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AND RATIONALIST REVIEW.

[ESTABLISHED 1885.]

No. 20. (NEW SERIES.)

MONTHLY; TWOPENCE.

Contents.

SUPERNATURALlSl\I AND SCIENCE. By Adams Gowans White THE TYPICAL PROPHET_ By Charles E. Hooper THE NEW REFOR IATION. By Charles T. Gorham THOSE WHO MARCH IN THE VAN_ By F. J. Gould RATIONALISM IN FICTION: "THE GADFLY" ERNEST RENAN : MADAME DARMESTETER'S " LI FE " THE SECRETS OF MONASTICISM .

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been the help and consolation of thousands: and as thi s faith soothes for ever the questionings of the ~ind ~s to the 17 when~e, why, and whither of man, the believer regards it as 18 superIor to the plodding science which tells us that these

~att~~s are beyond human understanding. He feels the 19 mablltty of un:uded man to solve the mysteries of existence 20 and considers he has settled them all when he places the~ 20 to the account of an Almighty Creator. He throws the 2 1 burd.en of his mind, as well as of his heart, upon He whom 22 he pIctures as at once Ruler, Giver, and Guardian.

SIGNS AND WARNINGS (GLEANED FROM THE RELI-

GIOUS PR ESS) RANDOM JOTTINGS . LITERARV SHRINES AND P'ILGRIMAGES.-I I I. IN

BYRON'S COUNTRY ( col1c1uded). By Amos \Vaters THE ORIGINS OF CIVILI ZATION, OF MATRIARCHY, AND

OF RELIGION. By J. S. Stuart Glenn ie, M.A.

RATIONALISM IN THE MAGAZINES SHORT NOTICES

All questions of doctrine are subsidiary to this belief in a 23 supernatural Power, and it forms the beginning and the end 24 of nearly every effort of Christian apologetics. In all these e1!0.rts t~er~ is a certain appeal to the" consciousness of the 25 dlvlIle withIn us, " and to the moral sense which, it is stated,

could only have been implanted to our hearts by a moral 26 Creator. That arguments of this nature carry with them a 27 ~reat . deal of force is fully shown by the large number of 29 Intelligent men and women who accept them as valid.

===========~-============ Thei.r forc e, indeed, can only be destroyed by demon­

$ltpernaturalism anb Science. AMONG the numerouS pa~ties which are engaged in the various religious controverSies of the present day, two main groupS may be observed. The first is. dis~ing uished by its maintenance of some form of. be~lef. In .the. supernatural; and the other ~ont~as ts With I~ 111 reJectmg the supernatural, and in basmg ItS speculatIOns about thin gs both high and low up?n who\ly natural ~rounds .. ~he sectarian differences which separate the vaTlous Chnstlan bodies from each other may be regarded as secondary to the fundamental difference which separates all of them from the general body C?f Ra.tionalists. While the Christi~n recognises an authOrity which transcends reason and supplies answers to questions which reason cannot hope to solve, the Rationalist looks upon such an authority as the creation of man's own imagination; and, by taking reason alone as his guide, he is content .to let all matters outside its ke~ rest in the unattainable regIOn of the unknowable_ The difference between them, indeed, is tlIe same as that which places an impenetrable barrier between supernaturalism and science.

. If controversy is to prove of practical value, it is necessary to define beforehand the main issue at stake. Nearly every controversy between the two groups specified above narrows itklf ~own to the question whether a purely scientific solution or suspension of the deepest problems can be regarded as satisfactory. The conflic.t has pas~ed beyo~d the bounds of textual criticism of the Bible, and IS now bemg waged round such questions as immortality, the existence and attributes of God Jthe origin of life, of man- of his instincts, emotions, and in;ellectual powers. In all these cases the scientific Rationalist finds himself opposed to believers in the various forms of supernatural creed. It is, therefore, a .matter of vital. impqrtance to determine upon what this opposition reaily depends.

• . Whe'n carefully analyzed, the belief "in the supernatural is fou Hd . to rest, in nearly every case, upon some intuitive faculty 0; desire. The leading theologians of the day have abandoned the practice of founding th ei r faith entirely upon • the authenticity and reliability 6f books alleged to be divine ;

and where'such a practice is sti ll followed, it is in nearly every case supported, not by historical or scientific arguments, out by an appeal to a faculty allied to that which has frequently been called the "Christian consciousness." In other words, the believer feels within him a mysterious ~~pu1s~, ur&ing him to accept the faith which he is told has stratIng, not only that the belief in the supernatural in any form leads to absurdities and contradictions in thought, but that the very "intuitions" upon which the belief is grounded may be fully explained as arising and developing by purely natural processes_ It is in its ability to afford this demonstration that the chief strength of science lies. The believer regards his" intuitioos " as divinely implanted for his guidance in spiritual matters. The man of science can, now that anthropology has made such vast strides under the It!~der.s hip of Tylor, Lubbock, Spencer, and othe rs, give sClentl.fic grounds for believing in the natural genesis and evolution of everyone of these so-called intuitions. It is upon this fundamental point that the opposition of science to supernatural ism is most clearly defined.

The most important of these intuitions is, as has already been suggested, that which leads to the belief in an intelligent, beneficent, and almighty God. Rationalists have reiterated for generations past that such a belief invariably leads to self-contradictory or absurd conclusions. But all their most convincing arguments and urilliant ironies have had little effect upon the confirmed Intuitionist. Logic was powerless against the verdict of the soul ; and not until the various stages of the belief in God began to be revealed by anthropological research did it begin to dawn upon the mind of the believer that even his belief was only one of these stages, and that it had its roots in the first crude imagin~gs of the untutored savage. It seems impossible now to deny that the idea of God has evolved from ea rly notions of spirit life. Many apologists for the supernatural will admit this, but they assert in turn that the validity of the idea itself is in nowise impaired. This they say, forgetting that the h~man origin o~ t~ ei r .". divine in.tuit~on:' h~s been ruthlessly laid bare. ThiS IntUitIOn took Its nse In tImes of ignorance and f 7ar, became confirmed through the long ages of creduhty . and the supremacy of faith, and still survives in ~his age o~ science, in spite of the research which is robbing I ~ of all I~S mystery and power. When its pedigree is forgotten, It al?pears as a marvellous prompting of the inner man. \V.he? Its p~d i gree is apparent, it crumbles away to a mere vanlshmg rehc of the days of human childhood.

The belief in a spiritual essence called the" soul" and the accompanying belief in a life for that soul aft~r the death of the body, may be explained in a similar manner. In the phenomena of sleep the savage obtained his first noti~n of a spirit that could wander away from the body. In hiS d.r~ms he hunted and danced, and met the spirits of the hVIng and the dead. His primitive reasoning led

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