If a stone falls from a roof on to someone"s head and kills him, they will demonstrate by their new method that the stone fell to kill the man; for if it had not by G.o.d"s will fallen with that object, how could so many circ.u.mstances (and there are often many concurrent circ.u.mstances) have all happened together by chance.
Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the facts that the wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But why," they will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the wind at that very time blowing that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day before, the weather having been previously calm, and that the man had been invited by a friend, they will again insist: "But why was the sea agitated, and why was the man invited at that time?" So they will pursue their question from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of G.o.d--in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance. (Appendix to _Ethics_; pt. 1)
The sanctuary of ignorance "G.o.d" has always been, and the sanctuary of ignorance it will remain to the end. It has no other function in life. A consciousness of this is shown by the upholders of Theism in the eagerness with which they welcome every supposed demonstration of the impotence of science, and of the resistance everywhere offered to the development of scientific advance.
So far, then, as the progress of life makes for the growth of knowledge, so far may we safely claim that the development of thought makes for Atheism, as we have just said, and to do the religious world justice it has always been quick to realise this, and every great scientific generalisation--as well as many smaller ones, has been resisted on the ground that they were atheistic in character and tended to take the control of the world out of G.o.d"s hands. Present-day theists are apt to condemn this att.i.tude of their predecessors, but it can hardly be denied that the logic lies with the earlier representatives. A G.o.d who does nothing might, for all practical purposes, as well be non-existent. And a G.o.d who is merely in the background of things, who may be responsible for their origin, but having originated them surrenders all control over their operations, is hardly more serviceable. The modern theist saves his G.o.d only by leaving him a negligible quant.i.ty in a universe he is supposed to sustain and govern.
And it cannot be too often emphasised that the whole basis of exact or positive science is atheistic--that is, it is compelled to ignore even the possibility of the existence of G.o.d. Every scientific generalisation rests upon the constancy of natural forces. On no other basis is it possible to give a scientific interpretation to what has gone before or to antic.i.p.ate what is to happen in the future. Every scientific calculation a.s.sumes that in the world with which it deals causation is invariable and universal. But if we are to a.s.sume the operations of a "G.o.d" at any time or point every scientific calculation would have to be accompanied with the D.V. of a prayer meeting. To argue from the past to the future would be futile. G.o.d might have operated then, no one could be certain he will operate now. Or he might have operated in the far past, but he might not in the future. In either case the a.s.sumption of a G.o.d would be fatal to exact scientific calculations. Thus in sheer self defence, in order to preserve its character as science, science is compelled to discard even the possibility of the existence of a controlling intelligence. As one eminent theistic advocate admits, "Science has no need, and indeed, can make no use, in any particular instance of the theistic hypothesis."[6] It is only when supernaturalism is partly excluded from human thought that science can be said to really commence its existence; and in proportion as our conception of the universe becomes that of an aggregate of non-conscious forces--or of a single force with many forms producing given results under given conditions, only then does our view of the universe reach completion.
A study of the nature and tendency of human development does, therefore, provide a very strong presumption in favour of atheism. All growth here is in favour of atheism and away from theism. In the beginning we have the G.o.ds everywhere and dominating everything. They do everything and control everything. "G.o.d" is the one universal primitive hypothesis. And all subsequent development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in the idea of G.o.d, there is only an attenuation. The G.o.ds grow fewer as the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of people do not reason themselves out of the belief in G.o.d, they outgrow it. People cease to believe in the G.o.ds because they experience no compulsion to believe in them. The logic of fact is ultimately more powerful than the logic of theory, and as environmental forces brought the G.o.ds into existence, so environmental forces carry them out again.
Now Atheism does but make explicit in words what has long been implicit in practice. It takes the G.o.d-idea, examines it, and explains it out of existence. It admits the reality of G.o.ds as it admits the reality of ghosts and fairies and witches. They are subjective, not objective, realities. Atheism takes the G.o.d-idea, explains its origin, describes its subsequent development, and in so doing indicates its ultimate fate.
