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we can neither define nor prove . There is , so to speak , a logic of emotions and a logic of instincts as well as a logic of ideas ; and most of those who have meditated profoundly on the great speculations which have immemorially solicited the attention of mankind , have been led , some by one route others by another , to the conclusion that m the soul of man there resides a faculty which may be
called altogether transcendant , the province of this faculty being precisely those ideas which the Understanding or common Logic of man has failtd to grasp . Kant is the last great systematic psychologist who sets this notion clearly forth . We are not Kantists , but detect in his system the indistinct expression of that consciousness of a transcendant faculty we feel within ourselves , and which we see so powerfully operating on man .
We may therefore admit without scruple , that the existence of a God is not to be proved ; if by proof be meant a Q ,. e . d . of logic . The man who renounces Faith for Logic must , we think , be beaten in this argument , if logic is to be the measure of truth . We cannot know God . In every sense he is inscrutable . In every sense the infinite must be incomprehensible to the finite . We reflect with pride on our magnificent telescopes which enable us to sweep the heavens , and discern millions of worlds in all the choral grandeur of " music of the spheres , " but even in the exaltation of our pride we are forced to own that we are now , as on the first day , and
shall be for evermore , ignorant of the real nature of the simplest pebble or blade of grass ; and that to hope to penetrate the inscrutable is a wild and baseless delusion . We cannot know God . We cannot prove his existence . The question is a transcendant one . If any reader unversed in philosophical speculation should be startled by this admission , and imagine it must lead us to atheism , we will reassure
him in a moment . The existence of God is not demonstrable . But neither is the existence of an external world ! Nothing is more certain to those who have fully investigated the subject , than that the arguments with which Berkeley and Fichte deny the reality of matter , reduce the question to this narrow ground : There is no proof of its existence , but you must choose between the hypothesis of matter , and the hypothesis of a direct action of the Deity upon our minds .
In truth , the existence of an external world is also one of the transcendant questions ; but because logic fails you , are you to be sceptical ? Not so . Nor are you to deny a Deity because you cannot prove your hypothesis . The arguments are very similar . It is said : "If I cannot know what the Deity is , how am I to believe in him ? " To which the answer is , " I cannot know what the universe is , I cannot form the faintest possible conception of what it is apart from my present conceptions , which are impregnated with my own sensations ; but , nevertheless , I believe that the universe exists , though I believe it to be wholly unlike my conception of it . So with God : I do not know , I believe . "
Have we any philosophic justification for a belief transcending logic ? Tliat there is danger in disregarding logic every one must perceive , and only on very satisfactory grounds should it be permitted . But we think an irresistible case can be made out for such a process in the present question . We will not employ the " argument from design . " Design is a human notion . " Man designs , Nature is , " as Mr . Atkinson aphoristically phrases it . Nor will we take advantage of the deification of Law which
Miss Martineau and her friend substitute lor God , though surely she must admit that we ran know jin little of Law as of God , that Law is but the name we give to the Mystery of which only appearances arc vouchsafed to us ? We will take our stand on broad philosophic ground , and say that while science teaches us that we are profoundly ignorant of causes and realities ( and must over rem . tin so while on earth ) it becomes us not to dogmatize upon what we cannot know ; and that it there are other avenues lo ( be noul than those of direct
demonstration ( as we aflirin ) surely it is wvki > . to give some heed to them , and to be modest upon our ignorance ? In plain language : as it is confessed we cannot have direct immediate knowledge of God , so neither can we know that he is not . To assert there is no God is an unwarrantable dogmatism . So that on the ground of strict Logic , if you cannot prove the existence of God you are equally incompetent to prove his non-existence . Quitting Logic , let us now nsk if there is any evidence for the belief ; any reason for making this n question of transcendental logic ? Yes ; just the
sort of evidence there is for believing in an external world—the irresistible evidence of our instincts Instinct may 6 eem a fragile prop for philosophy , because in our arrogance we have apportioned instinct to brutes and " reason , the sole prerogative " to man , and so grown to regard instinct as "infe' - rior" to reason . However this may be , Instinct has one qualification which is not despicable : it ' -is never wrong . Reason is errant enough , God knows , but instinct is true as needle to the pole . Now , inasmuch as philosophers confess that all our knowledge is only relative , surely .. the knowledge given by bur instincts is as worthy of
our guidance as that given by our reason ? And when we see all men and all nations , whatever their state of ignorance or culture , believe in a God or Gods , we are entitled to assume that the constitution of the mind is such that the belief is irresistible . It is no argument against the instinctive nature of this belief that some few Atheists are to be found , no more than it is against the belief in an external world that there are still some Berksleyans . These exceptional cases admit of explanation . Nor can any argument be drawn from the variations of religious creeds , because creeds are but the explanations given by reason of the one persistant sentiment .
