To Mr. Abbot.

Cambridge, Aug. 13, 1867.

Thank you for “the Radical’s Theology,” which I have read with great interest. I think it all excellent in style; and the first part (up to the “Grand Postulate”) admirable, compared with most that is written on the theme of religious freedom. On the “Grand Postulate” I am aground, and cannot go on with you.

Geometry is, I suppose, responsible for the idea that science in general must have some postulate to start with; since from the earliest times geometry has presented a misleading type to philosophy. A completed science, thrown into a synthetic form, has of course its postulates, taking for granted that certain things can be done, the demonstration of which would lie outside of the synthesis, or form no part of its organic structure. A postulate proper is a practical axiom determined by the end in view; and so far as science in general has any other end in view than simply to know every thing it can learn, it may have postulates, which are not, however, undemonstrable truths, though they are in general undemonstrable deductively. The law of causation may be looked upon as a postulate in science generally, since our search, as soon as it becomes systematic, implies the general fact that the explanations we seek are possible, — that some law or laws; after the general type we have ascertained already, exist among the unexplained phenomena, and give a unity to the universe of knowable things corresponding to the unity of knowledge sought in science. And so of the postulate or canon of induction, that a generalization is good and is to be accepted as a universal truth, provided there are no contrary instances, and that no other generalization can limit, condition, or qualify the first or show how it may not be universal.

But by what right are such postulates used in scientific reasoning?

Is it by their own a priori validity? They certainly cannot be proved deductively, since they are the broadest of generalizations, — but why not proved inductively? Are they not, in fact, simple statements of the summary results of all our experiences in the past, and the practical axioms of our expectations in the future? Are they other than truths coextensive with our universe at least, and with our conceptions and anticipations. The answer to this is, of course, that a limited experience cannot prove an unlimited proposition. But there are two issues to this objection, and the one commonly overlooked is, that propositions which, in form, are unconditioned and universal, still ought not in fact to be believed beyond their application to the known universe; nor yet to be disbelieved or doubted; because about what we really know nothing we ought not to affirm or deny any thing.

The position that an axiom cannot be proved, which the a priori school maintains, seems to me preposterous, — or else a mere quibble; for, to be sure, it might be said in defence of the doctrine, that an axiom, being avowedly a starting-point in deductive science, has implied in its very name that it cannot be proved. But all that is really implied in the name is that truths when called axioms are used for the deductive proof of other truths, and that their own proof is not involved in the process. This does not deny, however, that they may be, as truths, the conclusions of other processes; to wit, the inductions of experience. If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths already reached give direction to further research.

But, waiving the “postulate,” you say that the principal question of Theology is this, “Is the mysterious Power which fills the universe a conscious spirit or an unconscious force? Is it Love or Fate that holds the throne of Being?”

And, again, “The question is simply between consciousness and unconsciousness, — which is the higher mode of being?” To my mind these questions are analyzable into still more fundamental ones. What is meant by “higher mode of being”? Higher relatively to what? If it means “best calculated to move and interest conscious beings,” then the conscious mode of being is undoubtedly the highest, but not necessarily the first in time. That conscious modes of being are at least a part, and the most interesting, morally and religiously, of the manifestations of “the mysterious Power which fills the universe,” there can be no doubt. Mind is at least manifested in man, the animals, and perhaps in some degree in all organic beings, and these belong to the universe. But when you ask whether this “mysterious Power” be itself a conscious spirit or an unconscious force, the alternative you present, if insisted on, would resolve the mystery, whichever branch you might take. Or perhaps you call this Power mysterious simply because we do not know which alternative to take? Is it resolvable into either the mystery of consciousness or the mystery of force?

But there is no such opposition between consciousness and force, between Love and Hate, as you appear — in common with nearly the whole religious world — to assert. This phraseology is probably descended from the barbarous doctrines of the earlier Christian centuries, the old dualism of the Manicheists. The supposed opposition is involved in the doctrine of free will, which finds, of course, a fundamental contrariety between the freedom of consciousness and the necessity of force, but the free-will doctrine is in fact a pure assumption, which ignores all just scientific method, and even contradicts some of the results of science. This “mysterious Power” manifests force, law, fate, if you will, — everywhere, in mental and spiritual, as well as in the merely physical phenomena of nature; and it manifests consciousness, in

varying degrees, throughout the whole organic world, reaching its highest manifestations in man. But man, however conscious, is none the less a part of fate, — though not compelled by an external fate to act by laws which are not his, or by determinations which are not in himself. No real fate or necessity is indeed manifested anywhere in the universe, — only a phenomenal regularity.

