Posted on 01/17/2009 5:46:44 AM PST by Ethan Clive Osgoode
This is taken from "Final Causes: A Refutation" by Wathen Call, 1891. The book is dedicated to demolishing all notions of purpose, design, meaning and intention in nature, by means of Darwinism and related philosophies. The fascinating thing about Call's book is the autobiographical introduction, where he records the deformation and loss of his faith in detail. Bad childhood catechesis, atheist poets, modern philosophers, German biblical criticism, third-rate rationalist theologians, and finally Comte and Darwin, reduced him from Anglicanism to nothingism.
An Exhibit at the Museum of Rationalism
Exerpts from Final Causes: A Refutation (1891), preface, introduction, conclusion (much abridged.)
Wathen Mark Call
The plausibility of the Design argument at first captivated, then bewildered, and finally dissatisfied me. The explanation given of the congruities in nature by thinkers who had rejected the doctrine of Final Causes did not meet my difficulty. To say, with Kant, that we transported into nature an idea which we had created, was true enough, but the existence of the harmonies and adaptations in the animate and inanimate world in my judgment remained unexplained. The mechanical order of the universe I found fairly explained in the pages of Kant; but when I contemplated the living world, the Kantian explanation appeared unavailable. Aristotle indeed had recognised self-adapting tendencies in nature, resulting from an original formative nisus, the action of a Divine Principle. Professor Huxley, in the Academy 1869, suggested a reconciliation of teleology with morphology by regarding the whole world, living and not living, as the consequence of the mutual interaction of the molecular forces of the original fire-mist. At length I recognised the efficacy of Mr. Darwin's glorious discovery, and saw in it an explanation of the difficulties which so long rendered me reluctant to abandon the old teleological doctrine.
In the construction of this Essay, I have drawn upon all the books within my reach. My illustrations are freely borrowed from Mr. Spencer's valuable writings, from those of Haeckel, Huxley, Darwin, Radenhausen, Buchner, Feuerbach, Fiske,...
Abstaining from a formal and systematic investigation of the claims of dogmatic Christianity, I content myself with a recital of the reasons which induced me to abandon a creed consecrated by the traditions and services of two thousand years.
This recital will naturally assume the form of a mental autobiography. Some few fragmentary passages from the imperfectly-recalled history of early years will best illustrate both the devout faith of childhood and the ignorant scepticism of boyhood, which, transitory as it proved, yet served as a rehearsal for the instructed unbelief of mature age.
A strong natural bias, if not to doctrinal religion, at least to religious sentiment, not unaccompanied with a certain imaginative activity, was a leading characteristic of my early years. I recall an incident of those years which, trivial in itself, exercised a powerful and permanent impression on my mind. Wandering, after the fashion of children, over the house in which I lived, I chanced to stray into a room where a woman sat reading, in a low voice, of strange sights and beautiful shapes beheld in vision ั I knew not where, or when, or by whom. I listened as one enchanted. The Book from which she read was the Bible. Thirsting to know more of the glorious phantom-world of which I had caught a glimpse, I one day carried off the coveted volume, and henceforward, morning after morning, I sat alone, evoking splendid pictures of Oriental life and adventure from the magic pages of the mystic book, or peopling my solitary retreat with the visionary forms of dreaming prophet, majestic patriarch, heroic king, or pastoral princess.