Placed as we are in this universe , surrounded by mysteries whjch imperiously demand froin us some explanation , we instinctively believe in some supreme Power , to which , under emotions of awe , terror , or reverence , we , give a name and a form . This religious sentiment , or instinct—the necessary accompaniment of our human conditions —gains those varieties of cultured expressionyvhioh we see in the various religions of history . They are nothing more than the attempts of cultivated Reason to explain the phenomena which call , forth
the Sentiment . They are—to use popular language —the efforts of the Intellect to interpret the Heart . Varying with every change in the intellectual condition of men , the religious sentiment remains constant , persistant . So true is this that we defy the Atheist not to have perpetually recurring solicitations of the instinct which he is forced to silence by his dogmatism . We will not say there never was an Atheist ; we know the contrary . But we believe there never was an Atheist who did not , from time to time , feel the great Mystery overpower his conclusions .
Thus far we have arrived : men have religious Instincts called forth by the great Mysteries of the Universe ; these Instincts find expression in creeds ; the various Beliefs of men are the attempts to explain the Mysteries which lay their burden on the soul . But , it has been asked , are there not higher stages of culture wherein these explanations and these instincts disappear ? In other words , will not the progress of man finally lead to Atheism ? As far as we can judge , the contrary is true . Atheism we hold , with Auguste Cornte , to be the product of effete metaphysics . Interrogating our own history and the history of our race , these seem to be
the three phases of the question : — I . Dogmatic Atheism , or the unequivocal denial of a God . II . Suspensive Atheism , or the state of absolute nonafh ' rmation , refusing to admit that God is , because proofs are wanting , and refusing equally to admit th ' at God is not , because also proofs are wanting . III . Spiritualism , or the rejection of a merely logical standard which demands proofs where no proofs can be given , and a return to the more natural teaching of the soul , which takes in the emotions and instincts as councillors grave enough to deserve a hearing , and which allows the soul to give an expression to the sum total of the influences which Nature has over it .
We touch upon these points , we do not dwell upon them . If we have thrown out hints only of the various lines by which the tbeistic argument may be pursued on strictly philosophic grounds , without rhetorical appeals as without verbal subtleties , the reader must develop *) them for himself . We have not expatiated on tho great subject of religious Kmotion , because the topic is so familiar ; and to those who disregard it , one might us well talk about Poetry to the mathematician , who wanted to know what Paradise Jjost proved .
