BEING THE GIFFORD LECTURES Delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1914 BY THE Rt. Hon. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR M.A., F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L. (HON. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE) HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO MCMXV Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld. London and Aylesbury. TO THE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, WHO GAVE SO KIND A RECEPTION TO THESE LECTURES ON THEIR DELIVERY IN THE BUTE HALL, I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME....

This volume contains the substance of the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow in January and February 1914. I say the substance of the lectures, lest any of those who formed part of my most kindly audience should expect a verbal reproduction of what they then heard. No such reproduction would have been either expedient or possible. The lectures were not read: they were spoken (with the aid of brief notes) in such terms as suggested themselves at the moment; and their duration

Those responsible for the selection of Gifford Lecturers have made it clear that, in their interpretation of Lord Gifford’s Trust, studies in a very wide range of subjects are relevant to the theme of Natural Religion. Gifford lectures have been devoted to such diverse themes as Comparative Religion, Primitive Mythologies, Vitalism, Psychology of Religious Experiences, the History of Religious Development at particular Epochs. And, in addition to these, we have had expounded to us systems of Met

The argument, then, which I propose to lay before you, though its material is provided by our common-sense beliefs, is not an argument from common sense. It does not extend to theology those uncritical methods which we accept (most of us without protest) in the sphere of our every-day activities. Is it, then, you may be tempted to ask, some form of the yet more familiar argument from design? Is it more than Paley and the Bridgwater treatises brought up to date? And, if so, has not the vanity of

In this lecture I have undertaken to consider certain beliefs and emotions relating to beauty, and to inquire how far their value is affected by our views as to their origin. The poverty of language, however, makes it rather difficult to describe with any exactness the scope of such an inquiry. Beauty is an ill-defined attribute of certain members of an ill-defined class; and for the class itself there is no very convenient name. We might describe its members as “objects of æsthetic interest” al

I turn now from contemplation to action; from Æsthetics to Ethics. And in so doing I must ask permission to stretch the ordinary meaning of the term which I use to describe the subject-matter of the present lecture, as I have already stretched the meaning of the term which described the subject-matter of the last. “Æsthetics” there included much besides beauty; “Ethics” here will include much besides morality. As, under the first head, were ranged contemplative interests far lower in the scale t

In the preceding lectures I have given reasons for thinking that in two great departments of human interest—Æsthetics and Ethics—the highest beliefs and emotions cannot claim to have any survival value. They must be treated as by-products of the evolutionary process; and are, therefore, on the naturalistic hypothesis, doubly accidental. They are accidental in the larger sense of being the product of the undesigned collocation and interplay of material entities—molecular atoms, sub-atoms, and eth

Nothing would seem easier, at first sight, than to give a general description of the ordinary beliefs of ordinary people about our familiar world of things and persons. It is the world in which we live; it is for all men a real world; it is for many men the real world; it is the world of common sense, the world where the plain man feels at home, and where the practical man seeks refuge from the vain subtleties of metaphysics. Our stock of beliefs about it may perhaps be difficult to justify, but

I wish I were a mathematician. There is in the history of the mathematical sciences, as in their substance, something that strangely stirs the imagination even of the most ignorant. Its younger sister, Logic, is as abstract, and its claims are yet wider. But it has never shaken itself free from a certain pretentious futility: it always seems to be telling us, in language quite unnecessarily technical, what we understood much better before it was explained. It never helps to discover, though it m

In my last lecture but one I dwelt upon the interplay of causes and reasons in one special case—the case of our immediate experiences of the external world, the world in which we move, the world investigated by the physical sciences. No case can indeed be more important; for these immediate experiences are deemed by every man to be his guide through all the hours of his waking life, and by every man of science to supply the evidence on which depends all our knowledge of natural laws. Yet this ve

In the sixth and eighth lectures of this course I dealt with two inevitable beliefs which lie at the root of all science and all practice—the beliefs that an independent, or, as it is commonly called, an “external” world exists, and the belief that the world, whether external or internal, has at least a measure of regularity. In the seventh lecture I interpolated a discussion upon probability; and showed, or attempted to show, that we must take account of a kind of probability other than that wh

Now that we have reached our closing lecture, those who have followed the course from the beginning may, on looking back, find themselves somewhat bewildered by the variety of subjects which I have asked them to consider. Art, History, Morals, the Theory of Probability, the Logic of Perception, the presuppositions of Science, have all been touched on. Themes that might fill volumes—nay, that have filled volumes—are made the text for an hour’s discourse. Introduced one after the other with breath