This grave delight in the poetic and narrative portions of "The Old Testament" was succeeded by the severer interest which the story of "The New Testament" awakened. Though the religious enthusiasm thus excited endured through many years, it was not destined to survive the development of the sceptical tendencies which had been dormant in my mind. At this distance of time, I can but reunite the scattered traces of half-conscious thought or obscure feeling, which preceded and prepared the determinate scepticism of advancing years. A schoolfellow had once avowed in my hearing his disbelief in a material hell. Another young acquaintance had objected to the anti-scientific cosmogony of Genesis, instancing the existence of light, with the division of day and night, before the creation of the sun. A volume of theology had been given me to read, containing an elaborate argument to prove, what I had never doubted, the being of a God. The conception of God as a First Cause, on which the author laid great stress, appeared to me destructive of the personal and affectional nature of the Deity, and to leave in its place a cold impassive entity. Speculation on the possible fate, in another world, of Lord Byron, the favourite poet of my youth, pronounced by the pious to be hopelessly lost, probably inclined me to wavering views on the subject of posthumous retribution. The general productions of this volcanic genius captivated me with the spell of a congenial gloom, rather than directly educated me into unbelief. "Cain, a Mystery," indeed, proved exceptionally provocative of doubt. Among the many passages which suggested that there was something wrong in the popular theology was one in which Cain, conversing with his sister Adah, insinuates that the love "not yet a sin" in them would be so in their children -- a doctrine which seemed to make morality, varying in different ages, depend on the arbitrary decree of Supreme Power. In another passage, Cain argues, "to produce destruction can surely never be the task of joy," and illustrates his position by the apologue of the lamb.
It was not Byron, however, but a contemporary poet, who exerted a definitively disturbing influence on my mind. At first, indeed, the anti-monarchical, anti-theological views of Shelley perplexed and amazed me, accustomed to the utterance of only conservative doctrine. About a year before my first superficial acquaintance with the writings of this revolutionary poet, I submitted with reluctance and pious self-coercion to the ceremony of Confirmation. I well remember expressing, in the hearing of one of my sisters, a vague desire to escape the impending obligation, pleading in explanation, without distinctly specifying, what I, perhaps with childish exaggeration, designated my dreadful doubts. Of these doubts, however, I said nothing to my parents. But now, when my scepticism received a fresh stimulus from my first readings in Shelley, I ventured, in a letter to my mother, to intimate, though no doubt very inadequately, the perplexed and unsettled state of my mind. If the letter elicited no reply, it was not, assuredly, from any want of intelligent sympathy, but because it was judged wisest to confide in other agencies than those of controversy for the removal of my difficulties. Some months after, a boyish effusion of mine fell into my mother's hands, expressive of my admiration for the genius of Shelley, and of my sorrow for his suffering life and premature death.
About this time a dear, valued, and lamented schoolfriend, whose literary sympathies resembled my own, presented me with the two volumes of Shelley published by Ascham. These volumes became the constant companions of my solitary hours. I was fascinated by the tumultuous splendour, the magical music, the ethical grandeur, the social enthusiasm of this imperial genius.
His blazing protest against the errors of popular Christianity was in entire unison with my incipient heterodoxy; his deep sympathy with suffering mankind, his magnificent vision of human regeneration, the profoundly religious speculations scattered through his writings, captivated my heart and imagination, and I accepted with eager gladness, as my holy ideal, the Spirit of Intellectual Beauty.
The overthrow of the old creed was now complete. Crude and immature as are the notes to Queen Mab, they yet contained enough to effect an entire revolution in the opinions of a youth, ignorant, indeed, but prone to reflection, and experiencing an intense dissatisfaction with the narrowness and exclusiveness of the old evangelical creed. Reluctant to cause pain to others, I did not openly repudiate religious prescription; I continued even to pray in secret; I allowed myself to enter on residence in the University of Cambridge, with the implied understanding that I was eventually to become a clergyman of the Church of England.
