'£r r t f ’ f - ¿ C , F i

Z h e

Xttecac^ (Sutbe

AND RATIONALIST REVIEW.

[ESTABLISHED 188S.]

No. 2 r. ( N ew S e r ie s .)

M ARCH i , 1898.

M o n t h l y ; T w o p en c e .

Contents.

R a t io n a l i sm a n d S e n t im e n t . B y J. M cC abe. T h e P r o p h e t ’s S u c c e s so r s . B y Charles E . Hooper ' u W e O u g h t t o S p e a k P l a in l y . By F . J. Gould v T h e S e c r e t o f H e g e l . . . ' A C o n q u e r e d P r o m e t h e u s . . ' A N e w R a t io n a l i s t P r o p h e t . . ;? M r . S p e n c e r ’s “ F r a g m e n t s ” . . ' ' ^ 8 C o n s t r u c t i v e R a t io n a l ism . . _ f s S ig n s a n d W a r n in g s (G l e a n e d from t h e R e l i - 3

g io u s P r e s s ) .... T h e A g n o s t ic ’s H o p e : A P oem .

.

R a n d o m J o t t in g s . L i t e r a r y S h r in e s a n d P il g r im a g e s .— i i i . t h e 4

G r a v e o f D a v id H um e . By Amos Waters T h e G o s p e l A c c o r d in g to N ie t z sch e R a t io n a l i sm in t h e Magazines Quarterly Magazines . . . Mo n t h l y M a g a z in e s . . .

77 45

IRationalism ani) S e n t im e n t .

O ne o f the many remarkable features o f the present age of decay of traditional belief is the presence o f a large body of thinkers who linger, as it were, in the porches of the ancient temple. They have cast off the incubus of the superstitious growth o f the last nineteen centuries, but they retain the theistic belief in which that growth was rooted. They have reverted to the religious attitude of pre-Christian philosophers. And when one inquires why they have not shaken themselves entirely free of traditional belief, like the majority o f those who have withdrawn from the paternal temples during the present century, one is frequently met with the assertion that Rationalism merely contents one side of human nature. Rationalism, they tell us, ignores and starves the emotional activity of the human mind. They do not quarrel with a rational analysis as far as it goes, but they think that it must be supplemented by a study of our aspirations, instincts, and emotions, and that such a study tends to rehabilitate the purer elements o f the crumbling belief. The charge is echoed, too, by the more prominent o f those who still wage the active war o f apologetics_Dean Farrar, Canon Gore, or Canon Scott-Holland. One hears the negative Rationalistic attitude condemned as cold and unemotional— as not only corruptive of the finer elements o f human nature, but as failing in its search after truth on account of its neglect o f those elements.

The distinction between these two aspects or two branches o f psychic activity is as old as the history of psychology. Mind and will is its popular antithetic expression, though such a division does not include a number o f cognate and what are called “ inferior” functions. Until recent years mental activity was divided broadly into cognitive and appetitive. The latter term is crude and confused, but it is impossible to find a term which would conveniently embrace all the emotions, passions, and sentiments which it is sought to include in the second branch of mental activity. However, we may understand that the definite charge is brought against Rationalism— which we take at present to be synonymous with Agnosticism— o f cultivating the cognitive, or perceptive, faculty at the expense o f the emotional, or appetitive. That Rationalism has a benumbing or paralyzing effect upon the emotions is a charge which may be safely disregarded. Only popular novelists and metaphysical politicians taking a holiday in the realms o f thought seriously talk of the ethical and aesthetical effect of “ naturalism.” But the accusation that Rationalism is frustrated in its ardent pursuit of truth by neglecting or silencing some of the most imperious movements of the mind is of a more serious and tangible character. The former charge is shown to be frivolous by the noble and graceful lives of the many prominent Rationalists of the century ; the latter— the plaint of Emerson, of Martineau, of Gore, of Hamilton— merits serious attention.

The very terms in which the dual nature of the mind is usually described suggest the reply of the Rationalist. There is an element of truth, and there is a large element of confusion, in the assertion that the Agnostic disregards the emotional activity of the mind. It is entirely true that in the pursuit of truth the Rationalist does not listen to the seductive voice of feeling and aspiration ; he closes his ears to it as did Ulysses to the syrens. Reason, pure and simple — cold, if you will— unruffled and unclouded by emotion, is the ideal instrument in the investigation of truth. And the motive is not far to seek. Descartes set up as a criterion of truth the clear subjective consciousness of the individual. He is rightly condemned, and must be condemned by all who are not pure idealists, on the ground that this subjective feeling may be utterly delusive ; we have no guarantee whatever that there is a shred of objective fact corresponding to the inner vision. Truth is objective; only that image can be pronounced true that is known to mirror the objective nature of things. It is a question of fact, not of fancy. The pursuit of truth means an investigation into the nature of the cosmos— an inquiry as to how far the ideas that are offered to us concerning it are a faithful expression of its nature and its relations. We are told that there are written on the face of the world legible proofs of a supreme Maker and Ruler ; we must investigate those tokens by the same methods we test anything else that is alleged as a fact — the atmosphere of Mars, or the polarity of magnetic bodies. We are assured that there is a spiritual and undying element in our nature, that Christ was a divine being incarnate, that the 'Christian Scriptures embody a superhuman message. Those are questions of fact; we must study them as patiently and unsentimentally as the motion of the sun through space, or the properties of the triangle. The history o f philosophy and of science is strewn with warning examples of the misuse and perversion of the various faculties of the mind. Only patient and unclouded reasoning is available as an instrument of truth in matters that transcend the direct perception of the senses. He who would adduce extra-rational (emotional or partly-emotional) considerations in the conduct of human affairs— not as motives or incentives to action, but as methods of inquiry in matters of fact— would soon be merged in a sea of delusions. On what serious ground can we suppose that instincts— which most people now regard as impressions worn into the nervous system of the- race— or aspirations, or feelings, have any greater virtue as guides to an objective truth in the domain of ethics or religion ? That there is a sense of vacuity experienced, a feeling of thwarted aspiration, at the sacrifice of traditional belief, few will question. But is this not natural, seeing that ten, perhaps twenty, thousand years of superstition have stamped that belief most deeply upon our systems ? In yielding to such bruised feelings or instincts and broken hopes we do’ no less than put the beliefs of ten thousand years of ignorant credulity before the enlightened results of modern thought.

Hence the Rationalist urges that reason is the unique arbiter in questions of fact. The scholastic philosophers had some sober truths among their fanciful structures.