Chapter 3

At the level of ordinary common-sense thought there appear to be two kinds of Reality--mind and matter. And yet our experience of the unity of Nature, of the intimate connexion between human and animal minds and their organisms (organisms governed by a single intelligible and interconnected system of laws) is such that we can hardly help regarding them as manifestations or products or effects or aspects of some one Reality. There is, almost obviously, some kind of Unity underlying all the diversity of things. Our world does not arise by the coming together of two quite independent Realities--mind and matter--governed by no law or by unconnected and independent systems of law. {21} All things, all phenomena, all events form parts of a single inter-related, intelligible whole: that is the presupposition not only of Philosophy but of Science. Or if any one chooses to say that it _is_ a presupposition and so an unwarrantable piece of dogmatism, I will say that it is the hypothesis to which all our knowledge points. It is at all events the one common meeting-point of nearly all serious thinkers. The question remains, 'What is the nature of this one Reality?' Now, if this ultimate Reality be not mind, it must be one of two things. It must be matter, or it must be a third thing which is neither mind nor matter, but something quite different from either. Now many who will not follow the idealistic line of thought the whole way--so far as to recognize that the ultimate Reality is Mind--will at least admit that Idealists have successfully shown the impossibility of supposing that the ultimate Reality can be matter. For all the properties of matter are properties which imply some relation to our sensibility or our thought. Moreover, there is such a complete heterogeneity between consciousness and unconscious matter, considered as something capable of existing without mind, that it seems utterly impossible and unthinkable that mind should be simply the product or attribute of matter. That the ultimate Reality cannot be what we mean by matter has been admitted by the most naturalistic, {22} and, in the ordinary sense, anti-religious thinkers--Spinoza, for instance, and Haeckel, and Herbert Spencer. The question remains, 'Which is the easier, the more probable, the more reasonable theory--that the ultimate Reality should be Mind, or that it should be something so utterly unintelligible and inconceivable to us as a _tertium quid_--a mysterious Unknown and Unknowable--which is neither mind nor matter?' For my own part, I see no reason to suppose that our inability to think of anything which is neither matter nor mind but quite unlike either is a mere imperfection of human thought. It seems more reasonable to assume that our inability to think of such a mysterious X is due to there being no such thing.[7]

Our only way of judging of the Unknown is by the analogy of the known. It is more probable, surely, that the world known to us should exhibit something of the characteristics of the Reality from which it is derived, or of which it forms a manifestation, than that it should exhibit none of these characteristics. No doubt, if we were to argue from some small part of our experience, or from the detailed characteristics of one part of our experience to what is beyond our experience; if, for instance {23} (I am here replying to an objection of Hoeffding's), a blind man were to argue that the world must be colourless because he sees no colour, or if any of us were to affirm that in other planets there can be no colours but what we see, no sensations but what we feel, no mental powers but what we possess, the inference would be precarious enough. The Anthropomorphist in the strict sense--the man who thinks that God or the gods must have human bodies--no doubt renders himself liable to the gibe that, if oxen could think, they would imagine the gods to be like oxen, and so on. But the cases are not parallel. We have no difficulty in thinking that in other worlds there may be colours which we have never seen, or whole groups of sensation different from our own: we cannot think that any existence should be neither mind nor matter, but utterly unlike either. We are not arguing from the mere absence of some special experience, but from the whole character of _all_ the thought and experience that we actually possess, of all that we are and the whole Universe with which we are in contact. The characteristic of the whole world which we know is that it consists of mind and matter in close connexion--we may waive for a moment the nature of that connexion. Is it more probable that the ultimate Reality which lies beyond our reach should be something which possesses the characteristics of mind, or that it should {24} be totally unlike either mind or matter? Do you insist that we logically ought to say it might contain the characteristics of both mind and matter? There is only one way in which such a combination seems clearly thinkable by us, _i.e._ when we represent matter as either in the idealistic sense the thought or experience of mind, or (after the fashion of ordinary realistic Theism) as created or produced by mind. But if you insist on something more than this, if you want to think of the qualities of matter as in some other way included in the nature of the ultimate Reality as well as those of mind, at all events we could still urge that we shall get nearer to the truth by thinking of this ultimate Reality in its mind-aspect than by thinking of it in its matter-aspect.

