HUMAN AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTAT013."1
Sin,—I gladly acknowledge the conspicuous fairness of the Spectator in opening its columns to replies from those whom it has criticised. And, on my part, I regret that, owing to an accident of the post, some phrases which I at once struck out from the proof, happened to be printed in my letter to the Pall Mall Gazette. Let others judge if I betray susceptibility to criticism, of which I receive a fair measure. But when a journal such as the Spectator publishes to the world the reverse of what I have said, it seems to me not unreasonable to deny it. I freely acknowledge that the Spectator is written from religious convictions very definite and very sincere, in a degree most unusual in journalism. And if I find myself and my friends so frequently the object of its unqualified censures, I am willing to assume that the cause is simply that when two schemes of religious conviction, very different and both very firmly held, find themselves in direct antagonism, hard things will be said.
For this reason I will ask your indulgence to make a few explanations as to mine. I fail to see how a belief in a Human, rather than a Divine Providence, can so greatly affect the manner in which we estimate current events. In both cases it disposes us to see some soul of goodness in things evil, and inspires a faith that in the long-run the better and higher issues will prevail. The sincere believer in Divine Providence is supremely certain that all things are arranged by an All. wiseand All-mighty Disposer of men and things throughout the universe. The believer in a Human Providence ventures to hope that the course of civilisation on this earth. will gradually improve for an indefinite time yet. I should have supposed that the latter very limited, tentative, and practical opinion tended to humbleness of mind rather than the former. By Human Providence he simply means that the moral, intellectual, and practical forces of the Social Organism do steadily converge to improve its condition on earth. No rational Positivist supposes that there are any means of ascertaining this convergence except by the light of history, social philosophy, political and economic science. Nor does he suppose that anything more than general tendencies can be observed.
How does this differ in kind from the belief in a Divine Providence No rational Christian now believes that he can interpret the purposes of God. in all special cases. But he trusts that all is arranged to bring those purposes to effect. Both Christian and Positivist consider it their duty so to act that, so far as in them lies, they may conform to the general Providence, which both believe shapes issues far wider than the sphere of any individual. I entirely fail to see how the Positivist belief can incline to arrogance from which the Christian belief is free. Each belief teaches a man to do his best, knowing that a Power vastly superior to himself is working out issues to which a good life will conform and with which a bad life will conflict.
You may say : Why talk about a Haman Providence at all?' I reply that the general consensus of a progressive civilisation amounts to a Providence for any one who believes this to be the result of history and philosophy. If it be a true belief, it is an eminently useful and wholesome belief, as it inspires hope in a better future whilst repressing individual self-confidence. Many people, having lost faith in revelation, have become puzzled about a Divine Providence, and think the moral control of the universe a subject too vast for man's understanding to dogmatise on. That is exactly our position. You do us a great injustice when you speak of our exulting in having superseded God. I have myself often quoted Comte's profound epigram : "The atheist is the most irrational of all theologians." In my New Year's address in 1889, I said : "We are neither atheist nor anti-Christian. The Bible is the earliest of our sacred books, and Christianity is necessarily to every reasonable mind, and assuredly to every historical mind, a large part, an in- destructible part, of all religion, of any possible religion." You and others wrong Positivism in representing it as in any sense anti-Christian.
You are good enough to repeat your deliberate opinion that my chief " note " is sublime conceit hardly ever equalled, &c. When language of this kind is applied to a man, I do not know what he can do but smile. It would be comical to argue the point. My doings and sayings are sufficiently before the public, and it can judge. I notice that you pat this, not as shown by anything actually said or done by me, but a priori, as the state of mind which a sincere Christian must necessarily find in a sincere Positivist. It so happens that in the last ten years I have published at Newton Hall scores of addresses and reports. I am inclined to doubt if your amiable critic has seen any of them. If he has, I should be glad to know where in particular he finds this "note," which a priori he knows to be there. In the address of January 1st which you criticise, I spoke of four public questions only, —all of them having been fully and often discussed by the society at previous meetings. On all four questions I spoke in most general terms, with no single confident assertion, and without any attempt to judge particular details. An ordinary number of the Spectator contains fifty assertions for my one, each, I venture to think, in a tone quite as confident as anything of mine. Any editor who respects himself reviews the Session or the year with ten times the detail and confidence in his own judgment. When my friends ask me to get up in our own hall and do something of the same kind for them, the Spectator is amazed at my presumption in this attempt to supersede God Almighty, and to explain or control the ways of Providence. And if I correct a report where I am made to talk nonsense, it is "susceptibility." No, Sir ; those who venture to leave the current doctrines of the world, and try to go their own way quietly, usually meet with language of the sort from the official teachers of the majority.—I am, Sir, &c., FREDERIC HARRISON. [The phrase " susceptibility " was not applied to Mr. Harrison because he corrected our misapprehensions, but because in doing so he showed his excessive soreness by speaking of us as, with one exception, the most untruthful of journals,—a very remarkable display of susceptibility, which we rejoice to find that he himself regretted almost as soon as he had written it.—En. Spectator.]
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