Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/124

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MODERN SCIENCE AND PANTHEISM

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trine has come forward in a great variety of expressions or schemes of exposition, such as those of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Stoics, in ancient times, — not to speak of the vast systems lying at the basis of the Hindu religions, — or as those of Bruno and Vanini, Schelling, Oken, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann, in our modern era.^[1] But various as these schemes are, they may all be recognised as falling into one or other of the two forms suggested by the common name. The two forms, evidently, may be respectively styled the atheistic and the acosmic, as the one puts the sensible universe in the place of God, and thus cancels his being;

↑ The names of Plato and Aristotle, among the ancients, and of Spinoza, Fichte, and Hegel, among the moderns, are omitted from this list because the question of their pantheism is with many still in dispute. As to Plato and Aristotle, of course the dispute is well founded, their position being more or less ambiguous, presenting a struggle between pantheism and individualism; though my own conviction now is that the drift of both is unquestionably pantheistic. At the time of writing the essay (18S5), I still held the opinion that an idealistic monism such as Hegel’s was compatible with moral freedom; the persuasion that theism involves such an immanence of God in souls, more or less pervades the paper in its original form. This explains still more pertinently why I then omitted the names of Spinoza and Fichte from the list. I regarded Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Fichte, and Hegel as forming a single growing but clear tradition of genuine rational theism. I hardly need add, that in getting convinced of the inconsistency of this whole tradition with moral freedom, I have changed my view both of theism and of the relation borne to it by these noted thinkers. I should now list all of the modern names among them as pantheists.

[1] The names of Plato and Aristotle, among the ancients, and of Spinoza, Fichte, and Hegel, among the moderns, are omitted from this list because the question of their pantheism is with many still in dispute. As to Plato and Aristotle, of course the dispute is well founded, their position being more or less ambiguous, presenting a struggle between pantheism and individualism; though my own conviction now is that the drift of both is unquestionably pantheistic. At the time of writing the essay (18S5), I still held the opinion that an idealistic monism such as Hegel’s was compatible with moral freedom; the persuasion that theism involves such an immanence of God in souls, more or less pervades the paper in its original form. This explains still more pertinently why I then omitted the names of Spinoza and Fichte from the list. I regarded Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Fichte, and Hegel as forming a single growing but clear tradition of genuine rational theism. I hardly need add, that in getting convinced of the inconsistency of this whole tradition with moral freedom, I have changed my view both of theism and of the relation borne to it by these noted thinkers. I should now list all of the modern names among them as pantheists.

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