MODERNISM AND T RADITM ) N A L < ' 1 1 I," I ST I A N I T V. 



71 



physical stimuli. Consciousness, including the will, lias no 

 influence, can have no influence, on these processes, and is 

 therefore excluded from any effect on the world around us. 

 The strong uatural conviction that we can, hy thought and will, 

 exercise a control on our bodies, and, through them, on the 

 external world, is regarded as fundamentally mistaken. All 

 mental action is the mere ineffective transcript of reflex action 

 in the world of matter. Many reflex actions, we know, are 

 unattended by consciousness, and in such cases consciousness 

 seemingly cannot be a factor in the action. There are aleo 

 instances of reflex action attended by consciousness in which 

 consciousness seems to play no effective part. The assumption 

 that reflex action covers every form of human activity is an 

 extension of the application of a principle, known to be 

 effective in certain cases, to all instances. 



And the result of all this — what is it ? All human actions 

 are the actions of automata. There is no freedom anywhere. 

 An iron chain of physical causation links act with act. The 

 phantasmagoria of human consciousness all down the ages is 

 nothing but a futile shadow. The world could have gone on 

 as it has done without consciousness at all. All the great 

 thoughts of men, all systems of philosophy, all the wisdom of 

 the world enshrined in books, all human conceptions which 

 have led, according to common belief, to the great engineering 

 triumphs of the world, are but needless transcripts, as far as 

 the processes of physical nature are concerned, of reflex 

 materialistic action. 



Miracles and the Mechanistic Theory. 



The English Modernists would find it difficult to bring their 

 theology, or, indeed, any theology into harmony with this view 

 of nature. And yet their attitude towards the supernatural 

 generally can in reality have no other base. " Spirit," " mind," 

 cannot, according to the mechanistic theory act upon matter, 

 therefore the miraculous, which implies such action, is excluded 

 from the Modernist's theology. But logically much more 

 than the miraculous is excluded : God, who is assumed to 

 rule the universe, must, if He is not to be identified with 

 nature-mechanics, be also excluded from exercising any 

 providence in the world. In St. Augustine's time there 

 were also men who denied the occurrence of miracles, 

 but they still adhered to the belief that God made the 

 world. St. Augustine showed their inconsistency (De Civ. 



