MR. AUBREY DE VERE ON THE SCEPTICAL BIAS.
IN a remarkable article contributed to the current number of the Nineteenth Century, by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, on "The Subjective Difficulties in Religion," he discusses at some length the question whether the alleged inability of the modern reason to believe in religions truth be due to the defect of the creed which it rejects, or to the defect of the intelligence which rejects it. If the flaw be in the former, of course the rejection is right. In that case, reason has detected, what it is the proper function of reason, by comparing, and measuring, and analysing, to detect, notes of error—intrinsic flaws—in the object of study, or intrinsic contradictions between the constitution of the faculty which conducts the study and that attitude of reverence for the object presented to it for consideration, which the creed requires. The historian who studies the story of Cagliostro finds that in a great number of instances, while pretending to much greater knowledge than his dupes, he acted just as if he possessed just thee much more knowledge than they, and thus much more only, that he knew they were easily to be duped, while they did not even know as much as that. If, on the contrary, the same historian examines the careers (say) of St. Francis of Assisi or John Howard, and finds the whole of those careers explicable only by the key of a devout and sell-sacrificing holiness, he decides that these are lives to be interpreted from above, and not from be- neath. Just so, if our reason discovers in a creed presented to its acceptance as a creed from above, that it is just what might be manufactured from below, and that it contains nothing of a nature to stimulate, elevate, fortify, and subdue us, as super- natural wisdom must, then we should rightly reject it as spurious. On the other hand, if the defect lies not in the creed, but in the intelligence which too feebly, hastily, and inadequately attempts to grasp the creed, then what we might expect to find, and what Mr. De Vere believes that we do find, would be this,—that, so far as the creed is really apprehended, the mind which appre- hends it is strengthened, widened, stimulated, elevated, and also chastened ; and that those who fail to apprehend it, fail also in gaining this additional strength, stimulus, elevation, and healthy humiliation, and consequently seem to miss something of calm, of strength, of loftiness, and of humility, for which there is room in them. Such is the point of view from which Mr. Aubrey De Vere discusses what he calls "the subjective difficulties in religion," in other words, the sceptical bias. He holds that the sceptical bias is one which speaks of defect in us, not one which is caused by the flaws in the object presented to us for our spiritual acceptance.
Mr. De Vere insists, of course, very naturally and very truly, on the complete unfitness of the sceptical bias for the early lessons of life. "It is through a sympathetic and joyous docility," he says, " that we learn to walk, to speak, to exercise and direct our first affections, to reach out to the rudiments of all wisdom." That is true, and yet Mr. De Vere does not do justice to the sceptical bias, when he only insists on its complete incapacity for the early training of the mind. Of course, the child who should refuse the guidance of its parents, through prema- ture scepticism, would perish of hunger ; and the heart that should resist the growth of instinctive love, through premature distrust, would perish of ossification ; but then it may fairly be answered that the time for the activity of the sceptical bias is not in childhood, that it comes later, so soon as the growing mind comes into contact, as it soon must, with misleading experiences and with profound moral disappointments. Mr- De Vere does not concede enough to the sceptical bias. It is perfectly true, as the man of science tells us, that without the sceptical bias, we should never have had the inductive sciences, if, indeed, any sciences at all. The man who dared to doubt whether the sun really rises as it appears to rise, dared a doubt which was prolific of true astronomy. The man who dared to doubt whether any tradition of custom could justify the enslavement of human beings like ourselves, dared a doubt which was prolific of true morality. The man who dared to doubt whether it could be pious to persecute those who met their persecutors with radiant forgiveness, dared a doubt which was prolific of true faith. Mr. De Vere is unjust to the sceptical bias, when he ignores this. It is perfectly true, as he says, that all healthy human life begins in " a joyous docility," but it is equally true that almost all healthy human life soon dashes itself against the rock of some misleading lesson, some poignant disillusion, some authoritative iniquity, some successful hypocrisy, and it is then that the proper moment for the development of the sceptical bias comes. True, even then the highest sceptical bias is only faith, or love, or trust in disguise ; it is not scepticism simply, but resistance to some demand on faith which offends a deeper faith, repudiation of some illusion of the senses which violates the conditions of some intellectual principle of our being, rejection of some exercise of authority which implies disloyalty to some higher authority though one less ostentatious and less outwardly peremptory. All this we admit to Mr. De Vere ; but none the less, his striking article sins by appearing to condemn the sceptical bias as wholly un- favourable to the true growth of man, whereas, in some form, it is essential to that growth. He approves the Socratic doubt which " doubts our doubts away ;1' but not, apparently, any other kind of doubt, any kind which takes at first a more serious form. Now, we maintain that though the true sceptical bias is rooted in faith, it is yet rooted in a faith which often sets him who cherishes it at odds with all the so-called natural authorities
