Chapter II · (continued 2)

2. This Atheistic theory rests entirely on a supposed discovery of M. Comte,—the discovery of a law of human development, which serves at once to account for the origin and prevalence of Theological beliefs in the past, and to insure their utter disappearance in the future; a law which, like the magician's wand, can raise the apparition, and then lay it again! Now, of this law we affirm and undertake to prove that it is utterly groundless; that it has no solid basis of evidence on which it can be established; that it is contradicted by the history of the world, and opposed to our own experience at the present day.

It can scarcely be imagined that a man accustomed, as M. Comte has been, to the severe pursuits of Science, could give publicity to a law of this kind, and claim the credit of a great original discovery, without having some plausible reasons to plead for it; and he does assign certain reasons for his belief, which are, it may be safely affirmed, as frivolous and inconclusive as any that have ever been offered in support of the most baseless revery. They may be reduced to THREE; the first, derived from our cerebral organization; the second, from the history of a certain portion of our species; the third, from the analogy of our individual experience.[71]

He founds, in the first instance, on our cerebral organization. He is an ardent admirer of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, and has no scruple in avowing himself a decided Materialist. It is unnecessary here to enter on a discussion of Materialism, or even of Phrenology,—that will be done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire how the fundamental law of Development is deduced from it. How does the theory of Materialism, or even of Phrenology, were it assumed on the one side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or verification of that law? Suppose it to be conceded that every mental faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally, that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing, respectively, the animal propensities, the more elevated sentiments, and the intellectual faculties; could it be rationally inferred from this concession that human nature must necessarily develop itself after a certain order or method, and especially in the precise way that is indicated in M. Comte's law? Would it prove that Man must needs pass, in the process of his mental and social development, through three distinct and successive stages,—the preparatory Theological state, the transitory Metaphysical state, and the final Positive state? Would it prove that Religion must first exist as Fetishism, then as Polytheism, then as Monotheism, and thereafter disappear from the earth altogether on the advent of M. Comte? He seems to think that there is a real connection between the cerebral theory and his great fundamental law; but it is not easy for a common reader to discern or to explain it. Considering the cranium, according to what he conceives to be the true anatomical theory, as simply a prolongation of the vertebral column,—the primitive centre of the whole nervous system,—he argues that the functions, intellectual and emotional, which are proper to the upper and anterior parts of it, are less energetic than the animal propensities, whose organs lie in the lower and posterior region, just in proportion as they are further removed from the spine; and that, for this reason, the latter must first come into action, then the intermediate organs of sentiment, and, last of all, the intellectual powers. And this doctrine he applies to the verification both of his otherwise admirable classification of the Sciences, and of his far more doubtful law of human development. We conceive that if it were applicable at all to the problem of human progress, it might possibly be applied to indicate the probable development of an individual mind, in the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood; but that it does not admit of the same application to the history of the race, otherwise than by the aid of a very fanciful analogy. We have no faith in the a priori methods of constructing the chart of human history, and tracing the necessary course of social progress, which have recently become so popular in Germany and France. We cannot, with M. Comte, undertake to solve the problem,—Given three lobes of the brain, representing the propensities, affections, and intellectual powers, but differing from each other in size and situation, what will be the future history of the race,—religious, æsthetic, industrial, metaphysical, social? We cannot, with M. Cousin, undertake to solve the problem,—Given three terms, the finite, the infinite, and the relation between the two, what will be the development of human thought, first, in the experience of individuals, and, secondly, in the history of society?[72] All such problems are too high for us. The history of the human race must be ascertained from the authentic records and extant monuments of the past, not constructed by theories, or divined by a priori speculations.

But M. Comte does appeal, in the second instance, to history in confirmation of his views. He is far from affirming, however, that the progress of the race, under the operation of his great law of development, has been either uniform or invariable; on the contrary, he admits, with regard to India, China, and other nations, comprising probably the majority of mankind, whose state, intellectually and socially, has been stationary for ages, that they afford little or no evidence in support of his theory; and for this, among other reasons, he confines himself to the history of what he calls the élite, or advanced guard of humanity, and in this way makes it a very "abstract" history indeed![73] Beginning with Greece, as the representative of ancient civilization, and surveying the history of the Roman empire, and of its successors in Western Europe, he endeavors to show that the actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with his general law. He gives no historical evidence, however, of the prevalence of Fetishism in primitive times; that is an inference merely, depending partly on his theory of cerebral organization, and partly on the assumption that in the savage state, which is gratuitously supposed to have been the primitive condition of man, there must have been a tendency to regard every object, natural or artificial, as endowed with life and intelligence. Polytheism, again, he conceives to have been a step in advance, an improvement on the preëxisting state of things, instead of being, as it really was, a declension from a purer and better faith, an aberration from the light of Nature, not less than from the lessons of Revelation. He conceives Monotheism, whether as taught, to the Jews by Moses, or to the world at large by Christ and his apostles, to have been the natural product of man's unaided intelligence; and he assumes this, without making a single reference to the supernatural events by which its publication, in either instance, is said to have been accompanied, or to the sacred books in which they are recorded; nay, he does not even name the Founder of the Christian faith, otherwise than by describing him as "the founder, real or imaginary, of this great religious system."[74]

