SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 4442, 10 May 1875, Page 3

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE LYTTELTON TIMES. Sib,— A newspaper, much less a letter to a .newspaper, cannot pretend to review this work exhaustively. But when the author professes to have demonstrated a plain conclusion by one short chain of reasoning, the strength of that chain may be tested and perhaps a flaw found. The single square of infantry, on whose stability a commanding position has been staked, may be assailed, and pierced, and broken. Within the limits which you can allow me,l will venture on the assault with hope not quite forlorn. In “Supernatural Religion ” authorised Australian edition, Collins, Melbourne, ’74, will be found, at page 32, a note extracted from Herbert Spencer, and apparently adopted as amounting to demonstration. With due flourish of trumpets a challenge is thrown down. “If any one demurs to this, let him point out the error.” Here are the several steps of the argument, A. All imperfection is unfitness to the conditions of existence. B. This unfitness must consist either in having a faculty or faculties in excess, or in having a faculty or faculties deficient, or in both. Definition.—A faculty in excess is one which the conditions of existence do not afford full exercise to, and a faculty that is deficient is one from which the conditions of existence demand more than it can perform. 0. But it is an essential principle of life that a faculty to which circumstances do not allow full exercise diminishes, and that a faculty on which circumstances make excessive demands increases. D. And so long as this excess and deficiency continue there must continue decrease on the one hand and growth on the other. Conclusion. —“ Finally all excess and deficiency must disappear; or all imperfection must disappear.” The argument in technical language is a sorites. 1 dispute the first proposition marked A. It is implied in this that perfection is fitness to the actual conditions of existence. It may, on the other side, be held that perfection by no means consists in fitness to actual or existing conditions, but in fitness to the highest conditions for which the thing perfected has harmony of faculties. Socrates drinking hemlock was more perfect than any man of his time in Athens, but he was the least fitted for the conditions of existence.

B if it stood alone would be ambiguous. “ la excess pr in deficiency ” might mean superfluous or altogether wanting. It must be read in the author’s sense by the definition. The other, a possible and easily imagined case, is absent, except by uncertain and distant implication from the argument. 0 is by no means sweepingly and universally 'true. Moderate without full exercise,' i.e., 'exercise to the full extent of power, will retain the complete vigour of a faculty. Excessive exercise, that which meets excessive demands, will weaken or destroy it. There seems to be a definite limit to the strengthening of _ any faculty either in one or successive generations* Oarsmen who strain too far get dilation of the heart. Persons who have walked much or stood much, as Marins, Cicero, and washerwomen, varix; If the muscular development is hereditary, so is the disturbed organisation, and this precludes the indefinite increase of strength. In Teneriffe, heart disease is known as well as good legs. The bee stings once and dies. The bramble of New Zealand {Ruhus •Australis i vulyoMwyet), where have been no quadrupeds to browse and trample, has yet retained its thorn ; the vine (vitis vinifera), in. its many varieties, countless as waves that that lash some storm-swept shore, is _ still without it. The dolphin (I use a sailor’s term), salmon-like, can spring, but in him no wings have sprouted to follow through the air his flying prey. D is true only within limits approximately known and to all appearance fixed. The woolly elephant, elephas primigenus a splendid beast to shear, instead of getting more woolly, has perished from the North where its meat preserved by an ancient freezing process, is still on rare occasions, eaten. The athlete of to-day is not stronger than Milo or Maximin; he tries in vain to leap beyond tho measure of the old Olympian games. The grasp of mind and intellect, I speak with modest deference and from an incomplete acquaintance with their writings, of Mr Herbert Spencer is not superior to that of Aristotle. ! If all, or any, or one of these oounterpositions is true or not proved false; if any of the instances mentioned in support of them, or of the crowd of similar instance* that might be adduced holds good; the conclusion “ finally all excess and deficiency roust disappear, *. e. all imperfection must disappear’ is not Established. But content with his pretended

