370 Science Religion and Reality 



success or prevalence of whatever happens to prevail, without any 

 regard for its character. And this leaves us in the end with no 

 criterion at all." Darwinism, in fact, is a fruitful theory of the 

 means by which nature works. It cannot be made the basis of a 

 philosophy, and it has no vital connection with religion. 



I have spoken of Naturalism as a poverty-stricken and 

 ultimately self-contradictory philosophy, which is now being 

 dethroned by its own subjects. But it is wise to be cautious in 

 condemning views and systems which are now out of fashion. We 

 have to understand what made them plausible, and to remember 

 that the errors against which they were a protest — for an -ism is 

 always in opposition — are probably raising their heads again now 

 that their adversary is in retreat. And so 1 will make use of a review 

 by Professor Wallace of Lord Balfour's " Foundations of Belief," in 

 which Wallace earnestly deprecates the modern tendency to dis- 

 parage reason. Naturalism, he reminds us, was in its origin a 

 protest, not against the supernatural in itself, but against a super- 

 natural conceived as arbitrary, incoherent, and chaotic ; it was a 

 protest against the idle profanity which thinks it has explained an 

 event when it has said that it is the work of God, as if anything 

 were not the work of God. The world which reason claims is one 

 where she may go on and never die ; a world where nothing can be 

 called unknowable, though much may remain for ever unknown ; 

 a world where, as man accumulates more and more his intellectual 

 and spiritual capital, we shall move about more and more freely and 

 wisely. The world which the genuine Naturalist desires is not 

 different. It is a reign of law ; but may not the reign of law 

 become the kingdom of the spirit ? " To assault Naturalism and 

 Rationalism is to strike at Nature and Reason ; it is to support 

 supernaturalism and the materialism of authority." 



Professor Wallace is attacking what I should agree with him 

 in thinking a dangerous tendency, but what he calls Naturalism 

 at its best is not consistent Naturalism. The passage which I 

 have summarised shows how alarmed a Hegelian may be by an 

 assault upon the authority of science. We have now to consider, 

 assuming that the attempt to reduce life, mind, and spirit to the 

 quantitative categories of physics, chemistry, and mathematics has 

 definitely failed, what philosophy is likely to commend itself to 

 thoughtful students of nature, in the place of what we have called 

 Naturalism. 



