“ THE CREED OF SCIENCE.”
B y WILLIAM GRAHAM, M.A.
S U P P L E M E N T TO “T H E L I T E R A R Y G U ID E ,” M A RCH , fS g j .
T h e philosopher and the general reader, says Professor Graham in his preface to this truly remarkable book,* have, up to the present, lived in separate spheres, and have almost come to regard each other as natural enemies. “ A work of philosophy is the despair of the general reader. If he ventures to read it, he is only dimly aware of an impersonal something, a sort of intellectual human machine in the background, weaving abstruse sentences with a certain seeming ease and method of logical coherence, but which keeps obstinately aloof alike from his sympathy and his intelligence. 1Why cannot he make himself intelligible to ordinary, or even to superior, intelligence?’ murmurs the general reader. ‘ Impossible,’says the philosopher. *What I have to say cannot be stated in other language. I t cannot be popularised, nor is it desirable that it should be. Philosophy cannot stoop to accommodate herself to your intelligence. \ ou must raise yourself to her level of language and thought if you would have her benefits. If you want a precious thing, you must be prepared to pay the proper price for it, or go without.’ ‘ Impossible,’ in turn replies the general reader. *I have not sat at the feet of the masters of wisdom in the Schools, and I am now too old to learn or to apply your severe language. It is too hard a price to pay even for wisdom, and, in fact, for most people amounts to a prohibitive tax.’ ”
The position, truly, is at once serious and a little ridiculous. On the one hand, we have the abstract philosopher, charged with wisdom possessing the key to all mysteries and all knowledge, which one would suppose it was his special business to give to men ; on the other, the general reader, the man of fairly cultivated intellect, hungry for this wisdom and knowledge, and, in the opinion of the philosopher, perishing for lack of it, and yet no communication is possible between the two. Professor Graham has overcome this difficulty, and to the many thousands of educated people who, without having made a special study of Philosophy or Science, have yet a lively interest in the great and frequent controversies of our age, as well as in the permanent questions which concern every human being as such, and who have ample intelligence to comprehend them both, if only they are not treated exclusively in the formidable phraseology of the Schools, he has addressed this book. He has undertaken to translate the philosopher’s thought to the general understanding, and he acts as a sort of interpreter of the high philosophical oracles to the people. With respect to all the more important controversies— Materialism, Pessimism, Socialism, etc.—he gives the essential and the best arguments on both sides. He places himself in all these cases at the believer’s point of view in expounding his belief, and in at least two important instances—in the question of a future life and in the great social controversy of our age—he states and presses the rival theories as strongly as if lie believed them both. He addresses himself to that numerous class who, in the intellectual and moral nihilism of our time, scarcely know
* “ The Creed o f Science: Religious, Moral, and Social.” By William Graham, M .A . , Professor o f Jurisprudence and Political Economy, Queen’s College, Belfast. (London: Kegan Paul.) 40j pp. j Os.
what to think, believe, or do, but who wish to come to some sort of honest understanding with themselves on grounds of reason, irrespective alike of the dogmatism of science and of theology, as to what they should believe on the questions of capital human concern.
Briefly, the work gives the chief conclusions reached by modern science on the central questions of religion, morals, and society. That is to say, it presents the general creed of science. In the absence of any single and universallyacknowledged authority on all articles of faith and doctrine, the author has taken the consensus of scientific opinion among the few highest authorities on each particular article, and he has treated this as the orthodox teaching of science —as what would have been the decision had all such authorities met together in council to fix the scientific faith.
THE CREATION’ AND GOD.
The first “ book ” in this work is taken up with the religious and moral aspects of the creed of science, and opens with a chapter on “ The Creation and God.” The earth, the sun, and the worlds of space stand before us, says Professor Graham, as existing facts, poised in space and governed by law ; and unless on the hypothesis of their eternal existence, as we now behold them, they must have had an origin of some kind. What was the origin ? is a question which the mind of man naturally and persistently asks. Three answers seem possible: They were created or suddenly summoned into existence from nothing, by fiat of the Creator. They were slowly evolved by natural processes such as are still in operation, from elementary matter. Lastly, the question is too transcendent for human capacity ; we do not know; and we can never know from the necessary and eternal limitation of our faculties and means of knowledge. The author then proceeds to deal with each answer separately, giving the evidence for and against the several hypotheses which have been formulated on the subject.
In chapter two the central and most important question of all,
WHAT IS MAN HIMSELF?
is approached. On the answer to the question, What is man ? clearly depends, says the author, the answer to the three great questions of Kant, What can we know ? What should we do ? What may we hope ? Nay, even the further question, What can we do ?—the great question of moral freedom—the ancient and still-agitated question whether our actions are the product of a secret material mechanism, which ultimately sways our wills, or whether and how far man is master of destiny and the ruler of circumstance, is evidently involved in the fundamental and all comprehending one, What is man himself ? It is pointed out that the full answer to this inquiry is, according to positive scientific thinkers, only to be obtained from a variety of sciences —from psychology, physiology, anthro(>ology, sociology; though, it is admitted, the great light thrown upon the whole subject by the Darwinian discovery of man’s animal descent is of itself a revelation and a guiding clue of immense significance in all future sjieculations, heading as