demonstration, perhaps ill-satisfied with it, the writer adds to his note, “Progress therefore is not accident but a necessity . . As surely as the tree becomes bulky when it stands alone, and slender if one of a, group, os surely as the same creature assume* the different forpis of cart-horse and rape,-hone, according ae its habits demand strength or speed; as surely as a blacksmith’s arm-grows large and the skin of a labourer’s handthick . ! . . as surely as a passipn grows by indulgence' and diminishes when restrained ; as surely As a disregarded conscience becomes inert and one that is obeyed active ; as surely as there is any efficacy in educational culture or any meaning in such terms as habit, custom, practice, so surely must the human faculties be moulded to complete fitness for the social state ; _so surely must the things we call vice and immorality disappear ; so surely must man become perfect. The sum and substance of this conclusion has a faint likeness to the hope of Christianity. It predicts the perfection in a far distant future, net of you, Mr Editor, or me, individuals in whom, with the most liberal allowance of for others, we feel, or ought to feel, a moat lively interest, but of a remote descendant, allied to ns in some such proximity as we are to the abnormal and improper crystal which, in the buried ages of the past, originated, like Duke Robert, a royal and superior race, in this instance, not of Norman kings, but of Asoidians or of Protoplasm, Suoh as this conclusion is, the hope of it—if hope it can be called—depends oh processes that have no certainty or warrant of completion. A fallacy, as has already been noted, larks in the assumption that the increase and improvement of faculties will continue without limit. It is the same error as supposing that, because the recurring decimal 'llll is larger- with the addition of every' figure, therefore it can exceed (see note)* one ninth; because a body falling under the action of gravity through a resisting medium, increases its velocity ; therefore it can attain to any assignable speed. Take a few trial oases from man or from elsewhere; they are ready to hand.", As surely as the tree becomes bulky when it stand* alone, and slender, &o." Up to a certain point of exposure, a tree becomes sturdy; beyond that point, it no longer strengthens, most probably it dies. Where is the tree of solid trunk and spreading arms that corresponds to the extent of the Canterbury plains ? The forests of Brazil and of Pegu are dense with the mightiest growths. Is the green-heart or the teak a slender tree P The cart-horse and the race-horse differ, bat the race-horse of to-day does not outstrip Eclipse; the cart-horse, if it has not attained, is not far from the maximum beyond which breeders have no hope to go. The blacksmith’s arm is large; but in countries. of hereditary trades and caste we see no change in the human figure so. far as monuments go back. The sailor may be longsighted, but he still requires a glass to scan the horizon. “ Passion grows by indulgence,” true, within limits, bat indulged too far, it clogs, ennuies, and ends in impotence, wanting even energy for will to sin. Neither does it necessarily and invariably diminish from being restrained. The dog that is always chained grows fiercer; the bull that has been ousted from the herd is dangerous; the youth kept in too tight will often trespass farthest. “There is efficacy in educational culture; there is meaning in suoh terms as habit, custom, practice;” but there is meaning because the terms are not absolute. They imply uncertainty, want of familiarity with good, inexperience, ignorance, which still require, and will require to be corrected, amended, and removed in each successive generation. lam no croaker, no desponding looker for the progeny more wicked than their parents, but there must be shewn better grounds than these of “ Supernatural Religion ” and Mr Spencer, before I can share in the illusion that with the world as it is “ the things we call evil and immorality must disappear, and man become perfect.” Once more, an appeal is made to the experiences of people in all times, experiences that are embodied in maxims, proverbs, and moral precepts. There are maxims, proverbs, and moral precepts in plenty from which to draw an inference. A single word will serve my purpose. “ Conscience which disregarded becomes inert, obeyed active.” What is this conscience ? Is it matter ? .Is it a vibration of some subtle aggregation of supposed particles assumed to formulate our all imperfect knowledge lost in mystery when traced back, in physics as in religion P Is it not something essentially different in kind from the objects of material science. Something therefore to be judged and weighed and measured by different processes from those of the chemist and the engineer. All knowledge must have some -first foundation, must commence somewhere with some apprehension, instinct, intuition, common sense, call it what you will, whose witness by the nature of our being we are compelled to accept concerning ourselves, i.e,, our minds, as much or more than concerning anything external to ourselves. “ Corpus enim per se communis dedicat esse Tensas cai nisi prima fides fnndata valebit Haud erit occultis de rebas qua referentes Gonfirmare animos quidquam ratione vale-

mus.” So writes old Lucretius who was not a Bampton lecturer. The general feeling ef mankind bears witness to the existence for the most part of conscience, in all cases to that of some free will, without which conscience must for ever be inert. If this general feeling, sense, instinct, or intuition represent a fact, then the argument of Dean Mansel and Dr Moseley, assailed in tlft first part of “ Supernatural Religion,” that “ we have in man’s free will an efficient cause possessed of the power' of initiatory impulse, and that suoh a power presumed and declared in revelation is not without parallel,” remains unshaken. If this common sense' of some free will does not represent a fact, then neither could the author of “ Supernatural Religion ” help writing what he has written, nor I do otherwise than hold him mistaken. His thoughts are as much the creatures of necessity, as their painted expression, is an image of tiro type; my demur to his premises it. but the inevitable reaction of a hardened and elastic surface when struck and harshly jarred. - Your obedisnt servant, J. 0. ANDREW.

*ln revising for publication the Censor struck out the following passage as involving too playful an assumption of the truth underlying the old saw, that “nine tailors make a man.” The rejected passage was—A curious result can be obtained by combining the theory of perpetual improvement with mathematics, after the manner Of the late Professor De Morgan, of paradoxical memory. Let the perfect man be taken for unity, the condition of the man of to-day at one tenth, a flattering assumption.. Suppose that future time is extended by equal periods. The length of these is unimportant ; they may be a generation, one hundred, a milliard of years, a geological period of the first power, or raised to the nth. There is a grand facility in drawing upon time. Unlimited credit is given, no interest charged, and the Bank cannot be broken. Rothschild’s advancing four millions at five per bent, is to it.' We commend the consideration of its principles to Mr Vogel. Their successful application to monetary affairs would eclipse bis former fame, and make him indeed the Jupiter Preserver of New Zealand. I suppose that in each of these period* the improvement of the human face is one-tenth of that in the preceding. These premises being granted, and it is difficult to show that they are false, it follows that the sum of human improvement continued for endless ages will approximate to one-ninth, possibly a tailor. We insert this as a logical exercise. The argument granted, the premises appear as sound as the one criticised in the text and we believe the conclusion in foot about as probable as that “ the constitution of things remaining the same, the things we call evil and immorality will disappear.”