powers. The world of powers is the world of the children of the dragon’s teeth. Their struggles are 288 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY endless. The only religion that they can teach is the religion of endurance and of courage. Or one may compare them to the warriors in king Atli’s house. Only the all-seeing Eternal Thought can possibly discover their significance. Of themselves they are just the fighters in the blood and dust of the ban¬ queting hall.
All this we just now affirm without full proof. But our previous discussion has been one long illus¬ tration of it. You find or think you find in the world a religiously valuable power or tendency at work. But at once there stands beside it its sworn foe. Is it Evolution that you have found? There stands beside it Dissolution. Is it the tender care of a fatherly nature for the very sparrows? Then ap¬ pears beside it the cruelty and deceit of nature. Is it the beauty of the world that suggests a power- loving beauty? Nay, but the rottenness and the horror of natural disease and decay assert as boldly the workings of a power that hates beauty. Are all these seeming powers just mere phantoms, whose truth is in the laws of physics? Then the world is a vast wreck of colliding molecules. Are these pow¬ ers real tendencies? Then their fight is seemingly endless. The world of the powers is indeed full of physical law, because and only because its facts are found, by means of thought that has a deeper foun¬ dation, to be cases of certain general rules. But for our religious purpose, this world of the powers seems a chaos.
“ But,” says some one, “ all this is no disproof of the existence of a real but to us not perfectly clear THE WORLD OF DOUBT harmony of all the powers. This is simply absence of proof.” Yes; but if proof is what we want, and if every single power sends us beyond itself for the interpretation of the meaning of the whole, we can¬ not hope to grasp that meaning so long as we avoid studying the world in its eternal aspect. The pow¬ ers themselves make and unmake. We understand them not. They remind us of the night-scene of Faust: — Faust. Was weben die dort urn den Rabenstein?
Mephistopheles. Weiss nicht was sie kochen uud schaffen.
Faust. Schweben auf, schweben ab, neigen sich, beugen sich.
Mephistopheles. Eine Hexenkunst.
Faust. Sie streuen und weihen.
Mephistopheles. Yorbei! Vorbei!
And if we will hear the wisdom of Mephistopheles about all this, he has elsewhere given his view, which, as an opinion about the world of powers by one of the more authoritative powers in it, is worthy of as much respect as any other suggestion from an equally limited being: — “ Was soli uns dann das ewige Schaffen!
Geschaffenes zu nichts hinwegzurafifen!
« Ra ist’s vorbei! ’ Was ist daran zn lesen?
Es ist so gut als war’es nicht gewesen.
Und treibt sich doch im Kreis, als wenn es ware.
Ich liebte mir dafur das Ewig-Leere.”
And possibly it would be hard for us to be sure of much more meaning in this world of powers as such, than Mephistopheles has found.
For us, we turn, not with despair, but with hope, elsewhere. W e go to seek the Eternal, not m ex¬ perience, but in the thought that thinks experience.
290 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY Our hope is not less because we have found in the temporal a world of doubt. Our song is simply the “ Good-by proud world, I'm going home” of the religious minds of all ages. The truly religious elements of theism are not hurt by the destruction of traditions about theistic arguments. It is only an example of shallow thought when either the destruc¬ tive or the constructive thinkers imagine that the bat- tie is decided if the world of the powers is judged in one way or in another. Religion is as independ¬ ent of all that as Sirius is independent of the north wind.
CHAPTER IX.
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES Das bestandige Wetzen der Messer ist langweilig, wenn man Nichts zu schneiden vorhat. — Lotze, Metaphysik.
What ’s so false as truth is False to thee?
Browning.
If the reader has become thoroughly weary of the world of doubt, we are only glad of the fact. Armed with a genuine philosophy, a man may indeed go back to that world, and find in it an expression of ideal truth in empirical form. We hope to have such a right ourselves in time; but, without a well thought out philosophy, a man venturing into the world of empirical facts to find there any religious significance actually discovers himself to be in a nest of hornets; and he deserves as much. We desired to bring the reader to feel this with us; else our own prudent flight from that world to another might seem to him unnecessary. Now we are ready to come nearer to our former question. What right has any one to assume that empirical external world at all as having any absolute truth? “ O thou that hast troubled us,” we may say, “ what art thou at bottom more than our own assumption? Wliat right has that external world to be the sole region 292 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY where we could seek the religious truth, when per¬ chance the external world, as we assumed it, is not a truth at all? Let us consider once more our steps. Perchance the religiously inspiring reality is in some higher world. If we are only skeptical enough, per¬ chance we shall find that Reality. Then, indeed, the old assumption of an external world of empir¬ ical facts may remain a part of our future thought, but it will get a new sense, and occupy a new place.
