Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/17

 can have no right to cherish the feeling of boundless awe and reverence which such a being alone could rightly claim. Still less right have we to squander such feel- ings upon the unknown energies which underlie the phenomena with which we are acquainted. What reason have we to suppose these energies worthy of rever- ence at all, except on a principle which, as Mr. Harrison tersely puts it, would hold"ignotum omne pro ^tvino^^ ? The fact seems to be that Mr. Spencer, belong- ing as he does to that race of religious animals called " man," and unable in con- sequence to do without an object of wor- ship, having pursued his critical philos- ophy to the point where absolute negation is reached in the domain of theology, finding nothing else within his reach, is forced to worship //y and to give it a little more dignity, he has to dress its skeleton- like form in capitals, and write it Absolute Negation. Here is his monomania. To suppose that by dressing up nothing he can make it something — and not merely something, but the object of those deepest feelings which, for good and for ill, have played a wider and more important part than any others in the history of our race — is surely little short of a monomania. To conceive that out of the statements " Noth- ing can be known," and " A sort of a some- thing exists beyond our knowledge," we can evolve the absolutely certain existence of an unknowable object of worship, Con- sisting of an infinite and eternal energy whence all things proceed, is to introduce a new species of evolution which Mr. Spen- cer himself could hardly sanction when in his right mind. The leap is very great, and Darwin confesses that natura non facit salttim. Mr. Harrison seems to me, then, in this portion of his criticism, to reason with an accuracy and sobriety which are quite be- yond praise. He brings Agnosticism back to its true position, and it resumes its character of negation. " So stated," he says, " the positive creed of Agnosticism still retains its negative character." And this cannot be religion. Religion "can- not be found in this No-man's-land and know-nothing-creed. Better bury religion at once than let its ghost walk uneasy in our dreams." His conclusion is stated in yet stronger terms in the following pas- sages, which must be quoted, as I shall shortly have to refer to them in detail : be of which neither belief, nor worship, nor conduct can be spoken ! " "A mother wrung with agony for the loss of her child, or the wife crushed by the death of her children's father, or the helpless and the oppressed, the poor and the needy, men, women, and children, in sorrow, doubt, and want, longing for something to com- fort them and to guide them, something to believe in, to hope for, to love, and to worship, they come to our philosopher, and they say, * Your men of science have routed our priests, and have silenced our old teachers. What religious faith do you give us in its place.'*' And the philoso- pher replies (his full heart bleeding for them), and he says, 'Think on the Unknow- able.' And in the hour of pain, danger, or death, can any one think of the Un- knowable, hope anything of the Unknow- able, or find any consolation therein?" "The precise and yet inexhaustible lan- guage of mathematics enables us to ex- press, in a common algebraic formula, the exact combination of the unknown raised to its highest power of infinity. That for- mula is :r„. . . where two or three are gathered together to worship the Unknow- able. . . they may be heard to profess their unwearying belief in x^, even if no weak brother with ritualistic tendencies be heard to cry, * O x^, love us, help us, make us one with thee ! ' " So far, I repeat, Mr. Harrison has shown so just an appreciation of the con- sequences of the Agnostic position, so quick an eye in detecting and exposing Mr. Spencer's mania for transforming scientific negation into an object of wor- ship, by means of his own enthusiasm and capital letters, and so clear an insight into the deflection from just reason which this involves, that he figures as before all things a sober and cautious thinker. If the death-knell of the old theology be in- deed sounded, all reasonable religious worship must die with it. No enthusiasm and no rhetoric can persuade a sensible man that it is reasonable to worship that
 * ' How mere a phrase must any religion