With the freedom of college life came at first increased freedom of thought. The arguments of the Fairy Mab were reinforced by the philosophy of the subtle Hume. In the second year of my college life I was without theological faith, but not without faith in truth, in goodness, in human nature. In general, opinion in the University was acquiescently orthodox. One college friend, indeed, professed a sort of fatalism, and having been in part educated in Germany, talked of rationalism without having any real knowledge of the subject. With another acquaintance I remember carrying on a philosophical discussion on the efficacy of prayer. A third avowed himself a Unitarian; and a fourth rather repelled me by a cynical license of expression. Gradually a growing dissatisfaction, social, moral, and intellectual, almost unconsciously drew me away from the negative opinions which I had with the natural precipitancy of youth adopted. I turned from Hume's Essay on Miracles and James Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind to works of mystical piety, to the writings of the refiners and spiritualisers of Christian theology -- above all, to S. T. Coleridge. I studied the stock books on the "Evidences," Paley, Locke, Home, Pearson, Sherlock, etc.; I read Jeremy Taylor, Hooker, Milton's prose works, attracted to their creed by sympathy with their genius, and prompted by an eager desire to vanquish doubt and repel difficulties. In thus reverting to orthodox belief, I was influenced by the clamorous demand of my whole nature for a rule of conduct and an objective ideal of faith. I argued myself into a belief that this "realised ideal" must exist, and that it could be no other than the Christian Church. The Church, as the embodiment of celestial truth, as the aggregate of noble and beautiful spirits, dead or living, appeared to me a sublime conception.
To the mysterious doctrines of the Church I was now enabled to reconcile my mind by the aid of a philosophising process. The doctrine of a Triune Deity became comprehensible through the analogy of man's triple nature. The difficulties connected with the history of the Fall were smoothed away by Coleridge's explanation of the doctrine of original sin, not as a primeval historical fact, but as the ever-originating imperfection of an individual nature. Coleridge, too, enabled me to surmount the vital difficulty presented by the question of plenary inspiration. The geological difficulty I met by one of the glosses common at that time -- the interpolation of an indefinite period between the initial verse of Genesis and the sequel of the narrative of creation, or the expansion of the six days into mystical epochs of any required duration. The crowning difficulty to belief, so often the first step to scepticism, remained. I had early rejected the doctrine of eternal punishment.
Thus disavowing the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and rejecting the creed of nearly all Christendom on one aspect of a future life, I entered the ministry of the English Church (1843), in sentiment evangelical, in historical prepossession Anglican, in exegesis latitudinarian. The internal calm and inward satisfaction to which I had attained, after a long and painful conflict, were delightful.
As time lapsed on, the hope I had cherished of the continuance of this mental calm began to fade. The first symptom of returning dissatisfaction which I can recall arose out of my universalist view of posthumous penalty. As my experience widened, I became more and more conscious that my interpretation of the New Testament doctrine of future retribution was not recognised by the clergy or the laity of the English Church.
From every pulpit, from every school-desk, from every book of theology, the doctrine taught was the everlasting perdition of the unrepentant sinner or the hardened unbeliever. I found the mass of authoritative opinion against me. I began to doubt the correctness of my own interpretation. Re-examining the subject, I convinced myself that Christianity was responsible for this dreadful doctrine; that, with scarce any exception, the Churches, Catholic and Protestant, all believed in it. The profound Leibnitz had vindicated it; the judicious Arnold had reasserted it. Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, an innumerable army of Christian combatants, were all against me. The Synod of Constantinople had proclaimed the torments of the damned eternal; the Augsburg Confession had reiterated the proclamation. These or similar facts did not fail to weigh with me. Later, the whole scheme of Christian redemption appeared to me incompatible with the doctrine of universal restoration; and no countenance was given it by the Book itself, which not only dismissed the wicked into everlasting punishment, contrasting their sentence with the reception of the righteous into everlasting happiness, but left their future irrevocably determined, with no intimation of a change in the eternal decrees, no hint of that pardon in the grave of which a recent and supple theology dreams, and which, if contemplated in the divine intentions, would surely have been divulged in a miraculous revelation. The idea was an appalling one. I was haunted, not indeed, as I believe some have been, with the picture of the flaming prison of the Omnipotent Gaoler ever in the mind's eye, but with a feeling of extreme pity and sorrow for a great part of the human race, the noble, the wise, the great, the good, mighty poets and wise benefactors of mankind, for gentle and beloved women, admired and affectionate friends, helplessly and hopelessly lost; nay, kept everlastingly alive, to be the victims of a retaliation which had no object but retaliation, no result but agony, insane concentrated malignity on the part of God, inconceivable rage, hatred, despair, on the part of man. I had found the world unintelligible to me; I had accepted the revelation that was to make it intelligible. Human philosophy had failed to explain to me the mystery of existence; Christian philosophy explained it to be the perpetuation of sin and misery, intensified by Omnipotent intervention. Such a solution of the problem was in my opinion so incredible, that the unsolved mystery itself was, in comparison, a mental satisfaction and intellectual joy.