The first answer that occurs to this our question about the meaning of the external world that has so far troubled us, is this: The assumed world is no fixed datum, to which we are bound to submit at all hazards, but a postulate, which is made to sat¬ isfy certain familiar human needs. If this postulate is found to have no religious significance, we may supplement the doubt thus arising by remembering that we who postulated once have the right to postu¬ late again. Our religiously satisfactory truth may be reached, not by hypotheses about powers in the empirical world, but by a deeper faith in something that is eternal, and behind or above the world of the senses.
This view gives us a new world, the world of the Postulates. W e cannot be content to remain in this world, but we must pass through it on our way up¬ wards. Let us hear it described.
I.
The world of Doubt has passed before us, a huge mass of inexplicable facts. Here and there we find THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES a connection; we hope that we shall soon find more connection; but still the vast plan, if indeed there be a plan, we search for in vain. But now, strangely enough, all this doubt affects in no wise the willing trustfulness of our devotion to the interests, not only of common life, but also of science. The doubt con¬ fuses us only when we talk of religion. That the world as a whole is dark, nobody admits more cheer¬ fully than does the modern scientific man, even when he looks to his science for all his religious consola¬ tion. For he seeks no consolation save what the phenomena as such furnish. But his philosophical doubt about the ultimate foundation of science is no check to his scientific ambition. He believes in science just as ardently as if he did not in the very first breath of each new philosophical dispute de¬ clare that the real world is unknowable. His faith in the methods of his specialty is as firm as his in¬ difference to all extra - scientific speculation. His work is in fact done with a kind of instinctive con¬ fidence in himself and his fellows. The instinct is no doubt highly trained, but it remains an instinct, and a delightful one it is to him. The untrained instincts of the unscientific man must indeed be crit¬ icised and altered in many respects ere they can serve the purposes of science; but, after all the crit¬ icisms and alterations, the instinct remains with al¬ most all men an instinct, — useful, pleasing, yes, in¬ dispensable; but its philosophical justification few people care to know, while its self-confidence every scientific essay, or lecture, or instructor will attest. Why now is it that, trusting as we all do this scien- 294 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY tific instinct, we all feel it hard to give a like trust to the religious instinct, whose most general tendency is to have some sort of faith in the goodness of things? Why is it that the doubtfulness and the contradictions of the real world seem to everybody to throw a cloud upon religion, even when it is not supernatural religion, but to have no significance whatever for the bases of science? This scientific notion of a world of law, all of whose facts could conceivably be predicted by one formula, why does that remain in our minds untouched by the doubts of the skeptical philosophers, while the same skep¬ ticism at once seems to remove from us that trust in the moral goodness of things which religion has tried to establish in our hearts? Shall the world be indifferent to one set of our ideals, and not to another? Shall the moral value of things be dark, and not also their value for the purposes of science? Why is the one doctrine so different from the other? You are placed in a world of confusion, and you as¬ sert that in its ultimate and eternal nature it answers your moral needs. That seems presumptuous. You did not make that world. How do you know whether it cares for your moral ideals? Very well then, be impartial. You are placed in a world of confusion, and you assert that it answers your intellectual needs, namely, that it is a world of order, whose facts could be reduced to some rational and intelligi¬ ble unity. What business have you to do that? In both cases you transcend experience. Nature gives you in experience partial evil that you cannot in all cases perceive to be universal good. Nature also THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES 295 gives you in experience partial chaos that you can¬ not in all cases perceive to be universal order. But unwaveringly you insist that nature is orderly, that the chaos is an illusion; and still you do not feel ready to insist that the partial evil is universal good. Why is this so? Is the ethical side of reality less important than the other? Or is it the very im¬ portance of the religious aspect of things that makes us more ready to doubt the truth of this aspect!
Such questions occur to us as suggesting a possi¬ ble way out of our difficulties. It is not exactly our desired way, but is it not possibly a good way t Sci¬ ence, namely, uses a certain kind of faith, whenever such faith is practically necessary. This scientific faith is indeed no faith in particular uninvestigated facts, but it is a faith in general methods and princi¬ ples. The creed of science knows of no dogmas about unexperienced single facts, as such; but it does know of dogmas about the general form of the laws that must be assumed to govern all experience. Now why may not religion be reduced to certain essential general and fundamental moral demands, that we must make in the presence of reality? Why are not these a legitimate, yes, a morally necessary object of faith? Why, as the scientific man postulates a the¬ oretical rationality in the world, may not we postu¬ late a moral rationality in the world? These ques¬ tions stand in our path. Might not the answer to them transform our barren doubts into something less disheartening?
We see what all this supposed religious faith would mean. It would not be a faith in any partio 296 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY ular facts of experience that might have for us per¬ sonally a selfish value, whether greater or less. It would be, like the scientific faith, wholly general. It would demand that the world in its entirety should be regarded as in some higher sense morally ra¬ tional. It would say: The real world must be, what¬ ever its true nature, at least as high in the moral scale as my highest ideals of goodness. Have we a right to such a faith? Let us cautiously consider this point.
