The lecture delivered by Archbishop CARR to the University, which we publish in another column, might fairly have been entitled "an attempt to discount some tendencies of modern thought." Throughout his remarks the Archbishop gives us to understand that in his opinion the thought of today should never be allowed to escape from the dogmas of the past. He begins by calling attention to the eagerness with which the physical sciences are studied at the present time, and by criticising the results which have followed from scientific investigations. No one will be surprised to learn that, although he appreciates the discoveries which scientific men have made, he has an obvious dislike to that inductive method of argument by which they are guided. The inductive reasoner begins by observing a number of examples; then he analyses them and compares them and tries to find out how they have been caused, until by this process he arrives at some general principle which can be regarded as a law of nature. Supposing that any man had a desire to discover the general conditions which regulate the climate of Victoria, what would he do ? He would carefully notice and describe all the changes of the weather; he would study all the possible causes by which the changes might be produced ; he would carefully compare his observations of one year with those that he had previously made. This is precisely the method which our meteorologists have been pursuing, not without considerable success, and it is the only method by which the truth is likely to be established.
But Archbishop CARR evidently shrinks from applying this process of reasoning to religious questions or to the mental sciences. He looks back with regret to the good old scholastic days when the method of argument was purely deductive, and when the reasoner assumed some general principles, from which the conclusions that he wanted could be drawn as easily as water from a spring. Such a method had doubtless its disadvantages, for nothing could be simpler than to assume the truth of a proposition and then make inferences from it. But the method was discarded simply because it led to contradictions and to frivolity. The logicians of the church proved conclusively that the world ought to be exactly what it is not, and long after scientific men had proved that it is round and moves round the sun, the deductive writers, whom Archbishop CARR admires, were positive that it must be flat. Or, again, it is notorious that in the days when science, or rather what passed for science, was deductive, people came to exercise their brains on utterly frivolous and nonsensical questions, as, for example, the inquiry as to how many angels could dance on the point of a pin. We can hardly believe that Archbishop CARR speaks with deliberation when he hints that inductive science is mutilated, and that the old deductive science is more perfect. Why, it was because of the utter absurdities into which the barren logic of the scholastic writers was driven that men felt it incumbent upon them to step outside the ecclesiastical circle of thought, and, in BACON'S phrase, to interrogate nature. And the interrogation of nature has gone on so successfully that not only do we know a great deal about the formation of the planet on which we live and the different functions of living organisms, but we also have sciences which trace the development of religion and law and society, and throw light upon the growth of the intellectual heritage which the present generation enjoys.
The Archbishop gives every credit to the scientific method within certain limits, but he obviously thinks that there are many subjects to which it cannot be applied. When we come to great scientific speculations, such as the Darwinian theory, he begins to draw back. He is ready to follow science when it describes the formation of a rock, he lags behind when it attempts to account for the origin of the race, or when it deals with the great intellectual problems which beset thinking men in every age. And here Archbishop CARR falls into a few inaccuracies, which palpably spoil his argument that there are certain things to be accepted as being beyond the reach of scientific criticism. He appears to assume, for instance, that the tendency of modern thought is towards materialism. This is not the case. There never was an age that could be called more theological in the proper sense of the term, or that was more profoundly earnest in discussing the question of immortality, or in tracing the growth of religious sentiment, or in seeking for the one Divine power that holds all the atoms of the universe together, and reveals itself in human reason. Step by step science has led back to the old questions concerning GOD and the destiny of the human race, and the meaning of this universe in which we live. When the world has been traced back to fire-mists which have hardened and consolidated through millions of years, it becomes necessary to inquire how the fire mists originated ; when religion is traced to the primeval worship of nature, it is necessary to ask by what power in the mind of man, alone among animals, this worship was begun, and by what inspiration it has been purified and ennobled. Professor HUXLEY, for instance, who is constantly dealing with these questions, is a theologian working on purely scientific principles. It does not follow that science is necessarily materialistic. On the contrary, many of the most strictly scientific reasoners find themselves obliged to believe in a supreme spiritual power which is above all things and exists in them. It is the point of view which has changed. The modern thinker cannot begin with dogmas and work down to the scientific level by a process of deduction ; he commences with the scientific method and works upward, seeking for a cause that will explain the phenomena which he daily encounters. The latter is the only possible method, and we are sorry to see that Archbishop CARR has been unable to do justice to it.
The Archbishop maintains that no inductive proof can be complete, because no man is able to examine every instance of the matter which he investigates. But is it necessary to count every apple that falls to the ground, or to visit every planet, or to test every meteoric stone, in order that the law of gravitation may be proved ? Certainly not. The law of gravitation can be proved by one instance only, simply because it can be demonstrated that no other known cause would produce the effect. All this is carefully set out in MILL'S Logic to which the Archbishop refers. And this is the sort of proof that the scientific man will expect regarding religious matters. He will believe in GOD, because he finds that there is no other cause which could produce the phenomena of the universe. In talking of the law of evolution, the discovery of which has brought the English people to the scientific investigation of religion, Archbishop CARR resorts to an easy and worthless style of argument. Against the theory of evolution he simply quotes from Mr. WALLACE, whom he describes as "in some respects more Darwinian than DARWIN himself." This is a mere trick of oratory, for Mr. WALLACE, though in the main a thorough supporter of DARWIN, has always assumed the attitude of an independent investigator and critic of the theory of development. But even if it were accurate the remark is beside the point. The question raised by the Archbishop is not the correctness of DARWIN'S observations, but whether the scientific method will inform us of the origin of man, and whether or not it will lead to the recognition of a Divine power in the world. It may fail to account for the mystery of existence. It may never explain to us that murmur in the human mind of an unknown infinite sea of being, from which we have come and to which we return, and of which neither science nor faith tells aught definitely. But whether the scientific method succeed or fail, no thinker can go back to Archbishop CARR'S deductive logic, and be content with drawing inferences from accepted dogmas. It is only by discussion, by testing theories, by finding wherein they are wrong, by noticing in what respects they do not account for the facts around us, that we can hope to come to the indisputable truth.
_________
The Argus 30 August 1890
No comments:
Post a Comment