4 AT-ONE-MENT OF KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF more really than Prospero knew of when he spoke the words, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." And is there any theory, e.g., of the constitution of matter, or of the causes of gravitation, which better covers the question of origins than this one does? Fatherhood of 6. Further, we believe that the Deity who made us is our Father, and wants us to be His but that for us to be truly sons; sons involves a great deal more, both in views and in conduct, than might In fact, that it means at first be thought. taking up a very high and exacting standard of living. 7. As to the Divine attributes, we look on our All-Father as not personal in any human sense, but hyper-personal; that is, His personality of us even to Personality. is too great any conceive of it under the term "Person"; which is a term much abused. for But here and elsewhere we do not allow ourselves to become anthropomorphic, except where lanThus we call our Father guage utterly fails us. "He." We cannot use the pronoun in its feminine or its neuter form, and there is no other form available. But, it may be said, this is all very well, but what solid ground is there for believing in the actual being of any such God? Is He not merely an ideal creation? 8. The reply is plain. There can be no effect LIMITATIONS OF REASON AND FAITH 5 without a first Cause. Nature is in this case the effect. Where is the Cause ? For push the Short reasons question back as far as you please, for belief in it always comes to just this question. Here is something done. Who did it? Deity. Matter not self-existent. 9. It is easy, but not satisfactory, to say that matter was self-existent, and evolved mind and all its results. For look at the nature of matter itself. Is it not all obedient to laws outside of itself? And are not its very atoms all formed on a definite pattern, and endued with various and complex powers, magnetic and other? And is all this, along with a thousand other marks of workmanship equally evident is this all merely the work of chances and averages? Say so to a mathematician, and see what he will tell you. The thing is simply inconceivable. Therefore we hold it as a vital point that in spite of pseudo-scientific obiter dicta it was not matter which made mind, but it was mind which produced matter. That mind we call God. But now that this question is being discussed two other points had better be briefly referred to. 10. It has been supposed in these later decades that the old position of Paley, known as "the Evolution and argument from design," had been comthe argument pletely disposed of, and set aside, by from design. the more recent doctrine of Evolution. And, no doubt, so far as concerns a very large part of all-round development all this is true; though there are a few facts which cannot be disposed of by this theory. 6 AT-ONE-MENT OF KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF Without allowing, then, that the theory covers. the entire ground of development, it is admitted that it is largely true; and that both as to material things, and also as applied to moral and social processes, that theory has largely modified for good our entire conception of the conditions of advance in human life and of life in general. And so the old argument from design is lost? By no means it is only shifted backwards a stage or two. For, granting that Evolution is the author of progress, then who was the author of the prinNo law can make itself and ciple of Evolution? Therefore some one devised and enforce itself. enforced this far-reaching principle of Evolution. And whoever did so, his power and knowledge was only so much the greater by how much he had to look farther ahead, so as to enable a system to work itself without constant interference on his part. That seems the perfection of an infinite power But did the Author and knowledge. retire from the supervision of the system, deputing to other beings the moral and social government of this world? We think He did. Moral government deputed. II. Another question may be answered at once. Assuming a God, on what do we ground our belief in His Fatherhood, as distinguished from His Kinghood or Sovereignty, and in our own position as sons instead Fatherhood of servants? I answer that not only may so much be gathered from the highest thoughts of all mankind's highest thinkers, but it is told us expressly many times LIMITATIONS OF REASON AND FAITH 7 throughout that collection. of ancient writings which we call the Bible. 12. If there is a God and Father, what sort of a God is He, and where? Under the very name of Father a large part of the answer butes of is already disclosed. But something The attri Deity. remains. We can most safely judge of a worker by examining his work. The Bible, for the present, may be put out of consideration, and this for a special reason, which will presently appear. Nature, the Book of God. 13. Apart from this book, or collection of books, it is safe to say that we have nothing which can reveal to us the true nature and will of God except what we can gather from Nature, which is His handiwork, or, as we have called it already, the realisation of His dream. But in studying Nature we are forced to call to our help all the resources of Science under all its aspects. Thus it is plain that Science is far from being an enemy of Religion. Rather is it the requisite which is indispensable for arriving at a true conception of things as they actually are, even as concerns the nature of God Himself and of His treatment of men. Perhaps therefore the questions arising as to the attributes of God are at present best and most briefly answered by referring inquirers to Nature, and being content to abide by the qualities thus revealed among which every one will of course discern immensity of power and adaptation, as well in regard to the infinitely little as to the infinitely great; and what is equally manifest, a 8 AT-ONE-MENT OF KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF universal reign of law and order, and a uniform and unvarying adherence to it. Nature's voice as to Good and Evil. 14. These require little notice here. But a particular point needs present attention. It is that the laws of Nature know how to reward and also how to punish; but they neither reward any adherence to some abstract moral code of Good and Evil, laid down arbitrarily ab extra, nor do they punish the neglect of such a code; because as far as Nature herself is concerned no such code exists. For her there is no such thing as abstract and absolute Good or Evil, defined as such in the spirit of a deductive science; but that for her is good, and only that, which is found to serve well certain of her purposes, while for other purposes it may be bad. Arbitrary codes of Good and Evil. no 15. Here, then, the Author of Nature seems to reveal a principle which is very different from what has been taught by most of the It is, that there is Churches. Science of Good or Evil, but that good is what we find on experience to do us good, and evil is what is found to do us harm, and that results. vary according to surroundings. Many will be apt to reply at the first sight, that, given only sufficient clearness and accuracy of foresight, the two methods of determining Good and Evil (i.e., the Deductive and the Inductive, the system derived ab extra and the purely experimental) must come to precisely the same result. On second thoughts it will be easy to see that this is far from being the case, and that our conception cuts deep into the conventional |