I do not believe that the human mind is really equal to the task of thinking of a Reality which is one and yet is neither mind nor matter but something which combines the nature of both. Practically, where such a creed is professed, the man either thinks of an unconscious Reality in some way generating or evolving mind, and so falls back into the Materialism which he has verbally disclaimed; or he thinks of a mind producing or causing or generating a matter which when produced is something different from itself. This last is of course ordinary Theism in the form in which it is commonly {25} held by those who are not Idealists. From a practical and religious point of view there is nothing to be said against such a view. Still it involves a Dualism, the philosophical difficulties of which I have attempted to suggest to you. I confess that for my own part the only way in which I can conceive of a single ultimate Reality which combines the attributes of what we call mind with those of what we know as matter is by thinking of a Mind conscious of a world or nature which has no existence except in and for that Mind and whatever less complete consciousnesses that may be. I trust that those who have failed to follow my sketch of the arguments which lead to this idealistic conclusion may at least be led by it to see the difficulties either of Materialism or of that kind of agnostic Pantheism which, while admitting in words that the ultimate Reality is not matter, refuses to invest it with the attributes of mind. The argument may be reduced to its simplest form by saying we believe that the ultimate Reality is Mind because mind will explain matter, while matter will not explain mind: while the idea of a Something which is neither in mind nor matter is both unintelligible and gratuitous.

And this line of thought may be supplemented by another. Whatever may be thought of the existence of matter apart from mind, every one will {26} admit that matter possesses no value or worth apart from mind. When we bring into account our moral judgements or judgements of value, we have no difficulty in recognizing mind as the highest or best kind of existence known to us. There is, surely, a certain intrinsic probability in supposing that the Reality from which all being is derived must possess at least as much worth or value as the derived being; and that in thinking of that Reality by the analogy of the highest kind of existence known to us we shall come nearer to a true thought of it than by any other way of thinking possible to us. This is a line of argument which I hope to develope further when I come to examine the bearing upon the religious problem of what is as real a part of our experience as any other--our moral experience.

I will remind you in conclusion, that our argument for the existence of God is at present incomplete. I have tried to lead you to the idea that the ultimate Reality is spiritual, that it is a Mind which knows, or is conscious of, matter. I have tried to lead you with the Idealist to think of the physical Universe as having no existence except in the mind of God, or at all events (for those who fail to follow the idealistic line of thought) to believe that the Universe does not exist without such a Mind. What further relation exists between physical nature and this Universal Spirit, I shall hope in the next lecture {27} to consider; and in so doing to suggest a line of argument which will independently lead to the same result, and which does not necessarily presuppose the acceptance of the idealistic creed.

LITERATURE

The reader who wishes to have the idealistic argument sketched in the foregoing chapter developed more fully should read Berkeley's _Principles of Human Knowledge_. For the correction of Berkeley's sensationalistic mistakes the best course is to read Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_ or the shorter _Prolegomena to any future Metaphysic_ or any of the numerous expositions or commentaries upon Kant. (One of the best is the 'Reproduction' prefixed to Dr. Hutchison Stirling's _Text-book to Kant_.) The non-metaphysical reader should, however, be informed that Kant is very hard reading, and is scarcely intelligible without some slight knowledge of the previous history of Philosophy, especially of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, while some acquaintance with elementary Logic is also desirable. He will find the argument for non-sensationalistic Idealism re-stated in a post-Kantian but much easier form in Ferrier's _Institutes of Metaphysic_. The argument for a theistic Idealism is powerfully stated (though it is not easy reading) in the late Prof. T. H. Green's _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Book I. In view of recent realistic revivals I may add that the earlier chapters of Mr. Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_ still seem to me to contain an unanswerable defence of Idealism as against Materialism or any form of Realism, though his Idealism is not of the theistic type defended in the above lecture. The idealistic argument is stated in a way which makes strongly for Theism by Professor Ward in _Naturalism and Agnosticism_--a work which would perhaps be the best sequel to these lectures for any reader {28} who does not want to undertake a whole course of philosophical reading: readers entirely unacquainted with Physical Science might do well to begin with Part II. A more elementary and very clear defence of Theism from the idealistic point of view is to be found in Dr. Illingworth's _Personality Human and Divine_. Representatives of non-idealistic Theism will be mentioned at the end of the next lecture.

[1] _Mind_, vol. iv. (U.S.), 1885.

[2] I do not mean of course that in the earliest stages of consciousness this distinction is actually made; but, if there are stages of consciousness in which the 'I' is not realized, the idea of matter or even of an 'object' or 'not-self' existing apart from consciousness must be supposed to be equally absent.

