Fourth Meditation. The Limits Of Science.

An eminent moralist, who was at the same time not only a theologian, but a philosopher well versed in the physical sciences, I mean Dr. Chalmers, professor at the University of Edinburgh, and corresponding member of the Institute of France, wrote in his work on Natural Theology, a chapter entitled: On man's partial and limited knowledge of divine things. The first pages are as follows:—

"The true modern philosophy never makes more characteristic exhibition of itself, than at the limit which separates the known from the unknown. It is there that we behold it in a twofold aspect—that of the utmost deference and respect for all the findings of experience within this limit; that, on the other hand, of the utmost disinclination and distrust for all those fancies of ingenious or plausible speculation which have their place in the ideal region beyond it. To call in the aid of a language which far surpasses our own in expressive brevity, its office is 'indagare' rather than 'divinare.' The products of this philosophy are copies and not creations. It may discover a system of nature, but not devise one. It proceeds first on the observation of individual facts and if these facts are ever harmonised into a system, this is only in the exercise of a more extended observation. In the work of systematising, it makes no excursion beyond the territory of actual nature—for they are the actual phenomena of nature which form the first materials of this philosophy—and they are the actual resemblances of these phenomena that form, as it were, the cementing principle, to which the goodly fabrics of modern science owe all the solidity and all the endurance that belong to them. It is this chiefly which distinguishes the philosophy of the present day from that of by-gone ages. The one was mainly an excogitative, the other mainly a descriptive process—a description however extending to the likenesses as well as to the peculiarities of things; and, by means of these likenesses, these observed likenesses alone, often realising a more glorious and magnificent harmony than was ever pictured forth by all the imaginations of all the theorists. "In the mental characteristics of this philosophy, the strength of a full-grown understanding is blended with the modesty of childhood. The ideal is sacrificed to the actual—and, however splendid or fondly cherished a hypothesis may be, yet if but one phenomenon in the real history of nature stand in the way, it is forthwith and conclusively abandoned. To some the renunciation may be as painful as the cutting off a right hand, or the plucking out a right eye—yet, if true to the great principle of the Baconian school, it must be submitted to. With its hardy disciples one valid proof outweighs a thousand plausibilities—and the resolute firmness wherewith they bid away the speculations of fancy is only equalled by the childlike compliance wherewith they submit themselves to the lessons of experience. "It is thus that the same principle which guides to a just and a sound philosophy in all that lies within the circle of human discovery, leads also to a most unpresuming and unpronouncing modesty in reference to all that lies beyond it. And should some new light spring up on this exterior region, should the information of its before hidden mysteries break in upon us from some quarter that was before inaccessible, it will be at once perceived (on the supposition of its being a genuine and not an illusory light) that, of all other men, they are the followers of Bacon and Newton who should pay the most unqualified respect to all its revelations. In their case it comes upon minds which are without prejudice, because on that very principle, which is most characteristic of our modern science, upon minds without preoccupation. … The strength of his confidence in all the ascertained facts of the terra cognita is at one or in perfect harmony with the humility of his diffidence in regard to all the conceived plausibilities of the terra incognita. "And let it further be remarked of the self-denial which is laid upon us by Bacon's Philosophy, that, like all other self-denial in the cause of truth or virtue, it hath its reward. In giving ourselves up to its guidance, we have often to quit the fascinations of beautiful theory; but in exchange for them, we are at length regaled by the higher and substantial beauties of actual nature. There is a stubbornness in facts before which the specious imagination is compelled to give way; and perhaps the mind never suffers more painful laceration than when, after having vainly attempted to force nature into a compliance with her own splendid generalizations, she, on the appearance of some rebellious and impracticable phenomenon, has to practise a force upon herself—when she thus finds the goodly speculation superseded by the homely and unwelcome experience. It seemed at the outset a cruel sacrifice, when the world of speculation, with all its manageable and engaging simplicities, had to be abandoned; and on becoming the pupils of observation, we, amid the varieties of the actual world around us, felt as if bewildered, if not lost, among the perplexities of a chaos. This was a period of greatest sufferance; but it has had a glorious termination. In return for the assiduity wherewith the study of nature hath been prosecuted, she hath made a more abundant revelation of her charms. Order hath arisen out of confusion, and in the ascertained structure of the universe there are now found to be a state and a sublimity beyond all that was ever pictured by the mind in the days of her adventurous and unfettered imagination. Even viewed in the light of a noble and engaging spectacle for the fancy to dwell upon, who would ever think of comparing with the system of Newton, either that celestial machinery of Des Cartes, which was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that still more cumbrous planetarium of cycles and epicycles which was the progeny of a remoter age? It is thus that at the commencement of the observational process there is the abjuration of beauty. But it soon reappears in another form, and brightens as we advance, and at length there arises on solid foundation, a fairer and goodlier system than ever floated in airy romance before the eye of genius. Nor is it difficult to perceive the reason of this. What we discover by observation is the product of divine imagination bodied forth by creative power into a stable and enduring reality. What we devise by our own ingenuity is but the product of human imagination. The one is the solid archetype of those conceptions which are in the mind of God: the other is the shadowy representation of those conceptions which are in the mind of man. It is just as with the labourer, who, by excavating the rubbish which hides and besets some noble architecture, does more for the gratification of our taste, than if by his unpractised hand he should attempt to regale us with plans and sketches of his own. And so the drudgery of experimental science, in exchange for that beauty whose fascinations it withstood at the outset of its career, has evolved a surpassing beauty from among the realities of truth and nature. … "The views contemplated through the medium of observation, are found not only to have a justness in them, but to have a grace and a grandeur in them far beyond all the visions which are contemplated through the medium of fancy, or which ever regaled the fondest enthusiast in the enchanted walks of speculation and poetry. But neither the grace nor the grandeur alone would, without evidence, have secured acceptance for any opinion. It must first be made to undergo, and without ceremony, the freest treatment from human eyes and human hands. It is at one time stretched on the rack of an experiment, at another it has to pass through fiery trial in the bottom of a crucible. In another it undergoes a long questioning process among the fumes and the filtrations and the intense heat of a laboratory; and not till it has been subjected to all this inquisitorial torture and survived it, is it preferred to a place in the temple of Truth, or admitted among the laws and lessons of a sound philosophy."

