The Conception of God/Chapter 2
WORTH AND GOODNESS AS MARKS OF THE ABSOLUTE
CRITICISM BY PROFESSOR MEZES
Not unworthy of note, in the exercises of this
evening, is the fact that nearly all the participants
have stood to each other in the relation of teacher
and pupil. Only a few years ago, the meeting of
such persons in a public discussion would have been
nearly impossible; or, at all events, the key-note of
the meeting would most probably have been an
entirely genuine and yet somewhat monotonous
agreement. But a frank independence of thought is the
informing spirit of modern teaching in this country.
Teachers care comparatively little to have students
agree with them, but insist very strongly that
they shall think out their own thoughts for
themselves. Students are not merely informed of old
solutions. They are rather trained and encouraged
to think out new solutions, on the chance that the
new may supplement some of the imperfections of
the old. Some modern teachers even carry this so
far as positively to distrust such students as agree
with them. Now, Professor Royce is a typical
modern teacher; and, indeed, in what I have just
said, I am doing little more than repeat what I have
often heard him say to his classes. For a long time,
as I will now confess, it was desperately difficult to disagree with him and yet seem to oneself at all
reasonable. For he has a way of mounting his facts in
a setting of stringent logic, and of driving home his
conclusions with the persuasive power of a finished
rhetoric. But by dint of long and strenuous effort to
look at things for myself, I have succeeded in meeting
his requirement that I should disagree with him,
and I have some hope of persuading you, and possibly
Professor Royce too, that my disagreements are
solidly founded. But of that you shall now judge.
I
NO WORTH AND DIGNITY PROVED OF THE ABSOLUTE
In considering Professor Royce’s position, as outlined in the address we have just heard, I shall limit myself to two criticisms. My first, in a word, is this: I cannot agree with the Professor that the Being whose existence, as I freely admit, he has fully established, has been proved by him to be a being possessing worth and dignity. When he says, that, under pain of self-contradiction, we must assert that an Ultimate Being exists, that he is fully conscious, that his experience is organised, or, what amounts to the same thing, that within his experience there are to be found no unanswered questions and no unsatisfied desires, I find the reasoning compulsory, inevitable. A confusion, an unanswered problem, a thwarted desire, in order to be such, holds in solution its own clarification, answer, or satisfaction, as the case may be. All this Professor Royce has expounded at some length, far more convincingly than I can, and I need not repeat it. But what I miss is, his promised proof that there is a real being worthy of the exalted name of God.
The difficulty I experience with his view may be stated in the form of a question: How does he find out what facts, what problems, confront the Absolute?
To this question, the answer is not far to seek. Professor Royce accepts such facts and problems at the hands of current belief and science. That we all do the same, and must do so, is of course true, as a few words would make clear. But the important question, to be considered presently, is: Upon how many facts, thus attained, does philosophy, or rather Professor Royce’s philosophy, set its stamp of approval? At the present moment, my words, possibly a few thoughts and problems suggested by them, and what we feel and see, are the only facts directly present to us; and, as you will readily admit, the other moments of our lives are just about as meagrely supplied with directly verified data. That vast sum-totals of facts have existed in past ages, and that others are existing now in the distant stretches of space, we all confidently believe; but, observe, only on indirect evidence. We get at absent facts by means of memory, sympathetic thinking of the thoughts of others, and reasoning founded on these two, combined with personal observation. The existence of such a fact as the Crocker Building, we now get at by memory; we get to know the experiences and beliefs of our friends, acquaintances, and scientific co-workers who verify our results, largely by sympathetic thought; while the scientific historian reconstructs the Napoleonic period by very elaborate processes of reasoning and observation. And so we project idea after idea out of the present into the past, the distant, and the future, holding each to be a fact there, gradually peopling our previously empty world, and extending its bounds in thought till we come to believe in the complicated immensity of the universe of reality.
But observe, once more, that all except the meagre present is reached indirectly, i.e. by means of inferences. These inferences no doubt are justifiable, as we all most certainly believe; but my present point is, that they must be justified; that nothing can be held to be a part of the inclusive experience of the Absolute until its existence is fully proven. Now, it is not the business of philosophy to prove the existence of individual facts; but, on the other hand, it is the business of philosophy to establish the truth of such principles as are indispensable for proving the existence of any and every individual fact not directly observed. Further, it is a commonplace of philosophy, that the principle of Causality is the supreme principle of the kind just described. Accordingly, wherever Professor Royce holds this principle to have validity, just there, and nowhere else, can he seek for the items of fact to set in the experience of the Absolute. Now, as readers of his second book, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, will remember, he holds that the principle of Causality is true in the outer world of our senses and of natural science, but is not true in the world of inner experiences, nor in inferences from the former to the latter and vice versa; and, so far as I know, he nowhere offers any other principle to justify such inferences, though he has a theory of their origin.
