Part 12 (1/2)

But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in G.o.d, or in future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least to confirm theism itself.

Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but springs, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the same root and then intertwine and support one another.

By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which the ”argument from adaptability” is drawn. I only mean that I do not need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside.

Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, as will appear later.

Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit, so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the implications of some part of the general conception of things that we already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to their results.

Now as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing of part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does, without going on to think about the designer or his design; and without explicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the world and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part without going back to G.o.d or forward to G.o.d's purposes. Indeed, so far as we use the argument from design to prove the existence of G.o.d, it means that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events, and then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For although G.o.d is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet design and creation is the prior cause of our knowing G.o.d, The conception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a rational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that this same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see design in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of one of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length.

Now, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a biologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities of structure and function and development, upon which I can found various arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general characteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes of life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully developed; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I may hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of these adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are based is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is really as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is a consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet neither is derived from it through the other.

If, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain regularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only is the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that particular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific certainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and moral scepticism.

It is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the ”argument from adaptability,” but simply to show that it is logically (though not really) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As long as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is one explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as long as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were designed; that the present antic.i.p.ates and prepares for the future; that the future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we hold all upon which the ”argument of adaptability” is strictly based.

And indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general progressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater harmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument is a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world, than is theism.

Though both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle (i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from adaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard to show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than atheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted, then, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is much more easily established.

There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to imply a theistic origin and government of the universe.

Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed.

Any form of ”monism” gets rid of finality more easily than does any form of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability.

Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology, psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven, universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to the positive information that physical science has collected and cla.s.sified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution a law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or uniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the back of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our thought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is furthered still more by not distinguis.h.i.+ng between the cause of a fact and the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing conformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some way coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a cause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual power of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by a.n.a.logy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to the observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the law unless we suppose that law to be representative of something equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely, such an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning only, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow from it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an effectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity that might result either from an intelligent will or from something equivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a governing force or tendency, or even in openly a.s.serting it, with Schopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances of species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this mode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as to make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful positivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic criticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to facts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as ”the continuous progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent potentialities in harmony with a preordained end,” the latent potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of exterior observation.

The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the sc.r.a.ps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet as in the case of water we must perforce introduce ”a gravitating tendency,” so in the case of living organisms a ”persisting” or ”struggling tendency,” as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to account for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter of observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained ends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and finality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable power which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be explained.

Let us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from adaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief in theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher moral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less approximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in our last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing.

Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its popularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope, the notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension, but only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection more difficult.

Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the less simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the simpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of goodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex theories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we commonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it.

It is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that the planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most perfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain apparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however more complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification.

So we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of Evolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its difficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a form which at once deprives it of its t.i.tle to popularity. So far as it is simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection, when we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but when we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic hypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds from the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only intelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and even requires theism as its rational complement.

This is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot ill.u.s.trate our contention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics introduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion he affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of pleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men may be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. ”When we have a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers,” says Mr. Bain, ”we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly reconstructed.” [5] It is a.s.sumed that pleasures differ only in quant.i.ty, i.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may be of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of body; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this a.s.sumption pleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the whole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application infinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a mere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his _Types of Ethical Theory_. For ”pleasure,” though one simple word, has an endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but bound together only by a certain kind of a.n.a.logy. The eye, the ear, the palate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is nothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response to the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be expressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial ident.i.ty of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound and colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour is to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word pleasure is used not unreasonably of both.

Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its seeming simplicity and its popularity. The word ”existence” or ”life”

(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly concerned), is taken as having one h.o.m.ogeneous meaning, like ”heat” or ”warmth;” the only difference being quant.i.tative--a difference of intensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as would destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate of the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be something the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways.

Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim of our conduct as ”the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;” upon which Mr.

Sidgwick remarks[6] with justice: ”Such a reduction of the notion of 'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important contribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it at least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary notions of progress and development” in which ”it is always implied that certain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others, independently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which each form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings, to whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too paradoxical to a.s.sert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no more than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of fertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral and intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held to have attained the end of human existence more than some of the pioneers and patterns of civilization.” Nor is it only in the region of ethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in paradoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes its popularity is gone.

It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to be, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an irrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in a prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate tendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the struggling, or persisting, or self-a.s.serting tendency; a simplification like that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner.

This flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all things to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic structure and function has been shaped and determined by its struggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its own onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles it has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the candlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and spreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions.

Often, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be more effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less favourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can move about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal perish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down those rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and intelligence, and a.s.sociative instincts and the rest, we increase the appliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of survival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are dealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness, intelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to it; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and multiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is generated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one has designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of life's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form and movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the human and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the action of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result.