No one certainly will contest that this is the language of a fervent disciple of science. It is impossible to have a keener apprehension of its beauty, and to accept more completely its laws. What mathematician, natural philosopher, physiologist, or chemist, could speak in terms of greater respect and submission of the necessity of observation, and of the authority of experience? Dr. Chalmers is not the less for that a true and fervent Christian; his religious faith equals his scientific exactitude: he receives Christ, and professes Christ's doctrine with as firm a voice as he does Bacon and Bacon's method. Not that for him religious belief is the mere result of education, of tradition, of habit; but it, on the contrary, springs as much from reflection and learning, as his acquirements in natural science themselves; in each sphere he has probed the very sources and weighed the motives of his convictions. How did he, in each instance, reach such a haven of repose? Whence in him this harmony between the philosopher and the Christian?

Let us again allow Dr. Chalmers to speak for himself:—

"It is of importance here to remark that the enlargement of our knowledge in all the natural sciences, so far from adding to our presumption, should only give a profounder sense of our natural incapacity and ignorance in reference to the science of theology. It is just as if in studying the policy of some earthly monarch we had made the before unknown discovery of other empires and distant territories whereof we knew nothing but the existence and the name. This might complicate the study without making the object of it at all more comprehensible, and so of every new wonder which philosophy might lay open to the gaze of inquirers. It might give us a larger perspective of the creation than before, yet, in fact, cast a deeper shade of obscurity over the counsels and ways of the Creator. We might at once obtain a deeper insight into the secrets of the workmanship, and yet feel, and legitimately feel, to be still more deeply out of reach, the secret purposes of Him who worketh all in all. Every discovery of an addition to the greatness of his works may bring with it an addition to the unsearchableness of his ways. …. "That telescope which has opened our way to suns and systems innumerable, leaves the moral administration connected with them in deepest secrecy. It has made known to us the bare existence of other worlds; but it would require another instrument of discovery ere we could understand their relation to ourselves, as products of the same Almighty Hand, as parts or members of a family under the same paternal guardianship. This more extended survey of the Material Universe just tells us how little we know of the Moral or Spiritual Universe. It reveals nothing to us of the worlds that roll in space, but the bare elements of Motion, and Magnitude, and Number—and so leaves us at a more hopeless distance from the secret of the Divine administration than when we reasoned of the Earth as the Universe, of our species as the alone rational family of God that He had implicated with body, or placed in the midst of a corporeal system. … "To know that we cannot know certain things, is in itself positive knowledge, and a knowledge of the most safe and valuable nature. … There are few services of greater value to the cause of knowledge than the delineation of its boundaries." [Footnote 22]

In holding this language, what in effect is Dr. Chalmers doing? He is separating what is finite from what is infinite, the thing created from the Creator, the world subject to government from the Sovereign that governs it; and in marking this line of demarcation, he says in his modesty to science, what God in his power says to the ocean: "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther."

