and then reconsider the world and life in the light of the assumptions on which our actions and the actions of all men are based, viz. the freedom of the will and the reality of our ideals. Thus viewed, the world becomes the scene and life the opportunity of using the forces of Nature and our own psychological mechanism for the purpose of achieving the ideal.

But free-will and the moral ideal are not the only factors in the world as it is presented to the common consciousness, or in life as it is carried on by humanity, which are neglected by science, and which have to be restored by subsequent reflection, if we wish to see life true and see it whole. Science declines to entertain the question why things happen, or whether there is any purpose in events; and moral faith only guarantees that there is that which man ought to do, and that he is free to do it. But science, in neglecting the action of final causes, omits a factor which not only must be replaced before we can have any adequate understanding of the part which man plays in the world, but which, by the testimony of the common consciousness of mankind, manifests itself in the phenomena of Nature.