第 5 节
作者:披荆斩棘      更新:2022-07-08 12:27      字数:9322
  even though it be an insignificant fact; it is of the KIND to
  which all realities whatsoever must belong; the motor currents of
  the world run through the like of it; it is on the line
  connecting real events with real events。  That unsharable feeling
  which each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny
  as he privately feels it rolling out on fortune's wheel may be
  disparaged for its egotism; may be sneered at as unscientific;
  but it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete
  actuality; and any would…be existent that should lack such a
  feeling; or its analogue; would be a piece of reality only half
  made up。'336'
  '336' Compare Lotze's doctrine that the only meaning we can
  attach to the notion of a thing as it is 〃in itself〃 is by
  conceiving it as it is FOR itself; i。e。; as a piece of full
  experience with a private sense of 〃pinch〃 or inner activity of
  some sort going with it。
  If this be true; it is absurd for science to say that the
  egotistic elements of experience should be suppressed。  The axis
  of reality runs solely through the egotistic placesthey are
  strung upon it like so many beads。  To describe the world with
  all the various feelings of the individual pinch of destiny; all
  the various spiritual attitudes; left out from the
  descriptionthey being as describable as anything else would
  be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the
  equivalent for a solid meal。  Religion makes no such blunder。
  The individual's religion may be egotistic; and those private
  realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough; but
  at any rate it always remains infinitely less hollow and
  abstract; as far as it goes; than a science which prides itself
  on taking no account of anything private at all。
  A bill of fare with one real raisin on it instead of the word
  〃raisin;〃 with one real egg instead of the word 〃egg;〃 might be
  an inadequate meal; but it would at least be a commencement of
  reality。  The contention of the survival…theory that we ought to
  stick to non…personal elements exclusively seems like saying that
  we ought to be satisfied forever with reading the naked bill of
  fare。  I think; therefore; that however particular questions
  connected with our individual destinies may be answered; it is
  only by acknowledging them as genuine questions; and living in
  the sphere of thought which they open up; that we become
  profound。  But to live thus is to be religious; so I
  unhesitatingly repudiate the survival…theory of religion; as
  being founded on an egregious mistake。  It does not follow;
  because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them
  with their religion; that we should therefore leave off being
  religious at all。'337'  By being religious we establish ourselves
  in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which
  reality is given us to guard。  Our responsible concern is with
  our private destiny; after all。
  '337' Even the errors of fact may possibly turn out not to be as
  wholesale as the scientist assumes。  We saw in Lecture IV how the
  religious conception of the universe seems to many mind…curers
  〃verified〃 from day to day by their experience of fact。
  〃Experience of fact〃 is a field with so many things in it that
  the sectarian scientist methodically declining; as he does; to
  recognize such 〃facts〃 as mind…curers and others like them
  experience; otherwise than by such rude heads of classification
  as 〃bosh;〃 〃rot;〃 〃folly;〃 certainly leaves out a mass of raw
  fact which; save for the industrious interest of the religious in
  the more personal aspects of reality; would never have succeeded
  in getting itself recorded at all。  We know this to be true
  already in certain cases; it may; therefore; be true in others as
  well。  Miraculous healings have always been part of the
  supernaturalist stock in trade; and have always been dismissed by
  the scientist as figments of the imagination。  But the
  scientist's tardy education in the facts of hypnotism has
  recently given him an apperceiving mass for phenomena of this
  order; and he consequently now allows that the healings may
  exist; provided you expressly call them effects of 〃suggestion。〃
  Even the stigmata of the cross on Saint Francis's hands and feet
  may on these terms not be a fable。  Similarly; the time…honored
  phenomenon of diabolical possession is on the point of being
  admitted by the scientist as a fact; now that he has the name of
  〃hystero…demonopathy〃 by which to apperceive it。  No one can
  foresee just how far this legitimation of occultist phenomena
  under newly found scientist titles may proceedeven 〃prophecy;〃
  even 〃levitation;〃 might creep into the pale。
  Thus the divorce between scientist facts and religious facts may
  not necessarily be as eternal as it at first sight seems; nor the
  personalism and romanticism of the world; as they appeared to
  primitive thinking; be matters so irrevocably outgrown。  The
  final human opinion may; in short; in some manner now impossible
  to foresee; revert to the more personal style; just as any path
  of progress may follow a spiral rather than a straight line。  If
  this were so; the rigorously impersonal view of science might one
  day appear as having been a temporarily useful eccentricity
  rather than the definitively triumphant position which the
  sectarian scientist at present so confidently announces it to be。
  You see now why I have been so individualistic throughout these
  lectures; and why I have seemed so bent on rehabilitating the
  element of feeling in religion and subordinating its intellectual
  part。  Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of
  feeling; the darker; blinder strata of character; are the only
  places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making;
  and directly perceive how events happen; and how work is actually
  done。'338'  Compared with this world of living individualized
  feelings; the world of generalized objects which the intellect
  contemplates is without solidity or life。  As in stereoscopic or
  kinetoscopic pictures seen outside the instrument; the third
  dimension; the movement; the vital element; are not there。  We
  get a beautiful picture of an express train supposed to be
  moving; but where in the picture; as I have heard a friend say;
  is the energy or the fifty miles an hour?'339'
  '338' Hume's criticism has banished causation from the world of
  physical objects; and 〃Science〃 is absolutely satisfied to define
  cause in terms of concomitant change…read Mach; Pearson; Ostwald。
  The 〃original〃 of the notion of causation is in our inner
  personal experience; and only there can causes in the
  old…fashioned sense be directly observed and described。
  '339' When I read in a religious paper words like these:
  〃Perhaps the best thing we can say of God is that he is THE
  INEVITABLE INFERENCE;〃 I recognize the tendency to let religion
  evaporate in intellectual terms。  Would martyrs have sung in the
  flames for a mere inference; however inevitable it might be?
  Original religious men; like Saint Francis; Luther; Behmen; have
  usually been enemies of the intellect's pretension to meddle with
  religious things。  Yet the intellect; everywhere invasive; shows
  everywhere its shallowing effect。  See how the ancient spirit of
  Methodism evaporates under those wonderfully able rationalistic
  booklets (which every one should read) of a philosopher like
  Professor Bowne (The Christian Revelation; The Christian Life The
  Atonement:  Cincinnati and New York; 1898; 1899; 1900)。  See the
  positively expulsive purpose of philosophy properly so called:
  〃Religion;〃 writes M。  Vacherot (La Religion; Paris; 1869; pp。
  313; 436; et passim); 〃answers to a transient state or condition;
  not to a permanent determination of human nature; being merely an
  expression of that stage of the human mind which is dominated by
  the imagination。 。 。 。 Christianity has but a single possible
  final heir to its estate; and that is scientific philosophy。〃
  In a still more radical vein; Professor Ribot (Psychologie des
  Sentiments; p。 310) describes the evaporation of religion。  He
  sums it up in a single formulathe ever…growing predominance of
  the rational intellectual element; with the gradual fading out of
  the emotional element; this latter tending to enter into the
  group of purely intellectual sentiments。  〃