Thoughts on Religion | Page 9

a God, the question as to his
existence is both more morally and more reverently contemplated if we
regard it purely as a problem for methodical analysis to solve, than if
we regard it in any other light.'
It is in respect both of (1) and (2) that the change in Romanes' thought
as exhibited in his later Notes 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