Devotional Spiritualism
I Have asked you to meet me here to-day in preference to any public or semi-public place, because I have learnt from recent experience, which has been rather practical than painful, that Devotional Spiritualism (or, at all events, that kind of Devotional Spiritualism which I wish to advocate) has scarcely passed out of the domestic phase as yet. The other phase may or may not come; but the present is certainly the day of small things, and it appears to me wise to adapt ourselves to circumstances, since we cannot adapt circumstances to our own tastes or wishes.
The kind of Spiritualism which I mean, you pretty well understand. When I was speaking in any degree exoterically, I called it Christian Positivism, because it was possible that outsiders might say we were begging the question in using the term Spiritualism at all. There are no outsiders now, therefore we need not be so much on our guard in this respect. My great wish, directly I was able to put on record a confession of faith on my own account, was to use any influence I might possess in the way of spreading that faith amongst others. If I were preaching a sermon, I should say that directly I was converted I wanted to strengthen my brethren.
Retracing my steps once more over the process of my own conviction, I quite feel that it is in the normal condition of things that I should thus late put in my appearance as an advocate of those opinions which I have been for twenty years studying.
Let me explain.
First in the series of Spiritualistic experiences come the phenomena: and here I did not hesitate long, but I had no more authority to speak than any one else. I can produce nothing on my own account. I do not carry the evidence with me as mediums do. I have no special faculties for testing facts. In this respect I suppose I ought to confess inferiority to what are called scientific observers.
Then again, in the way of forming a theory for the facts, I fancy everybody must make his or her own induction in this respect. With some it is, I know, an intuition rather than an induction; but, in my case, it was a very long, painful induction indeed, as some of you know. I had no right to speak one word, because I was only groping my way in the dark.
But that theory once formed, a new state of things began, Then I had to ask myself—every member, lay or clerical, of any religious body has to ask himself or herself—is this new revelation consistent with my previous belief and present position, or do the two clash?
Now, speaking in propria persona, from a parson’s point of view, directly I had answered that question for myself, then I felt bound to convey my experience to others, I know there are a great many people in the Church of England who are immensely interested in Spiritualism; who are not scared by the diabolical theory, but yet who feel that if they were to accept the phenomena and the theory of the Spiritualists, it would be destructive of previous belief, and perhaps oblige them to change their religious communion altogether. I know this of the Anglican Church, and have reason to believe that the same feeling prevails in other communions also. Therefore it appeared to me that the most useful thing we could do would be to put strongly forward the constructive effect which Spiritualism has upon one’s previous belief. It builds up, and does not pull down. It does not add one to the many existing isms; but, on the contrary, it affords a common basis on which the adherents of all those different isms may meet, fusing their differences for the time being, yet retaining all their distinguishing characteristics. Spiritualism, in a word, lies at the root of all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity; nay, of religion in general, and does not touch those secondary matters, such as discipline, ritual, church government, and so on, about which they chiefly differ.
Now, I really think we should do a very great thing if we could get Spiritualism and orthodoxy just to look, however coyly, at one another, and tolerate the bare possibility of their being reconcilable; and I do not much care how egotistical you may think me when I say that this word orthodoxy may possibly have a sort of qualified meaning on my lips. I have been so long associated rather with the epithet “unorthodox” than the reverse, that Spiritualists would not feel any anxiety lest they should encounter in me that rigid form of orthodoxy which mostly monopolises the title; while, at the same time, as I am still a working clergyman in the Church of England (whereof I have been an ordained minister since 1851, 27 years next Trinity Sunday), I might, perhaps, claim to represent in some slight degree the spirit of the establishment and to gauge its receptivity of these new facts- which it has to face. Of course, men in authority will not face them. It would be unreasonable to expect that they should. We all know the tendency of the official mind to run in ruts and grooves. Therefore, it strikes me that there is something exceptional in my own position which may enable me to do something towards making orthodoxy and Spiritualism understand one another.
But single-handed I can do nothing; and, therefore, I asked you to meet me here to-day, and on some few succeeding Wednesdays, so that we may confer together and see whether we cannot do something towards promoting the definitely religious study of Spiritualism.
There are some who look on the matter as a mere piece of wonder-working. Against such I have no word to say, because I rested for a very long time in that stage myself; and I can now see that I was then, so to say, learning my alphabet. Others view the matter scientifically; and these, no doubt, do very valuable service. But I myself have no aptitude and little taste for this kind of study. Naturally and necessarily I look upon Spiritualism as an added evidence of Christianity. I believe that it certifies us as to the character of the life to come by putting us in communion with those who have entered on that life; and it is as such a communion—in the strictest sense of the word—that I hope to follow this matter up.