In treating, again, of the Critical or destructive system of Metaphysics, and of the Positive or reconstructive system of the New Philosophy, he adduces no evidence to show that the same element is negatived by the one and restored by the other; on the contrary, were his statement true in all respects, it would only serve to prove that the Theological element, which is slowly dissipated by Metaphysics, is formally and finally abjured by Positivism. He assumes and asserts, on very insufficient grounds, that there is a real, radical, and necessary contrariety between the facts and laws of Science and the first principles of Theology, whether natural or revealed; and he anticipates, therefore, that in proportion as Science advances, Theology must recede, and ultimately quit the field. He ought to have known that there are minds in every part of Europe as thoroughly scientific as his own, and as deeply imbued with the spirit of modern Inductive Philosophy, who, so far from seeing any discordance between the results of scientific inquiry and the fundamental truths of Theology, are in the habit of appealing to the former in proof or illustration of the latter; and who, the further they advance in the study of the works of Nature, are only the more confirmed in their belief of a Creative Intelligence and a Governing Power. It may be that, in his own immediate circle at Paris, there is a tendency towards Atheism; but, assuredly, no such tendency exists in the highest and most scientific minds of modern Europe. The faith of Bacon, Newton, and Boyle, of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Pascal, in regard to the first principles of Theology, is still the prevailing creed of the Sedgwicks, the Whewells, the Herschells, and the Brewsters of the present day.

The only plausible part of his Historical Survey, and that which, in our apprehension, is the most likely to make some transient impression on the popular mind, is his elaborate attempt to show, with regard to each branch of Science, in detail, that it was enveloped during its infancy in a cloud of superstition; and that just in proportion as the light shone more clearly, or was more distinctly discerned, the cloud was gradually dissipated and dispersed, until, one after another, they were all emancipated from their supposed connection with supernatural causes, and reduced under fixed natural laws. Confounding Theology with Superstition, or failing, at least, to discriminate duly between the two, M. Comte draws a vivid picture of the successive inroads which Science has made on the consecrated domain of Religion, and represents the one as receding just in proportion as the other advances. For as the darkness disappears before the rising sun, whose earliest rays gild only the loftier mountain peaks, but whose growing brightness spreads over the lowly valleys and penetrates the deepest recesses of nature, so Theology gradually retires before the advance of Science, which first conquers and brings under the rule of natural law the simplest and least complicated branches, such as Mechanics and Astronomy; then attacks the more complex, such as Chemistry and Physiology; and, last of all, advances to the assault of the most difficult, such as Ethics and Sociology; until, having emancipated each of them successively from their previous connection with supernatural beliefs, it effects the entire elimination of Theology, first from the philosophic, and afterwards from the popular creed of mankind. M. Comte conceives that the religious spirit has been steadily decreasing throughout the whole course of human development, from the time when it was universal, in the form of Fetishism, till it reached its most abstract, but least influential form in Monotheism; and that now the period of its decline and fall has arrived, when it is subjected to the powerful solvent of a Metaphysical and Skeptical Philosophy, and when its ultimate extinction is certain under the action of Positive Science.

We deem this by far the most dangerous, because it is the most plausible part of his speculations; so plausible that, even where his reasonings in support of it may fail to carry the full conviction of the understanding, they may yet leave behind them a certain impression unfavorable to faith in Divine things, since they appeal to many palpable facts in the history of Science, too well attested to be doubted, and too important to be overlooked. The theory itself—whatever may be thought of the peculiar form which it has assumed in the hands of M. Comte—cannot be regarded, in its main and essential features, as one of his original discoveries; for the general idea on which it rests had been announced with equal brevity and precision by the celebrated La Place: "Let us survey the history of the progress of the human mind and of its errors; we shall there see final causes constantly pushed back to the boundaries of its knowledge. These causes, which Newton pushed back to the limits of the solar system, were, even in his time, placed in the atmosphere to explain meteoric appearances. They are nothing else, therefore, in the eyes of a philosopher, than the expression of our ignorance of the true causes." Supposing this to be a correct account of the fact, the inference which M. Comte deduces from it might seem to follow very much as a matter of course,—the inference, viz., that in proportion as Science advances and succeeds in subjecting one department of Nature after another to fixed and invariable laws, Theology, or the doctrine of Final Causes, must necessarily recede before it, and, at length, disappear altogether, when human knowledge has reached its highest ultimate perfection. But is it a correct account of the fact? Is it true that the doctrine of Final Causes is less generally admitted, or more dubiously maintained, in regard to those sciences which have already reached their maturity, than in regard to those other sciences which are still comparatively in their infancy? Or is it true that it has lost instead of gaining ground by the progress of scientific discovery, so as to occupy a narrower space and to hold a more precarious footing, now, than it did in the earlier ages of ignorance and superstition? Did Final Causes disappear from the view of Newton when he discovered the law which regulates the movements of the heavenly bodies? Did Galen or did Paley discard them when they surveyed the human frame in the light of scientific anatomy? or Harvey, when, impelled and guided by this doctrine as his governing principle, he discovered the circulation of the blood? In what departments of Nature, and in what branches of Science, does the Theistic philosopher or the Christian divine find the clearest and strongest proofs of order, adaptation, and adjustment? Is it not in those very departments of Nature whose laws have been most fully ascertained? in those very branches of Science which have been most thoroughly matured? Did we believe Comte and La Place, we should expect to find that the doctrine of Final Causes and the science of Theology could now find no footing in the domain of Astronomy, of Physics, or of Chemistry, since in these departments the phenomena have been reduced, by many successive discoveries, to rigorous general laws; and that they could only survive for a brief time by taking refuge in the yet unconquered territory of Meteorology, Biology, and Social Science. But is it so? Examine the Series of Bridgewater Treatises, or any other recent philosophical exposition of the Evidence of Natural Theology, and it will be apparent, on the most cursory review, that in point of fact the arguments and illustrations are derived almost entirely from the more advanced sciences; and that, so far from receding or threatening to disappear, Final Causes have only become more prominent and more striking in proportion as inquiring men have succeeded in removing the vail from any department of Nature.

