Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
Now the whole of this is a fabric framed out of Mr. Harrison’s
imaginations. I have nowhere “proposed” any object of religion.” I have
nowhere suggested that anyone should “worship this Unknowable.” No line
of mine gives ground for inquiring how the Unknowable is to be sought
“in a devout way,” or for asking what are “the religious exercises;”
nor have I suggested that anyone may find “consolation therein.”
Observe the facts. At the close of my article “Religion; a Retrospect
and Prospect,” I pointed out to “those who think that science is
dissipating religious beliefs and sentiments” that whatever of mystery
is taken from the old interpretation is added to the new;” increase
rather than diminution being the result. I said that in perpetually
extending our knowledge of the Universe, concrete science “enlarges
the sphere for religious sentiment;” and that progressing knowledge
is “accompanied by an increasing capacity for wonder.” And in my
second article, in further explanation, I have represented my thesis
to be “that whatever components of this [the religious] sentiment
disappear, there must ever survive those which are appropriate to the
consciousness of a Mystery that cannot be fathomed and a Power that
is omnipresent.” This is the sole thing for which I am responsible.
I have advocated nothing; I have proposed no worship; I have said
nothing about “devotion,” or “prayer,” or “religious exercises,” or
“hope,” or “consolation.” I have simply affirmed the permanence of
certain components in the consciousness which “is concerned with that
which lies beyond the sphere of sense.” If Mr. Harrison says that this
surviving sentiment is inadequate for what he thinks the purposes of
religion, I simply reply—I have said nothing about its adequacy or
inadequacy. The assertion that the emotions of awe and wonder form
but a fragment of religion, leaves me altogether unconcerned: I have
said nothing to the contrary. If Mr. Harrison sees well to describe
the emotions of awe and wonder as “some rags of religious sentiment
surviving” (p. 358), it is not incumbent on me to disprove the fitness
of his expression. I am responsible for nothing whatever beyond the
statement that these emotions will survive. If he shows this conclusion
to be erroneous, then indeed he touches me. This, however, he does not
attempt. Recognizing though he does that this is all I have asserted,
and even exclaiming “is that all!” (p. 358) he nevertheless continues
to father upon me a number of ideas quoted above, which I have neither
expressed nor implied, and asks readers to observe how grotesque is the
fabric formed of them.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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