I am not ignorant, or losing sight, of the fact that Spiritualism has another phase, that of a purifier of the affections; though I am only just beginning to learn the extent to which some believe that this power extends. This phase is closely connected with the one I last mentioned. One could scarcely believe that communion could be enjoyed with those gone one step higher than ourselves, without that communion exercising a very palpable effect in the way of purity of life.
It seems to me that the effect of the belief I now have is to convert the dogmas of theology into the deductions and demonstrations of science. Theology once more takes its place as the Queen of Sciences.
Now I need not say that there is in this study quite enough to justify those who share such a belief in meeting together and prosecuting the study of this most fascinating subject.
How shall it be done? Some say found a new church. Why, when, as we have said, Spiritualism clashes in no way with the doctrines of those to which we belong? It only vitalises them.
At least found a society, say others. I do not think this necessary. I dread organisations, subscriptions, and anything of that kind.
No; let us for the present only confer. When I shall have concluded these few remarks I shall ask one or two who are present to say a word or two on the same subject, and then we will, if you have no objection, close our informal meeting with one or two prayers from the Church of England prayer-book. If this should be distasteful to any person, there would be no awkwardness at all in that person leaving before we commenced our prayers. On another occasion I should like to commence in the same way with a prayer and collect, just to preserve the strictly religious character of our gathering, and would not do so to-day, because I did not wish to take anybody by surprise. That is the one thing, and the only one thing, upon which I should like to insist in these gatherings that we should always retain for them their definitely religious tone. I feel sure that the large majority of those I have asked to meet me to-day will think it due to myself to stipulate so much, and also as a rule to select my prayers from my own prayer book, not because I do not think there are many excellent prayers in other manuals, but simply because this one is mine. The fact of my being a clergyman of the Church of England by no means limits my choice in this respect, though I hope it does not narrow my view of the general subject. I am, I assure you, constantly on my guard lest this should by any possibility be the case.
What I should like to do—and what I hope to do—is to continue these domestic conferences week by week up to Easter, and then to consider whether we could in any way advantageously modify our meetings. We may, perhaps, especially during those Great Forty Days which have so much significance for us, like to meet of tener, or make the occasion of our meeting more purely one of worship and of communion. That we shall see. We shall get twelve meetings if we carry out this plan, between the present time and Easter, and I shall be surprised if we do not in those meetings form some sort of plan for the future.
I have to acknowledge the kind and ready sympathy with which my proposals have been met—I mean especially in the answers I have got from those whom I have asked to read papers. I have already more volunteers than would fill up the remaining eleven Wednesdays, and I must ask leave to select from the subjects proposed those which seem to me most in keeping with the end we have in view. Next Wednesday, I am exceedingly glad to be able to announce that my friend Mr. Earle, the author of that excellent work called The Spiritual Body, will read a paper bearing the same title, which I am sure will be interesting and instructive. I have great hopes, too, that on an early day my still older friend, Mr. S. C. Hall, will favour us in the same way; but we are most of us busy people, and the most we can hope to do is to arrange from week to week as to reader and subject.
For myself, I am free to confess that, while the phenomenal aspect has many attractions for me, and I am far from insensible as to the attractions of Theosophy, it is as matter of Christian Evidence I think that this subject may be so valuable. I still cling to my Christian Positivism. But I rejoice to think that you will have the subject put before you in many different aspects. Although we do not court discussion, for we are in most matters “of one heart and of one mind,” still there is no reason why we should resolve ourselves into a mere Mutual Admiration Society, or the people of one idea only. I have given you, briefly and roughly enough, my idea in asking you to meet here, and will now ask Mr. Earle, Mr. Hall, and one or two other of my coadjutors to expound what very possibly appears so far a somewhat crude and imperfect notion.
* An address delivered last Wednesday at a private meeting in Kensington.
Space and Time
The first words which the celebrated Fichte addressed to his astonished pupils when he met them in the lecture room at Jena were, “Denken sie das wand,”—“Think the wall.” In that injunction, which is said to have somewhat disconcerted his hearers, sounds the knell of all materialistic systems. I cannot make good this assertion this evening, but anything like an intelligible exposition of the subject of my paper would at least render those systems less plausible to popular apprehension. For I understand by Materialism the system that makes of consciousness the outcome or the dependent correlate of physical structure. And if it can be shown that our whole consciousness of an objective world involves the presupposition of powers essentially ideal, why then, although we may have to go further, and to pronounce the internal consciousness itself to be no less phenomenal than this objective world, we shall at least avoid the alternative error of explaining one set of phenomena by another, or of referring the function which is at least a factor in the origination of both to its own product. But for the spiritualist and the materialist alike, there is behind this inner and outer consciousness a provisionally unknown x.