But at once we must distinguish the proposed re¬ ligious faith from what we should call mere blind faith. Blind faith in what we cannot establish is indeed inadmissible. But then, is there not another kind of faith, the kind that Kant used in his prac¬ tical philosophy? To this may we not now turn? Perhaps the world of the powers, approached in the usual way, is dark, but the world for the practical reason may be opened in another way. Kant said, in effect: “ Such and such supersensual realities, of re¬ ligious significance, cannot be theoretically proven; but we can see why we ought to postulate their ex¬ istence, that is, we can see why we ought to act as if they existed. Behind the veil of sense, we must postulate that there is an intelligible world, in which all is harmony, and in which the highest good is realized.” May we not also try with Kant to do this?
We shall in any case find this effort, an effort that has been so often made since Kant, a subject well worth our study and careful examination. In truth it is not by itself satisfactory; but we shall THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES 297 see that it enters as one moment into the higher view that we shall hereafter reach. So, in our own way, we shall now try to answer the question sug¬ gested to us by Kant’s method. Does not then the religious aspect of the world lie in the fact that, de¬ spite the contradictions of the world of sense, we may, and indeed, morally speaking, must postulate, that the Eternal, of which this world is the mere show, is in itself absolutely righteous? We shall not be able to answer this question with a simple affirmative; but still, postulates must enter in some wise into every moment of our lives, and must there¬ fore have some value in religion.
II.
In the last chapter we sought for a demonstration of religious truth, and found none. But perhaps it was not demonstration that we should have sought. Possibly religion may be content to rest on postu¬ lates.
A postulate is a mental way of behavior. In so far it is like all other thought. In general, to be¬ lieve that a thing exists is to act as if it existed. But the act may be forced upon one, or it may be freely chosen. One cannot fail to act upon the prin¬ ciple that 2 -J- 2 = 4, so soon as he perceives it. But one may voluntarily determine to act in a given way, not being rationally forced so to do, and well know¬ ing the risk. In such cases one voluntarily takes to himself the form of belief called a postulate. Thus, apart from any philosophic theory, we all pos- 298 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY tulate a certain kind of uniformity in nature. We do so, whenever we reflect upon the matter, volun¬ tarily. For we then say that surprises are always possible, and that any law may have exceptions, but that we must act as if we knew certain laws to have no possible exceptions. Postulates, however, are not blind faith. Postulates are voluntary assumptions of a risk, for the sake of a higher end. Passive faith dares not face doubt. The postulate faces doubt, and says: u So long as thou canst not make thyself an absolute and certain negative, I propose to act as if thou wert worthless, although I do well see thy force.” Blind faith is emotion, and often cowardly emotion. The postulate is deliberate and courageous volition. Blind faith says: “ I dare not question.” The postulate says: “ I dare be responsible for as¬ suming.” Examples of both are very common. Blind faith the fond parent has, who says of his wicked son: “ I know that he must be good, hence I will not suspect him, nor train him; I will not watch him, nor warn others against him.” A pos¬ tulate the wise parent makes, who sends his full- grown son boldly out into the world, with the best attainable safeguards, saying: “ It is useless to keep him longer in leading-strings, or to protect him from the world. It is now his place to fight his own bat¬ tles, since I have done what I could to get him ready. I postulate that he will win the fight; I treat him, and must treat him, as if he were sure to win, al¬ though I well know the risks.” The sea-captain beginning his voyage postulates that he can get through. The general postulates that he will be THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES 299 victorious. The Prime Minister of a country postu¬ lates that he can do his country better service than could the Opposition. We all postulate that our lives are worth the trouble. Yet we all know per¬ fectly well that many just such postulates must in the nature of things be blunders. But they imply not blind faith, but active faith. With blind faith little good is done in the world; without active faith, expressed in postulates, very little practical good can be done from day to day. Blind faith is the ostrich behind the bush. The postulate stands out like the lion against the hunters. The wise shall live by postulates.
III.
III.
But how is this postulating activity actually re¬ lated to our knowledge of reality? Much more closely than one might suppose. Very much of our thought naturally rests upon a blind faith, or upon what many take to be a blind faith; but this, when we reflect upon it with due attention to the office it fills, is transformed before our eyes into practically unavoidable postulates. Such are the assumptions upon which our science rests in forming its ideal of an “ universal formula.” There may indeed be some deeper basis for these postulates of science. But most men know nothing of this basis. And so, when we accepted in our last chapter these postulates, we had to admit that they are a kind of faith. If we then nevertheless objected to certain religious doc¬ trines that they rest on insufficient evidence, we did this because they set themselves up as dogmas.
