ESSAY-REVIEWS 



THEISM AND MODERN THOUGHT, by Joshua C. Gregory, B.Sc, 

 F.I.C. : on The Idea of God in the Light of Recent Philosophy, by 

 A. Seth Pringle-Pattison. The Gifford Lectures delivered in the 

 University of Aberdeen, 191 2-13. [Pp. xvi + 423.] (Clarendon Press, 

 1917. Price 125. 6d. net.) 



Max MiJLLER traced the source of religion to impressions made on the human 

 mind by natural phenomena and forces. For Durkheim religion has a social 

 source — it originated in collective action, emotion, and thought. Since the " Idea 

 of God " ultimately appears in religion, on any view of the latter's primary nature, 

 these two thinkers represent a transference of emphasis in determining its origin. 

 A similar transference of emphasis is apparent in attempts to justify the belief in 

 Deity. The argument from design is typical of the first centre of emphasis, the 

 argument from value is typical of the second. The argument from contrivance, 

 as Mr. Balfour prefers to call it, did, and where it still finds favour continues to, 

 consult human interests ; but it can suppose the external universe to declare a 

 purpose, as an ordinary machine declares a human intention, without inclining its 

 line of emphasis to man as its centre. When the "Idea of God" is connected 

 with the " Principal of Value," the existence, nature, and life of man becomes the 

 determining factor in the discussion. Prof. Pringle-Pattison illustrates this shift 

 of emphasis from nature to man by comparing Hume's Dialogues Concerning 

 Natural Religion with Kant's subordination of "the starry heavens above" to "the 

 moral law within." He contrasts the " contemplation of the works of nature " in 

 the former ("and its exiguous result") with the "Kantian argument which rests 

 the whole case on the intrinsic worth of moral personality." In abstract possibility 

 this change of emphasis might simply result from the innate restlessness of the 

 human mind — for thought, like dress, has its fashions. It might aim at a doubly 

 sure assurance by making one argument support another. It might, again, be 

 moved to the second centre of emphasis by dissatisfaction with the first. The last 

 motive is ascribed by Prof. Pringle-Pattison. Dissatisfaction with " the vague 

 residuum of theistic belief which is all that Hume considered deducible from the 

 evidence " produced the passage from Hume to Kant and his successors. "Hume 

 himself," Prof. Pringle-Pattison points out, suggests that religion did not first arise 

 from the study of nature but from the concerns of human life with all their hopes 

 and fears. Hume centred emphasis on nature in discussing the justifiableness of 

 the notion of Deity ; he transferred that emphasis to the being and nature of man 

 in accounting for its origin. In trying to secure a justification for the " Idea of 

 God" superior to the "exiguous result" of Hume, Kant and his successors were 

 compelled to make the same transference of emphasis that Hume had made in 

 accounting for its origin. 



The same difficulty that induced Theism to transfer its centre of emphasis 

 besets it when the transference is made. This difficulty runs all through the 

 scientific, theological, and philosophical thought of to-day. Even the bare theistic 



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