It were easy, indeed, to cull from the records of the past many facts which might seem to give a plausible aspect to the theory of M. Comte. We might be told of the early history of Astronomy, when the astrologer gazed upon the heavens with a superstitious eye, and spoke of the mystic influence of the planets, and constructed the horoscope for the calculation of nativities and the prediction of future events. We might be told of the early history of Anatomy, when, from the entrails of birds and animals, the haruspex prognosticated the fate of empires and the fortunes of battle. We might be told of the early history of Chemistry, when alchemists sought in their concoctions a panacea for all human evils, and in their crucibles an alkalest or universal menstruum. We might be told of the early history of Zoölogy, when the augur watched the flight, the singing, the feeding of birds, and applied them to the purposes of divination. We might be told of Aëromancy as the earliest form of Meteorology, and of Geomancy as the earliest form of Geology.[75] And we might be told of the popular superstitions which lingered, till a very recent period, among the peasantry of our own country, and which are now gradually disappearing in proportion as the light of Religion and Science is diffused.[76] These facts, which appear on the surface of human history, do unquestionably prove that there has been a process of gradual advancement, by which each of the sciences has been, in succession, purged of its earlier errors, and placed on a more solid and enduring basis. But they prove nothing more than this: they do not prove that these sciences must ultimately supersede Theology, or that they have a necessary tendency towards Atheism. On the contrary, we hold that they afford a valid presumption from analogy on the other side. For suppose, even, that Religion, following the same law of development which determines the progress of every other branch of human knowledge, had become incorporated, in its earlier stages, with many fond and foolish superstitions, the analogy of the other sciences would lead us to conclude that, just as the reveries of Astrology had passed away and given place to a solid system of Astronomy,—and as the vain speculations of Alchemy had been superseded by the useful discoveries of Chemistry,—and as the arts of Augury and Divination had finally issued in the inductive science of true Natural History,—so Theology might also purge itself from the fond conceits which had been for a time incorporated with it, and still survive, after all superstition had passed away, as a sound and fruitful branch of the tree of knowledge.

This is not the precise light, however, in which M. Comte regards Theology, He does not speak of it as a distinct and independent science, but rather as a method of Philosophy, which has been applied to the explanation of all the departments of Nature; and, viewed in this light, he objects to it on the ground that Positive Science peremptorily demands the elimination of all causes, efficient and final, and, consequently, the exclusion of all reference to God, or to any supernatural power, in connection with the laws either of the material or moral world. This is the fundamental basis of his theory. It is assumed that the recognition of natural laws is incompatible with the belief in supernatural powers, and that these laws must be invariable and independent of any superior will. Hence the supposed antagonism between Theology and Physical Science, which is strongly affirmed by M. Comte[77]; as if the laws of Nature could not exist unless they were independent of the Divine will, or as if the arts of industry could not be pursued, on the supposition of a Providence, without sacrilegious presumption. The laws for which he contends must have had no author to establish, and can have no superior will to control them; they had no beginning, and can have no end; they cannot be reversed, suspended, or interfered with; they are necessary, immutable, and eternal, not subordinate to God, but independent of Him; they are, in short, nothing less than Destiny or Fate, the same that Cudworth describes as the Democritic, Physiological, or Atheistic Fate, which consists in "the material necessity of all things without a God."[78] Now, we have no jealousy of natural laws. We believe in their existence; we believe, also, in their regular operation in the ordinary course of Nature; but we deny that they must needs be independent of a supreme will, and affirm that, being subordinate to that will, they are not necessarily invariable. They are expressly recognized and cordially maintained by divines, not less than by men of science; but in such a sense as to be perfectly compatible both with the doctrine of a primitive creation, and also with the possibility of a subsequent miraculous interposition. The Westminster Divines explicitly declare that "God, the First Cause, by His providence, ordereth all things to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently;" and that "in His ordinary providence, He maketh use of means, but is free to act without, above, and against them at His pleasure."[79] But M. Comte will have no laws, however regular, unless they be also invariable, and independent of any superior will. And, doubtless, if this were the sense in which Science has established the doctrine of natural laws, it would be at direct variance with Theology, both Natural and Revealed; and the antagonism between the two might afford some ground for the belief that, sooner or later, Theology must quit the field. But it is not the existence of these natural laws, nor even their regular operation in the common course of Providence, that is hostile to our religious beliefs,—it is only the supposition that they are unoriginated, independent, and invariable; and to assume this without proof, as if it were a self-evident or axiomatic truth, or to apply it in a process of historical deduction respecting either the past development or the future prospects of the race, is such a shameless begging of the whole question,—that we know of no parallel to it except in the kindred speculations of Strauss, who assumes the same radical principle, and gravely tells us that whatever is supernatural must needs be unhistorical.[80]

There is absolutely no evidence, properly historical, that there is any necessary tendency in the recognition of established natural laws to supersede Theology, or to introduce an era of universal Atheism. Some such tendency might exist were these laws conceived of as necessary, independent, and invariable. But this hypothesis, equally unphilosophical and irreligious, is not and never has been maintained by the great body of Inductive inquirers, who see no contradiction either between the established order of Nature and the supposition of its Divine origin, or between the operation of natural laws and the recognition of a supreme, superintending Providence. Nor should it be forgotten, in this connection, that the evidence in favor of Theism depends not so much on the mere laws as on the dispositions and adjustments that are observable in Nature.[81] There is, therefore, no historical proof to establish the supposed law of human development, and no rational ground to expect that the progress of Inductive Science will ever supplant or supersede Theology. It is true that Theology, although a distinct and independent science, is so comprehensive in its range that it gathers its proofs and illustrations from every department of Nature, and that, were it excluded from any one of these, it might, for the same reason, be excluded from all the rest; but it is not true that there is any real or necessary antagonism between the laws of Nature and the prerogatives of God. On the contrary, let our knowledge advance until all the phenomena both of the Material and Moral worlds shall be reduced under so many general laws, even then Superstition might disappear, but Theology would remain, and would only receive fresh accessions of evidence and strength, in proportion as the wise order of Nature is more fully unfolded, and its most hidden mysteries disclosed.

