t But let us not be over-hasty. There are othei THE WORLD OF DOUBT forms of monism now extant. The purely material¬ istic monism, for which the hard and extended atoms of naive realism are already and in themselves po¬ tentially mind, the old-fashioned materialism of days when Mind-Stuff and physiological psychology were alike undreamed of, may indeed be neglected. That doctrine needed not critical philosophy, of more than a very undeveloped sort, to do away with it once for all. Modern monism knows of supposed atoms that are in their ultimate nature psychical; and of supposed psychical forces or agents that, when seen from without, behave much like extended atoms. But the old fragment of matter that, being no more than what every blacksmith knows as matter, was yet to be with all its impenetrability and its inertia a piece of the soul, has been banished from the talk of serious philosophers. There remain, then, the numerous efforts that see in the world the expression of psychical powers as such, not mere mind-stuff atoms, but organized wholes, related in nature to what we know by internal experience as mind, yet higher or lower, subtler or mightier, wiser or more foolish, than the human intelligence. These views may be divided into two classes: those that see in nature the manifestations of a logical or intelligent power, and those that see in it the manifestations of an alogical or blind, though still psychical power. Each of these classes again may be subdivided ac¬ cording as the power is conceived as conscious or as unconscious in its working. How do these ontolog¬ ical efforts stand related to critical thought?
First let us consider logical monism. Since hu- 258 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY man intelligence is itself an activity, a working to¬ wards an end, and since the logical monist thinks the external universe after the analogy of the human reason, the constant tendency is for him to conceive the world as a process whereby his World Spirit makes actual what was potential. Modern science, in fact, when viewed speculatively, though it does not confirm, yet lends itself easily to such efforts, and we can always, if we choose, imagine the evolution of the organic kingdom as possibly the process of self - manifestation of one eternal rational Power. Only in this way we are very far from a satisfactory ontology. A world, the work or the child of the uni¬ versal reason, developing in time, how can any re¬ flective mind be content with this account of things? The universal reason surely means something by its process, surely lacks something when it seeks for higher forms. Now, on a lower stage the universal reason has not yet what it seeks, on the higher stage it attains what it had not. Whence or how does it obtain this something? What hindered the possible from being forthwith actual at the outset? If there was any hindrance, was this of the same nature with the universal reason, or was it other? If other, then we are plunged into a Dualism, and the good and evil principles appear once more. But if there was no external hindrance, no illogical evil principle in existence, then the universal reason has irration¬ ally gone without the possible perfection that it might possess, until, after great labor, it has made actual what it never ought to have lacked. The in¬ finite Logos thus becomes no more than the “‘child THE WORLD OF DOUBT playing with bubbles ” of the old philosopher. Everything about the process of evolution becomes intelligible and full of purpose — except the fact that there should be any process at all where all was in, and of, and for the universal reason at the outset. The infinite power has been playing with perfection as a cat with a mouse, letting it run away a few aeons in time, that it might be caught once more in a little chase, involving the history of some millions of worlds of life. Is this a worthy conception? Nay, is it not a self -contradictory one? Evolution and creative Reason — are they compatible? Yes, in¬ deed, when the evolution is ended, the hurly-burly done, the battle lost and won; but meanwhile —? In short, either evolution is a necessity, one of the twelve labors of this Hercules-Absolute, or else it is irrational. In the one case the Absolute must be conceived as in bonds, in the other case the Logos must be conceived as blundering. Both conceptions are rank nonsense. This kind of Monism will not satisfv critical demands.
And then there is the objection, stated by Scho¬ penhauer, and by we know not how many before him, and that we have already insisted upon, namely, that every historical conception of the world as a whole, every attempt to look upon Being as a ra¬ tional process in time, as a perpetual evolution from a lower to a higher, is beset by the difficulty that after an infinite time the infinite process is still in a very early stage. Infinitely progressing, always growing better, and yet reaching after all this eter¬ nity of work only the incoherent, troublous, blind 260 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY imperfection that we feel in ourselves, and that we see in every dung-heap and sick-room and govern¬ ment on the earth, in every scattered mass of nebu¬ lous matter, in every train of meteor-fragments in the heavens — what is this but progress without a goal, blind toil? The world would be, one might think, after an infinity of growth, intensively infi¬ nite at every point of its extent. We mortals see no one point in the physical universe where one viewing thiugs as we in this chapter have chosen to do, namely, from outside, might lay his hand and say: Here the ideal is attained.