With reviving doubt on the subject of future retribution came back into life the old difficulty of plenary inspiration. Inquiry convinced me that Coleridge's criterion was futile; the stamp of infallibility was absent from the old records; not in this or in that passage, but in chapter after chapter, book after book of the Bible, I saw only the traces of human penmanship. Many years before the Bishop of Natal startled the orthodox world from its propriety, I had carefully examined, with the help of De Wette's Introduction, Geddes's Commentary, and "Selections from Lorenzo Baur's Theology of the Old Testament," the five books traditionally attributed to Moses.
The exegetical expedient by which the cosmogony of the Old Testament was reduced into harmony with modern science was shown to be futile when I compared the arbitrary interpretation of a reconciling theology with the various passages which proved that the heaven and earth of the first verse of the initial chapter of Genesis were the heaven and earth of other verses in the same chapter, as well as of the Fourth Commandment. The natural meaning of this creation-hymn is, that the heaven, the earth, the sun and moon, the planets and the stars, together with all the plants and animals on the earth, were called into existence within six days. I now learned to see that the contradiction between the disclosure of geology and the narrative of creation in Genesis was irreconcilable.
Further analyses, as I became acquainted with the writings of German and English theologians, demonstrated the existence of a pervading mythical or legendary element in the books of the Old Testament, and showed that the early history of the Jews was, in the words of a great ecclesiastical historian, a mass of legends.
With an extended knowledge of German critical theology, I found that anachronisms, contradictions, discrepancies, mythical recitals, and ideal representations pervaded the whole of the Pentateuch. But if such was the case generally with the several books of which it consisted, there was one particular book -- the Book of Deuteronomy -- the characteristic peculiarities of which separated it from those with which it had been incorporated, and indicated that it was composed after the age of the Jehovistic and Elohistic authors. While little if any of the first four books of the Pentateuch was written by Moses, Deuteronomy, with its legislative enactments, pointing to a later date, was shown to be a free composition of the period between Hezekiah and Josiah.
Pre-eminent among these pious fictions was a book which I had once accepted as before all others genuine -- the Book of Daniel. In its minute prevision of events I had once recognised the communication of superhuman knowledge by the divine to the human mind, and had accepted its disclosure of the future as an irresistible demonstration of the reality of the Christian Revelation. A critical study of its reputed prophecies convinced me that what Porphyrius the Neo-Platonist had asserted was only too true, when he maintained that it was fabricated by a Jew who had lived in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and that it was rather an account of things which had taken place, than a prophecy of the future. The conclusion of Porphyrius, and the arguments of the deistical writer Anthony Collins, had been approved by the pious and learned Dr. Arnold. The authority of Arnold's name perhaps facilitated my own acceptance of them.
The continued study of [Isaiah's prophecies] convinced me that they emanated from a patriotic Hebrew, who, living in the age of Cyrus, welcomed the conquering monarch as the appropriate champion of his oppressed countrymen. For the artificial horizon which the orthodox theology requires, the true and natural horizon was thus substituted.
The Apocalypse of St. John, the delight of my youthful years, was submitted to the same destructive criticism.
During this stage of my inquiry a theological treatise fell into my hands which profoundly modified my views of the nature of the evangelical narratives -- Schleiermacher's Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, translated by Dr. Thirlwall, formerly Bishop of St. David's, shortly before his entrance into holy orders, and while still a young law-student. The arguments adduced by the author appeared to me decisive as to the historical untrustworthiness of the New Testament annals in general, as well as of the third Gospel in particular. One important result of the systematic examination of the sacred biography was the clearer perception of the distinctive and independent character of the Gospel bearing the name of St. John, and the irreconcilability of its historical representations with the corresponding statements of relation to the Apocalypse. The writings of the Tubingen School -- in particular, the masterly treatise of the founder of the School, F. C. Baur -- ultimately convinced me that this theosophical Gospel was not the production of the Apostle St. John.