What is an object? Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, in his acute and learned work, Time and Space, has done a good service to logical psychology by recalling the scholastic distinction between “first and second intentions.” If, for instance, I say that the object before me is a table, I evidently describe, not a simple, but a classified perception, The understanding has already busied itself with the senses, and we have what is called an object in its second intention. To get at an object in its first intention is to get at it as it comes before the sensibility, free from any admixture of thought. It is obvious that any recognition of an object as object is only possible by a movement of thought which discriminates object from subject, and thus classifies it as belonging to the totality of the non-ego. In short, whenever a perception is described by or rendered into any proposition whatever by the percipient, the primitive intuition is entangled in an act of logic. But this, which we must not yet call table, or even object, is certainly something, even to the unassisted senses. It has, or rather there is for the senses what we have learned to call a brown colour, and a figure which we have learned to call round or square. In every perception of the senses we discriminate two elements, to wit, what, in philosophical language, is called its “matter,” or “content,” that is those visible or tangible qualities which are analysable into sensation, and its “form,” which is always spatial extension. It is with this “form” that we are concerned this evening. We want to know what this space, this extension is, and how we come by our knowledge of it. According to common belief, we, our bodies that is, and all things cognisable by our senses, occupy parts of an infinite space, which space, it is supposed, exists as a void, independently of us and of all sentient beings, and would so exist were there no objects or things to occupy it. There is here, as we shall see, that recognition of the necessities of thought which we may always expect from the unsophisticated understanding, however erroneous may be, and in this case certainly is, its formal statement. In the opinion of the sensational, or empirical school of philosophy, we lose sight of this recognition altogether, and the concept of space is represented as empirical, and generated like all other such concepts, that is to say by comparison and abstraction of the particular extensions of observed objects. Lastly, we have the doctrine of a more recent school, distinguished by much constructive ingenuity, which derives perceptions of space from those of time, calling in the aid of a principle of great importance in psychology,—known as the law of Indissoluble Association,—to account for the apparently elementary character of the conception. But this doctrine need not detain us; for, besides that it is wholly hypothetical, professing only to show what may possibly be the case, its exegesis is vitiated at every step, and in almost every phrase by an inveterate propensity to begging the question. Mr. Bain has, I believe, such honour as belongs to its authorship, and it has received much attention from Mr. J. S. Mill, and other distinguished psychologists. However, the account which I have next to present to you is the one accepted, I believe, by every thinker who has adequately studied and mastered it.
I said that the common opinion about space rests on a necessity of thought.
We know space only through the senses, and from objects of the senses we can abstract all that is contingent, in philosophical language, all their content.” But there is one thing that we cannot get rid of by abstraction, and that is the pure form or continent. How I have to introduce to you the demonstration of Kant, that for this very reason, its necessity in thought, Space can be nothing but a construction of the sensuous consciousness, or intuition. Whatever is given to us by experience is contingent; it may or may not exist independently of our consciousness, but at least we can suppose its non-existence as easily as its existence. By a slight effort you can empty Space in thought of all its content, you can make the universe of sense a void. But the void remains—you cannot think it away; it is necessary. Now Kant said, Experience can never give us a necessary fact, or rather can never give us its necessity. Your whole past experience that you have never met with a centaur is no necessary proof that you will not meet one in the street this evening; your whole past experience of the sun rising in the morning is no necessary proof that it will rise to-morrow. In short, Kant applied Hume’s famous argument against necessary causation to all the facts of experience, to experience in general. Every one versed in the elements of logic knows that the major premise upon which inductive reasoning founds its deductive syllogism is not a necessary truth. But when we say “all objects of the senses are extended,” we affirm a proposition which we at once perceive to be perfectly necessary, and valid, without any logical reservation, for all future as well as for all past experience. Kant, then, applied two criteria, Necessity and Universality, to distinguish d priori from empirical cognitions. He said, moreover, we do not get our conception of Space as we get our empirical conceptions, by comparison and abstraction. We do not think of Space as contained in all objects, but as containing all objects. Compare the conception of Space with that of colour, for instance. Colour is an empirical conception, but, like all empirical conceptions, it is an abstraction. Apart from all particular colours it has only a nominal signification. We get it from our experience of red, green, blue, &c. Not so with Space. We do not think of space as composed of, and referable to all particular spaces, <... continues on page 4-178 >
* A paper read last Monday evening before the British National Association of Spiritualists, London.
Editor's notes
London Spiritualist, No. 284, February 1, 1878, pp. 52-3
London Spiritualist, No. 284, February 1, 1878, pp. 55-8