[3] I have dealt at length with this forgotten thinker in a Presidential Address to the Aristotelian Society, printed in their _Proceedings_ for 1907.

[4] _Principles of Human Knowledge_, pt. i., Sections 18, 20.

[5] _Principles of Human Knowledge_, pt. 1., Section 23.

[6] See Lecture IV., pp. 96-101, 123-6.

[7] I have attempted to meet this line of argument somewhat more adequately, in the form in which it has recently been taken up by Professor Hoeffding in his _Philosophy of Religion_, in a review in the Review of Theology and Philosophy for November, 1907 (vol. iii.).

{29}

LECTURE II

THE UNIVERSAL CAUSE

In my last lecture I endeavoured to show that matter, so far from constituting the ultimate Reality, cannot reasonably be thought of as existing at all without mind; and that we cannot explain the world without assuming the existence of a Mind in which and for which everything that is not mind has its being. But we are still very far from having fully cleared up the relation between the divine Mind and that Nature which exists in it and for it: while we have hardly dealt at all with the relation between the universal Mind and those lesser minds which we have treated--so far without much argument--as in some way derived from, or dependent upon, that Mind. So far as our previous line of argument goes, we might have to look upon the world as the thought of God, but not as caused by Him or due to His will. We might speak of God as 'making Nature,' but only in the sense in which you or I make Nature when we think it or experience it. {30} 'The world is as necessary to God as God is to the world,' we are often told--for instance by my own revered teacher, the late Professor Green. How unsatisfactory this position is from a religious point of view I need hardly insist. For all that such a theory has to say to the contrary, we might have to suppose that, though God is perfectly good, the world which He is compelled to think is very bad, and going from bad to worse. To think of God merely as the Mind which eternally contemplates Nature, without having any power whatever of determining what sort of Nature it is to be, supplies no ground for hope or aspiration--still less for worship, adoration, imitation. I suggested the possibility that from such a point of view God might be thought of as good, and the world as bad. But that is really to concede too much. A being without a will could as little be bad as he could be good: he would be simply a being without a character. From an intellectual point such a way of looking at the Universe might be more intelligent or intelligible than that of pure Materialism or pure Agnosticism; but morally and religiously I don't know that, when its consequences are fully realized, it is any great improvement upon either of them.[1] {31} Moreover, even intellectually it fails to satisfy the demand which most reflecting people feel, that the world shall be regarded as a Unity of some kind. If God is thought of as linked by some inexplicable fate to a Nature over which He has no sort of control--not so much control as a mere human being who can produce limited changes in the world,--we can hardly be said to have reduced the world to a Unity. The old Dualism has broken out again: after all we still have God and the world confronting one another; neither of them is in any way explained by the other. Still less could such a world be supposed to have a purpose or rational end. For our own mere intellectual satisfaction as well as for the satisfaction of our religious needs we must go on to ask whether we are not justified in thinking of God as the Cause or Creator of the world, as well as the Thinker of it.

This enquiry introduces us to the whole problem of Causality. The sketch which I gave you last time of Bishop Berkeley's argument was a very imperfect one. Bishop Berkeley was from one point of view a great philosophic iconoclast, though he destroyed only that he might build up. He destroyed the superstition of a self-existing matter: {32} he also waged war against what I will venture to call the kindred superstition of a mysterious causal nexus between the physical antecedent and the physical consequent. On this side his work was carried on by Hume. Berkeley resolved our knowledge into a succession of 'ideas.' He did, no doubt, fall into the mistake of treating our knowledge as if it were a mere succession of feelings: he ignored far too much--though he did not do so completely--that other element in our knowledge, the element of intellectual relation, of which I said something last time. Here, no doubt, Berkeley has been corrected by Kant; and, so far, practically all modern Idealists will own their indebtedness to Kant. Even in the apprehension of a succession of ideas, in the mere recognition that this feeling comes after that, there is an element which cannot be explained by mere feeling. The apprehension that this feeling came after that feeling is not itself a feeling. But can I detect any relation between these experiences of mine except that of succession? We commonly speak of fire as the cause of the melting of the wax, but what do we really know about the matter? Surely on reflection we must admit that we know nothing but this--that, so far as our experience goes, the application of fire is always followed by the melting of the wax. Where this is the case we do, from the point of view of {33} ordinary life, speak of the one phenomenon as the cause of the other. Where we don't discover such an invariable succession, we don't think of the one event as the cause of the other.