We scarcely know whether it is needful to advert at all to the argument in favor of his theory which M. Comte founds on the analogy of individual experience. It is a transparent fallacy. He tells us that the race is, like an individual man, Religious in infancy, Metaphysical in youth, and Positive—that is, Scientific, without being Religious—in mature manhood.[82] Now, this analogical argument, to have any legitimate weight, must proceed on the assumption of two facts. The first is, that the law of individual development commences, in the case, at least, of all who belong to the élite of humanity, with Theology, and terminates in Atheism; and the second is, that the individual is, in this respect, the type or pattern of his race, and that the experience of the one is only an outline in miniature of the history of the other. It would be difficult, we think, to establish the truth of either of these positions by evidence that could be satisfactory to any reflecting mind. We cannot doubt, indeed, for experience amply attests, that the religious sensibilities of childhood have often been sadly impaired in the progress from youth to manhood, and that, after the tumultuous excitements, whether of speculation or of passion, not a few have sought a refuge from their fears in the cold negations of Atheism. But is this the law of development and progress? Is it a law that is uniform and invariable in its operation? Are there no instances of an opposite kind? Are there no instances of men whose early religious culture had been neglected, and who passed through youth without one serious thought of God and their relation to Him, but who, as they advanced in years, began to reflect and inquire, and ultimately attained to a firm religious faith? If such diversities of individual experience are known to exist, then clearly the result is not determined by any necessary or invariable law of intellectual development; but must be ascribed to other causes, chiefly of a moral and practical kind, which exert a powerful influence, for good or evil, on every human mind. Montaigne speaks of an error maintained by Plato, "that children and old people were most susceptible of Religion, as if it sprung and derived its credit from our weakness."[83] And we find M. Comte himself complaining, somewhat bitterly, that his quondam friend, the celebrated St. Simon, had exhibited, as he advanced in years (cette tendance banale vers une vague religiosité), a tendency towards something like Religion.[84] Cases of this kind are utterly fatal to his supposed law of individual development, and they must be equally fatal to his theory of the progress of the human race.

Hitherto we have considered merely the reasons which M. Comte urges in support of his theory, and have endeavored to show that they are utterly incapable of establishing it as a valid scientific doctrine. It may be useful, however, to advert, in conclusion, to some considerations which afford decisive objections against it, arising from the testimony of authentic history and the plainest principles of reason.

In so far as the testimony of history and tradition is concerned, nothing can be more certain than that the progress of the race has followed a very different course from that which M. Comte has traced out for it by his grand fundamental law. The theory of a primitive state of ignorance and barbarism, in which a rude Theology existed, in the form of Fetishism, is opposed not more to the authority of Scripture, the earliest record of our race, than to the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attests the general belief of mankind in a primeval state of light and innocence. There is a sad but striking contrast between the views which are generally held by the Christian Theist, and those which are avowed by M. Comte on this subject. The Christian Theist admits the doctrine of a primeval Revelation and a pristine state of purity and peace; M. Comte maintains the doctrine of a primitive barbarism and a natural aboriginal Superstition. The Christian Theist believes in a fall subsequent to the creation of man, and ascribes the ignorance and error, the superstition and idolatry which ensued, to the perversion and abuse of his intellectual and moral powers; M. Comte affirms that man did not fall, that he did actually rise by a process of slow but progressive self-elevation, and that, in advancing from Fetishism to Polytheism, and from Polytheism to Monotheism, and from Monotheism to Atheism, he has all along been determined by the law of his normal development. In the view of the Christian Theist, Revelation was the sun which shed its cheering rays on the first fathers of mankind, and which, after having been obscured, for a time, by the clouds and darkness of Superstition, shines out again, clear and strong, under the dispensation of the Gospel; in the view of M. Comte, Science is the only sun that is destined to enlighten the world,—a sun which has not yet fully risen, but which has sent before, as the harbingers of its speedy advent, a few scattered rays to gild the lofty mountain peaks, while all beneath is still buried in Cimmerian darkness. The Christian Theist anticipates the time when the true light which now shineth shall cover the whole earth; M. Comte predicts its utter and final extinction, when Positive Science shall have risen into the ascendant. His theory is contradicted by the history of the past; let us hope that the events of the future will equally belie his prediction. For Christianity is the only hope of the world. The prospects of man would be dark indeed on the supposition of its being abolished. "There might remain among a few of the more enlightened some occasional glimpses of religious truth, as we find to have been the case in the Pagan world; but the degradation of the great mass of the people to that ignorance, and idolatry, and superstition, out of which the Gospel had emancipated them, would be certain and complete. This retrograde movement might be retarded by the advantages which we have derived from that system, whose influence we should continue to feel long after we had ceased to acknowledge the divinity of its source. But these advantages would by degrees lose their efficacy, even as mere matters of speculation, and give place to the workings of fancy, and credulity, and corruption. A radiance might still glow on the high places of the earth after the sun of Revelation had gone down; and the brighter and the longer it had shone, the more gradual would be the decay of that light and warmth which it had left behind it. But every where there would be the sad tokens of a departed glory and of a coming night. Twilight might be protracted through the course of many generations, and still our unhappy race might be able to read, though dimly, many of the wonders of the eternal Godhead, and to wind a dubious way through the perils of the wilderness. But it would be twilight still; shade would thicken after shade; every succeeding age would come wrapped in a deeper and a deeper gloom; till, at last, that flood of glory which the Gospel is now pouring upon the world would be lost and buried in impenetrable darkness."[85]