In this sense Atheism is, as I have said, no more than the final stage of a long historical process. The theistic phase of thought is an inevitable one in human evolution, but it is no more a permanent one than is the belief in hobgoblins. One might here paraphrase Bacon and say, "A little philosophy inclineth a man to belief in the G.o.ds, but depth in philosophy leads to their rejection as a false and useless hypothesis." It is true that thinking brought the G.o.ds into the world; it is also true that adequate thinking carries them out again.
The cardinal truth is, of course, that the hypothesis of mind in nature does not owe its existence to an exact knowledge of things but to its absence. Its origin must be sought in a pre-scientific age and its persistence in a number of extraneous circ.u.mstances which have perpetuated a belief that would otherwise have inevitably disappeared.
And it would indeed be a matter for surprise if this belief--said by theists to be of all beliefs the most profound--should be the one speculation on which savage thought has justified itself. On no other question did the primitive mind reach truth. Universally its speculations concerning the world were discovered to be wrong. On this one topic we are asked to believe that the savage was absolutely right.
From the age of fetichism--rightly called by Comte the creative age in theology--the history of the G.o.d-idea has been a history of a series of modifications and rejections. Scarce an invention that has not slain a G.o.d, scarce a discovery has not marked the burying-place of a discarded deity. Criticism reduced the G.o.ds in number and limited them in power.
Advancing knowledge pushed them back till nature, "rid of her haughty lords," is conceived as a huge mechanism, self-acting, self-adjusting, and self-repairing. Even in the mouths of religionists "G.o.d" to-day stands for little more than a force. We must not describe him as personal, as intelligent, or as conscious, and between this and the existence a.s.sumed by atheistic science it is impossible to detect any vital difference. Atheism, then, takes its stand upon the observed trend of human history, upon a scrutiny of the facts of nature, and upon an examination of the origin and contents of the G.o.d-idea. And upon these grounds it may fairly claim to be irrefutable and inevitable.
Circ.u.mstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental att.i.tude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of its final triumph.
With the supposed direful consequences that would follow the triumph of Atheism I have not dealt with at length. These are the bugbears which the designing normally employ in order to frighten the timid and credulous. Mental uprightness and moral integrity are certainly not the property of one religion, nor can it be said with truth that they belong to any. And examining the histories of religion it is a fair a.s.sumption that in whatever direction the world may suffer from the disappearance of religion there will be no moral catastrophe. Looking at the whole course of human history, and noting how the vilest and most ruinous practices have been ever a.s.sociated with religion, and have ever relied upon religion for support, the cause for speculation is, not what will happen to the world when religion dies out, but how human society has managed to flourish while the belief in the G.o.ds ruled.
Fortunately for human society nature has not left the operation of the fundamental virtues dependent upon the acceptance of this or that theory of the world. The social and family instincts, which are inseparable from our nature as men and women, and which operate in ways of which we are largely unconscious, are the grounds of all the higher and finer virtues, and while a change in opinion may affect their operation here and there, it can never alter their fundamental character. Conduct, in short, comes from life, it is not the creation of a theory to be dismissed by resolution or refashioned by a vote.
What Atheism would mean in practice would be an enormous concentration of energy upon purely human affairs, and a judgment of conduct in terms of human happiness and prosperity. And that certainly furnishes no cause for alarm. It is, indeed, our greatest need. We need an awakening to the untapped power and possibilities of human nature. If the G.o.ds die, man their creator still lives; and the creative energy which once covered the face of nature with innumerable G.o.ds, which spent itself in the attempt to win their favour, and which called forth a heaven in the endeavour to redress the wrongs of earth, may, if properly applied, yet cover the earth with homes in which men and women, rendered purer by love and stronger by knowledge, will rise superior to the fabled G.o.ds before whom they once bowed in blind adoration.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] Prof. Ward "Naturalism and Agnosticism" Vol. I., p. 23.