Religion and Science §1. We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodnessin things evil," but very generally also, a soul of truth in thingserroneous. While many admit the abstract probability that a falsity has usuallya nucleus of verity, few bear this abstract probability in mind, when passingjudgment on the options of others. A belief that is proved to be grosslyat variance with fact, is cast aside with indignation or contempt; and inthe heat of antagonism scarcely any one inquires what there was in this beliefwhich commended it to men's minds. Yet there must have been something. Andthere is reason to suspect that this something was its correspondence withcertain of their experiences: an extremely limited or vague correspondenceperhaps, but still, a correspondence. Even the absurdest report may in nearlyevery instance be traced to an actual occurrence; and had there been no suchactual occurrence, this preposterous misrepresentation of it would neverhave existed. Though the distorted or magnified image transmitted to us throughthe refracting medium of rumour, is utterly unlike the reality; yet in theabsence of the reality there would have been no distorted or magnified image.

And thus it is with human beliefs in general. Entirely wrong as they mayappear, the implication is that they originally contained, and perhaps stillcontain, some small amount of truth.

Definite views on this matter would be very useful to us. It is importantthat we should form something like a general theory of current options, sothat we may neither over-estimate nor under-estimate their worth. Arrivingat correct judgments on disputed questions, much depends on the mental attitudepreserved while listening to, or taking part in, the controversies; and forthe preservation of a right attitude, it is needful that we should learnhow true, and yet how untrue, are average human beliefs. On the one hand,we must keep free from that bias in favour of received ideas which expressesitself in such dogmas as "What every one says must be true," or"The voice of the people is the voice of God." On the other hand,the fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually beenwrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usuallynot been entirely wrong. And the avoidance of these extremes being a pre-requisiteto catholic thinking, we shall do well to provide ourselves with a safeguardagainst them, by making a valuation of opinions in the abstract. To thisend we must contemplate the kind of relation that ordinarily subsists betweenopinions and facts. Let us do so with one of those beliefs which under variousforms has prevailed among all nations in all times. §2. Early traditions represent rulers as gods or demigods. By theirsubjects, primitive kings were regarded as superhuman in origin and superhumanin power. They possessed divine titles, received obeisances like those madebefore the altars of deities, and were in some cases actually worshipped.

Of course along with the implied beliefs there existed a belief in the unlimitedpower of the ruler over his subjects, extending even to the taking of theirlives at will; as until recently in Fiji, where a victim stood unbound tobe killed at the word of his chief himself declaring, "whatever theking says must be done."

In other times and among other races, we find these beliefs a little modified.

The monarch, instead of being thought god or demigod, is conceived to bea man having divine authority, with perhaps more or less of divine nature.

He retains, however, titles expressing his heavenly descent or relationships,and is still saluted in forms and words as humble as those addressed to theDeity. While in some places the lives and properties of his people, if notso completely at his mercy, are still in theory supposed to be his.

Later in the progress of civilization, as during the middle ages in Europe,the current opinions respecting the relationship of rulers and ruled arefurther changed. For the theory of divine origin there is substituted thatof divine right. No longer god or demigod, or even god-descended, the kingis now regarded simply as God's vicegerent. The obeisances made to him arenot so extreme in their humility; and his sacred titles lose much of theirmeaning. Moreover his authority ceases to be unlimited. Subjects deny hisright to dispose at will of their lives and properties, and yield allegianceonly in the shape of obedience to his commands.

With advancing political option has come still greater restriction ofmonarchical power. Belief in the supernatural character of the ruler, longago repudiated by ourselves for example, has left behind it nothing morethan the popular tendency to ascribe unusual goodness, wisdom, and beautyto the monarch. Loyalty, which originally meant implicit submission to theking's will, now means a merely nominal profession of subordination, andthe fulfilment of certain forms of respect. By deposing some and puttingothers in their places, we have not only denied the divine rights of certainmen to rule, but we have denied that they have any rights beyond those originatingin the assent of the nation. Though our forms of speech and our State-documentsstill assert the subjection of the citizens to the ruler, our actual beliefsand our daily proceedings implicitly assert the contrary. We have entirelydivested the monarch of legislative power, and should immediately rebel againsthis or her dictation even in matters of small concern.

