THE BASIS OF FAITH.* THE subject of this volume is
one of unflagging interest. Writers without end have dealt with it, and we quite expect in future years to see the number of such volumes as the one before us increase rather than diminish. The truth is it is a subject which we, at least, take leave to think can never be exhausted. Some new aspect of it will be sure to present itself, as men's thoughts are widened and come under fresh influences. Whether the faith which in one shape or other has been so universally diffused, and has played such a prominent part in the history of mankind, has a solid ground and basis, or whether it is simply - an airy speculation, destined sooner or later to dissolve away into mist, is obviously a question of supreme importance, as it is also one which is so many-sided and complex, that no single mind can adequately discuss it, or even discuss more than certain phases of it.
Of late the attitude of physical science has been somewhat menacing to theology and morality. It is certain that there is a wide-spread unsettlement of belief, and that numbers of per- sons are very uneasy as to what the future may bring forth. It may be understood that such theories as Darwinism, for instance, are as yet by no means established ; but there is a very common impression that those who know best" regard them as on a sure, if not a very rapid, way to ultimate demonstration, and are persuaded in their hearts that the collapse of theology and faith is only a question of time. The result is that there is a good deal of scepticism, and we think we might add, of atheism, or something very nearly approaching it, in the air. Not per- haps that many persons, even among the educated class, are downright atheists or dogmatic unbelievers ; but a good many, it is quite certain, fancy that, on the whole, modern thought is pointing in that direction. Most people have now some smatter- ing at least of science, and all are, to a certain point, familiar with the Evolution theory. Now the impression which that theory is calculated to produce is certainly not one favourable either to theology or morality. It seems to dispense with God, to begin with, and it seems to cut away the grounds for belief in human responsibility. We are not saying, or even wishing to imply, that these are at all legitimate deductions from it, but we can hardly be far wrong in hinting that in many minds it is closely associated with such negations. Hence, what in certain quarters people are noting with alarm, a certain relaxation in the old-fashioned obligations of morality, and a way of talking which, if it means anything, means that the faith of the past, on which morality was largely built, is now crumbling away. It is accounted rather a sign of enlightenment to talk in this fashion. We have heard both "young men and maidens," on the strength of some acquaintance with the newest scientific theories, broach with an evident sense of self-satisfaction notions which, in the days of their parents, it would have been considered positively impious to suggest, The thing, of course, • The Baste of Faith. The Congregational Union Lecture for 1877. By Hustaee Condor, M.A. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
is inseparable from an age of such great mental activity as ours, and perhaps no serious harm in the end may come of it. But meanwhile, we cannot help thinking that there is much folly and much foolish talk, which are temporarily mischievous, and that for this the dogmatism with which new and unproved theories, so-called scientific, are now and then advanced, is really responsible.
We recommend this book of Mr. Couder's very decidedly to the people who are apt to mistake the holding of what are called "advanced opinions" for cleverness. Not indeed to them only ; we recommend it to all readers. It is a thoroughly able book. Mr. Couder hints in his preface that here and there he may be thought "to have substituted rhetoric for logic." He is not, in our opinion, at all open to the charge. He certainly writes eloquently, but he can reason closely and skilfully. We know that there is a class of minds which persistently refuse even to consider certain kinds of evidence, but then such minds ignore considerations and modes of reasoning which in every-day life they cannot put aside. These same persons speak confidently of our knowing this and knowing that, when as a matter of fact,. all we know is that some ingenious writers have framed hypotheses on very uncertain and precarious evidence, and that, as the author says, these hypotheses have contrived to enlist fashion on their side. But as there is "nothing new under the sun," we often find that these theories, which we are told we- must accept, on pain of being looked on by all enlightened people as fools and idiots, bring us back to Lucretius and to the old philosophy. They may be none the worse for that, only they are apt to be too pompously announced. Some of them may be ultimately verified, and it may then be necessary for theology and morality too, perhaps, to take up a somewhat different position, and to intreuch themselves within new lines. But of all of them, it may yet, we believe, be maintained that they fail to touch the grounds on which the common-sense of mankind—the Comnutnis senws, to use the more comprehensive Latin phrase—has believed in the existence of a supreme original Mind, to which we men stand in a more or less close relation.
It is now the fashion to identify theology with metaphysics, and to assume that the latter is, at any rate, dead and buried. This is one of the weapons wielded by physical science, or by some who claim to represent it. It is unmeaning nonsense, say some, to talk about a first cause, or about cause at all. But in saying this we lay a trap for ourselves. We should have to con- stitute our minds afresh, in order to emancipate ourselves from the idea of cause, and from the words and phrases which it has begotten in every language of mankind. "Naturals, expellas furcci : tauten usque recurret." We may drive away metaphysics with the most furious abuse, but she will come back, and laugh in our faces. The old " design-argument " even is not ashamed to show itself once more, though we have been assured on very high authority that we are transcending the limits prescribed to us, and are, in fact, as bad as trespassers in pursuit of game, when we infer, as mankind has hitherto done, in one way or other, the existence of a supreme mind and intelligence from the phenomena of the universe. But who prescribed these limits, who says we are trespassers ? Why, of course, the philosophers, the men who have sounded the depths of physical science, and who really "know about things." But these very men, or some of them, it begins to be whispered, have a metaphysics of their own, and talk of the "knowable and unknowable." They provoke us as much with their abstractions as Plato and the Schoolmen. Science deals, they say, exclusively with the "knowable," and has no room for miracle or for mystery, under which category, so they imply, falls the idea of a supreme mind. As Mr. Conder says, this is the language of a modern Canute. We cannot draw these hard-and-fast lines, or if we do, we entangle ourselves in unforeseen difficulties. If, as he argues, we are to give its full meaning to the word " experience," we may fairly and reasonably say that the knowledge of a supreme mind comes within its range. We need not quarrel with the saying of Anaxa,goras, that "mind (yoDg) arranged all things,' or even with the opening sentence of a very old and well-known book.