Yet we should be very far from dreaming of ac¬ cepting the opposing dogmatic theorem, the antith¬ esis of this sublime Antinomy, namely, “ The world is the product of an irrational force. The One is blind.” Schopenhauer undertook the defense of this antithesis, and, in bad logic, as we all know, he somewhat surpassed even that arch blunderer, the universal Will of his own system. This Will, after all, desired a good deal of trouble, and got his wish. But Schopenhauer desired a consistent statement, and, with all his admirable ingenuity and learning, he produced a statement whose inconsistencies have been exposed too often to need much more discus¬ sion. No; to the defenders of the alogical hypoth¬ esis, as a dogmatic doctrine, it has not yet been given to make out more than the purely negative case that we have stated above. Dogmatic panlo- gism can be assaulted, with much show of success. The opposite doctrine has not yet been dogmatically maintained without even worse confusion. 1 THE WORLD OF DOUBT THE WORLD OF DOUBT Panlogism and Alogism are difficult enough in themselves, but how much worse becomes their con¬ dition when, as in the “ Philosophy of the Uncon¬ scious,” of Yon Hartmann, either one of them, or a hybrid of the two, is burdened with yet another hy¬ pothesis, namely, that the One Being is unconscious, and yet in nature psychical. Founding himself on certain physiological facts, very doubtfully inter¬ preted, on a monstrous perversion of the mathemat¬ ical theory of probabilities, on an ingenious view of the history of philosophy, on a like ingenious criti¬ cism of Kant, Von Hartmann has expounded an on¬ tological doctrine of which, after all, serious thought can make nothing. This unconscious being, exist¬ ent not for itself, for it is conscious of nothing, nor for others, because all else is a part of it (and, for the rest, nobody ever thought of it before Yon Hart¬ mann), shall be the maker and upholder of the uni¬ verse. Surely all this is a philosophy of round squares, and is not to be taken very seriously.
Of course the previous criticism is absurdly inad¬ equate to the magnitude of the problems involved, and is intended only as the merest sketch, dogmat¬ ically stated, of critical objections to certain ontolo¬ gies. Seeming irreverence, in this hasty style of doing battle, must be pardoned. Only against im¬ perfect metaphysic as such do we war. Critical philosophy holds no theoretical opinion sacred, just as it regards no earnest practical faith as other than sacred. The question is here not yet what we are to believe, but what we can in argument maintain, and what our method of search ought to be. Abso- 262 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY lute and Infinite, Logos and not Logos, Mind-Stuff and Spirit — what are they all for critical philoso¬ phy, but, in the first place, mere ideas, conceptions of reason, to be mercilessly analyzed without regard for consequences?