I shall be told, perhaps, that on this view of the nature of Causality we ought to speak of night as the cause of day. So perhaps we should, if the result to which we are led by a more limited experience were not corrected by the results of a larger experience. To say nothing of the valuable correction afforded by the polar winter and the polar summer, we have learned by a more comprehensive experience to replace the law that day follows night by the wider generalisation that the visibility of objects is invariably coincident upon the presence of some luminous body and not upon a previous state of darkness. But between cases of what we call mere succession and what is commonly called causal sequence the difference lies merely in the observed fact that in some cases the sequence varies, while in others no exception has ever been discovered. No matter how frequently we observe that a sensation of red follows the impact upon the aural nerve of a shock derived from a wave of ether of such and such a length, we see no reason why it should do so. We may, no doubt, make a still wider generalization, and say that every event in Nature is invariably preceded by some definite complex of conditions, {34} and so arrive at a general law of the Uniformity of Nature. And such a law is undoubtedly the express or implied basis of all inference in the Physical Sciences. When we have once accepted that law (as the whole mass of our experience in the purely physical region inclines us to do), then a single instance of A B C being followed by D (when we are quite sure that we have included all the antecedents which we do not know from other experience to be irrelevant) will warrant our concluding that we have discovered a law of nature. On the next occasion of A B C's occurrence we confidently predict that D will follow. But, however often we have observed such a sequence, and however many similar sequences we may have observed, we are no nearer to knowing _why_ D should follow ABC: we can only know that it always does: and on the strength of that knowledge we infer, with a probability which we do no doubt for practical purposes treat as a certainty, that it always will. But on reflection we can see no reason why a wave of ether of a certain length should produce red rather than blue, a colour rather than a sound. There, as always, we discover nothing but succession, not necessary connexion.

These cases of unvaried succession among phenomena, it should be observed, are quite different from cases of real necessary connexion. We don't want to examine thousands of instances of two {35} added to two to be quite sure that they always make four, nor in making the inference do we appeal to any more general law of Uniformity. We simply see that it is and always must be so. Mill no doubt tells us he has no difficulty in supposing that in the region of the fixed stars two and two might make five, but nobody believes him. At all events few of us can pretend to such feats of intellectual elasticity. No amount of contradictory testimony from travellers to the fixed stars, no matter whether they were Bishops of the highest character or trained as Professors of physical Science, would induce us to give a moment's credence to such a story. We simply see that two and two must make four, and that it is inconceivable they should ever, however exceptionally, make five. It is quite otherwise with any case of succession among external phenomena, no matter how unvaried. So long as we confine ourselves to merely physical phenomena (I put aside for the moment the case of conscious or other living beings) nowhere can we discover anything but succession; nowhere do we discover Causality in the sense of a necessary connexion the reversal of which is inconceivable.

Are we then to conclude that there is no such thing as Causality, that in searching for a cause of everything that happens, we are pursuing a mere will o' the wisp, using a mere _vox nihili_ which has {36} as little meaning for the reflecting mind as fate or fortune? Surely, in the very act of making the distinction between succession and causality, in the very act of denying that we can discover any causal connexion between one physical phenomenon and another, we imply that we have got the idea of Causality in our minds; and that, however little we may have discovered a genuine cause, we could not believe that anything could happen without a cause.

For my own part, I find it quite possible to believe that a phenomenon which has been followed by another phenomenon 9999 times should on the 10,000th time be followed by some other phenomenon. Give me the requisite experience, and belief would follow; give me even any adequate evidence that another person has had such an experience (though I should be very particular about the evidence), and I should find no difficulty in believing it. But to tell me that the exception to an observed law might take place without any cause at all for the variation would seem to be pure nonsense. Put the matter in another way. Let us suppose an empty world, if one can speak of such a thing without contradiction--let us suppose that at one time nothing whatever had existed, neither mind nor matter nor any of that mysterious entity which some people find it possible to believe in which is {37} neither mind nor matter. Let us suppose literally nobody and nothing to have existed. Now could you under these conditions rationally suppose that anything could have come into existence? Could you for one moment admit the possibility that after countless aeons of nothingness a flash of lightning should occur or an animal be born? Surely, on reflection those who are most suspicious of _a priori_ knowledge, who are most unwilling to carry their speculations beyond the limits of actual experience, will be prepared to say, 'No, the thing is utterly for ever impossible.' _Ex nihilo nihil fit_: for every event there must be a cause. Those who profess to reject all other _a priori_ or self-evident knowledge, show by their every thought and every act that they never really doubt that much.