Religion and Philosophy, the two best gifts of Heaven, set up in opposition to each other at the revival of letters; and never did competing tradesmen more grossly misbehave. Bad wishes and bad names flew about like swarms of wasps. The Athanasian curses were intended against philosophers; who, had they been a corporation, with state powers to protect them, would have formulized a _per contra_. But the tradesmen are beginning to combine: they are civil to each other; too civil by half. I speak especially of Great Britain. Old theology has run off to ritualism, much lamenting, with no comfort except the discovery that the cloak Paul left at Troas was a chasuble. Philosophy, which always had a little sense sewed up in its garments--to pay for its funeral?--has expended a trifle in accommodating itself to the new system. But the two are poles of a battery; and a question arises.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper, Where is the peck of pepper Peter Piper picked?
If Religion and Philosophy be the two poles of a battery, whose is the battery Religion and Philosophy have been made the poles of? Is the change in the relation of the wires any presumption of a removal of the managers? We know pretty well who handled the instrument: has he resigned or been[77] turned out? Has he been put under {38} restriction? A fool may ask more questions than twenty sages can answer: but there is hope; for twenty sages cannot ask more questions than one reviewer can answer. I should like to see the opposite sides employed upon the question, What are the _commoda_, and what the _pericula_,[78] of the current approximation of Religion and Philosophy?
All this is very profane and irreverent! It has always been so held by those whose position demands such holding. To describe the Church as it is passes for assailing the Church as it ought to be with all who cannot do without it. In Bedlam[79] a poor creature who fancied he was St. Paul, was told by another patient that he was an impostor; the first maniac lodged a complaint against the second for calling St. Paul an impostor, which, he argued, with much appearance of sanity, ought not to be permitted in a well regulated madhouse. Nothing could persuade him that he had missed the question, which was whether _he_ was St. Paul. The same thing takes place in the world _at large_. And especially must be noted the refusal to permit to the _profane_ the millionth part of the licence assumed by the _sacred_. I give a sound churchman the epitaph of St. John Long; the usual pronunciation of whose name must be noted--
"Behold! ye quacks, the vengeance strong On deeds like yours impinging: For here below lies St. John Long[80] Who now must be _long singeing_."
How shameful to pronounce this of the poor man! What, Mr. Orthodox! may I not do in joke to one pretender what {39} you do in earnest--unless you quibble--to all the millions of the Greek Church, and a great many others. Enough of you and your reasoning! Go and square the circle!
The few years which end with 1867 have shown, not merely the intermediate fusion of Theology and Philosophy of which I have spoken, but much concentration of the two extremes, which looks like a gathering of forces for some very hard fought Armageddon. Extreme theology has been aiming at a high Church in England, which is to show a new front to all heresy: and extreme philosophy is contriving a physical organization which is to _think_, and to show that mind is a consequence of matter, or thought a recreation of brain. The physical speculators begin with a possible hypothesis, in which they aim at explanation: and so the bold aspirations of the author of the _Vestiges_ find standing-ground in the variation of species by "natural selection." Some relics--so supposed--of extremely ancient men are brought to help the general cause. Only distant hints are given that by possibility it may end in the formation of all living organisms from a very few, if not from one. The better heads above mentioned know that their theory, if true, does not bear upon morals. The formation of solar systems from a nebular hypothesis, followed by organizations gradually emerging from some curious play of particles, nay, the very evolution of mind and thought from such an apparatus, are all as consistent with a Personal creative power to whom homage and obedience are due, and who has declared himself, as with a blind Nature of Things. A pure materialist, as to all things visible, may be even a bigotted Christian: this is not frequent, but it is possible. There is a proverb which says, A pig may fly, but it isn't a likely bird. But when the psychological speculator comes in, he often undertakes to draw inferences from the physical conclusions, by joining on his tremendous apparatus of _a priori_ knowledge. He deduces that he can _do without_ a God: he can deduce all things {40} without any such necessity. With Occam[81] and Newton he will have no more causes than are necessary to explain phenomena _to him_: and if by pure head-work combined with results of physical observation he can construct his universe, he must be a very _unphilosophical_ man who would encumber himself with a useless Creator! There is something tangible about my method, says he; yours is vague. He requires it to be granted that his system is _positive_ and that yours is _impositive_. So reasoned the stage coachman when the railroads began to depose him--"If you're upset in a stage-coach, why, there you are! but if you're upset on the railroad, where are you?" The answer lies in another question, Which is most positive knowledge, God deduced from man and his history, or the postulates of the few who think they can reason _a priori_ on the tacit assumption of unlimited command of data?
We are not yet come to the existence of a school of philosophers who explicitly deny a Creator: but we are on the way, though common sense may interpose. There are always straws which show the direction of the wind. I have before me the printed letter of a medical man--to whose professional ability I have good testimony--who finds the vital principle in highly rarefied oxygen. With the usual logic of such thinkers, he dismisses the "eternal personal identity" because "If soul, spirit, mind, which are merely modes of sensation, be the attribute or function of nerve-tissue, it cannot possibly have any existence apart from its material organism!" How does he know this _impossibility_? If all the mind _we_ know be from nerve-tissue, how does it appear that mind in other planets may not be another thing? Nay, when we come to _possibilities_, does not his own system give a queer one? If highly rarefied oxygen be vital power, more highly rarefied oxygen {41} may be more vital and more powerful. Where is this to stop? Is it _impossible_ that a finite quantity, rarefied _ad infinitum_, may be an Omnipotent? Perhaps the true Genesis, when written, will open with "In the beginning was an imperial quart of oxygen at 60 deg. of Fahrenheit, and the pressure of the atmosphere; and this oxygen was infinitely rarefied; and this oxygen became God." For myself, my aspirations as to this system are Manichaean. The quart of oxygen is the Ormuzd, or good principle: another quart, of hydrogen, is the Ahriman, or evil principle! My author says that his system explains Freewill and Immortality so obviously that it is difficult to read previous speculations with becoming gravity. My deduction explains the conflict of good and evil with such clearness that no one can henceforward read the New Testament with becoming reverence. The surgeon whom I have described is an early bud which will probably be nipped by the frost and wither on the ground: but there is a good crop coming. Material pneuma is destined to high functions; and man is to read by gas-light.
