Occasional Notes.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 86, 2 March 1876, Page 6

Occasional Notes.

By Colo_w_. SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.

There is k certain school of philosophy which in! these slater days is at-: traoting great attention.,' and', in the opinion of some people • is shaking the pillars of that faith .upon! which are founded the - best! popes' and highest aspirations of the human soul j that faith oh the disappearance of, which there is reason that progression would bejsucceeded by retrogression, and that humanity would return . to. that state it was in " when, .wild in woods the noble savage Tan." ■ Such a result might -be expected ,if the world. should : cease to have a conscience. Conscience, or the higher sort of conscience .is a feeling of responsibility to a higher.than human power and intelligence. Iftmen cease: to believe in God; and~his judgments,they cease to have- consciences.! . Most ancient nations have had some sort of a conscience:— some belief in the existence of an unseen power, to : whom to some extent they ' were responsible for their actions. History can hardly inform us of i a time: ;when the world was utterly: -conscienceless. The feeling of responsibility to a Higher power was not sufficiently strong, however, to prevent many of the ancient nations becoming eventually very wicked. That . to religion, to a Hvely faith, to a more sen-; sitive feeling of responsibility, to a belief that we possess in more respects an accurate knowledge' of the : unseen Power, to the idea of God as , conveyed to our minds by the Old and New Testaments, Christian people owe their present social progress, and the at least comparatively speaking; decent, respectable, and amiable manner in which they live together, I believe there is no doubt, At the present time > perhaps:, the world has a more lively, conscience than it. ever had before. . Is it a matter of; won der that people who believe this, . should view with, consternation and. alarm the appearance and spread of a philosophy which, rashly enunciates, theories, based not on fact but on igno- ! ranee of fact, : theories, which, when tho soul of humanity is gradually ascending to; the higher heaven, would wound it in its flight and bring it down to the lower hell ? As to the conflict of. bcience with religion, there is no such conflict at present, and there is no reason to suppose there ever will be, Science is knowledge, not theory. Theory may conflict with religion but, fact has not yet done so. The progress which human beings have as yet made 1 in knowledge by the -study of natural phenomena, and the institution of. experiment, is as yet, comparatively | speaking, utterly insignificant. Men are as if climbing up a stupendous mountain to obtain a view,, but as yet they have only got up a few } r ards, and the splendid prospect is ss yet hidden from their sight. Meanwhile there is no fact or natural law discovered by scientific investigation, which is calculated to produce a disbelief in a Being whose spirit broods over all that, is, the all-knower) all-seer, all-sympathiser, all-good, according to the highest human idea of moral excellence,- pr which clashes with the belief that the soul of man is not the slave of death, but. the child of life ; that the material body is merely, the cradle of the soul in its infancy, and that the mental faculties are destined to expand hereafter, and through eternity to take cognisance of the Universe. It is not with humble inquirers like Mr Darwin that reasonable people will be disposed to find fault, or with logical deductions', drawn from a close observation and study of facts, but rather with certain writers or ambitious thinkers ; who, getting themselves up on the pedestal of ignorance, calmly, proceed to bowl over the religious faith of their fellowmen with as much , nonchalence and complacency, as a. player knocks over, a lot of ninepins : at • the sametime that we are well aware that these speculative philosophers are hardly in a better position so far as regards the facts or knowledge on which they found their theories, to express an opinion on certain subjects, than is a two-year-old infant. Not to reasonable deductions from careful scientific research, are devout people, if they be also sensible and. reasonable, disposed to find fault, but with those daring assumptions and wild speculations which are rather the offspring of .ignorance than of knowledge. Purely speculative philosophy, though it has . amused and interested- human b'eing3, and does so still, has enforced no lasting benefit on humanity ; but an intuitive belief in certain great truths, has transformed society, has already evolved to some extent divine order out of chaotic disturbance, holy harmony out of hellish discord.

; I have been induced to make the above remarks by a perusal of:a report" of the address of Mr S. Webb, the acting! President of the Otago Institute at the late annual meeting of that body.. For the most part Mr Webb's ob'seryayations are just and true enough, especially his renmks on the value of study of natural history, but notwithstanding, Mr Webb's defence of a certain class of modern philosophers from,the attacks of; those whom he is plea. edrtb: call pro-^ phets of the Baal of Ignorance.; he can hardly; fail.to'be aware of the athiestic tendency of the utterances of several of those < who are credited' with' being the leaders of thought at the present, day.