300 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY With further consideration, we might come to accept some one of them again in the form, not of a demon¬ strable dogma, but of a practically unavoidable pos¬ tulate, uncertain of course, but taken and to be taken on risk; just as every one of us goes through the world taking all sorts of risks day by day. Any¬ thing not contradictory may be a possible object of postulates; although, again, every postulate is to be assumed only after careful criticism, and only be¬ cause we cannot do better.
To do justice then to the proper office of postu¬ lates in our religious theory, we must sooner or later consider in what cases they naturally arise, what is the proper extent of their use, what is the basis upon which they can be made, in any special case, to rest; and, finally, whether, in view of all this, we can give them any important place in our religious doctrine. We confess at once that we want something much better than a postulate as the basis of our religion, in case we can get it. If postulates are to have any part in our religion, we want them to be justified by some ultimate religious certainty that is more than a postulate. We shall investigate all that in time. We shall see what we shall see. Meanwhile, what is the work of postulates in the actual daily life of human thought?
Popular belief about an external world is for the first an active assumption or acknowledgment of something more than the data of consciousness. What is directly given in our minds is not external. All direct data are internal facts; and in the strict¬ est sense all data are direct. Suppose a merely pas- THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES 301 sive acceptance of what is in consciousness, and you have no belief in an external world. An addition to the data of consciousness, a more or less clearly vol¬ untary reaction, is involved in your idea of external reality. The truth of this principle appears when your belief in any particular object is called in ques¬ tion. You hold that you see yonder a snowy moun¬ tain. Your companion insists that beyond the wide misty valley there is to be seen only a gray cloud. You reassert your belief, and in the reassertion feel more definitely than at first the active addition of your own belief to the meagre data of sense. The addition existed, however, in your first assertion. Or again, one man is trying, perchance in sport, to make another doubt the existence of material ob¬ jects. “ There is no external matter,” says the first. “ There are but these states of consciousness in our minds. Nothing beyond them corresponds to them.” The second, maintaining the position of the man of common sense, retorts sharply: “ Doubtless I cannot refute altogether your fine-spun arguments; but they are nevertheless nonsense. For I persist in believing in this world of sense. I live in it, I work for it, my fellows believe in it, our hearts are bound up in it, our success depends upon our faith. Only dreamers doubt it. I am not a dreamer. Here is a stone; I hit it. Here is a precipice; I fear and shun it. My strongest conviction is concerned with the exist¬ ence of this world of sense. Do your worst; I am not afraid of talk.” Thus then by every device of the active spirit, by reminding himself of his most cherished interests, of his affections and hatreds, by 302 THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY arousing liis social sentiments, by bodily acts, the practical man preserves himself from fantastical spec¬ ulation. When better-trained thinkers call the belief in an external reality “ a natural conviction, to be re¬ tained until we are compelled to abandon it, or “ a convenient working hypothesis, to be received on the testimony of consciousness, testimony assumed to be trustworthy until the opposite is proven, what are these but similar practical considerations, appeals to the will? Concerning data of immediate conscious¬ ness such remarks would be wholly out of place. That I see a certain color at this moment is not a 11 convenient working hypothesis. Is consciousness merely a “ presumably trustworthy witness” when it testifies to the pangs of toothache? Nobody could balance evidence as to the reality of his sensation qud sensation when consciousness is filled with the sound of a street-organ. Sound, color, pang, these are data, not merely things believed in. But the external world — that is actively accepted as being symbolized or indicated by the present conscious¬ ness, not as being given in the present consciousness.
In short, the popular assertion of an external world, being an assertion of something beyond the data of consciousness, must begin in an activity of judgment that does more than merely reduce present data to order. Such an assertion must be an active construction of non-data. We do not receive in our senses, but we posit through our judgment, whatever external world there may for us be. If there is really a deeper basis for this postulate of ours, still, at the outset, it is just a postulate.
THE WORLD OF THE POSTULATES 303 All theories, all hypotheses as to the external world, ought to face this fact of thought. If the his¬ tory of popular speculation on these topics could be written, how much of cowardice and shuffling would be found in the behavior of the natural mind before the question: “ How dost thou know of an external reality? ” Instead of simply and plainly answer¬ ing: “ I mean by the external world in the first place something that I accept or demand, that I posit, postulate, actively construct on the basis of sense- data,” the natural man gives us all kinds of vague compromise answers: “ I believe in the external re¬ ality with a reasonable degree of confidence; the experience of mankind renders the existence of ex¬ ternal reality ever more and more probable; the Creator cannot have intended to deceive us; it is un¬ natural to doubt as to external reality; only young people and fantastic persons doubt the existence of the external world; no man in his senses doubts the external reality of the world; science would be im¬ possible were there no external world; morality is undermined by doubts as to the external world; the immovable confidence that we all have in the prin¬ ciple of causality implies the fixity of our belief in