Nor has the rejection of primitive political beliefs resulted only intransferring the power of a autocrat to a representative body. The viewsheld respecting governments in general, of whatever form, are now widelydifferent from those once held. Whether popular or despotic, governmentsin ancient times were supposed to have unlimited authority over their subjects.

Individuals existed for the benefit of the State; not the State for the benefitof individuals. In our days, however, not only has the national will beenin many cases substituted for the will of the king, but the exercise of thisnational will has been restricted. In England, for instance, though therehas been established no definite doctrine respecting the bounds to governmentalaction, yet, in practice, sundry bounds to it are tacitly recognized by all.

There is no organic law declaring that a legislature may not freely disposeof citizens' lives, as kings did of old, but were it possible for our legislatureto attempt such a thing, its own destruction would be the consequence, ratherthan the destruction of citizens. How fully we have established the personalliberties of the subject against the invasions of State-power, would be quicklyshown were it proposed by Act of Parliament to take possession of the nation,or of any class, and turn its services to public ends, as the services ofthe people were turned by Egyptian kings. Not only in our day have the claimsof the citizen to life, liberty, and property been thus made good againstthe State, but sundry minor claims likewise. Ages ago laws regulating dressand mode of living fell into disuse, and any attempt to revive them wouldprove that such matters now lie beyond the sphere of legal control. For somecenturies we asserted in practice, and have now established in theory, theright of every man to choose his own religious beliefs, instead of receivingState-authorized beliefs. Within the last few generations complete libertyof speech has been gained, in spite of all legislative attempts to suppressor limit it. And still more recently we have obtained under a few exceptionalrestrictions, freedom to trade with whomsoever we please. Thus our politicalbeliefs are widely different from ancient ones, not only as to the properdepositary of power to be exercised over a nation, but also as to the extentof that power.

Nor even here has the change ended. Besides the average opinions justdescribed as current among ourselves, there exists a less widely-diffusedopinion going still further in the same direction. There are to be foundmen who contend that the sphere of government should be narrowed even morethan it is in England. They hold that the freedom of the individual, limitedonly by the like freedom of other individuals, is sacred. They assert thatthe sole function of the State is the protection of persons against one another,and against a foreign foe; and they believe that the ultimate political conditionmust be one in which personal freedom is the greatest possible and governmentalpower the least possible.

Thus in different times and places we find, conceding the origin, authority,and functions of government, a great variety of opinions. What now must besaid about the truth or falsity of these opinions? Must we say that someone is wholly right and all the rest wholly wrong; or must we say that eachof them contains truth more or less disguised by errors? The latter alternativeis the one which analysis will force upon us. Every one of these doctrineshas for its vital element the recognition of an unquestionable fact. Directlyor by implication, each insists on a certain subordination of individualactions to social dictates. There are differences respecting the power towhich this subordination is due; there are differences respecting the motivefor this subordination; there are differences respecting its extent; butthat there must be some subordination all are agreed. The most submissiveand the most recalcitrant alike hold that there are limits which individualactions may not transgress -- limits which the one regards as originatingin a ruler's will, and which the other regards as deducible from the equalclaims of fellow-citizens.

It may doubtless be said that we here reach a very unimportant conclusion.

The question, however, is not the value or novelty of the particular truthin this case arrived at. My aim has been to exhibit the more general truth,that between the most diverse beliefs there is usually something in common,-- something taken for granted in each; and that this something, if not tobe set down as an unquestionable verity, may yet be considered to have thehighest degree of probability. A postulate which, like the one above instanced,is not consciously asserted but unconsciously involved, and which is unconsciouslyinvolved not by one man or body of men, but by numerous bodies of men whodiverge in countless ways and degrees in the rest of their beliefs, has awarrant far transcending any that can be usually shown.

