The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTheism and HumanismThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Theism and HumanismAuthor: Arthur James BalfourRelease date: August 25, 2018 [eBook #57773]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Richard Hulse, Les Galloway and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISM AND HUMANISM ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Theism and HumanismAuthor: Arthur James BalfourRelease date: August 25, 2018 [eBook #57773]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Richard Hulse, Les Galloway and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)
Title: Theism and Humanism
Author: Arthur James Balfour
Author: Arthur James Balfour
Release date: August 25, 2018 [eBook #57773]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Richard Hulse, Les Galloway and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEISM AND HUMANISM ***
Transcriber’s NotesThe cover was created by adding text to a plain background and is placed in the public domain.Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Transcriber’s Notes
The cover was created by adding text to a plain background and is placed in the public domain.
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
THEISM AND HUMANISM
BEINGTHE GIFFORD LECTURESDelivered at the University of Glasgow, 1914
BY THERt. Hon.ARTHUR JAMES BALFOURM.A., F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L.(HON. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE)
HODDER AND STOUGHTONLONDONNEW YORKTORONTOMCMXV
Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.London and Aylesbury.
TO THE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, WHO GAVE SO KIND A RECEPTION TO THESE LECTURES ON THEIR DELIVERY IN THE BUTE HALL, I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.
TO THE PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, WHO GAVE SO KIND A RECEPTION TO THESE LECTURES ON THEIR DELIVERY IN THE BUTE HALL, I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.
This volume contains the substance of the Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow in January and February 1914. I say thesubstanceof the lectures, lest any of those who formed part of my most kindly audience should expect a verbal reproduction of what they then heard. No such reproduction would have been either expedient or possible. The lectures were not read: they were spoken (with the aid of brief notes) in such terms as suggested themselves at the moment; and their duration was rigidly fixed, to suit my academic audience, so as just to occupy the customary hour. Although, therefore, they were largely (though not wholly) based upon written drafts, none of the language, and not all the ideas and illustrations contained in the original could be reproduced in the spoken lectures, nor did everything in the spoken lectures represent passages in the written originals.
It is not, in these circumstances, surprisingthat the work has had, in large measure, to be rewritten, though the argument itself, and the order in which its various parts are presented for consideration, remains substantially unchanged.
I should not have troubled the reader with this very unimportant narrative except for the purpose of explaining the long interval that has elapsed between the delivery of the lectures and their publication. Literary composition I have always found laborious and slow, even in favourable conditions. But the conditions have not been favourable. My anxiety to make the argument easy to read for persons who take little interest in, and have small knowledge of, philosophical controversies did not make it easy to write; while external circumstances were singularly unfavourable to rapid composition. No one who took any part in public affairs between March 1914 and the outbreak of the war, or between the outbreak of the war and the present moment, is likely to regard these months as providing convenient occasion for quiet thought and careful writing. I say this, however, not as an excuse for poor workmanship, but only as an explanation of long delay.
It may be desirable to warn the intending reader before he embarks on these lectures, that though the basis of the argument is wide, its conclusion is narrow: and though that conclusion is religious, the discussions leading up to it are secular. I make no dialectical use of the religious sentiment; nor do I attempt any analysis of its essential character. Still less do I deal with any doctrines outside what is called “natural” religion; for to “natural” religion the Gifford Lecturer is expressly confined. But even themes which might well be deemed to fall within these limits are scarcely referred to. For example, God, freedom, and immortality have been treated by at least one eminent writer as the great realities beyond the world of sense. I believe in them all. But I only discuss the first—and that only from a limited point of view.
One other caution I must give, though it is hardly necessary. No one, I suppose, is likely to consult this small volume in the hope of finding an historic survey, properly “documented,” of the great theistic controversy. But, if so misguided an individual exists, he is doomed to the severest disappointment. There have been, and will be, Gifford Lecturers well equipped for so great anundertaking; but most assuredly I am not among them.
My warm thanks are due to my brother, Mr. Gerald Balfour; my sister, Mrs. Sidgwick, and my brother-in-law, Lord Rayleigh, for the trouble they have taken in reading the proofs, and for the aid they have given me in correcting them.
In connection with a passage in the ninth lecture, Sir Oliver Lodge has been good enough to give me an interesting note on “energy,” which appears in its proper place.
4 Carlton GardensMay 24, 1915.
PART IINTRODUCTORYLECTURE IPAGEI.Introductory: Metaphysics and the “Plain Man”3II.“Inevitable” Beliefs and Common Sense13III.The Material of the Present Argument for Theism: the Character of the Theism to be established17IV.What the Argument is not. Some of its Limitations23LECTURE III.Design and Selection28II.Argument from Values. The Cognitive and the Causal Series44PART IIÆSTHETIC AND ETHICAL VALUESLECTURE IIIÆSTHETIC AND THEISMI.Æsthetic described55II.Whence comes it?58III.Values and the Higher Emotions63IV.Natural Beauty77V.Æsthetic of History81LECTURE IVETHICS AND THEISMI.Ethics described95II.Egoism, Altruism, and Selection98III.Selection and the Higher Morality107IV.Same subject continued119V.Theism and the Collision of Ends122PART IIIINTELLECTUAL VALUESLECTURE VINTRODUCTION TO PART IIII.Retrospect133II.Reason and Causation134III.Leslie Stephen, and Locke’s Aphorism136IV.Reason and Empirical Agnosticism145LECTURE VIPERCEPTION, COMMON SENSE, AND SCIENCEI.Common Sense and the External World149II.Science and the External World153III.Primary and Secondary Qualities156IV.Perception as a Causal Series160V.Perception as a Cognitive Act165VI.An Irresistible Assumption170LECTURE VIIPROBABILITY, CALCULABLE AND INTUITIVEI.Mathematicians and Probability175II.Calculable Probability178III.Intuitive Probability189LECTURE VIIIUNIFORMITY AND CAUSATIONI.Habit, Expectation, Induction192II.Regularity, Causation195III.The Principle of Negligibility199IV.Causation and Foreknowledge207LECTURE IXTENDENCIES OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEFI.From Beliefs that we must hold to Beliefs that we are inclined to hold217II.Atomism. Beliefs of Conservation220III.Epilogue238PART IVSUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONLECTURE XI.Humanism and Theism247II.The Doctrine of Congruity249III.Is this Systematic Philosophy?261IV.Conclusion268
[The paragraph headings in this Table of Contents are not designed to give more than a very imperfect suggestion of the subjects discussed. I have put them in for the convenience of those who, having read the book, wish to refer back to some particular passage. The headings do not appear in the text.]