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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTORY.

"Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies;—

Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower—but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is."

Tennyson.

"I have written under the conviction that no Philosophy of the Universe can satisfy the minds of thoughtful men which does not deal with such questions as inevitably force themselves on our notice, respecting the Author and the Object of the Universe; and also under the conviction that every Philosophy of the Universe which has any consistency, must suggest answers, at least conjectural, to such questions. No Cosmos is complete from which the question of Deity is excluded; and all Cosmology has a side turned towards Theology."—Whewell, Philosophy of Discovery, Preface, p. vi.

"All science is but the intercalation, each more comprehensive than that which it endeavours to explain, between the great Primal Cause and the ultimate effect."—Professor Allman's Address to the British Association at Bradford, 1873.

"Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,

Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom.

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet,—

Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."

Tennyson.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER I.

This Introductory Chapter consists of three parts. The first lays down the questions proposed, and shows the necessity of asking them. The second illustrates what may be termed in Art-phrase the motives of the Essay. The third briefly describes its method, and explains the readiest mode of studying Natural Theology.

Analysis—Inquiries underlying Natural Theology—Way in which they are answered by our Instinctive Persuasions—How far this answer is sufficing; how far influential.

Phases of Doubt; undeclared Scepticism and Indifferentism—Origin and leaders of the modern Sceptical and Materialistic Schools—Doubts of Intellect distinguished from Scepticism of Immorality—Social dangers and alarms exemplified.

Method of this Essay, and requests as to the mode of reading it—Divisions of Argument; their separate and consilient effect.

Additional Notes and Illustrations.

A.—The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone and others on Modern Scepticism.

B.—On Corruption of the Judgment by misdirected Moral Sentiments.

C.—On Special Pleading in History and Morals.

D.—On the Method employed throughout this Essay.

E.—On the Effect of Consilient Proofs.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

No subjects of thought have ever been proposed more essential to the culture and happiness of mankind than the two following inquiries.

Upon the first, human minds dwell unweariedly through every change of circumstance from childhood to advanced age. It is this:—What reason have we to look for a future life after that hour of dissolution which inevitably awaits us all?

The second question unites itself closely, as by indissoluble links, to the first. We always proceed to ask, Is there sufficient ground for believing in the existence of a Supreme Moral Being, to whose righteous care and kindness we can calmly commit ourselves when we come to die?

Suppose any man to maintain that the universe we inhabit,—and we who are a portion of its occupants—came into existence by chance, he renounces at once every right and title to expect a life succeeding his bodily death. Chance—if the word means anything—means absolute uncertainty; and from that which is in its own nature uncertain, what continuing effects, what conclusive expectation, can be drawn?

Neither is the prospect improved by Materialists[a], in whose opinion the being of man comprehends no element differing essentially, and in kind, from the natural world he rules over. We see actually consequent upon every death-bed the decay of our material frame; if, therefore, that frame be not the casket of a brighter jewel, we can assuredly affirm no hope higher or happier than corruption.

The feelings of most human beings revolt from a destiny so ignoble. And many persons are satisfied that this revolt of feeling is in itself a sufficient ground for some belief in Immortality. Why, they ask, should so powerful an instinct dwell in the breast of our race with only a misleading issue? The higher instincts of creatures below us do not mislead them regarding that which is to come. Insects innumerable make provision for the certain sustenance of a progeny they never can live to behold. They also anticipate for themselves a futurity of life and development. The caterpillar invests himself with the web he has spun, and sinks into a chrysalid-sepulchre, to emerge from it in sun-lighted beauty. Can any valid reason be assigned why the intuitive aspirations of man should be more fallacious than such practical foresights of the merely animal world below him?

So far as the writer of these pages is aware, no one has ever alleged a reason why mankind should be thus deluded. And without going further than our own country, it seems probable that this instinctive persuasion is seldom wanting amongst the greater part of our people. Although the moral consequences of such a persuasion, sometimes merely passive, may be far less than good men could desire, yet they are frequently strong enough to assist the weak and wavering when exposed to sudden temptations. In the "short and simple annals of the poor," may be read countless instances of the fact. Neglected men and women, the scorned outcasts of society, have been often held back by it from greater criminality. They have found themselves unable to acquiesce in the belief of their world's opinion—the opinion of their evil friends and companions—that death must be to all creatures the certain end of all things.

If, on the other hand, absolute knowledge of a future state were the natural gift of each person's understanding, there are thousands amongst our educated classes to whom the trial and terror of their own hearts would be incalculably mitigated. Numbers feel that speculative doubts concerning the Being of a God, and life after death, are sources of a continual perplexity and distress, under which they find little or no sympathy. In every fresh affliction or anxiety, such a mind has to sustain a double burden of sorrow, and concerning such it seems emphatically true, that "the heart knoweth his own bitterness." There may, however, be suggested one alleviation for every similar instance of despondency. The same rule holds in this respect as in all human pursuits,—labour is, and will always continue, the appointed path by which we must attain. The more noble the object sought, the more arduous the task and toil,—and what can be nobler than a well-grounded belief in God and Immortality?