Doctor Chalmers was right; the limits of the finite world are those also of human science: how far within these vast limits science may extend her empire, who shall affirm? But what we certainly may assert is, that she never can exceed them. The finite world alone is within her reach, the only world that she can fathom. It is only in the finite world that man's mind can fully grasp the facts, observe them in all their extent, and under all their aspects, discriminate their relations and their laws (which constitute also a species of facts), and so verify the system to which they should be referred. This it is that makes what we term scientific processes and labour, and human sciences are the results.

What need to mention that in speaking of the finite world, I do not mean to speak of the material world alone? Moral facts there also are which fall under observation, and enter into the domain of science. The study of man in his actual condition, whether considered as an individual or as forming a member of a nation, is also a scientific study, subject to the same method as that of the material world: and it is its legitimate province also to detect in the actual order of this world the laws of those particular facts to which it addresses itself.

But if the limits of the finite world are those of human science, they are not those of the human soul. Man contains in himself ideas and ambitious aspirations extending far beyond and rising far above the finite world, ideas of and aspirations towards the Infinite, the Ideal, the Perfect, the Immutable, the Eternal. These ideas and aspirations are themselves realities admitted by the human mind; but even in admitting them man's mind comes to a halt; they give him a presentiment of, or to speak with more precision, a revelation of, an order of things different from the facts and laws of the finite world which lies under his observation; but whilst man has of this superior order the instinct and the perspective, he can have of it no positive knowledge. It proceeds from the sublimity of his nature if he has a glimpse of Infinity—if he aspires to it; whereas it results from the infirmity of his actual condition if his positive knowledge is limited by the world in which he exists.

I was born in the south, under the very sun. I have yet, for the most part, lived in regions either of the north, or bordering upon the north, regions so frequently immersed in mists. When under their pale sky we look towards the horizon, a fog of greater or less density limits the view; the vision itself might penetrate much farther, but an external obstacle arrests it; it does not find there the light it needs. Regard now the horizon under the pure and brilliant sky of the south; the plains, distant as well as near, are bathed in light; the human eye can penetrate there as far as its organization permits. If it pierces no farther, it is not for want of light, but because its proper and natural force has attained its limit: the mind knows that there are spaces beyond that which the eye traverses, but the eye penetrates them not. This is an image of what happens to the mind itself when contemplating and studying the universe: it reaches a point where its clear sight, that is to say its positive appreciation, halts, not that it finds there the end of things themselves, but the limit of man's scientific appreciation of them; other realities present themselves to him; he has a glimpse of them; he believes in them spontaneously and naturally; it is not given to him to grasp them and to measure them; but he can neither ignore them, nor know them, neither have positive knowledge of them, nor refrain from having faith in them.

I cannot deny myself the pleasure of citing what I wrote thirteen years ago upon the same subject, when philosophically examining the real meaning of the word faith. "The object of every religious belief," said I, "is in a certain, a large measure, inaccessible to human science. Human science may establish that object's reality; it may arrive at the boundary of this mysterious world; and assure itself of the existence there of facts with which man's destiny is connected; but it is not given to it so to attain the facts themselves as to subject them to its examination.

"Their incapacity to do so has struck more than one philosopher, and has led them to the conclusion that no such reality exists, that every religious belief contemplates subjects simply chimerical. Others, shutting their eyes to their own incompetency, have dashed daringly forwards towards the sphere of the supernatural; and just as if they had succeeded in penetrating into it, they have described its facts, resolved its problems, assigned its laws. It is difficult to say who shows more foolish arrogance, the man who maintains that that of which he cannot have positive knowledge has no real existence, or the man who pretends to be able to know everything that actually exists. However this may be, mankind has never for a single day assented to either assertion: man's instincts and his actions have constantly disavowed both the negation of the disbeliever and the confidence of the theologian. In spite of the former, he has persisted in believing in the existence of the unknown world, and in the reality of the relations which connect him with it: and notwithstanding the powerful influences of the latter, he has refused to admit their having attained their object—raised the veil; and so man has continued to agitate the same problems, to pursue the same truths, as ardently and as laboriously as at the first day, just as if nothing had been done at all." [Footnote 23]