One way remains whereby this realistic monism can still hope to reach a satisfactory statement of the world-problem. Suppose that, once for all, the his¬ torical form of statement is abandoned, while the no¬ tion of the Reason as a power is retained. This may be done in either of two ways. The universal reason may be conceived as manifesting itself in time, but not in a series of events that are united as the parts of a single process. The world-life may be conceived not as a single history, but as an eternally repeated product of the One reason, a process ever renewed as soon as finished, an infinite series of growing and decaying worlds — worlds that are like the leaves of the forest, that spring and wither through an eter¬ nity of changing seasons. The rationality of the world-process is thus saved for our thought by the hypothesis that reason is not like a belated traveler, wandering through the night of time, seeking for a self-realization that is never reached, but, rather, like the sun that each day begins afresh his old task, rejoicing as a giant in the fullness of his at¬ tained power. Whoever regards the world as it now is as plainly a sufficient expression of infinite ra¬ tional power, is at liberty to accept this hypothesis; but he must prepare to answer those of his object¬ ors to whom reason means perfection, and to whom the world of sense will not appear as just at present more perfect than the world of Candidas experi- THE WORLD OF DOUBT ences. For every one but the blind optimist there is difficulty in regarding this wind-swept battle-field of human action as obviously and altogether a drama of unhindered infinite reason, to be repeated with unwearying tautology through an unending future. Thus, then, we are tossed back and forth between the possibilities suggested by our hypothesis. “ The world is the manifestation of infinite reason; ” good, then, but how? “ The world is a rational growth from lower to higher.” How, then, is this possible if the infinite reason rules all and desires the higher? Was it not always at the goal? So, then: “ The world is not one process merely, hut an eternal repetition of the drama of infinite reason, which, as infinite, is thus always active and always at the goal." But this hypothesis is seemingly over¬ thrown by the appearance of the least imperfection or irrationality in nature. The first starving fam¬ ily, or singed moth, or broken troth, or wasted ef¬ fort, or wounded bird, is an indictment of the uni¬ versal reason, that, always at the goal, has wrought this irrational wrong. The other possible hypothe¬ sis leaves us, after all, in the same quandary. Time may be a mere “ mirage.” For the eternal One there is, then, no process; only fact. This notion of a timeless Being is, no doubt, very well worth study. But, then, the eternal One is thus always at the goal, just as in the other case. The One, we should think, cannot be infinite and rational and yet productive of the least trace of wrong, absurdity, error, falsehood. Again our Monism fails. For, after all, the world has been viewed by us only from without; and so remains dark.
264 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY IV.
Our monism fails, namely, to establish itself on any ground of experience. Absolute refutation is indeed not yet thus attained, for the defender of the hypothesis of an infinite reason always has at his disposal the suggestions of the ancient theodicy, modified to suit his needs. He can say: “The par¬ tial evil is, somehow, we cannot see how, universal good.” Or, again, “ Evil results from the free-will of moral agents, who have to suffer for their own chosen sins.” The latter answer, a very plausible one in its own sphere, is for the general problem insig¬ nificant. That there is free-will we do not dispute, and that free-will, if it exists, is a cause of much mischief is undoubted. Yet if the universe is so made that the free-will of the slave-driver, or of the murderer, or of the seducer, or of the conqueror, works untold ill to innocent victims, then the fault of the suffering of the victims rests not wholly with the evil-doer, but partly with the order of the world, which has given him so much power, such a wide freedom to do the mischief that he desires. The world in which such things happen must justify its religiously inspiring nature in some other way.
The other answer, that partial evil is universal good, we have to regard as a much deeper answer, shallow as have been the uses often made of it in the past. But if it is to be a valid answer, it must take a particular form. The words are usually spoken too glibly. Their meaning, if they are to have any, we must very carefully consider, ere we can dare to THE WORLD OF DOUBT accept them. Only from a higher point of view shall we in fact be able to apply them. In the world of the Powers they find no resting-place.
How can a partial evil be an universal good? Only in certain cases. The notion plainly is that the evil in the external world of popular thought is, as known to us, only a part of the whole, and the whole, it is said, may be in character opposed to the part. This must indeed be the case, if the world as a whole is to be the work of an Infinite Reason. For if so, the evil must be, not merely a bad lesser part that is overbalanced by the goodness of the larger half of the world, but non-existent, save as a separate aspect of reality, so that it would vanish if we knew more about the truth. This is what the saying asserts: not that evil is overbalanced by good (for that would leave the irrational still real), but that evil is only a deceitful appearance, whose true nature, if seen in its entirety, would turn out to be good. One could not say of a rotting apple, however small the rotten spot as yet is, that the partial rot¬ tenness is the universal soundness of the apple. If I have but one slight disorder in but one of my organs, still you cannot say that my partial disorder must be universal health. The old optimists did not mean anything so contradictory as that. They meant that there is no real evil at all; that what seems to me to be evil, say toothaches, and broken households, and pestilences, and treasons, and wars, all that to¬ gether is but a grand illusion of my partial view. As one looking over the surface of a statue with a microscope, and finding nothing but a stony surface, 266 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY might say, how ugly / but on seeing the whole at a glance would know its beauty; even so one seeing the world by bits fancies it evil, but would know it to be good if he saw it as a whole. And the seem¬ ing but unreal evil of the parts may be necessary in order that the real whole should be good. Such is the position of our optimists. This is the Platonic- Augustinian doctrine of the unreality of evil.