Another very large class of educated persons bear their doubts with stoical composure, account them an inevitable burden, and consider it lost time to ask questions concerning "the Unknowable." This class is sustained in its attitude by the prevalence[b] of really sceptical writings;—writings (that is) which deny the possibility of knowledge beyond the circle of positive phenomena. Maxims to this effect are not uncommonly disseminated through the periodical press, books of fiction, and other kinds of light literature. The rapidity of modern life leads men to take opinions upon trust, and keeps them back from serious investigation. An ephemeral satirist becomes in their eyes as valuable an authority as the most deeply-thinking reasoner. Much work is saved by this valuation, to say nothing of the great gain in self-complacency. And, no doubt, many persons feel particularly complacent in taking their tone from minds which are evidently no better informed, and no more finely strung than their own[c].

The class of sceptics just described, cannot be reckoned in figures. They make up multitudes never enumerated apart in any religious census. They live and die and make no sign,—and how can quiet unavowed disbelief obtain a separate place in the columns of the Registrar-General? Among the audible tones of respectable people it finds no utterance, and therefore occupies no position. Every one experienced in the world knows that this species of Indifferentism is usually regular at public worship, and reticent where sceptical phrases pass current. The only sure test is a moral one—of very slow application, since it takes time for a decent sceptic to balance the pleasures against the risks of immorality. Meantime, there remains some possible hope for a happier choice during the period of indecision.

Far fewer, because far more strongly declared, are the literary lodestars of that harbourless sea, where all beyond the horizon of cloud and billow seems veiled and uncertain. Some amongst them may, after all, be but wandering lights themselves[d], floating and drifting like meteors which glimmer at nightfall across shadowy waters. Others appear really fixed in a dim and joyless firmament where the Present only is true, the remote Past a conjecture, and the Future altogether inscrutable. According to them this bounded prospect is the true goal and real aim of our transitory life,—within it the trials and griefs of humanity assume their proper dimensions and pale their ineffectual terrors, while peace, like a river of Eden, flows out over the once martyred but now ransomed race of man. Even in our own imperfect struggling day, the human creature may be happy who certainly knows that this mixed existence is his All—that outside it he can live no life except in the memory of his fellow-men—that there is no God, no futurity of individual progress or perfection; but that one thing happens equally to the good and the bad—the wise and the unwise. This knowledge brings happiness, because it chases from the breast self-centred hope and fear: the man who accepts this blank beholds himself, as he really is, an atom of the Universal Whole—borne now by the irresistible tide of force into sunlight—borne soon by the same irresistible tide into a darkness of the shadow of death.

Compared with this creed, the martyrs of Monotheism were self-loving—for did not they hope? Compared with this simple creed, all who have stopped short on the threshold of frightful crimes, and hesitated to stain their souls, were also self-loving—for did they not fear?

A great variety of remonstrances have been addressed to writers of this latter type[e]. Social consequences have been eloquently urged against hypotheses which, if realised, would weaken, or perhaps destroy, self-control, foresight, and self-improvement. In reply we are told that these objects of pursuit still appear good and useful to benevolent eyes. But it should be remembered that our age is one of transition—half-developed as it were in Doubt. Our benevolent men have not yet been fully disciplined in the coming school. Who, therefore, shall safely predict for us the effects of its proposed discipline? Add that, looking at the civilised world in general, certain ideas (illusions, as they are sometimes called) respecting a Futurity influenced by our present right and wrong-doing, are ingrained in cultured man, and may perhaps be described as connate with his nineteenth-century existence[f]. Is it possible, then, for any one to say beforehand what may or may not be the consequence of uprooting cherished principles fitted in their own nature to exercise so practical an influence?

Remonstrances of this kind, however truthful and valuable in themselves, would be out of place in the ensuing pages. A contribution to the constructive science of Natural Theology must rest its arguments upon the reason of the case, to the exclusion of many interesting and persuasive considerations. All questions of Sociology, have, however, a special fascination for numerous thinkers who are unlikely to overlook negative conclusions lying close upon the confines of their own science, and to them the treatment of such questions must be remitted.

That these phases of thought have not, in fact, escaped the consideration of benevolent observers, may be inferred from the special circumstances under which this Essay is composed. Into every condition (each being required by the exigencies of the subject) the present writer enters with honest cordiality. His wish and aim is to place before those who, while they doubt, still debate, certain reasonable considerations which have appeared convincing to other speculative minds. And he may defend himself from any possible charge of causeless intermeddling with other men's concerns, in the words of one amongst our most genuinely English poets:—