Do we not thus arrive at a generalization which may habitually guide uswhen seeking for the soul of truth in things erroneous? While the foregoingillustration brings home the fact that in opinions seeming to be absolutelywrong something right is yet to be found, it also indicates a way of findingthe something right. This way is to compare all opinions of the same genus;to set aside as more or less discrediting one another those special and concreteelements in which such opinions disagree; to observe what remains after thesehave been eliminated; and to find for the remaining constituent that expressionwhich holds true throughout its various disguises. §3. A consistent adoption of the method indicated will greatly aidus in dealing with chronic antagonisms of belief. By applying it not onlyto ideas with which we are unconcerned, but also to our own ideas and thoseof our opponents, we shall be enabled to form more correct judgments. Weshall be led to suspect that our convictions are not wholly right, and thatthe adverse convictions are not wholly wrong. On the one hand, we shall not,in common with the great mass of the unthinking, let our creed be determinedby the mere accident of birth in a particular age on a particular part ofthe Earth's surface, while, on the other hand, we shall be saved from thaterror of entire and contemptuous negation, fallen into by most who take upan attitude of independent criticism.

Of all antagonisms of belief the oldest, the widest, the most profound,and the most important, is that between Religion and Science. It commencedwhen recognition of the commonest uniformities in surrounding things, seta limit to all-pervading superstitions. It shows itself everywhere throughoutthe domain of human knowledge; affecting men's interpretations alike of thesimplest mechanical accidents and the most complex events in the historiesof nations. It has its roots deep down in the diverse habits of thought ofdifferent orders of minds. And the conflicting conceptions of Nature andLife which these diverse habits of thought severally generate, influencefor good or ill the tone of feeling and the daily conduct.

A battle of opinion like this which has been carried on for ages underthe banners of Religion and Science, has generated an animosity fatal toa just estimate of either party by the other. Happily the times display anincreasing catholicity of feeling, which we shall do well to carry as faras our natures permit. In proportion as we love truth more and victory less,we shall become anxious to know what it is which leads our opponents to thinkas they do. We shall begin to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibitedby them must result from a perception of something we have not perceived.

And we shall aim to supplement the portion of truth we have found with theportion found by them. Making a rational estimate of human authority, weshall avoid alike the extremes of undue submission and undue rebellion --shall not regard some men's judgments as wholly good and others as whollybad; but shall, contrariwise, lean to the more defensible position that noneare completely right and none are completely wrong. Preserving, as far asmay be, this impartial attitude, let us then contemplate the two sides ofthis great controversy. Keeping guard against the bias of education and shuttingout the whisperings of sectarian feeling, let us consider what are the apriori probabilities in favour of each party. §4. The general principle above illustrated must lead us to anticipatethat the diverse forms of religious belief which have existed and which stillexist, have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy the implicationis, not that any one of them is altogether right, but that in each thereis something right more or less disguised by other things wrong. It may bethat the soul of truth contained in erroneous creeds is extremely unlikemost, if not all, of its several embodiments; and indeed if, as we have goodreason to assume, it is much more abstract than any of them, its unlikenessnecessarily follows. But some essential verity must be looked for. To supposethat these multiform conceptions should be one and all absolutely groundless,discredits too profoundly that average human intelligence from which allour individual intelligences are inherited.

To the presumption that a number of diverse beliefs of the same classhave some common foundation in fact, must in this case be added a furtherpresumption derived from the omnipresence of the beliefs. Religious ideasof one kind or other are almost universal. Grant that among all men who havepassed a certain stage of intellectual development there are found vaguenotions concerning the origin and hidden nature of surrounding things, andthere arises the inference that such notions are necessarily products ofprogressing intelligence. Their endless variety serves but to strengthenthis conclusion: showing as it does a more or less independent genesis --showing how, in different places and times like conditions have led to similartrains of thought, ending in analogous results. A candid examination of theevidence quite negatives the supposition that creeds are priestly inventions.