ion, and suffering of man have striven through countess generations to effect." 24 Naturalism as Religion of Service, Wonder, and § 125. But though our philosopher must accept the truth of this terrible picture, he is not left without spiritual resources. The abthe Basis for a stract religion provided for the agnostic faithful by Herbert Spencer does not, Renunciation. it is true, afford any nourishment to the religious nature. He would have men look for a deep spring of life in the negative idea of mystery, the apotheosis of ignorance, while religious faith to live at all must lay hold upon reality. But there does spring from naturalism a positive religion, whose fundamental motives are those of service, wonder, and renunciation: service of humanity in the present, wonder at the natural truth, and renunciation of a universe keyed to vibrate with human ideals. "Have you," writes Charles Ferguson, "had dreams of Nirvana and sickly visions and raptures? Have you imagined that the end of your life is to be absorbed back into the life of God, and to flee the earth and forget all? Or do you want to walk on air, or fly on wings, or build a heavenly city in the clouds? Come, let us take our kit on our shoulders, and go out and build the city here." 25 24 Quoted from Balfour: Foundations of Belief, pp. 29–31 "Ferguson: Religion of Democracy, p. 10. For Haeckel" natural religion" is such as "the astonishment with which we gaze upon the star heavens and the microscopic life in a drop of w the awe with which we trace the marvellous wor of energy in the motion of matter, the reverence which we grasp the universal dominance of the l substance throughout the universe." " 26 There is a deeper and a sincerer note in the st forlorn humanism of Huxley: "That which lies before the human race is a consta struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity in which, and by which, man may develop a worth civilization, capable of maintaining and constant improving itself, until the evolution of our globe st have entered so far upon its downward course that th cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface of our planet." p. 344. 26 Haeckel: Op. cit., "Huxley: Evolution and Ethics, p. 45. Collected Essay Vol. IX. CHAPTER IX SUBJECTIVISM § 126. WHEN, in the year 1710, Bishop Berkeley maintained the thesis of empirical idealism, having rediscovered it and announced Originally As it with a justifiable sense of originality, Subjectivism sociated with Relativism and Scepticism. he provoked a kind of critical judgment that was keenly annoying if not entirely surprising to him. In refuting the conception of material substance and demonstrating the dependence of being upon mind, he at once sought, as he did repeatedly in later years, to establish the world of practical belief, and so to reconcile metaphysics and common-sense. Yet he found himself hailed as a fool and a sceptic. In answer to an inquiry 1 PRELIMINARY NOTE. By Subjectivism is meant that system of philosophy which construes the universe in accordance with the epistemological principle that all knowledge is of its own states or activities. In so far as subjectivism reduces reality to states of knowledge, such as perceptions or ideas, it is phenomenalism. In so far as it reduces reality to a more internal active principle such as spirit or will, it is spiritualism. concerning the reception of his book in Lond his friend Sir John Percival wrote as follows: "I did but name the subject matter of your book: Principles to some ingenious friends of mine and the immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same t refusing to read it, which I have not yet got one to d A physician of my acquaintance undertook to discor your person, and argued you must needs be mad, an that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied yo that a desire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking. Another told me that yo are not gone so far as another gentleman in town, whi asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter but that we ourselves have no being at all." a There can be no doubt but that the idea of the dependence of real things upon their appearance to the individual is a paradox to common-sense. It is a paradox because it seems to reverse the theoretical instinct itself, and to define the real in those very terms which disciplined thought learns to neglect. In the early history of thought the nature of the thinker himself is recognized as that which is likely to distort truth rather than that which conditions it. When the wise man, the devotee of truth, first makes his appearance, his authority is acknowledged because he has re nounced himself. As witness of the universal 2 Berkeley: Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 352. Fraser's edition. eing he purges himself of whatever is peculiar to is own individuality, or even to his human nature. In the aloofness of his meditation he escapes the cloud of opinion and prejudice that obscures the vision of the common man. In short, the element of belief dependent upon the thinker himself is the dross which must be refined away in order to obtain the pure truth. When, then, in the critical epoch of the Greek sophists, Protagoras declares that there is no belief that is not of this character, his philosophy is promptly recognized as scepticism. Protagoras argues that sense qualities are clearly dependent upon the actual operations of the senses, and that all knowledge reduces ultimately to these terms. "The senses are variously named hearing, seeing, smelling; there is the sense of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, and many more which are named, as well as innumerable others which have no name; with each of them there is born an object of sense,-all sorts of colors born with all sorts of sight and sounds in like manner with hearing, and other objects with the other senses. If the objects are "born with " the senses, it follows that they are born with and appertain to the individual perceiver. 'Plato: Theaetetus, 156. Translation by Jowett. The italics are mine. |