Let us now remind ourselves, once again, that our fellow-beings’ inner experiences are among the facts never directly presented to us. When a man speaks to us, we hear his words, but merely infer his thoughts; when another cries out or writhes in pain, we hear the cry or see the writhing, but the pain, once more, is only inferred. And in like manner, aspiration, hope, doubt, despair, — the whole of the inner life of others, is reached indirectly only. Add to this, that his inner life completely exhausts and fathoms what we mean by our fellow-being, and we see that in failing to offer any principle that justifies inferences from observed facts to inner experiences Professor Royce fails to give any philosophic reason for belief in the existence of our fellow-beings. Let us suppose, now, that the outer or physical universe, in which according to Professor Royce the principle of Causality does obtain, — and whose facts are therefore attainable, — let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that its reality is not destroyed by the philosophic annihilation of other beings. What sum-total of firmly established facts is left over to us? At best, the whole outer world and so much inner experience as the present moment affords. Just now you can at the utmost assert — and all assertion is in some now — that Reality is composed of so much outer fact as science establishes, plus your present feelings, thoughts, puzzles, and aspirations.
And now let us consider the experience-contents of that sort of Absolute whose existence Professor Royce has proved. These consist, once more, of the outer world of science, of your present feelings, thoughts, puzzles, and aspirations, and, in addition, of the answers to your present puzzles and the satisfaction of your present aspirations. Now, a being with such an experience, as I should maintain, is not deeply spiritual. His experience consists of a vast physical universe with its myriads of mechanically whirling atoms, and, tucked away in one corner, the least bit of spiritual life, which, to be sure, has its questions answered and its desires gratified.
My only contention, observe, is that unless the gaps I have pointed out in Professor Royce's argument are filled, we are left with the slightly spiritual Ultimate Being I have just described. I maintain that Professor Royce's two books and his address of to-night do not justify us in introducing any more spirituality into the experience of the Inclusive Self. I do not maintain, of course, that he has in reserve no considerations capable of establishing a larger measure of spirituality; still less do I contend that no such considerations exist. On the contrary, I very firmly believe that there are facts at our disposal which will give philosophical justification for the assertion of the completest conceivable spirituality of the Ultimate Being, conceived of in the terms so clearly outlined in this evening’s address.
II
ABSOLUTENESS NOT SHOWN COMPATIBLE WITH GOODNESS
Passing now to my second point, let us recall what Professor Royce said about the attributes of the Supreme Being; or, rather, let us recollect two of those attributes. I refer to Absoluteness and Goodness. In calling God the Absolute, we mean that he is quite complete — is a rounded whole; has, so to speak, no ragged edges, no internal gaps. Sleep is a chasm in each day of our lives; while, from time to time, we have gaps of unconsciousness. Again, if we try to tear our lives from their setting in the world, we find that the line that bounds them is jagged and broken throughout. At times one feels that his life is exhaustively summed up in relations to other lives, and that what is left over when those bonds are snapped is too poor to be worth saving. Not so the Absolute. His life is completely finished, rounded and whole, and has no relations to any beyond. And now I will ask you to look at this attribute of Absoluteness or Completeness under the conception of time. For, temporally speaking, Completeness is eternal existence.
According to Professor Royce, as readers of his books will readily remember, the whole universe is present to the Supreme Being in one moment, and that moment is eternal. There is for the Supreme Being nothing whatever in the least analogous to what we call the past and the future. What occurred yesterday in your experience or in mine, what will occur to-morrow for us, or for any other human being whatever, is just as really, vitally, vividly, distinctly present to God as the gentlemen now sitting on this platform are to you at the present moment. And in all eternity this is, for God, true of all facts, whether called by us past, present, or future. It is as if all of us were cylinders, with their ends removed, moving through the waters of some placid lake. To the cylinders the water seems to move, — what has passed is a memory, what is to come is doubtful. But the lake knows that all the water is equally real, and that, in fact, it is quiet, unruffled, immovable. Speaking technically, time is no reality; things seem past and future, and, in a sense, non-existent to us, but in fact they are just as genuinely real as the present is. Is Julius Cæsar dead and turned to clay? No doubt he is. But in reality he is also alive, he is conquering Spain, Gaul, Greece, and Egypt. He is leading the Roman legions into Britain, and dominating the envious Senate, just as truly as he is dead and turned to clay, — just as truly as you hear the words I am now speaking. Every reality is eternally real; pastness and futurity are merely illusions. You look into a stereoscope, and two flat cards variously shaded appear to be a large city spread out before your eyes. But that seeming city is not a fact. The two cards variously shaded are the reality. Babylon and Tyre, on the other hand, seem unreal to us; but those cities are real, and the throb of life pulses through the veins of their citizens, even now, just as truly and strongly as it does through yours. I do not know how many of you have caught this view, — this idea of the eternal existence of everything real; but those of you who have, will bear me out that it is perfectly comprehensible, realisable, natural. The illusory unreality of pastness and futurity is an entirely reasonable doctrine; and I have dwelt on it only in order to contrast with it another sense of the word “eternal,” also necessary if it is to be synonymous with Completeness as expounded by Professor Royce. For there are two senses essential to the notion of Eternity, if it is to be synonymous with the notion of Completeness. In the sense already developed, it contradicts the notion of time in asserting that past or future experience is as real as present experience. In the second sense, it also contradicts the notion of time, in a way that will presently appear.