Unlike the narrative of St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. Luke, that of St. John is conspicuously a spiritual or ideal Gospel. It repeats the Gnostic vocabulary, Father, Word, Beginning, Life, Truth, Grace, Fulness, or Pleroma. It opposes God to the world, light to darkness, the children of God to the children of the devil. It borrows a Gnostic expression in designating Christ as the Only-begotten. The doctrine of the Paraclete or Comforter is a development of Christian doctrine which recalls the heretical vocabulary of Valentinus or Montanus... In the commencement of this controversy, which towards the end of the second century assumed an altered character, the fourth Gospel must have had its origin.
One doctrine there is indeed common to the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels, to the Paul of the Epistles, to the Peter and James of the Canon, to the author of the Apocalypse -- the expectation of Christ's immediate return. It cannot be denied, says Bleek, that the first Christians generally, and the New Testament writers in particular, cherished the hope that the glorious appearing of the Lord would not be far distant. The late Rev. Frederick Robertson frankly avowed his belief that the Apostles lived in contemplation of the immediate end of the world, and boldly ascribed the unity of Christians, and the transformation of the Christian religion from a philosophy into a life, to this preposterous delusion. On this point there was unanimity among the promulgators of Christianity, but this unanimity was a unanimity of error.
During the long and weary progress of my inquiries, I consulted numerous works by German as well as English authors, on both the orthodox and heterodox side of the question.
Of the old creed of my childhood little now remained. I still held, however, to the crowning miracle of the Resurrection of Jesus, while surrendering to a sceptical criticism the individual miracles of the Bible. To me, at this time, the reality of the Resurrection was a necessary postulate, for I was unable to see how the early success of Christianity could be explained without assuming the miraculous fact. I had read Mr. C. C. Hennell's "Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity," but was not prepared to admit his ingenious historical hypothesis. His suggestion that Christ was raised in an invisible and spiritual manner might have guided me to a more reasonable explanation; but I dwelt rather on the external aspect of the problem, and the impression made on me by Paley's Argument was too strong to pass away till I had found an adequate solution of my difficulty. This last hold on supernatural religion was loosened ere long by the searching analysis of Strauss, who, in his first Leben Jesu demonstrated the untrustworthy nature of the evidence. Ultimately I came to see that the diffusion of the Christian religion depended not on the fact of the Resurrection, but on the belief entertained by the Apostles and early converts in the Resurrection. To account for this belief no longer appears to me difficult.
With the surrender of this cardinal miracle, my faith in supernatural agency passed away.
Historical criticism has detected an abundance of such legendary miracles, has taught us how they grow up in the night or twilight of the intellect, how they pass into common belief, and how they fade before the breath and light of the morning of the mind. The old argument, which Hume opposed to the hypothesis of miraculous interposition, again acquired its appropriate ascendancy over my mind. The supernatural is disowned by science, unsupported by philosophy, repudiated by the exigencies of practical life.
While my belief in the supernatural element of Christianity had thus been completely undermined, I had succeeded in evolving a belief in a natural Christianity, which allowed me, though not without a painful internal conflict, to retain the position which I occupied as a curate of the Church of England. I could still believe in a Triune God as a speculative conception; in the religion of Jesus as a providential dispensation; in Jesus himself as the Redeemer, through the majestic manifestation of spiritual excellence which shone out of his life and character, in the grandeur and originality of his mission as a teacher or prophet, and in his more than earthly exaltation as the pre-eminent Son of one common Father, the consummate flower and glory of the human race, still living in the celestial circles of eternity, with an immortality in which we, his younger brothers, should one day partake. The time, however, at length approached when even this residuary faith was to yield before the assaults of continued inquiry. In my solitude I had become a diligent student. Kante, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Mill, Grote, and Comte often drew me away from my poets -- Shakespeare, Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and others.
