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I THE ETHICS OF FREETHOUGHT.*1 Although Mr. Karl Pearson classifies these? fifteen papers under the several heads, Free-g thought, History, and Sociology, they are so _ identical in principle, inspiration, and sympathy that such classification is unnecessary. There ® i3 almost inevitably much repetition and I reiteration in lectures and articles produced atdifferent times, and for different purposes, and by so strenuous an apostle of distinctive I theories; but the volume, solid as it is, deserves t careful perusal. The writer is an able and scholarly man who, whatever the truth or value of his principles, has thought them outb to their issues, in the light of social history, i and is not afraid to avow the conclusions to f which he has been led. The characteristic* defect of his thinking is its onesidedness, and, of his use of history, his conscious or unconscious selection of only such testimony as supports his conclusions. In proportion to ourc knowledge of any given period is the conviction that the whole of the evidence is not before us ; that the writer has turned away from whatever c might qualify the testimony that it adduces. So uniformly is this the case, that if we were i not familiar with the blinding power of pre-: possession, wo should be compelled to suspecttheauthor of disiDgenuousness—as,for example, l in the case of Luther.Mr. Karl Pearson avows himself a Free-» thinker in religion, a Socialist in politics, and, in Sociology, an adherent of the school of Mary Wolsteneraft and George Eliot, in his theory of the relations of the sexes. As to the latter, which has a prominent place in several of the 1 essays, we will, for obvious reasons, state only* the author’s conclusion: “ Complete freedom in* the sex-relationship, left to the judgment and taste of an economically equal, physicallyb trained, and intellectually developed race of r men and women.” He would, however, permit , State interference, if necessary, to preserve the , independence of the sexes and the enforcement . of Malthusian principles in relation to the , increase of population. This doctrine of the : sexes plays a prominent part in all Socialistic theories.We accept, on the whole, Mr. Karl Pearson’s L description of the Freethinker, as one who,1 absolutely unfettered by tradition or dogma,; tries to ascertain the actual truth of things;* but is it not oddly incongruous with this, to 5 assume, as an essential characteristic, thatFreethinkers “do not accept Christianity as a divine or miraculous revelation.” ‘‘ The i rejection of all myth explanation [supernatural revelation], the reception of all ascer-f tained truths with regard to the revelation of the finite to the infinite, is what I term free thought or true religious knowledge.” It is a mysterious consentaneousness of thought to be produced by such a process, and in harmony with this. Mr. Pearson spells the Divine name, “God,” with a small “g.” He defines religion as “ the relation of the finite to the infinite,’'- but he adds, “ By defining religion as the relation of the finite to the infinite I have not asserted the existence of a deity. In fact, while that definition makes religion a necessary logical category, it only gives god a contingent existence.” The mission of the Freethinker, he further tells us, is to relieve spiritual misery by discrediting Christian and other theological beliefs. He thinks that “ all so-called material or natural laws will ultimately be found to be the only laws that thought can conceive; that so-called natural laws are but steps in ‘ the logic of pure thought.’ Thus, with the growth of scientific knowledge, all distinctions between idealism and materialism seems destined to vanish.” “Hence arises the indifference of the true Freethinker to the question of the existence or non-existence of a personal God.”The tlieistic argument cannot be entered upon here. We can only refer generally to such expositions of it as that by Dr. Martineau in his “Study of Religion,” recently noticed in these pages. Mr. Pearson does not even allude to the phenomena ot human nature there examined. He characteristically ignores, simply aud entirely,* The Ethics of Freethought. A Selection of Essays and Lectures. By Karl Pearson, M.A. London : T. Fisher Unwin.
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Nonconformist and Independent
London, Middlesex, GB
Thu, Apr 26, 1888
Page 21
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IL, USA 24 Oct 2024
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