The logical possibility of all this we do not for the first either dispute or affirm. But we are dealing with a world of difficulties, and we can only point out the antecedent difficulty of this theory. If the world of experience simply lacked here and there in¬ terest, or positive signs of rational perfection, then one might well compare it to the statue, that seen only piecemeal, and through a microscope applied to its surface, would wholly lack the beauty that ap¬ pears when all is viewed at once. Then one might say, with great plausibility, that if perceptible har¬ mony is simply lacking to our partial view, the great whole may still be a grand harmony. But the trouble lies in the seemingly positive character of evil. Not simple lack of harmony, but horrible dis¬ cord, is here. How the tortures of the wounded on a field of battle can anyhow enter into a whole in which, as seen by an absolute judge, there is actually no trace of evil at all, this is what we cannot under¬ stand. It seems very improbable. Only absolute proof will satisfy us. And of course, as has been indicated, by some of our examples above, it is not the quantity of any evil (if an evil be a quantity at all), but the quality of it, that makes us urge it in THE WORLD OF DOUBT THE WORLD OF DOUBT opposition to the claims of reason to be the ruler of all things. Any evil will do, if it seems to be a real and positive evil. For then it seems positively at war with reason.
Actually, however, theodicies and kindred efforts, whether monistic or not, in trying to vindicate the rational in the world have seldom consistently main¬ tained this high and slippery gr ound of the theory of Plato and of St. Augustine. Far from declaring that all physical evil is and must be apparent, the popular theodicies have often consented to accept the reality of this positive evil, and to minimize its significance by certain well-worn, and, for the pur¬ poses of this argument, contemptible devices. They have pointed out that the evil in the world, though a reality separate from the good, exists as a means to good. Or, again, they have said that evil is neces¬ sary as something outside of the good, setting it off by way of contrast. Both devices, if applied to a world in which good and evil are conceived as sepa¬ rate entities, are unworthy of philosophic thinkers.
For consider the first device. “ Evil is a reality, not an illusion, but it is a means to good. There¬ fore in the world as a whole, good triumphs. There¬ fore reason, which desires the good, is the One Ruler.” But first, to mention a lesser objection, the basis in experience for this view is surely very narrow. Much evil exists whose use as a means we cannot even faintly conceive. But grant this point. Then the real evil is a means to a separate and ex¬ ternal good end. But if the end was good, why was it not got without the evil means? Only two answers 268 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY are possible to this, in case the evil is separate from the good. Either the One Reason was driven to take just this way, and could take no less expensive one; or the One Reason, not being bound to this road, still arbitrarily chose to take it instead of a better. But either answer is fatal. Was the One Reason unable to do better? Then it is not the only power at work. The Monism fails. The Reason was bound. But he who binds the strong man is stronger than he. If, however, the One chose this way rather than a better, then the One chose evil for its own sake. The dilemma is inevitable.
