Classics in the History of Psychology
An internet resource developed by
Christopher D. Green
ISSN 1492-3713
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By John Fiske
(1902)
First published in Essays Historical and Literary,
Reprinted in G. Daniels (Ed.) (1968). Darwinism comes to
Posted
May 2004
All religions agree in
the two following assertions, one of which is of speculative and one of which
is of ethical importance. One of them serves to sustain and harmonize our thoughts
about the world we live in, and our place in that world; the other serves to
uphold us in our efforts to do each what we can to make human life more sweet, more full of goodness and beauty, than we find
it. The first of these assertions is the proposition that the things and events
of the world do not exist or occur blindly or irrelevantly, but that all, from the
beginning to the end of time, and throughout the furthest sweep of illimitable
space, are connected together as the orderly manifestations of a divine Power,
and that this divine Power is something outside of ourselves, and upon it our
own existence from moment to moment depends. The second of these assertions is
the proposition that men ought to do certain things, and ought to refrain from
doing certain other things; and that the reason why some things are wrong to do
and other things are right to do is in some mysterious, but very real, way
connected with the existence and nature of this divine Power, which reveals
itself in every great and every tiny thing, without which not a star courses in
its mighty orbit, and not a sparrow falls to the ground. Matthew Arnold once
summed up these two propositions very well when he defined God as "an
eternal Power, not ourselves, that makes for
righteousness." This twofold assertion, that there is an eternal Power
that is not ourselves, and that this Power makes for
righteousness, is to be found, either in a rudimentary or in a highly developed
state, in all known religions.... I said, a moment ago, that modern civilized
men will all acknowledge that this two-sided assertion, in which all religions
agree, is of far greater importance than any of the superficial points in which
religions differ. It is really of much more concern to us that there is an
eternal Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness, than that such a
Power is onefold or threefold in its metaphysical
nature, or that we ought not to play cards on Sunday, or to eat meat on Friday.
No one, I believe, will deny so simple and clear a statement as this. But it is
not only we modern men, who call ourselves enlightened, that
will agree to this. I doubt not even the narrow-minded bigots of days now
happily gone by would have been made to agree to it if they could have had some
doggedly persistent Socrates to cross-question them.... What men in past times
have really valued in their religion has been the universal twofold assertion
that there is a God, who is pleased with the sight of the just man and is angry
with the wicked every day, and when men have fought with one another,
and murdered or calumniated one another for
heresy about the Trinity or about eating
meat on Friday, it has been because
they have supposed belief in the non-essential
doctrines to be inseparably connected with belief
in the essential doctrine. In spite of
all this, however, it is true that
in the mind of the uncivilized man, the
great central truths of religion are so
densely overlaid with hundreds of trivial
notions respecting dogma and ritual, that his
perception of the great central truths
is obscure. These great central truths, indeed,
need to be clothed in a dress of
little rites and superstition, in order
to take hold of his dull and untrained
intelligence. But in
proportion as men become more civilized, and
learn to think more accurately, and to
take wider views of life, just so
do they come to value the essential truths
of religion more highly, while they attach
less and less importance to superficial details.
Having thus
seen what is meant by the essential
truths of religion, it is very easy to
see what the attitude of the doctrine
of evolution is toward these essential truths.
It asserts and reiterates them both; and
it asserts them not as dogmas handed
down to us by priestly tradition, not
as mysterious intuitive
convictions of which we can render no
account to ourselves, but as scientific truths
concerning the innermost constitution of the
universe -- truths that have been disclosed
by observation and reflection, like other
scientific truths, and that accordingly harmonize
naturally and easily with the whole body of our knowledge.
The doctrine of evolution asserts, as
the widest and deepest truth which the study of
nature can disclose to us, that there
exists a power to which no limit in
time or space is conceivable, and that
all the phenomena of the universe, whether
they be what we call material or
what we call spiritual phenomena, are manifestations
of this infinite and eternal Power. Now this
assertion, which Mr. Spencer has so elaborately
set forth as a scientific truth -- nay, as
the ultimate truth of science, as the
truth upon which the whole structure of
human knowledge philosophically rests -- this assertion
is identical with the assertion of an
eternal Power, not ourselves, that
forms the speculative basis of all religions.
When Carlyle speaks of the universe as
in very truth the stardome
city of
And this brings
me to the last and most important
point of all. What says
the doctrine of evolution with regard
to the ethical side of this twofold assertion
that lies at the bottom of all religion?
Though we cannot fathom the nature of
the inscrutable Power that animates the world,
we know, never theless, a
great many things that it does. Does this eternal Power,
then, work for righteousness? Is there
a divine sanction of holiness and a
divine condemnation for sin? Are the principles
of right living really connected with
the intimate constitution of the universe? If
the answer of science to these questions
be affirmative, then the agreement with
religion is complete, both on the speculative
and on the practical side; and that phantom
which has been the abiding terror to
timid and superficial minds -- that phantom
of the hostility between religion and science--is
exorcised now and forever. Now, science began
to return a decisively affirmative answer to
such questions as these when it began,
with Mr. Spencer, to explain moral beliefs
and moral sentiments as products of evolution. For clearly, when you
say of a moral belief or a moral sentiment,
that it is a product of evolution, you
imply that it is something which the universe
through untold ages has been labouring to
bring forth, and you ascribe to it
a value proportionate to the enormous effort
it has cost to produce it. Still more, when
with h4r. Spencer we study the
principles of right living as part and
parcel of the whole doctrine of the
development of life upon the earth; when
we see that in an ultimate analysis that
is right which tends to enhance fulness of life, and that is
wrong which tends to detract from fulness of life -- we then see that
the distinction between right and wrong is
rooted in the deepest foundations of the
universe; we see that the very same forces,
subtle, and exquisite, and profound, which
brought upon the scene the primal germs
of life and caused them to unfold, which
through countless ages of struggle and death
has cherished the life that could live
more perfectly and destroyed the life
that could only live less perfectly, until
humanity, with all its hopes, and fears,
and aspirations, has come into being as
the crown of all this stupendous work --
we see that these very same subtle
and exquisite forces have wrought into the
very fibres of the universe those principles
of right living which it is man's
highest function to put into practice. The
theoretical sanction thus given to right living
is incomparably the most powerful that has
ever been assigned in any philosophy of
ethics. Human responsibility is made more strict
and solemn than ever, when the eternal
Power that lives in every event of
the universe is thus seen to be in
the deepest possible sense the author
of the moral law that should guide our
lives, and in obedience to which lies
our only guarantee of the happiness which
is incorruptible -- which neither inevitable misfortune
nor unmerited obloquy can ever take away.
I have but barely touched upon a rich and
suggestive topic. When this subject shall once
have been expounded and illustrated with
due thoroughness -- as I earnestly hope it
will be within the next few years --
then I am sure it will be generally
acknowledged that our great teacher's services
to religion have been no less signal than
his services to science, unparalleled as
these have been in all the history of
the world.