Such, it seems to me, is the scientific answer to so much of your question as submits itself to scientific comprehension. In another form, the question of the hidden nature of “the Power of the universe” may be more fairly brought before the tribunal of science. Does the production in nature of the phenomena of consciousness, and the various instrumentalities by which consciousness is developed, — such as organs of sense, the human eye, for example, — does this imply the existence of an independent and superior consciousness, which, being able to see without eyes, could provide vision for his creatures? That “the mysterious Power of the universe” actually manifests vision in the eyes of men and animals, there can be no doubt; but the question is whether, prior to the existence of living creatures and the laws of their growth, some other form of consciousness was not required for the “contrivance” of the organs and vital conditions of consciousness?

Not from any truths of creation which science has yet reached can she answer this question. What, indeed, do we know about the creation of organic beings, except perhaps that they began to exist on the earth within a limited time, and that various races have succeeded one another? So long as men compared, after a childish imagination, creation to the making of any thing in the operation of various human handicrafts, so long there could be no doubt or mystery about this question. The Maker of the eye must, of course, be able to see. So long as vision, so important to man, was regarded as

a divine power, and so long as he allowed his reason to be governed by such empty maxims as “that the greater cannot be produced by the less” (whatever this may mean), so long the problem admitted of an easy solution. “The Creator must have powers equal at least to those he creates.” Yes, certainly; but what is here meant by “equal,” “less,” or “greater”? A man with sight has a supreme advantage over the blind man, from a human point of view, and with reference to various human needs and enjoyments; but is God superior to a man in this merely, — that he has superior powers to compass his various ends? To ascribe to creation the possession of various powers as means to ends is to put an anthropological interpretation upon it, — is to describe creation as a manufacture. To escape such a crude imagination, the consciousness that is ascribed to “the mysterious Power of the universe,” by those who really recognize it as mysterious, is supposed to be only the essence of consciousness, an “abstract entity,” the metaphysical consciousness ; not the powers of the five senses, with memory, imagination, reasoning, which are only powers relative to weakness and limitation, but something common to them all, and transcending them all, which in fact gives being to mental powers in men and animals.

That “the mysterious Power of the universe” really does manifest mental and spiritual powers at least in men and animals, is a fact which science fully recognizes; and that these powers are by far the most interesting, to the moral and religious nature of man, of all the phenomena of nature, is the fact with which religion is chiefly concerned.

I have tried in the above to sketch briefly the method in which true science should approach these questions, avoiding as far as possible the terms which have attached to them good and bad meanings, in place of scientific distinctness, — terms which have a moral connotation as well as a scientific one.

Such terms and arguments are constantly employed in questions like these, — “which is the worthier, which the ‘higher’ of two conceptions,” or “which is the more elevating, the less degrading belief?” This is really to argue as much on “the principle of authority,” as the Romanist, the Protestant, or the Unitarian; for the Church, the Bible, and the Christ have fashioned human language, — have tied meanings and feelings together in words, which science has the right to separate. All older authorities are represented in the authority still exerted over human reverence through the moral associations of words. You say that science has rejected the “principle of Authority.” In fact, true science never knew it, — wholly ignores, instead of rejecting this principle.

Those thinkers whose beliefs are mainly determined by the moral tone of their times and by as much of pure science as they can attain to, — still adhering in their questions and definitions to the use of good and bad words,—reject the older authorities, indeed, in the concrete, but do not reject the principle of authority absolutely. They substitute for the dogmas of the Church, and the sacred Scriptures, and the teachings of Christ, the teachings of good and bad words, which retain the unction of all effective past authority. Words have “reputations” as well as other authorities, and there is a tyranny in their reputations even more fatal to freedom of thought. True science deals with nothing but questions of facts, — and in terms, if possible, which shall not determine beforehand how we ought to feel about the facts; for this is one of the most certain and fatal means of corrupting evidence. If the facts are determined, and, as far as may be, free from moral biases, then practical science comes in to determine what, in view of the facts, our feelings and rules of conduct ought to be; but practical science has no inherent postulates any more than speculative science. Its ultimate grounds are the particular goods or ends of human life.