So much on tho general subject . With reference to the form of Atheism maintained in this volume , we are puzzled how to characterize it . Much of what is there written we should accept without : hesitation ; but we cannot see our way through other parts . Here in a passage , which in spite of its Ntrange deification of Law is very noteworthy : — " Of nil the people I have ever known , how faw there
are who can suspend their opinion on so yast a subject aft tne origin and progression of the universe ! Hbw few there are who have ever thought of suspending thetr opinion ! How few who would bo 4 think it a sin so to suspend their opinion ! Tome , however , it seems absolutely necessary ., as well as the greatest possible relief , to come to a plain understanding with myself about it ; and deep and sweet is the repose of having done so . There is no theory of a God , of ah author of Nature , of an origin of the universe , which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties ; which is not ( to my feelings ) so irreverent as to make me blush ; so misleading as to make me mourn . I can now hardly believe that it was I who once read Milton with scarcely any recoil from the
theology ; or Paley ' s Natural Theology with pleasure at thd ingenuity of the mechanic-god he thought he was recommending to the admiration of his readers . To think what the God of the multitude is , —morally , as well as physically ! To think what the God of the spiritualist is ! and to remember the admission of the best of that class , that God is a projection of their own ideal faculty , recognizable only through that class of faculties , and by no means through any external etiden . ee ! to see that they give the same account of the origin of Idols ; and simply pronounce that the first is an external reality , and the last an internal illusion ! To think that they begin with the superstition of supposing a God of essentially
their own nature , who is their friend and in sympathy with them , and the director of all the events of their lives , and the thoughts of their minds ; and how , when driven from this grosser superstition by the evidences of law which are all around them ,, they remove their God a stage from them , and talk of a general instead of a particular Providence , and a necessity which modifies the character of prayer ; and how , next , when the absolute dominion of law opens more and more to their percept , tion , excluding all notions of revelation and personal intercourse between a God and man , and of sameness of nature In God and man ;—to think tnat , when men have rpached thte point under the guidance of science , they
should yet cling to the baseless notion of a single , conscious Being , -outside of Nature , —himself unaccounted for , and not himself accoutring for Nature !—How far happier it is to see—how much wiser to admit —that we know nothing whatever about the matter ! And , from the moment when we begin to discover t , he superstition of our childhood to be melting away , —to discover how absurd and shocking it is to be talking every day about our own passing moods and paltry interests to a supposed author and guide of the universe , —how well it would be for us to set our minds free altogether , — to open them widp to evidence of what is true and what is hot ! Till this is done , there is every
danger of confusion in our faculties of reverence , of conscience , of moral perception , and of the pursuit and practice of truth . When it is done , what repose begins to pervade the mind ! What clearness of moral purpose naturally ensues ! and what healthful activity of the moral faculties ! When we have finally dismissed all notion of subjection to a supreme lawless will , —all the perplexing notions about sin and responsibility , and arbitrary reward and punishment , —and stand free to see where we are , and to study our own nature , and recognize our own conditions , —the relief is like that of coming out of a cave full of painted Bhadows under the
free sky , with the earth open around us to the horizon What a . new perception we obtain of ' the beauty of holi ness , '—the loveliness of a healthful moral condition , — accordant with the laws of nature , and not with the requisitions of theology ! What a new sense of reverence awakens in us when , dismissing the image of a creator bringing the universe out of nothing , we clearly perceive that the very conception of origin is too great for ub , and that deeper and deeper down in the abysses of time , further and further away in the vistas of the ages , all was still what we aee it now , —a system of ever-working forces , producing forms , uniform in certain lines and largely various in the whole , and all under the operation of immutable law !"
Did it never occur tq Miss Martineau : Firstly , that Law is as much a human conception as Design , and that in strict logical rigour we have no right whatever , to predicate of the universe the condition of Law more than we have of Design ? Secondly , that this immutable Law is at the best only a logical God—leaving the emotions entirely unappealed to ? Thirdly , that as our ignorance on such subjects is absolute , and we can only frame hypotheses to satisfy the cravings of our nature , hypotheses for hypothesis that of an Universal Mind is better than that of an Universal Law ?
Mr . Atkinson ' s profession of faith is more pantheistic : —• " To believe in a cause of the phenomena which we call Nature , mid which ' constitutes tlie thinking man , seems cnaentinl to all renaoning beings . I am far fronl being an Atheist , an renting on second onuses . As well might we , resting on the earth , deny that there i « any depth beneath , or , living in tlmfc , deny eternity . I do not Hay , therefore , that there is no G < Jd ; but that it . in extravagant and irreverent to imagine that caune a pernon . AH we know In phenomena ; and thnt ine fundamental
cause is wholly beyond our conception . In this I do not nurtpciul my judgment ; but rather assert plainly that of the motive power or principle of things we know Absolutely nothing , and call know nothing ; and that no form of word * could convey any knowledge of it ; and that no form of thought could imagine that which in wholly aside of Nature ( M Nature in to us ) , nhd of the . nature tit the mind , And , aft it Were , behind the undemanding . A ' aaufr * of Conner in an unfarn < Sn » itible tnyfcter ' y . Fhehorrierianeceftftartly have a certain form and order whl « h we tertn law . The most fundamental and general law in whfct Bacon
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202 « fc * fUaJrer . [ Satprpav ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 1, 1851, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1872/page/14/
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