To exemplify: If pain is an evil, and if the evil of the pain caused you by a burn, or cut, or bruise is justified by saying that all-wise nature makes your skin sensitive to the end that you may be helped in keeping it whole; then the obvious answer is, that if nature is all-wise and all-powerful and benevolent towards you, it was her business to find a way of keeping your skin in general whole, without entail¬ ing upon you the tortures of this present injury. If a machine that we make runs poorly, we are not dis¬ posed to blame ourselves, in case we are sure that we have done our very best with it. But the ma¬ chines of all-wise nature must not run with destruc¬ tive friction, unless all-wise nature intends destruc¬ tive friction. The same remark applies to all the eloquent speeches about the educative value of our sufferings. If nature could make us perfect without suffering, and if suffering is not itself an organic part of our perfection, but only an external means thereto, then it was nature’s rational business to de- THE WORLD OF DOUBT THE WORLD OF DOUBT velop us differently. But if nature could not perfect our characters save through this imperfect means, then nature’s means were limited. Nature was not all-powerful. Reason had some irrational power be¬ yond it that it could not conquer. Even so we can¬ not yet run certain engines without smoke. When we are more civilized, we shall abolish smoke, be¬ cause we shall get more power over the processes of combustion. At present, by this hypothesis, nature can only make characters perfect through suffering, this smoke of the engine of life. So much the worse for nature, unless indeed, in some unknown way, suffering is really no true evil at all, but itself a perfection that, if seen from above, would become plainly universal good. And does that as yet look probable?
Even worse is the other device often suggested for explaining evil. “ Evil is a reality, but it is use¬ ful as a foil to good. The two separate facts, good and evil, set each other off. By its contrast, evil increases the importance of good.” When this rer mark is made about us personally with our limita¬ tions of body and circumstance, with our relativity of feeling and of attention, the remark has some psychological interest. Made to justify the supposed universal reason, the remark is childish. Always, indeed, it is possible that evil as a separate entity may be made out to be an illusion; and that good and evil have some higher unity that involves the perfection of the world. But if evil is real, and sep¬ arate from goodness, then the talk about explaining it as a useful contrast is of no worth in the present 270 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY argument. For we ask: Could, not the One create a perfect good save by making good more attractive as set off against the foil evil? Shall we say that Reason could do better than to depend upon this contrast? Then why the evil? If, however, the One Reason could not do better, but had to use the contrast, then the One was less powerful in its de¬ vices than is the maker of a concert - programme, who has no need to introduce into his concert any saw-filing or tin-trumpeting or pot-scraping to set off the beauty of his songs and symphonies. But as a fact of experience, is most evil seemingly even thus useful? Are the sick needed to make the healthy joyous? Was Judas necessary in order that Jesus should show himself wholly good? Tradition, in this latter case, says yes, and adds the mystical speech about the need that the offense should come. But what enlightened man nowadays will have it that, supposing good and evil to be separate facts, there can be logically possible nothing thoroughly good, in case some of this evil were removed? Could not Jesus have been what he was without Judas? One doubts here the fact of the necessity of the evil, even in our own little lives; and one is indignant at the trifling that supposes so weak a device as mere external contrast to be the sole device at the disposal of the One Reason. Yet this weak hypoth¬ esis of good and evil as externally contrasting sepa¬ rate entities is, after all, provokingly near in form to what we shall hold to be the true solution of the great problem. But that solution is still far away from us and from this world of sense.
THE WORLD OF DOUBT Thus far, then, monism seems, if not an impos¬ sible, still a decidedly doubtful, view of the world. Its value as furnishing religious support seems small. We cannot yet by experience prove that the rational power is supreme in the world; and we fail to make clear to ourselves a 'priori how it should be supreme. So far we remain agnostics. Our only escape would seem to be through the still doubtful doctrine of the unreality of Evil. And that way seems very dark.
V.
V.
Dualistic Theism here confronts us, the doctrine in which the wise of so many ages have found so much support, the doctrine of a Father, separate from the world of created finite beings, who directs all things, pities and loves his children, and judges with supreme truthfulness all human acts. The re¬ ligious value of this doctrine, on one side at least, nobody can possibly question. The Father, as Jesus conceives him, has in a very high sense the charac¬ ter that we desire to find in reality. To be sure, there is the other side. This God of the dualistic view is seemingly limited. As a Father pitieth his children, so this God pitieth. But this pity seems to be the love of one who yet cannot or will not save us from all our evil. And if the evil is a reality, and is meant to work for our good, still there is the unanswerable objection that if the Father is not bound by an irrational power beyond him, he need not have put us into so evil a state, but might have wrought us our good in some less painful and dan- 272 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY