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TO THE READER
TO THE READER
The time is not perhaps far distant when few will believe in miracles who do not also believe in an infallible Church; and then, such books as the present will appeal to a larger circle. But, as things are, the author would beg all those who worship a miraculous Christ without doubt and difficulty to pause here and read no further. The book is not intended for them; it is intended for those alone to whom it is dedicated, “the doubters of this generation.” For there are some who feel drawn toward
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I INTRODUCTORY
I INTRODUCTORY
My dear —— , I am more pained than surprised to infer from your last letter that your faith has received a severe shock. A single term at the University has sufficed to make you doubt whether you retain a belief in miracles; and “If miracles fall, the Bible falls; and with the fall of the Bible I lose Christ; and if I must regard Christ as a fanatic, I do not see how I can believe in a God who suffered such a one as Christ thus to be deceived and to deceive others.” Such appear to be the thought
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II PERSONAL
II PERSONAL
My dear —— , You tell me that you fear your faith is far too roughly shaken to suffer now from anything that may be said against miracles: you are utterly convinced that they are false. As for the possibility of worshipping a non-miraculous Christ, “the very notion of it,” you say, “is inconceivable: it seems like a new religion, and must surely be no more than a very transient phase of thought.” But you would “very much like to know what processes of reasoning led to such a state of mind,” and
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III KNOWLEDGE
III KNOWLEDGE
My dear —— , You ask me to explain, in detail, what I mean by asserting that the Imagination is the basis of knowledge. “Apparently,” you say, “our knowledge of the world external to ourselves seems to you to spring, not from the sensations as interpreted by the Reason, but (at all events to a large extent) from the sensations as interpreted by the Imagination. If you mean this, I wish you would show how the Imagination thus builds up our knowledge of the world. But I think I must have misunders
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IV IDEALS
IV IDEALS
My dear —— , You ask me to pass to the consideration of knowledge of a new kind, knowledge of mathematical truth. “Here at least,” you say, “severe reasoning dominates supreme, and Imagination has no place.” “Two and one make three,” “The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal:” “surely we may assume that Imagination has nothing to do with these propositions. They must be decided by pure Reason.” Never was assumption more grotesque. Excuse me; but by what other adjective can I cha
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V IDEALS AND TESTS
V IDEALS AND TESTS
My dear —— , Let us now return to the consideration of the “knowledge of persons.” How do we gain knowledge of a human being, that is to say of his motives? “By observing his actions in many different circumstances, especially in extremities of joy, sorrow, fear, temptation, and then by comparing his actions with what we, or others, have done in the same circumstances?” But this is a very difficult and delicate business, especially that part of it which involves comparison. Here we may easily go
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VI IMAGINATION AND REASON
VI IMAGINATION AND REASON
My dear —— , You suspect that I am “pushing the claims of the Imagination so far as to deprive the Reason or Understanding [3] of its rights;” and you ask me whether I dispute the universal belief that the former is an “illusive faculty.” As for your suspicion, I will endeavour to show that it is groundless. As for your question, I admit that the Imagination is “illusive,” but I must add that it also leads us to truth. It constructs the hypotheses, as well as the illusions, which, when tested by
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VII THE CULTURE OF FAITH
VII THE CULTURE OF FAITH
My dear —— , I have been very much pained by your sprightly account of the lively and witty conversation between you and your clever young friends, —— and ——, on the proofs of the existence of a God. Bear with me if I assure you that discussions in that spirit are likely to be fatal to real faith. They may often be far more dangerous than a serious collision between untrained faith and the most highly educated scepticism. I do not deprecate discussion, but I do most earnestly plead for reverence
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VIII FAITH AND DEMONSTRATION
VIII FAITH AND DEMONSTRATION
My dear —— , I am afraid your notions about “proof” are still rather hazy; for you quote against me a stern and self-denying dictum which passes current among some of your young friends, that “it is immoral to believe what cannot be proved.” Have you seriously asked yourself what you mean by “proved” in enunciating this proposition? Do you mean “made sufficiently probable to induce a man to act upon the probability”? Or do you mean “absolutely demonstrated”? If you mean the former, not so many a
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IX SATAN AND EVOLUTION
IX SATAN AND EVOLUTION
My dear —— , Your grounds of objection appear to be now changed. You say you do not understand my position with regard to Evolution, as I described it before, and referred to it in my last letter. If I admit Evolution, you ask how I can consistently deny that every nation and every individual, Israel and Christ included, “proceeded from material causes by necessary sequence according to fixed laws;” and in that case what becomes of such metaphors as “the regulating hand of God,” “God the Ruler o
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X ILLUSIONS
X ILLUSIONS
My dear —— , I see you are still violently prejudiced against illusions, that is to say against recognising the very important part which they have played in the spiritual development of mankind. You clearly believe that, though the world may be full of illusions, Revelation ought to be free from them. “The Word of God,” you say, “ought to dispel illusions, not to add to them.” I maintain on the contrary, that the Word of God, if it comes to earth, must needs come in earthen vessels; and that th
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XI WHAT IS WORSHIP?
XI WHAT IS WORSHIP?
My dear —— , Admitting the doctrine of illusion, and dismissing all prejudice against what is new, you declare that still my position remains absolutely unintelligible to you. I will set down your objection in your own words: “Apparently you maintain that Christ is a mere man who came into the world, lived, worked, and died according to the laws of human nature; even His resurrection you apparently intend to explain away till it becomes a mere vision, and therefore not a sign of any other than a
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XII THE WORSHIP OF CHRIST
XII THE WORSHIP OF CHRIST
My dear —— , Your letter of yesterday raises two objections, which I will do my best to meet. First, if I regard Christ as God, I ought not, you think, to stumble at the miracles, but to welcome, and even to require, them; and secondly, you are not satisfied with my definition of worship. Let me deal first with your first objection, restating it in your own words. “I admit,” you say, “that Jesus, even without miracles, would be worthy of worship in your sense of the word; but that is not the sam
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Nature
Nature
i. Nature sometimes means the ordinary course of things apart from us and from our intervention ; as when we say that “ Nature looks gay”—an expression which we might use of fields and even of a not too artificial garden, but not of a city or a street. In this sense it may be occasionally applied to the ordinary course of things in our own bodily frame, so far as it goes on without our deliberate intervention; as when a physician tells a fussy patient to cease from medicining himself and to “let
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Laws of Nature
Laws of Nature
Many of those unbroken sequences of phenomena around us, which have been most frequently observed, have been made the subject of the Imagination and have received an imaginative name. When we find Nature, upon an invariable system, dealing out rewards for one course of action and penalties for another, there is suggested to us the thought of a great Lawgiver laying down laws and affixing rewards for obeying, and penalties for disobeying. Hence the sequences of natural phenomena have been called
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Suspension of Laws of Nature
Suspension of Laws of Nature
Does human Will ever suspend a Law of Nature? I am standing, we will suppose, under a tree in autumn. If a leaf flutters down and rests upon my head, the Law of gravitation is no more suspended by my Will, than if it rests upon some intercepting bough. The result of the Law is modified; downward motion is replaced by downward pressure: but the Law itself is not suspended. But if, upon the command of a man, the leaf were arrested in mid air and remained immovable for an hour together, and if I we
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The Action of the Will
The Action of the Will
Hitherto we have been considering the action of the Will upon external Nature; but now what as to the action of our Will upon our own Nature, upon the machinery of our own body? Is that to be called a Law of Nature or a suspension of a Law of Nature? It is to be called neither. Our definition of “Law of Nature” was “a metaphorical name given to the ordinary course of things apart from the intervention of human will :” consequently the action of human will (about which we are now speaking) is exp
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XIV THE MIRACLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
XIV THE MIRACLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
My dear —— , Your last letter now comes to the point which I have been long anticipating, or rather it recurs to the point from which our correspondence started—the credibility of the miracles attributed to Christ. You tell me that during the long vacation you have been rapidly reviewing my letters and attempting to enter into my views. There is much, you say, that is new, and there is something that improves on acquaintance, in this form of “Christian Positivism” as you call it; its intellectua
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XV THE MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
XV THE MIRACLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
My dear —— , You demur to the parallel that I draw between the Old Testament and the New Testament; “The Battle of Beth-horon can be disentangled from the miracle of the stopping of the sun, just as the battles of Salamis and Regillus can be disentangled from the visions which are said to have accompanied them: and so of other Old Testament narratives. But is it possible,” you ask, “that the life of Christ can be disentangled from miracles? Do not His own words and doctrine imply a continual ass
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XVI THE GROWTH OF THE GOSPELS
XVI THE GROWTH OF THE GOSPELS
My dear —— , You force me to digress. My object just now was to shew that the life of Christ (no less than the history of the redemption of Israel) can be disentangled from “miracles”, although not from “mighty works”; and I proposed to take the six or seven principal miracles attributed to Christ by the Synoptists and to shew of each account that it may have naturally and easily crept into the Gospels without any intention to deceive. But you will not let me go on in my own way; for you ask a q
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XVII CHRISTIAN ILLUSIONS
XVII CHRISTIAN ILLUSIONS
My dear —— , Once more I am compelled to digress: and, this time, it is in order to meet what you must let me call a preconception of yours. You say that it appears to you “impossible that Christ, if really divine, should have been permitted by God to be worshipped as a worker of miracles for eighteen centuries, although in reality he had no power to work them.” Is this much more than a repetition of your former objection that my views amount to “a new religion,” and that illusion, although it m
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XVIII ARE THE MIRACLES INSEPARABLE FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST?
XVIII ARE THE MIRACLES INSEPARABLE FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST?
My dear —— , From the digressions concerning the growth of the Gospels and the possibility or probability that their truths would be conveyed through illusion I now return to our main subject, the question whether the life of Christ can be disentangled from miracles. And here you tell me that some of your agnostic and sceptical friends quote with great satisfaction the following sentence from Bishop Temple’s recent Bampton Lectures [22] : “Many of our Lord’s most characteristic sayings are so as
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XIX THE MIRACLES OF FEEDING
XIX THE MIRACLES OF FEEDING
My dear —— , You remind me that I have omitted the most important of all those sayings of Christ which are associated with miracles—the passage in which he comments on the feeding of the Four Thousand and on that of the Five Thousand, as two separate acts, apparently implying their miraculous nature. I have not forgotten it; but I reserved it to the last because it is, as you justly say, the most important and the most difficult of all; but I believe it to be susceptible of explanation. Let us f
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XX THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST
XX THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST
My dear —— , You wish to draw my attention to the Resurrection of Christ. “That,” you say, “is either miraculous or nothing. The arguments by which you appear to be driving miracles into non-existence—expelling them first from profane history, then from the Old Testament, then step by step from every part of the New—cannot make a stand at your convenience, so as to except the Resurrection. Yet even St. Paul makes the Resurrection of Jesus the basis of his own belief and Gospel. If, therefore, th
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XXI THE RESURRECTION REVEALED
XXI THE RESURRECTION REVEALED
My dear —— , You are startled, and well you may be, “at the notion that the resurrection of Christ has been the mere offspring of the imagination.” I am quoting your words, but you have not quoted mine. I never said, nor should I dream of saying, that the resurrection of Christ was “the offspring of the imagination,” any more than I should say that the law of gravitation is “the offspring of the imagination,” or that light is “the offspring of the eye.” But this is just an ordinary specimen of t
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XXII THE RESURRECTION
XXII THE RESURRECTION
My dear —— , My last letter broke off rather abruptly with a promise to do my best to set forth hereafter the Resurrection of Christ as it may be regarded from a natural point of view. Looking at the facts in this light, we have in the first place to set before ourselves the short life of One of whom we must merely say that He was unique in the goodness and grandeur of His character, and that He died with the unfulfilled purpose of redeeming mankind from sin, deserted for the moment by the few d
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XXIII THE SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION
XXIII THE SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION
My dear —— , I am not surprised to hear that you consider the theory above described of Christ’s resurrection, “vague, shadowy, and unsatisfying.” But as in the very same letter you say that you are quite convinced of the unhistorical nature of the account of the resurrection of Christ’s material body, I think you ought not to dismiss the subject without giving more attention than you have given as yet to it. As a student of history and as a young man bent on attaining such knowledge as can be a
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XXIV WHAT IS A SPIRIT?
XXIV WHAT IS A SPIRIT?
My dear —— , You take me to task for the abrupt termination of my last letter. I broke off, you say, just when you thought I was on the point of explaining what I meant by a spirit: “Surely you have some theory of your own and are not content with disbelieving other people’s theories.” Well, I thought I had said before that I am content to know merely this about a spirit, that it possesses capabilities for loving and serving God, or other nobler capabilities corresponding to these. But if you pr
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XXV THE INCARNATION
XXV THE INCARNATION
My dear —— , I had not forgotten that, in order to complete the brief discussion of the miraculous element in the New Testament, it is necessary to give some explanation of the origin of the accounts of the birth of Christ. Your last letter reminds me of this necessity, and you put before me two alternatives. “If,” you say, “Christ was born of a Virgin, then a miracle is conceded so stupendous that it is absurd to object to the other miracles: but if Christ was not born of a Virgin, then, unless
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XXVI PRAYER, HEAVEN, HELL
XXVI PRAYER, HEAVEN, HELL
You ask me whether one who has seceded from miraculous to non-miraculous Christianity still finds himself able to pray as before. But towards the end of your letter you amend your question. You are “quite sure,” you are pleased to say, from what you know of me, that I shall “answer this question affirmatively, though in defiance of all logic:” and therefore, anticipating my answer, you state your objection to it beforehand, and ask me how I can meet your objection, which is to this effect: “If t
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XXVII PAULINE THEOLOGY
XXVII PAULINE THEOLOGY
My dear —— , I will begin this letter by quoting the end of your last. For when you have thought over the matter I am sure your mind will be so completely changed that unless I send you an exact copy of your own words you will hardly believe you could ever have written them. You are speaking about the theology of St. Paul, and this is what you say: “I presume that Natural Christianity, however glad it may be to shelter itself under Pauline authority in the low estimate it sets on miracles, will
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XXVIII OBJECTIONS
XXVIII OBJECTIONS
My dear —— , You tell me that you have been shewing my letters to some of your young friends, and that they have expressed various objections to non-miraculous Christianity. Some say that I am an “optimist;” others that it is a compromise between faith and reason, and that compromises are always to be rejected; one says that I am for introducing “a new religion;” others that a Gospel of illusion must, by its own shewing, be itself illusive; others, that “these new notions are so vague that they
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XXIX THE RELIGION OF THE MASSES
XXIX THE RELIGION OF THE MASSES
My dear —— , I have been thinking over your objection that my notions are “vague;” feeling that there is some truth in it, but that your words do not quite express your probable meaning. I think you mean, not that the “notions” are vague, but that the proofs are vague. The “notions” are in the Creeds, if you interpret the Creeds spiritually: and I do not think that the Creeds are more “vague” when interpreted spiritually than when interpreted literally. The spiritual Resurrection of Christ, for
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XXX MINISTERIAL TESTS
XXX MINISTERIAL TESTS
My dear—— , Excuse my delay in answering your letter of last month. The fact is I have not so much leisure as I had. I was glad indeed to hear from you (last Christmas, I think) that you could not so lightly put away the worship and service of Christ as you had felt disposed, or compelled to do, some eighteen months before; that the question appeared to you now a deeper one than you had then supposed, not to be decided by mere historical evidence but, to some extent, by the experience of life; a
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XXXI WHAT THE BISHOPS MIGHT DO
XXXI WHAT THE BISHOPS MIGHT DO
My dear —— , I reminded you in my last letter that ordination or non-ordination must largely depend upon the judgment of the Bishops. This, I suppose, must have always been the case to some extent: but there are reasons why it may well be so now to a greater extent than before. The important change made in the form of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles has supplied a solid and definite ground upon which the Bishops may fairly claim to ascertain from candidates for ordination some details a
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i. Reality
i. Reality
1. Absolute reality cannot be comprehended by men, and can only be apprehended as God or in God by a combination of Desire and Imagination, to which we give the name of Faith. 2. Among objects of sensation those are (relatively) real which present similar sensations in similar circumstances....
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ii. Force
ii. Force
“Imagined” is inserted, throughout these Definitions, as a reminder that the existence of all these objects of definition, however real, is suggested to us by the Imagination. Force is that which is imagined to immediately produce, or tend to produce, motion. Why “immediately”? Because a particle of “matter”—attracting, as it does, every other particle of “matter”—may be said to “tend to produce motion.” Yet “matter” is not said to be force, but to “ exert ” force. “Matter” is imagined to attrac
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iii. Cause and Effect
iii. Cause and Effect
When one thing is imagined to produce, or tend to produce, a second, the first is called the Cause of the second, and the second the Effect of the first....
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iv. Spirit
iv. Spirit
Spirit, i.e. Breath or Wind, is a metaphorical name—implying subtleness, invisibility, ubiquitousness and life-giving power—given to the ultimate Cause of Force; and hence sometimes to the Cause of beneficent Force in the Universe, i.e. God; sometimes to the Cause of Force in the human individual; more rarely to the Cause or Causes of maleficent Forces in the Universe....
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v. Matter
v. Matter
The existence of Matter has never been proved; and it is nothing but a hypothesis. All the phenomena called “material” might be explained, without Matter, by the hypothesis of a number of centres of force. The raison d’être of Matter is the notion of tangibility. But scientific men now tell us that no atom ever touches another. If this be so, scientific tangibility disappears and the raison d’être of Matter disappears, with it. But it is so natural a figment that we shall all probably talk about
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vi. Nature
vi. Nature
1. Nature means sometimes the (1) ordinary, or (2) orderly course of things apart from the present and direct intervention of human Will; sometimes the (3) ordinary or (4) orderly course of humanity; sometimes the (5) ordinary or (6) orderly course of all things. 2. Law of Nature is a metaphorical name for a frequently observed sequence of phenomena (apart from human Will) implying, to some minds, regularity; to others, absolute invariability. 3. Miracle means a supposed suspension of a Sequence
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vii. Will
vii. Will
The Will is the power of giving to some one of our desires, or to some one group of compatible desires, permanent predominance over the rest. An addition might be suggested: “the power of controlling our desires.” But we appear never to control our desires except by enthroning some one desire (or group of desires)—whether it be the desire to gain power, to ruin an enemy, to do right, or to serve God....
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viii. Attention
viii. Attention
Attention is the power by which we impress upon our mind that which is present....
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ix. Memory
ix. Memory
Memory is the power by which we retain or recall to our mind that which is past....
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x. Imagination
x. Imagination
Imagination is the power by which we combine or vary the mental images retained by Memory, often with a view to finding some unity in them; and by which we are enabled to image forth the future through anticipating its harmony with the past and present....
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xi. Reason
xi. Reason
Reason (or, as some prefer to call it in this limited sense, Understanding) is the power by which we compare, and, from our comparisons, draw inferences or conclusions. By means of it we compare the suggestions of the Imagination with the suggestions of Experience, and accept or reject the former in accordance with the result of our comparison....
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xii. Hope
xii. Hope
Hope is desire, of which we imagine the fulfilment, while recognizing the presence of doubt....
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xiii. Faith
xiii. Faith
The following Definition appears to me to be the basis of all theology. It is no more than an emphatic restatement of the old saying, “Faith is the assurance of (or giving substance to ) things hoped for .” Since hope is but a weaker and more hesitant form of desire , the imaging forth of (or giving substance to ) things earnestly hoped for must imply the vivid imagination of the fulfilment of things desired . Faith (when not loosely used for Belief) is desire (approved by the Conscience) of whi
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xiv. Belief
xiv. Belief
Belief (when it is not used for Faith) means a sense, mixed with doubt, that the affirmations of our mind will harmonize with Experience. [41]...
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xv. Certainty, or Conviction
xv. Certainty, or Conviction
Certainty, or Conviction, is a sense, unmixed with doubt, that the affirmations of our mind will harmonize with Experience....
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xvi. Knowledge
xvi. Knowledge
1. Absolute knowledge, which is possessed by no man, would be an identity between our mental affirmations and those of the Creator; who knows all things in their Essence and Causes. 2. Knowledge (relative and ordinary) is (very often) a name loosely given to a harmony between our mental affirmations and the affirmations of the vast majority of those who have (or are thought by the majority to have) the best opportunities for observation and judgement. It might be more usefully defined as those m
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xvii. Illusions and Delusions
xvii. Illusions and Delusions
Illusions are mental affirmations not harmonizing with immediate experience, but preparatory for absolute knowledge. Delusions are mental affirmations not harmonizing with experience, nor preparatory for absolute knowledge. THE END RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 1 . That children, even at a much younger age than ten, do sometimes exercise their young minds to very ill purpose about these subtle metaphysical questions is probably within the experience of all who know anything about c
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