But the scientific work in religion makes its way through difficulties and dangers. We are far from having found the formula of its combination with the historical elements of our apologetic. It is exposed, therefore, to a damaging fire not only from unspiritualist psychology and pathology but also from the side of scholastic dogma. It is hard to admit on equal terms a partner to the old undivided rule of books and learning. With Charles Lamb, we cry in some distress, "must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading?" ("Essays of Elia", "New Year's Eve", page 41; Ainger's edition. London, 1899.) and we are answered that the old process has an imperishable value, only we have not yet made clear its connection with other contributions. And all the work is young, liable to be drawn into unprofitable excursions, side-tracked by self-deceit and pretence; and it fatally attracts, like the older mysticism, the curiosity and the expository powers of those least in sympathy with it, ready writers who, with all the air of extended research, have been content with narrow grounds for induction. There is a danger, besides, which accompanies even the most genuine work of this science and must be provided against by all its serious students. I mean the danger of unbalanced introspection both for individuals and for societies; of a preoccupation comparable to our modern social preoccupation with bodily health; of reflection upon mental states not accompanied by exercise and growth of the mental powers; the danger of contemplating will and neglecting work, of analysing conviction and not criticising evidence.
Still, in spite of dangers and mistakes, the work remains full of hopeful indications, and, in the best examples (Such an example is given in Baron F. von Hugel's recently finished book, the result of thirty years' research: "The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her Friends". London, 1908.), it is truly scientific in its determination to know the very truth, to tell what we think, not what we think we ought to think. (G. Tyrrell, in "Mediaevalism", has a chapter which is full of the important MORAL element in a scientific attitude.
"The only infallible guardian of truth is the spirit of truthfulness.""Mediaevalism" page 182, London, 1908.), truly scientific in its employment of hypothesis and verification, and in growing conviction of the reality of its subject-matter through the repeated victories of a mastery which advances, like science, in the Baconian road of obedience. It is reasonable to hope that progress in this respect will be more rapid and sure when religious study enlists more men affected by scientific desire and endowed with scientific capacity.
The class of investigating minds is a small one, possibly even smaller than that of reflecting minds. Very few persons at any period are able to find out anything whatever. There are few observers, few discoverers, few who even wish to discover truth. In how many societies the problems of philology which face every person who speaks English are left unattempted!
And if the inquiring or the successfully inquiring class of minds is small, much smaller, of course, is the class of those possessing the scientific aptitude in an eminent degree. During the last age this most distinguished class was to a very great extent absorbed in the study of phenomena, a study which had fallen into arrears. For we stood possessed, in rudiment, of means of observation, means for travelling and acquisition, qualifying men for a larger knowledge than had yet been attempted. These were now to be directed with new accuracy and ardour upon the fabric and behaviour of the world of sense. Our debt to the great masters in physical science who overtook and almost out-stripped the task cannot be measured; and, under the honourable leadership of Ruskin, we may all well do penance if we have failed "in the respect due to their great powers of thought, or in the admiration due to the far scope of their discovery." ("Queen of the Air", Preface, page vii. London, 1906.) With what miraculous mental energy and divine good fortune--as Romans said of their soldiers--did our men of curiosity face the apparently impenetrable mysteries of nature! And how natural it was that immense accessions of knowledge, unrelated to the spiritual facts of life, should discredit Christian faith, by the apparent superiority of the new work to the feeble and unprogressive knowledge of Christian believers! The day is coming when men of this mental character and rank, of this curiosity, this energy and this good fortune in investigation, will be employed in opening mysteries of a spiritual nature.
They will silence with masterful witness the over-confident denials of naturalism. They will be in danger of the widespread recognition which thirty years ago accompanied every utterance of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer.
They will contribute, in spite of adulation, to the advance of sober religious and moral science.
And this result will be due to Darwin, first because by raising the dignity of natural science, he encouraged the development of the scientific mind;secondly because he gave to religious students the example of patient and ardent investigation; and thirdly because by the pressure of naturalistic criticism the religious have been driven to ascertain the causes of their own convictions, a work in which they were not without the sympathy of men of science. (The scientific rank of its writer justifies the insertion of the following letter from the late Sir John Burdon-Sanderson to me. In the lecture referred to I had described the methods of Professor Moseley in teaching Biology as affording a suggestion of the scientific treatment of religion.
Oxford, April 30, 1902.