M. Comte's theory is liable to another objection, the force of which he seems, in some measure, although inadequately, to have felt and acknowledged. The three states or stages, which he describes as necessarily successive, are, in point of fact, simultaneous. They do not mark so many different eras in the course of human progress,—they denote the natural products of man's intelligence, the constituent elements of his knowledge in all states of society. The Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Scientific elements have always coëxisted. Diverse as they may be in other respects, they resemble each other in this,—they are all the natural and spontaneous products of man's intelligent activity. That they were, to a certain extent, simultaneous at first, and that they are simultaneous still, is actually admitted by M. Comte, while he conceives, nevertheless, that they are radically incompatible with each other;[86] and their coexistence hitherto is felt by him to be a serious objection to his fundamental law, which represents them not only as necessarily successive, but also as mutually exclusive. The fact is admitted, and that fact is fatal to his whole theory. For if the three methods have coexisted hitherto, why may they not equally coexist hereafter? And what ground is left for the reckless prediction that Theology is doomed, and must fall before the onward march of Positive Science? If man was able from the beginning to observe, to compare, to abstract, and to generalize, and if the fundamental laws of human thought have been ever the same, it follows that there must have been a tendency, coeval with the origin of the race, towards Theological, Metaphysical, and Inductive Speculation, and that the same tendency must continue as long as his powers remain unchanged. It can only, therefore, be a preponderance, more or less complete, of one of the three methods over the other two, that we should be warranted in expecting, even under the operation of M. Comte's favorite law; and yet he boldly proclaims the utter exclusion of Metaphysics, and the entire and everlasting elimination of Theology, as branches of human knowledge!

M. Comte's theory is still more vulnerable at another point. The fundamental assumption on which it is based is utterly groundless. It amounts to this, that all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or final, is interdicted to man, and incapable of being reached by any exertion of his faculties.[87] He tells us that Theology is impossible, for this reason, that, in the view of the Positive Philosophy, all knowledge of causes is absolutely excluded; nay, he admits that Theology is inevitable if we inquire into causes at all. We know of no simpler or more effectual method of dealing with his specious sophistry on this subject, than by showing that, if his general principle be conclusive against the knowledge of God, it is equally conclusive against the knowledge of any other being or cause; just as Sir James Mackintosh dealt with the skeptical philosophy of Hume, when, with admirable practical sagacity, he said: "As those dictates of experience which regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objections which attack them, in common with the principles of reasoning, must be utterly ineffectual. Whatever attacks every principle of belief, can destroy none. As long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to remain on the same level with the maxims of life, the whole system of human conviction must continue undisturbed.... Skepticism has practical consequences of a very mischievous nature. This is because its universality is not steadily kept in view and constantly borne in mind. If it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual antidote to the poison. But, in practice, it is an armory from which weapons are taken to be employed against some opinions, while it is hidden from notice that the same weapons would equally cut down every other conviction. It is thus that Mr. Hume's theory of causation is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the Deity, without warning the reader that it would equally lead him to expect—that the sun will not rise to-morrow."[88]

The exclusion of all knowledge of causes is so indispensable to M. Comte's theory that he admits "the inevitable tendency of our intelligence towards a philosophy radically Theological, as often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of the phenomena."[89] The exclusion of such knowledge would, of course, be fatal to Theology, since, without taking some account of causes, efficient and final, we cannot rise to God as the author of the universe. But did it never occur to M. Comte that the self-same principle may possibly be destructive of his present, or, at least, of his posthumous fame, as the author of the Positive Philosophy? For, if we can know nothing of efficient causes, in what sense, or on what ground, shall any one presume to ascribe the authorship of this system to M. Comte? True, it may be said,—Here is an effect which exhibits manifest signs of intelligence, order, and scientific skill; its parts are regularly adjusted and all directed to a common end; and, reasoning after the teleological method, we must infer that it proceeded from a very clever, but somewhat eccentric mind; but, unfortunately, final causes are as expressly interdicted as efficient ones; and, on the principles of his own theory, the "Course of Positive Philosophy" can never be warrantably ascribed to the authorship of M. Comte.

A still more serious objection to M. Comte's theory respecting the law of human development arises from the false view which it exhibits of the nature and history of Truth, considered as the object of human knowledge. It is a favorite opinion with him, that man can have no absolute knowledge; that truth is not fixed, but fluctuating; that what was believed in one age, and believed necessarily, according to the fundamental laws of thought, is as necessarily disbelieved in the next; and that there is no standard of truth at any time better or surer than the public opinion, or general consent, of the most advanced classes of society.[90] This theory of Truth, as necessarily mobile and fluctuating, has a tendency, we think, to engender universal skepticism, even when it is stated, with various important modifications, by such writers as Lamennais and Morell; but, in the hands of M. Comte, it becomes more dangerous still, since it represents the human race as having been from the beginning, through a long series of ages, subject to a law of development which not only permitted, but actually compelled them to believe a lie; and thus casts a dark shade of suspicion both on the constitution of man and on the government of God.