On the evolution theory, Mr. Conder has much to say which may well be pondered. That theory is, of course, very power- fully influencing our thought in a number of directions, in many, perhaps, of which we are hardly distinctly conscious. Its tendency is supposed to be towards a disintegration of our old beliefs. This, Mr. Conder endeavours to show, is not exactly its logical result, though at first !sight it appears to conflict very decidedly with the design-argument. That argument, if full justice is to be done to it, ought, in Mr. Conder's view, to appeal not merely to our intellect, but also to that "larger and 'fuller portion of our nature in which faith has its root." Anom- alies in the universe may indeed be inexplicable on the Christian hypothesis, but the question is whether they outweigh the posi- tive evidence for our belief in a supreme mind and benevolent purpose. On this point there is, it must be allowed, room for difference of opinion. Some sensitive minds—that, for instance, of the late Mr. Mill—will always be staggered by the anomalies, and though anxious to believe the best, will be sorely perplexed. Perhaps for such minds Mr. Conder has not quite enough sym- pathy, though as a disputant he strikes us as thoroughly desirous to be fair. He has put the argument for design to a great extent into a new dress, in which we certainly think it makes a good figure. It may be a question whether he is equally suc- cessful in his attempt to make the importance now attached to the theory of "natural selection" ridiculous. But, as he puts it, there certainly is "an incongruity," he adds, hardly short of ludicrous, "between the suggested cause and the actual results." Only, while we smile, we must remember that this view finds favour with many eminent men of science, who are perfectly well able to take care of it and of themselves. What can we say, asks our author, about metals and gases ; there is no -4` struggle of life" among them, no "survival of the fittest" among molecules ? The theory, in fact, simply traces a process within certain limits, and leaves a large field in which the old design-argument must still find place. If we have any proofs or indications of the control of a supreme- intelligence in any quarter, these cannot be pushed aside by any theory as to the process by which things came to be as they are. Evolutionists are apt to suggest the idea that their new discovery has quite exploded theology. They seem to want to substitute the idea of process for that of cause, and to forbid us to ask questions about this last, because it belongs to their realm of the "unknowable." Thus it is that some of them will lug in metaphysics again, which in theologians is such a deadly sin. The truth would seem to be that their theory leaves the evidence of the existence of a supreme mind very much where it was. If we deny such a mind, we have to fall back on words and expressions which, when analysed, seem to be equivalents for it, or else hopelessly unmeaning.
The portion of the volume devoted to what the author calls " the voice from heaven" and to Jesus will, perhaps, as the least abstruse, be found the most interesting. It is ground which has often been traversed before, but none the less has Mr. Conder an evident right to carry us over it again ; and he is, indeed, an ex- cellent companion. Judaism, he argues, in its highest aspects could hardly have been evolved out of the unaided genius of the Hebrew people, which had a strong tendency towards a much more sensual and a much coarser idolatry than that of the Greeks and Romans. Here the results attained seem to demand the presence and control of a higher and diviner mind. The history of the Jews proves how little capacity they had for refined spiritual ideas, How, then, are we to explain that vital unity of those books of the Old Testament, which has always been felt and confessed ? How, indeed, asks Mr. Conder, without resorting to the idea of revelation, which seems to force itself on us in this connection, just as the idea of a supreme mind does in connection with the universe ? If this can be said with any truth of Judaism, can it be maintained that the ideas which form the " backbone " of Christianity could have been evolved spontaneously from the unaided human mind ? Can they be explained without the presence of a new element ? This is the question Mr. Condor discusses in his chapter on Jesus, for whose appearance, he argues, "there is nothing to account, in his own or in the preceding ages." Here, again, the evolution theory, as applied to history, has tried to furnish an explanation, with which, by this time, many of us are tolerably familiar. There is a wide-spread and perhaps a growing notion that Jesus and his teaching were the natural outcome of a certain crisis in the world's history, and that we can dispense with any belief in the presence of some special supernatural power exerting itself at the time. The question is one of extreme complexity, and more, probably, remains to be said aboutrit. But meanwhile we recognise in Christianity a unique phenomenon, which implies a serious gap and deficiency in the theory we have referred to. The phrase "morality touched by emotion" is an admirable one, but it cannot in the least explain the leading Christian ideas and the progress they made. We must beware of "intellectual formulas." Out of decay—" national, social, and moral decay "—came forth, says Mr. Condor, "three imperishable ideas,—universal brotherhood, liberty of conscience, an unalterable morality based on love to God." These, he adds, are the "most animating ideas of the present." What is the conclusion to be drawn ? This is the question many are anxiously asking. Mr. Conder's answer, if not a complete one—that, we must not expect—is well worth considering.
We think Dissenters ought to be proud of Mr. Conder. His book will, we doubt not, be read in many circles. It is an eloquent and well-reasoned defence of Christian Theism.
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