Comte, in particular, had at one time an almost tyrannous influence over my mind. Believing, with Mazzini, in the great and beautiful banner of democracy, in the progress of all through all under the leading of the best and wisest, I cannot accept the political reconciliation of Comte, which rests on the autocratic principle, nor can I be satisfied with the chivalrous type of feminine influence and power which the founder of Positivism proposes for our acceptance. But always a reader of history, and penetrated with the sense of historical continuity, I welcomed with eager delight Comte's magnificent survey of the present and past life of humanity, interspersed as it was with occasional glimpses of future possibilities. His law of the three successive stages of speculation was as a revelation to me, illuminating what had before been palpable darkness. His classification of the sciences, appealing to a sentiment of unity, and satisfying a great intellectual want, by affording a basis for the superstructure of a new philosophy which should reinterpret man and the world, appeared no less admirable as a supreme effort of philosophic genius; while the general opulence of his conception, his exaltation of art, and his sympathy with the suffering, the poor, and the oppressed, attracted me with an irresistible fascination towards himself and his writings.
For the religious idea of the Positive philosophy I had long been prepared. I had found it in Shelley, in Lamennais, in Mazzini, with more or less vividness of recognition. But Comte gave scientific precision and ampler development to a conception which had previously been little more than an indefinite outline. The idea of Humanity, under his teaching, assumed a sublimity and a moral power which it had not hitherto possessed. It gave a sanction to the worship of sorrow and humble endeavour; it offered a communion with the loftiest minds of the race, irrespective of creed or country; it gave incitement to the exertions of a noble and disinterested ambition, solace, and support in the ideal sympathy of the wise and good of all times. It supplied an object to action, a rule of conduct, an intellectual rallying-point; it multiplied and intensified emotion by carrying us back into the past, transporting us into the future, uniting us with the present; thus awakening the sentiment of an ideal yet real Omnipresence, and harmonising with that "Feeling Infinite," which is an indestructible element of our nature.
While I had thus been working my way through darkness into light -- the sober light of sad reality -- life had been bringing to all who belonged to me, as well as to myself, varied experiences of pain and sorrow. For their sake I had already done violence to my better nature. Was I now to render the previous sacrifice nugatory? Was the black shadow of my unbelief to enfold those who had already more than their share of the burden of life to sustain? Sympathising friends had early encouraged me to retain my position in the Church. A beneficed clergyman, advanced in years, whose studies had ended, like my own, in the abandonment of dogmatic Christianity, had drawn up a statement of the motives which, as he argued, justified him in the retention of his preferment. This statement was forwarded to me. A celebrated and venerable German professor had sent me a message deprecating the abandonment of a post which, he thought, I might continue to occupy without dishonour to myself and with profit to others. I had hitherto deferred to the judgment of persons whom I regarded as superior to myself in knowledge of life and in ability to determine questions of moral obligation; but the progress of unbelief and enlarged experience decided me, at last, on the adoption of an independent course of thought and action. Taking counsel of my own heart, I resolved to terminate a conflict which had become intolerable. Painful and singular complications preceded, accompanied, and followed my retirement from the English Church. To one of these only shall I make any reference. On the death of a near and beloved relative, now many years ago, I was called on to act as executor to her last will and testament. In that instrument I was nominated guardian of her two orphan children. Exception, however, was taken to my religious opinions; and to prevent the testamentary nomination from being confirmed by the Court of Chancery, a postscript from a private letter, in which I had indicated my dissent from the creeds of the Churches, was introduced in an affidavit filed in that court. I need not say what anxiety, mortification, and rebuke this procedure entailed on me.
