Chapter 6 No.6

P. 220, line 1.-Deism denies Christianity.

"God," says Canon Liddon, "is banished from the world by deism, which puts nature in His place" (Some Elements of Religion, pp. 56–7). The seventeenth and eighteenth-century deists, however, did not deny the personality of God, but the fact of revelation. "In recent theology deism has generally come to be regarded as, in common with theism, holding in opposition to atheism that there is a God, and in opposition to pantheism that God is distinct from the world, but as differing from theism in maintaining that God is separate from the world, having endowed it with self-sustaining and self-acting powers, and then abandoned it to itself" (Enc. Brit., art. "Theism").

P. 221, line 8.-"What it is to be a Christian."

Archdeacon Wilson avers that "We dare not deny the name of Christian to such as live in Christ's spirit and do His will, though they know not for certain how God manifested himself in Christ, and will not profess a certainty they do not feel." Again, he argues that "We rest on the broad ground of the vast experience of the world, and the testimony of our own conscience, that Christ has lifted mankind up, and shown man what is good; and this we may describe as bringing man to God, and revealing God to man. This redemption, salvation, we acknowledge as a fact. He who has this faith in Christ, and lets it work its natural result in making him more like Christ, deserves to be called a Christian." This does, indeed, give plenty of latitude-far more, in fact, than the Church as a body seems likely to give for some time to come. It, and the Rev. R. J. Campbell's "New Theology," will certainly enable many who are in reality non-Christian theists to continue calling themselves Christians.

P. 224, note.-"Haeckel's Critics Answered."

In the chapter on "God" there is a striking exposition of the very latest arguments for and against Theism. The opinions of Messrs. Ward, Newman, Smythe, Le Conte, Fiske, W. N. Clarke, Croll, Aubrey Moore, Iverach, Dallinger, Ballard, Rhondda Williams, Profeit, Kennedy, W. James, and Royce are all considered. Many pious Christians may have read the apologists' criticisms of Haeckel's well-known work, The Riddle of the Universe, but few will have studied the work itself, and still fewer these clear and convincing replies to the criticisms. It cannot be on account of the cost, as a copy of the cheap edition of either of these works can be obtained for 4?d.

P. 253, lines 25–6.-Some such psychical experiences largely account for religious superstitions.

With regard to phenomena at present popularly known as spiritualistic, but for which scientists have now adopted the term "metapsychical," the following declaration by Professor Lombroso (appearing in the review La Lettura, November, 1906) is of considerable interest. "As the result," he writes, "of our researches, I have been bound to admit the conviction that these phenomena are of colossal importance, and that it is the plain duty of science to direct attention towards them without delay." N.B.-The Professor, when interviewed subsequently by the Turin correspondent of the Standard, repudiated any suggestion of supernatural agency, and said: "All spiritualistic phenomena can be understood and explained without any reference to the intervention of the supernatural. Spiritualists affirm that the soul is an emanation from God, while I contend that it is an emanation of the brain. This is the whole thing in a nutshell. You therefore see how, from this point of view, I cannot be called a spiritualist-at least, in the sense in which the term is generally understood. Almost all spiritualistic phenomena can be classed among those positive facts which science can explain." However, in an article contributed by him to the Grand Magazine for January, 1907, and entitled "Why I became a Spiritualist," Professor Lombroso admits that he has felt himself "compelled to yield to the conviction that spiritualistic phenomena, if due in great part to the influence of the medium, are likewise attributable to the influence of extra-terrestrial existences, which may, perhaps, be compared to the radio-activity which still persists in tubes after the radium which originated them has disappeared." Professor Cesare Lombroso, it may be mentioned, is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Turin, and the author of standard works on criminology, hypnotism, and psychology, as well as of a number of valuable treatises relating to cerebral study. Two of his publications, Man of Genius (1891) and Female Offender (1895), have been issued in English.

The phenomena Professor Lombroso refers to are those which have induced such eminent scientists as Wallace, Lodge, Hyslop, Barrett, and Crookes to remain or to become supernaturalists. One, and to my mind the chief, reason why these metapsychical phenomena are, as Professor Lombroso tells us, of colossal importance-why science should direct attention towards them without delay-is that, so soon as they are universally acknowledged to be manifestations occurring in obedience to one of Nature's laws-a law as yet not fully understood-the last excuse for belief in the supernatural will have vanished. Supernaturalism will receive its death-blow, and Rationalism be infused with fresh life.

P. 254, line 28.-Professor James-an earnest champion of religion.

In defining his philosophic position he admits his own "inability to accept either popular Christianity or scholastic Theism" (see his Postscript, p. 521). He is of opinion that both the metaphysical argument for God's existence and the arguments for a God with moral attributes must be rejected, and "the man who is sincere with himself and the facts, but who remains religious still," must soothe "his perplexed and baffled intellect" with "a trustful sense of presence" (ibid, pp. 445–8). A careful perusal of his book, however, makes it tolerably clear that this feeling of the presence of Spiritual Beings is simply a hallucination.

P. 256, lines 22–26.-There has never yet been a case of a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, or any other non-Christian, who, without having heard of Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian "truth."

Chet Ram, the founder of a sect whose numbers, according to the last Indian census, "are increasing day by day," began by being a Hindu, and then became the disciple of a Mohammedan fakir in the Punjab. After following him for some years he had what he described as a vision of Christ, who revealed Himself as the author of salvation, and commanded him (Chet Ram) to build a church and to place within it the Bible. He was himself illiterate, but immediately began to proclaim the divinity of Christ, and was soon followed by disciples recruited alike from the Hindus and the Moslems. It is "religious" experiences such as these which continue to deceive even educated men and women, and hinder the growth of Rationalism.