I have just read again the excellent compendium given by M. Cousin in his General History of Philosophy from the most Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. He establishes that all the philosophical labours of the human understanding have terminated in four great systems—sensualism, idealism, scepticism, and mysticism—the sole actors in that intellectual arena where, in all ages and amongst all nations, they are in turn in the position of combatants and of sovereigns. And, after having clearly characterised in their origin and their development these four systems, M. Cousin adds, "As for their intrinsic merits, habituate yourselves to this principle: they have existed; therefore they had their reason to exist; therefore they are true at least in part. Error is the law of our nature: to it we are condemned; and in all our opinions and all our words there is always a large allowance to be made for error, and too often for absurdity. But absolute absurdity does not enter into the mind of man; it is the excellence of man's thought, that without some leaven of truth it admits nothing, and absolute error is impossible. The four systems which have just been rapidly laid before you have had each their existence; therefore they contain truth, still without being entirely true. Partially true, and partially false, these systems reappear at all the great epochs. Time cannot destroy any one of them, nor can it beget any new one, because time develops and perfects the human mind, though without changing its nature and its fundamental tendencies. Time does no more than multiply and vary almost infinitely the combinations of the four simple and elementary systems. Hence originate those countless systems which history collects and which it is its office to explain." [Footnote 24]

M. Cousin excels in explaining these numberless philosophical combinations, and in tracing them all back to the four great systems which he has defined; but there is a fact still more important than the variety of these combinations, and which calls itself for explanation. Why did these four essential systems—sensualism, idealism, scepticism, and mysticism, appear from the most ancient times? why have they continued to reproduce themselves always and everywhere, with deductions more or less logical, with greater or less ability, but still fundamentally always and everywhere the same? Why, upon these supreme questions, did the human mind achieve at so early a period, what may be termed, it is true, but essays at a solution, but which essays in some sort have exhausted the mind rather than satisfied it? How is it that these different systems, invented with such promptitude, have never been able either to come to an accord, nor has any one been able to prevail decidedly against another and to cause itself to be received as the truth? Why has philosophy, or, to speak more precisely, why have metaphysics, remained essentially stationary; great at their birth, but destined not to grow: whereas the other sciences—those styled natural sciences—have been essentially progressive: at first feeble, and making in succession conquest after conquest; these they have been able to retain, until they have formed a domain day by day more extended and less contested?

The very fact that suggests these questions contains the answer to them. Man has, upon the fundamental subject of metaphysics, a primitive light, rather the heritage and dowry of human nature, than the conquest of human science. The metaphysician appropriates it as a torch to lighten him on his obscure and ill-defined path. He finds in man himself a point of departure at once profound and certain; but his aim is God; that is to say, an aim above his reach.

Must we, then, renounce the study of the great questions which form the subject of metaphysics as a vain labour, where the human mind is turning indefinitely in the same circle, incapable not only of attaining the object which it is pursuing, but of making any advance in its pursuit?

Often, and with more ability than has been evinced by the Positive school of the present day, has this judgment been pronounced against metaphysics. But that judgment man's mind has never accepted, and never will accept; the great problems which pass beyond the finite world lie propounded before him; never will he renounce the attempt to solve them; he is impelled to it by an irresistible instinct, an instinct full of faith and of hope, in spite of the repeated failure of his efforts. As man is in the sphere of action, so is he also in that of thought; he aspires higher than it is possible to achieve: this is his nature and his glory; to renounce his aspirations would be declaring his own forfeiture. But without any such abdication, it is still necessary that he should know himself, it is necessary that he should understand that his strength here below is infinitely less than his ambition, and that it is not given him to have any positive scientific knowledge of that infinite and ideal world towards which he dashes. The facts and the problems which he there encounters are such, that the methods and the laws which direct the human mind in the study of the finite world are inapplicable. The infinite is for us the object not of science but belief, and it is alike impossible for us either to reject or penetrate it. Let man, then, feel a profound sentiment of that double truth: let him, without sacrificing the ambitious aspirations of his intelligence, recognise the limits imposed upon his achievements in science; he will not then be long in also recognising that, in the relations of the finite with the infinite—of himself with God—he stands in need of superhuman assistance, and that this does not fail him. God has given to man what man never can conquer, and revelation opens to him that world of the infinite over which, by its own exertions and of itself alone, man's mind never could spread light. The light man receives from God himself.