Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Religion
Modern Skepticism: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Request of the Christian Evidence Society
Church of England; Skepticism; Skepticism -- Controversial literature
[33] Professor Huxley considers that man is a bungle. At all events he
would be glad to be "turned into a sort of clock, and wound up every
morning before he got out of bed," on condition that he should always
"think what is true, and do what is right." (Lay Sermons, p. 373.) I
suppose this means that we should like to be governed by very perfect
instincts, but I question whether he would not find his new kind of
life dull. At present both right thinking and right doing require of
him an effort, which, from the spirit of his writings, I should think
he enjoys. But, after all, what he says has a true foundation. Sin
is not a necessary part of man's lot. It cleaves to him because he
is fallen; and this world apparently offers us a state of moral and
religious discipline, by the aid of which, in a future state, we shall
be free from sin. But those who do not wish to retrograde would prefer
to have this freedom by the force of perfected habits than by the force
of instinct.
[34] "Essays and Reviews" (Baden Powell), p. 133. The italics are mine,
simply to call attention to the point of the quotation.
[35] De Gen. An. II. iii. 10. See article by Sir Alexander Grant in the
_Contemporary_, May, 1871, p. 277.
[36] Since writing the above, I have lighted on the following passage
in an able university sermon by one of the lecturers in the present
course. I am glad to confirm what had struck my own mind, by quoting
the words of so careful a reasoner. In reference to philosophic doubts
directed against the idea of design, and the analogy between human
and natural productions, he remarks: "This is evidently a very hard
question, and if it properly belonged to the province of physical
inquiry I should shrink from hazarding any investigation of its merits.
But the question has overstepped the boundary of such sciences, and
become a branch of philosophy. I may seem obscure in making this
assertion, but you will see its truth if you consider for a moment the
limit which divides science from philosophy. Sciences are often content
to accept their principles, the lower from the higher (as Aristotle
puts the case) in an ascending scale up to metaphysic, which, if it is
anything at all, is the philosophy of first grounds so far as they are
discoverable. While the various kinds of inquiry assume their several
grounds as postulates, each keeps its separate and subordinate place.
But one prime impulse of the human mind is unification, and thus, in
every science, there springs up a tendency to ground itself. The moment
this attempt is made, a science becomes a philosophy, and must be
tested by the ordinary criteria of philosophic procedure."--_Right and
Wrong_, by the Rev. W. Jackson, M.A.
[37] _Westminster Review_, Oct., 1860. Art. on New Christianity.
[38] Mill's "System of Logic," ii., 160.
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