第33章

The Reconcilation §27. Thus do all lines of argument converge to the same conclusion.

Those imbecilities of the understanding which disclose themselves when wetry to answer the highest questions of objective science, subjective scienceproves to be necessitated by the laws of that understanding. Finally we discoverthat this conclusion which, in its unqualified form, seems opposed to theinstinctive convictions of mankind, falls into harmony with them when themissing qualification is supplied. Here, then, is that basis of agreementwe set out to seek. This conclusion which objective science illustrates andsubjective science shows to be unavoidable, -- this conclusion which bringsthe results of speculation into harmony with those of common sense; is alsothe conclusion which reconciles Religion with Science. Common Sense assertsthe existence of a reality; Objective Science proves that this reality cannotbe what we think it; Subjective Science shows why we cannot think of it asit is, and yet are compelled to think of it as existing; and in this assertionof a Reality utterly inscrutable in nature, Religion finds an assertion essentiallycoinciding with her own. We are obliged to regard every phenomenon as a manifestationof some Power by which we are acted upon; though omnipresence is unthinkable,yet, as experience discloses no bounds to the diffusion of phenomena, weare unable to think of limits to the presence of this Power; while the criticismsof Science teach us that this Power is Incomprehensible. And this consciousnessof an Incomprehensible Power, called omnipresent from inability to assignits limits, is just that consciousness on which Religion dwells.

To understand fully how real is the reconciliation thus reached, it willbe needful to look at the respective attitudes that Religion and Sciencehave all along maintained towards this conclusion. §28. In its earliest and crudest forms Religion manifested, howevervaguely and inconsistently, an intuition forming the germ of this highestbelief in which philosophies finally unite. The consciousness of a mysteryis traceable in the rudest ghost-theory. Each higher creed, rejecting thosedefinite and simple interpretations of Nature previously given, has becomemore religious by doing this. As the concrete and conceivable agencies assignedas the causes of things, have been replaced by agencies less concrete andconceivable, the element of mystery has necessary become more predominant.

Through all its phases the disappearance of those dogmas by which the mysterywas made unmysterious, has formed the essential change delineated in religioushistory. And so Religion has been approaching towards that complete recognitionof this mystery which is its goal.

For its essentially valid belief Religion has constantly done battle.

Gross as were the disguises under which it first espoused this belief, andcherishing this belief, even still, under disfiguring vestments, it has neverceased to maintain and defend it. Though from age to age Science has continuallydefeated it wherever they have come in collision, and has obliged it to relinquishone or more of its positions, it has held the remaining ones with undiminishedtenacity. After criticism has abolished its arguments, there has still remainedwith it the indestructible consciousness of a truth which, however faultythe mode in which it had been expressed, is yet a truth beyond cavil.

But while from the beginning, Religion has had the all-essential officeof preventing men from being wholly absorbed in the relative or immediate,and of awakening them to a consciousness of something beyond it, this officehas been but very imperfectly discharged. In its early stages the consciousnessof supernature being simply the consciousness of numerous supernatural personsessentially man-like, was not far removed from the ordinary consciousness.