Such a theory would seem also to preclude all rational calculations respecting the future progress and prospects of the race. For what ground can exist for any prognostication in regard to the ulterior advancement or ultimate destiny of man, if it be true that, in his past history, Fetishism has passed into Polytheism, and Polytheism into Monotheism, without any extraneous instruction, and by the mere action of those inherent laws to which humanity is subject? And, still more, if it be further true that even now the human mind is in a state of transition, passing through the crisis of Metaphysical doubt towards the goal of Positive Atheism, who shall assure us that this will be its last and final metamorphosis? It does appear to us to be one of the most singular and perplexing anomalies of his elaborate system, that he can dogmatize so confidently on the terminus ad quem of human progress, when from the terminus a quo there has been, according to his own account, a series of variations so wonderful, and a succession of states so diverse and opposite, as those which he describes. And yet he pronounces oracularly that Positive Science is the ultimate landing-place of human thought, and that universal Atheism is the final barrier which must needs close and terminate the long series of developments.

We have spoken sternly of his system; we have no wish to speak harshly of the man. Had we any disposition to do so, there is more than enough in the personal explanation, prefixed to the closing volume of his work, effectually to disarm us. We have too much sympathy with the trials of a vigorous but eccentric mind, struggling in untoward circumstances, and against an adverse tide, to maintain a position of honorable independence, to say a word that could wound the feelings or injure the prospects of a man of science. But it is not unkind to add that his life might have been a more prosperous one had he devoted himself to the pursuits of Science, without assailing the truths of Religion; and that his fame would have been at once more extensive and more enduring had it been left to repose on his Classification or Hierarchy of the Sciences, without being associated with the more doubtful merits of his fundamental law of Man's Development.

SECTION IV.

THEORY OF ECCLESIASTICAL DEVELOPMENT.—J. H. NEWMAN.

This particular phase of the general theory bears less directly on the subject of our present inquiry than either of the three which have already passed under review, and yet it has recently been applied in such a way as may entitle it to a passing notice.

For while the theory of Ecclesiastical Development has a direct relation only to the question in regard to the Rule of Faith, it has also an indirect or collateral relation to the truths of Natural as well as of Revealed Religion; and this relation demands for it, especially in the existing state of theological speculation, the earnest attention of all who are concerned for the maintenance even of the simplest and most elementary articles of Divine truth.

The most elaborate and systematic exposition of this theory is exhibited in the "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, by John Henry Newman;" an Essay primarily directed to the discussion of the points of difference between the Popish and the Protestant Churches, but which will be found to have an important bearing, also, on some doctrines which are common to both, and especially on the fundamental articles of Natural Religion itself.

It is thus stated by Mr. Newman:[91] "That the increase and expansion of the Christian Creed and Ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired, and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. This may be called the Theory of Developments."

It is further illustrated as follows: "It is sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or sect, which, on the contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. It necessarily rises out of an existing state of things, and, for a time, savors of the soil. Its vital element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in efforts after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its years increase. Its beginnings are no measures of its capabilities, nor of its scope. At first, no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It remains, perhaps, for a time, quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to time it makes essays which fail, and are, in consequence, abandoned. It seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and, at length, strikes out in one definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall about it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations, and old principles reappear under new forms; it changes with them, in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often."[92]

In answer to the objection, "that inspired documents, such as the Holy Scriptures, at once determine the doctrines which we should believe," it is replied, "that they were intended to create an idea, and that idea is not in the sacred text, but in the mind of the reader; and the question is, whether that idea is communicated to him, in its completeness and minute accuracy, on its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and intellect, and comes to perfection in the course of time. Nor could it be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the New Testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation of all possible forms which a Divine message will assume when submitted to a multitude of minds."[93]

What relation, it may be asked, can this theory respecting the development of revealed or Christian truth bear to the question of the being and perfections of God? We answer, that it is founded on a general philosophical principle which may affect the truths of natural as well as those of revealed Religion; and that it is applied in such a way as to show that, as it has already led to the worship of angels and saints, so it may hereafter issue in the deification of Nature, which is Pantheism, or in the separate worship of its component parts, which is Polytheism; and, in either case, the personality and supremacy of the one only, the living and the true God, would be effectually superseded, if not explicitly denied.

But, is there any real danger of such a disastrous consummation? We answer, that the mere coexistence of the theory of Ecclesiastical Development with the infidel speculations on the doctrine of Human Progress is of itself an ominous symptom; and, further, that the mutual interchange of complimentary acknowledgments between the Infidel and Popish parties is another, especially when both are found to coincide in some of the main grounds of their opposition to Scripture as the supreme rule of faith, and when the homage which the advocates of Development render to the theory of progress is responded to by glowing eulogiums from the infidel camp on the genius of Catholicism as the masterpiece of human policy. But there are other grounds of apprehension, arising more directly out of the very nature of the theory of Development itself.

That theory has been described by Dr. Brownson—himself a convert to Catholicism—as the product of "a school formed, at first, outside of the Church, but now brought within her communion," and compared, in regard to its dangerousness, with the speculations of Hermes and Lamennais.[94] And a still more competent judge—Professor Sedgwick, of Cambridge[95]—has characterized it as "a monstrous compound of Popery and Pantheism," according to which "the Catholic faith is not a religion revealed to us in the Sacred Books we call canonical, and in the works of the Fathers which are supposed to contain the oral traditions of the Apostles and their followers; but a new Pantheistic element is to be fastened on the faith of men,—a principle of Development which may overshadow both the verbum Dei scriptum and the verbum Dei non scriptum of the Romish Church, and change both the form and substance of primitive Christianity."