And now, if you will kindly give me your very sharp attention for a minute or two, I will try to develope this second sense quite plainly. I will do so by showing that, though past and future coexist, time has not been entirely done away with; the full meaning of Eternity, and therefore of Completeness, has not been attained. Even if past and future are equally real with the present and with each other, does it follow that there is no distinction between the past and the future? Does it follow that what we call the completion of a process is in no wise different from what we call its beginning? To put it somewhat graphically, could we begin at the end of a symphony, play the notes backwards, and get the same results as if we had begun at the beginning and played them forwards? Of course, the same facts would be there in the former case as in the latter, and we have already maintained that first and last and intermediate notes are to be coexistent. The first do not cease to exist, the next come into existence, ceasing in turn, and giving place to those that follow. They all exist at once; that has been admitted. The question I am now considering is the possibility of reversing any significant process without utterly destroying its significance; or, if reversing be too strong a word, the possibility of conceiving any whole of facts that appear to us as a succession quite indifferently as regards their order, — backwards quite as truly as forwards. Ordinarily, you see, we view the end as if it were the product of the beginning. The facts are looked upon as having a true order, from A to Z, say, while the order from Z to A is declared unreal. Now, if we are right in maintaining that in some true sense the movement of things is in one direction, we have not done away with time entirely. The full meaning of Eternity is not attained. We still admit a difference between past and future. This difference is not one of existence; it is not that the past no longer is, and the future is not yet. Both past and future most really are; and yet, if our ordinary view is correct, the past is not the same as the future.
But suppose our ordinary view is not correct; what is the penalty for its incorrectness? I answer, in a word, it is death to all significance. The world, as a whole, is emptied of meaning: art is no longer real; morality ceases to be. For morality is victory achieved over temptation, and not temptation following upon victory. Temptation does succeed to victory in our experience, but the growth of temptation out of victory is not morality. The very life of morality is toil, struggle, achievement; we must overcome difficulties; the stream of morality must rise higher than its source. Take progress away, and you destroy morality. This, after all, is very obvious, nor would I be understood to say that Professor Royce denies this. On the contrary, he is at considerable pains to assert and illustrate it. He maintains that the Supreme Being is moral for the very reason that he hates and conquers immorality. He maintains that evolution gives a truer view of reality than does descriptive science, for the reason that evolution asserts progress, apprehends the significance of progress, reads the beginning in the light of the end, would, as a completed doctrine (which it is not), uphold what Mr. John Fiske might call Cosmic Morality. But I venture to suggest that Goodness requires progress, and of the whole. That there is progress in bits of the Inclusive Self, Professor Royce does maintain; but if the Inclusive Self is to be moral, he must be in his totality progressive. The whole of him must advance without limitation towards some goal. If the universe is moral, it points in one direction; it has grown from a germ, budded out more and more widely, grown ever higher, at no time fully satisfied, ever striving onwards and upwards. But once admit movement in one direction, and all the antinomies — all the antagonistic contradictions — of time are upon us with undiminished force. The arbitrariness inherent in both beginning and end is not diminished by their coexistence. No real beginning or end can be rationally established; for whatever one we may hit upon as real, the problem Why this rather than another? must always, as Lord Bacon would say, be left abrupt.
What I venture to suggest, as you will now see, is that the attribute of Goodness demands progress, growth; and that progress, even though past and future coexist, comes into collision with Completeness, because of the inherent arbitrariness of beginning and ending, of germ and fruition. If this position is well taken, either one or the other attribute, either Goodness or Completeness, as Professor Royce conceives Completeness, must be abandoned. I am far from saying that there is no possible way of so conceiving Completeness that it shall be in harmony with Goodness; nor would I even imply that Professor Royce may not have in reserve some mode of proving the existence of a Complete Reality that would avoid a conflict between its Completeness and its Goodness. What I halt at, is simply the mode of proof that he has actually employed, to-night as well as in his book. Upon that, it certainly seems to me that the Completeness established is quite destitute of consistency with Goodness.