Nearly twenty years have elapsed since this breach of old ties, this separation from the scenes and friends of earlier life, took place. During this interval, I have carefully and frequently re-examined the religious question -- the most momentous of all questions. The result has been a decided confirmation of the convictions which I then entertained. Within this period, too. scepticism has been vigorously advancing in the nation -- I might say, in Europe. And not only has it extended its sphere, but it includes within that sphere some of the loftiest and profoundest intellects of the age -- men renowned for vast and exact erudition, for scientific research or critical acumen. Philosophers, poets, historians, novelists, openly or silently disavow Christianity. In palaces, in lordly mansions, in college halls, in secluded homesteads, and here and there in rectory or vicarage, scepticism, if it has not a bold and fearless utterance, at least expresses itself in a guarded whisper. It becomes doubly a duty, then, when, notwithstanding the general diffusion of avowed or latent unbelief, we trace everywhere the presence of a conservatism that conceals and hesitates and trembles at the doubts which it cannot suppress, that individual dissentients should candidly disclose their theological divergences. Christianity, indeed, which has had its triumphs in the past, will long conserve a portion of its power, and continue to furnish guidance not only for the unreasoning multitude, but for thousands of excellent men and women who cannot abandon the old religious ideal. But there is no final arrest for the intellectual progress of mankind. Christian monotheism is no more eternal than Greek or Roman polytheism. Creeds change and pass away.
Old institutions must perish or be modified; new institutions arise. It is impossible to disguise the fact that the world is on the eve of a terrible anarchy or of a beneficent renovation. I indulge the hope that the new life may grow up without serious disturbance of the old; but reactionary statesmanship, passionate ignorance, premature effort, may introduce elements of disorder and obstruction, retarding the social renovation and obscuring the visions of a happier future, in which poets and philosophers have alike indulged.
The sole sacred ideal that remains to us is that of humanity; not of the human race indiscriminately, but of the purer, nobler constituents of it, the great collective existence "which ever lives and ever learns," the mystical association of all intellects, of all loves, of all forces, the object of all our efforts, the sovereign to whom we are all responsible.
As Humanity will be the sole Ideal Object to which dutiful obligation and exalted sentiment will be referred, so the world of Humanity will be the world revealed, not by divine inspiration or metaphysical intuition, but by Positive Science. The shadowy abstractions of the speculative rationalist, the fanciful conceptions of the theologian, will gradually pass away. To the Semitic explanation of the world and of man will succeed that of Laplace and Darwin. The great and majestic truths of the stellar universe, the mysteries of life, of light, of heat, of sound; the wonders of natural history, the magic of geologic lore, the epic of man's progression in time; the exaltation, the solace, the delight which flow from poetry, music, painting, sculpture; the interest in the arts, industrial no less than aesthetic; in the fellowship of work which ameliorates the common lot; in friendships of man and woman, short of passionate love, and in the happier and profounder affection of wife and husband; in all home charities and patriotic activities, and in the identification of personal "feelings with the entire life of the human race;" -- all these incidents of thought and varieties of emotion and action will possess the intellect and fill the heart of future generations, in a mode and in a degree which we can now only imperfectly realise, and which, in the end, will leave men but little reason to regret that the raptures of saint or prophet, or the splendours of ancient theocracy, or the power and glory of the Mediaeval Church, or the imposing promise of Hellenic or of Teutonic speculation, are as the dreams of a night that has passed for ever away.
The last paragraph is especially telling.
Again, as is typical of atheism, all the values that they lay claim to are those established before by Christianity.
At the time of his writing this, we had not had the *privilege* of seeing the fruits of rejection of Christianity and Christian thought and morals that occurred in the 20th century under the atheistic regimes he is touting.
For some, the trip is not very far.
Yet it’s not turned out that way, it seems, as every polar bear, and dung beetle is glorified over mankind, and the divine inspiration of the theologian has been supplanted by the “metaphysical intuitions” of PETA zealots and the “fanciful conceptions” of Obama groupies. Not exactly what Huxley, et al, had envisioned. Or was it?
Thanks for the ping.
Is Rationalism really rational?
For some reason it strikes me as being rather irrational at times.
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