It is only justice to Mr. Newman to say that he appears to have been aware of this possible objection to his theory, and that he makes an attempt to obviate it. Speaking of the difficulty which the Church experienced in keeping "Paganism out of her pale," he adverts to "the hazard which attended on the development of the Catholic ritual,—such as the honors publicly assigned to saints and martyrs, the formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which followed." And he asks: "What was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined Pantheism, and the overthrow of Dogmatism pari passu with the multiplication of heavenly intercessors and patrons? If what is called in reproach 'Saint-worship' resembled the Polytheism which it supplanted, or was a corruption, how did Dogmatism survive? Dogmatism is a religious profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but Polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as another. Yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as well as the monastic rule, all the while the ritual was assimilating itself, as Protestants say, to the Paganism of former ages."[96]

It seems to be admitted in these words, that, in the past history of the Church, the development of the Catholic ritual was attended with some danger of infection from Paganism or Pantheism; and there may be equal reason to fear that, in the future history of the Church, still working on the principle of development, that danger may be very considerably aggravated by the general prevalence of theories utterly inconsistent with the faith of primitive times. What the Church has already done in the exercise of her developing power may be only a specimen of what she may hereafter accomplish. She has already developed Christianity into a system which bears a striking resemblance to Polytheism; she may yet develop it more fully, so as to bring it into accordance with philosophical Pantheism; or, retaining both forms,—for they are not necessarily exclusive of each other,—she may use the first in dealing with the ignorant, and reserve the second as a sort of esoteric doctrine for minds of higher culture. Nor let it be said that we are either unjust or uncharitable towards the Romish Church, in suggesting the possibility of some such development; for what she has already done, and what she still claims the power of doing, afford very sufficient ground for our remarks. When Dr. Conyers Middleton published his celebrated "Letter from Rome," showing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism, and that "the religion of the present Romans is derived from that of their Heathen ancestors," many liberal Catholics resented the imputation as an insult to their faith; but now Mr. Newman not only admits the fact that the Church did assimilate its ritual to the Paganism of former ages, but vindicates her right to do so, and ascribes to her a power of assimilation to which it seems impossible to assign any limits. "There is, in truth," says this writer, "a certain virtue or grace in the Gospel, which changes the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal characters, which become incorporated with it, and makes them right and acceptable to its Divine Author, when before they were either contrary to truth, or, at best, but shadows of it."—"Confiding, then, in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of demon worship to an Evangelical use, ... the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class."—"The Church can extract good from evil, or, at least, gets no harm from it. She inherits the promise made to the disciples, that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, it should not hurt them."—"It has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines which, in other systems of religion, quickly degenerate into fanaticism or infidelity." This marvellous power of assimilation, which made "those observances pious in Christianity" that were "superstitions in Paganism," advanced, rapidly in its work, and successively introduced the deification of man, the cultus of angels and saints, and the beatification of Mary as Queen of heaven and earth. The sanctification, or rather the deification of the nature of Man, is one of these developments. Christ "is in them, because He is in human nature; and He communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming His, that it may deify them." The worship of saints is another of these developments: "Those who are known to be God's adopted sons in Christ are fit objects of worship on account of Him who is in them.... Worship is the necessary correlative of glory; and, in the same sense in which created nature can share in the Creator's incommunicable glory, do they also share in that worship which is His property alone." But a "new sphere" was yet to be discovered in the realms of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. "There was 'a wonder in heaven;' a throne was seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the Eternal Throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a sceptre over all. And who was the predestined heir of that Majesty? Who was that Wisdom, and what was her name?—'the Mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope,' exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi and a rose-plant in Jericho, created from the beginning before the world in God's counsels, and 'in Jerusalem was her power.' The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." The Deification of Mary is decreed. The doctrine of her Immaculate Conception is a further development at the present moment, and who can tell what other developments may be in store for the future?

We advert to this form of the theory only in so far as it stands related to our great theme,—the existence, perfections, and prerogatives of the one only, the living and the true God; and it can scarcely be questioned, we think, that it has already introduced doctrines and practices into the Church which have a manifest tendency to obscure the lustre and impair the evidence of some of the most fundamental articles of Natural Religion. Let it still advance in the same direction, and who shall assure us that it may not develop into still grosser idolatry, or even into Pantheism? Why should it not develop, for example, into Sun worship? "On the new system," says Professor Butler, "a modern growth of Christian Guebres might make out no feeble case; the public religious recognition of this great visible type of the True Light is but a fair development of 'the typical principle;' the justifiable imitation of the guilt of heathens in its adoration is but an instance of the transforming powers of 'the sacramental principle;' while it requires but the most moderate use of the great instrument of orthodoxy, 'mystical interpretation,' to find the duty hinted (clearly enough for watchful faith, though obscurely to the blinded or undevout) in those passages that speak of a 'tabernacle for the Sun,' or Deity itself being 'a Sun,' or the rising of 'the Sun of righteousness.'... Indeed, the whole body of the righteous are promised to 'shine as the Sun' in the heavenly kingdom,—an expression which, though it appear superficially to refer to a period not yet arrived, the Church has correctively developed into an assurance of their present beatification, and consequent right to worship; while it must be at once manifest that, if any representative emblem of the Deity may demand religious prostration in our Churches, the analogous emblem of the 'deified,' in the great temple of the Material Universe, may fairly expect a participation in that honor. It is true there is an express command, 'Take heed lest, when thou seest the Sun, ... thou shouldst be driven to worship them;' but so there is a command, at least as distinct and imperative, against the worship of Images, which, Mr. Newman instructs us, has been repealed under the Gospel, and was never more than a mere Judaic prohibition, 'intended for mere temporary observance in the letter.'"[97]

If it be said that, in the case of the Church of Rome, there is not only a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that this affords a guaranty, strong as the Divine promise itself, against that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human teaching,—we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which attest the historical variations of the Romish Creed, as these are admitted and defended by Mr. Newman himself. For some of these variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her from the deification of Nature? If it has already introduced a Christian Polytheism, why may it not issue in a Christian Pantheism?

Admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification of man, as well as to the worship of Mary; to a sacred Calendar of Heroes, as well as of Saints.[98] It may terminate either in Infidelity or in Superstition, according to the mental temperament of the individual by whom it is adopted and applied. "An organ of investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will just tell according to the spirit in which it acts. A skeptic will develop the principle into Infidelity, a believer into Superstition; but the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] The connection between the theory of Ecclesiastical Development and the infidel theory of Progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to the most fundamental articles of faith. "Modern Spiritualists tell us that Christianity is a development, as the Papists also assert, and the New Testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as the development, it seems, may be things so different as Popery and Infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be always something future."[100] One of the most pernicious tenets of the Neologists beyond the Rhine is thus expressed by themselves: "Christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows the development of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of thought and language, and adopts new systems of Church organization, to which it gives expression and life." ... "But are these teachers the only destroyers of Faith and Morals? Are not they also chargeable with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to the so-called divinely-inspired Spirit of 'one living Infallible Judge' or 'Developing Power'? Can we have fixed articles of faith and morals in this system, any more than in the other? No. 'Unus utrisque error, sed variis illūdet partibus.' There is the same evil in both, but it operates in different ways; in the former, every one develops for himself; in the latter, the Pope develops for every one. You look with fear on the progress of Rationalism; and what hope can any man derive from that of Romanism?"[101]

We have examined, each on its own peculiar merits, the various forms of the Theory of Development which have been propounded in modern times, and applied to account for the origin of planets and astral systems, of vegetable and animal races, and of the different successive systems of human opinion and belief. We have found that, imposing as it may seem to be, and high as its pretensions are, that theory has no claim to the character of a scientific doctrine; that it is a mere hypothesis, and nothing more; a speculative figment, which may be injurious to those who thoughtlessly dally with it, but which can have no power to hurt any one who will resolutely lay hold of it, and examine its claims.

It is only necessary to add, that the same general principle seems to be involved in all the forms of this theory,—the principle, namely, that we are bound to account for the past only by causes known to be in actual operation at the present day. M. Comte lays it down in the following terms: "Our conjectures on the origin, or formation of our world should evidently be subjected to this indispensable condition,—not to allow of the interposition of any other natural agents than those whose influence we clearly discern in our ordinary phenomena, and whose operations, then, would only be on a greater scale. Without this rule, our work can have no truly scientific character, and we shall fall into the inconvenience, so justly made a ground of reproach to the greater number of geological hypotheses,—that of introducing, for the purpose of explaining the ancient revolutions of the globe, agencies which do not exist at the present day, and whose influence it is impossible, for that very reason, to verify or even to comprehend." The same principle is strongly stated, but with due limitation, by Sir Charles Lyell, who insists on the explanation of all terrestrial changes by means of causes and according to laws known to be in operation at the present day: "During the progress of Geology, there have been great fluctuations of opinion respecting the nature of the causes to which all former changes in the earth's surface are referable. The first observers conceived that the monuments which the Geologist endeavors to decipher relate to a period when the physical constitution of the earth differed entirely from the present, and that, even after the creation of living beings, there have been causes in action distinct in kind or degree from these now forming part of the economy of nature. These views have been gradually modified, and some of them entirely abandoned."[102]

The general principle which is involved in these and similar statements may be perfectly sound, when it is applied merely to natural events, occurring in the ordinary course, and according to the established constitution of the material and moral world; but it is manifestly inapplicable to supernatural events, such as the creation of the world, or the revelation of Divine truth, since these events cannot be accounted for by any known natural cause, and must be ascribed to the immediate agency of a Higher Power. Without some such limitation, the general principle cannot be admitted, since it would involve an egregious fallacy. We must not limit Omnipotence by circumscribing the range of its possible exercise within the narrow bounds of the existing economy, or of our actual experience. We are not warranted to assume that the origin of the world, on the one hand, or the establishment of Christianity on the other, may be accounted for by natural causes still known to be in actual operation. In regard to natural events the principle is sound, and it is rigorously adhered to by the expounder of Natural Theology; in regard to supernatural events it can have no legitimate application, except in so far as it is combined with the doctrine of efficient and final causes, which leads us up to the recognition of a Higher Power. It might be safe and legitimate enough, when we find a fossil organism imbedded in the earth, to ascribe its production to the ordinary law of generation, even although we had not witnessed the fact of its birth, provided the same species is known to have existed previously; but when we find new races coming into being, for which the ordinary law of derivation cannot account, we are not at liberty to apply the same rule to a case so essentially different, and still less to postulate a spontaneous generation, or a transmutation of species, for which we have no experience at all. In such a case, we can only reason on the principle that like effects must have like causes, that marks of design imply a designing cause, and that events which cannot be accounted for by natural causes must be ascribed to a Power distinct from nature, and superior to it. It is manifestly unreasonable to assume that nothing can be brought to pass in the Universe otherwise than by the operation of the same natural laws which are now in action; or that, in the course of our limited and partial experience, we must necessarily know all the agencies that may have been at work during the long flow of time. And, in accordance with these views, Sir Charles Lyell expressly limits the general principle to natural events, and shows that "Geology differs as widely from Cosmogony as speculations concerning the Creation of Man differ from his History."

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