Thoughts on Religion | Page 9

is most conspicuous[15].
At what date George Romanes' mind began to react from the conclusions of the Candid Examination I cannot say. But after a period of ten years--in his Rede lecture of 1885[16]--we find his frame of mind very much changed. This lecture, on Mind and Motion, consists of a severe criticism of the materialistic account of mind. On the other hand 'spiritualism'--or the theory which would suppose that mind is the cause of motion--is pronounced from the point of view of science not impossible indeed but 'unsatisfactory,' and the more probable conclusion is found in a 'monism' like Bruno's--according to which mind and motion are co-ordinate and probably co-extensive aspects of the same universal fact--a monism which may be called Pantheism, but may also be regarded as an extension of contracted views of Theism[17]. The position represented by this lecture may be seen sufficiently from its conclusion:--
'If the advance of natural science is now steadily leading us to the conclusion that there is no motion without mind, must we not see how the independent conclusion of mental science is thus independently confirmed--the conclusion, I mean, that there is no being without knowing? To me, at least, it does appear that the time has come when we may begin, as it were in a dawning light, to see that the study of Nature and the study of Mind are meeting upon this greatest of possible truths. And if this is the case--if there is no motion without mind, no being without knowing--shall we infer, with Clifford, that universal being is mindless, or answer with a dogmatic negative that most stupendous of questions,--Is there knowledge with the Most High? If there is no motion without mind, no being without knowing, may we not rather infer, with Bruno, that it is in the medium of mind, and in the medium of knowledge, we live, and move, and have our being?
'This, I think, is the direction in which the inference points, if we are careful to set out the logical conditions with complete impartiality. But the ulterior question remains, whether, so far as science is concerned, it is here possible to point any inference at all: the whole orbit of human knowledge may be too narrow to afford a parallax for measurements so vast. Yet even here, if it be true that the voice of science must thus of necessity speak the language of agnosticism, at least let us see to it that the language is pure[18]; let us not tolerate any barbarisms introduced from the side of aggressive dogma. So shall we find that this new grammar of thought does not admit of any constructions radically opposed to more venerable ways of thinking; even if we do not find that the often-quoted words of its earliest formulator apply with special force to its latest dialects--that if a little knowledge of physiology and a little knowledge of psychology dispose men to atheism, a deeper knowledge of both, and, still more, a deeper thought upon their relations to one another, will lead men back to some form of religion, which if it be more vague, may also be more worthy than that of earlier days.'
Some time before 1889 three articles were written for the Nineteenth Century on the Influence of Science upon Religion. They were never published, for what reason I am not able to ascertain. But I have thought it worth while to print the first two of them as a 'first part' of this volume, both because they contain--written in George Romanes' own name--an important criticism upon the Candid Examination which he had published anonymously, and also because, with their entirely sceptical result, they exhibit very clearly a stage in the mental history of their author. The antecedents of these papers those who have read this Introduction will now be in a position to understand. What remains to be said by way of further introduction to the Notes had better be reserved till later.
C.G.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] p. 7.
[2] p. 173.
[3] See p. 110.
[4] But see an interesting note in Romanes' Mind and Motion and Monism (Longmans, 1895) p. 111.
[5] Published in Trübner's English and Foreign Philosophical Library in 1878, but written 'several years ago' (preface). 'I have refrained from publishing it,' the author explains, 'lest, after having done so, I should find that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the author sets forth.'
[6] At times I have sought to make the argument of the chapter more intelligible by introducing references to earlier parts of the book or explanations in my own words. These latter I have inserted in square brackets.
[7] p. 24.
[8] p. 28.
[9] p. 28.
[10] p. 45.
[11] p. 47.
[12] p. 50.
[13] p. 63.
[14] pp. 58 ff.
[15] With reference to the views and arguments of the Candid Examination, it may be interesting