The Philosophy of Natural Theology: An Essay in confutation of the scepticism of the present dayJackson, William
Religion
The Philosophy of Natural Theology: An Essay in confutation of the scepticism of the present day
Jackson, William
Natural theology; Religion -- Philosophy; Religion and science
Reason, say both, is Faith's natural enemy; and must fail to yield
any expectation of future happiness in the presence of a righteous
God, together with its long train of present hopes and fears. Our
plain answer is that the true synthesis of Natural Theism lies in
the chief primary fact of our human nature--the undeniable existence
of its Reasonable Beliefs. They originate deep down, and we may
affirm respecting the birth of each and all, as Dr. Tyndall affirms
of the inward vision which dawns upon the philosophic mind when
photographically cleansed by its own efforts to think rightly,--"how
this light arises we cannot explain, but as a matter of fact it does
arise." In its degree it may be (to use Dr. Tyndall's word) "a kind
of inspiration." And what endowment has a higher claim to such a
representative kinship?--what nobler gift can be conceived from God
to man than a Belief of Reason? Dr. Tyndall's further requirement
that "the inward sight must be shown to be in accordance with the
outward fact," a Natural Theologian may hope to meet by a sufficient
verification. He may meet it in the case of this particular Belief by
showing, as we shall try to show, our actual human experience of its
working and its worth.
We might pursue similar examples through the regions of Discovery
and Production, but the three instances already adduced may fairly
suffice. It is, perhaps, more interesting to observe the real gains
which accrue from pondering over an idea in the manner exemplified.
How much political _charlatanerie_ is at once disposed of when men
distinctly acknowledge that two reputed incompatibilities, however
useful as war-cries, are essentially conjoint elements in all truly
statesmanlike action: what countless angry controversies die in the
moral principle that each righteous man is a Law unto himself! And not
only to Natural Theology, but to other parts of knowledge, it is of the
greatest utility to perceive with equal distinctness that Reason has
its beliefs as well as Unreason; and that when we accept reasonable
beliefs as the basis of scientific investigation, we affirm their value
for the conduct and government of life. The true amount of that value
as a mainspring of our hopeful activities is estimated on another page.
Meantime, we may remark from the three examples above discussed, how
regularly an idea of Reason, analysed into its complementary factors,
resumes a concrete form when we employ it as a maxim of practical
life. The politician who separates progress from stability is really
preparing his country for revolution. The man on whose heart the law
is not written (like the necessity laid upon St. Paul[12]) is as yet
imperfectly righteous. And so too, if in our Beliefs we lose sight of
the gift that makes us human, we are likely to ring the changes between
superstition, atheism, and effeminate sentimentality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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