about us, and which requires us to assume the attitude not only of incredulity, but of rebellion, towards teachers who seem to be set over us, and to be the natural guardians both of the public peace and of domestic life. It can hardly be said that the sceptical bias is wholly misleading, if there be, as we believe there are, great eras of the world, and little eras in everybody's private life, when the primary duty is to trust the impulse of distrust, when the highest belief is involved in a stern incredulity, when the truest humility expresses itself in the attitude of insubordination, and the " non-possumus" of modest defiance. It is true that the highest life begins in " joyous docility," but it is not true that that goes very far before the bias of scepticism should begin to play its part. The only fault we find with Mr. De Vere's paper is in its apparent ignoring of the value of that part, and even of its direct service to the cause of lofty and living faith. In one of the finest passages of his essay, Mr. De Vere says that the soul always exercises its free- dom most in humbling itself before a truth which solicits it from above :-
" The will, the spiritual within us, when it is a `good will,' becomes the highest expression of our freedom, lifting the reason into its loftiest sphere, and delivering the heart from the thraldom of inferior motives. The obedience of this nobler will to grace is the fiat which unites man with God ; and faith, the light of the soul, is the child of that union. The Creator's primal ' fiat lux' was an act of supreme authority ; the creature's ' fiat voluntas tua' is an act of humility, and irradiates the world within."
That is powerfully put ; but surely Mr. De Vere understands
that in a world of appearances many of which are so false, there must come-almost for every one before mature faith can be reached-a time when the challenge of illusion, sometimes so fierce a challenge of illusion as to run on into passionate cynicism, takes the place of "joyous docility." As we grow up
to manhood, we see so many false things shelteriog themselves under the pretext of representing God's will, so much authority that is blind and cruel, so much morality that is a bad kind of conventionality, so much religion that is mere hypocrisy, that it is no wonder a question arises in many a soul as to whether this is God'i world at all, and even after that is decided in the affirmative, as to whether any specific claim made upon us in God's name is really divine, or something very much short of divine, even down to the point of being diabolic.
Mr. De Vere seems to make no allowance for this almost necessary stage in the growth of every adequately matured mind, the stage in which the mind runs the gauntlet of a hundred falsehoods, and is, unless singularly pure, brought to the very edge of utter disbelief in the divine will as the basis of things. But even the purest has to go through this battle with falsehood and illusion, this encounter with mocking shadows and evil dreams. And it is a healthy scepticism which challenges these false appearances, and requires even divine truths to stand and make good their authority to the heart, before it surrenders itself to their guidance. Long after the fiat voluntas tua' has been honestly said, the painful doubt and
difficulty as to what the divine will really is, goes on. Hence, the sceptical instinct is given us, as we believe, as a necessary buttress to faith in such a world as ours. If we are to believe strongly,
we must disbelieve strongly too. We must challenge strenuously all sorts of shams which come before us wearing the exterior appearance and presenting themselves in the name of divine authority. It may be-we agree with Mr. De Vere that it is- " something in ourselves ". which prevents us from accepting all the divine truth which we might otherwise accept and live by; but this is only the excess of that other " something in our- selves " which preventing from taking what is false as if it were true, and what is plausible as genuine. It seems to us that in a healthy mind, scepticism is the complement of faith. We do not quite agree with Tennyson that, " there is more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds," but we do hold that the truth in the creeds can never be heartily appropriated by those who have not first doubted either .the true creeds themselves, or the false creeds which come to them with all the authority of the true, and without having tested link by link the strength of each imposing claim.
All that we should condition for in the sceptical bias is that it be true scepticism, and not unbelief, that is, true suspense of
judgment till the truth be found, and should be based on a deep conviction that to him who will search patiently and perseveringly enough, the truth is to be found ; and will be, when found, the solid foundation of all true life, the sure light of God. The sceptical instinct itself,-the instinct for challenging superficial appearances,-far from being a mere defect in the human intellect, appears to us to be intended, in this world of outsides, as a kind of guardian angel of true faith. If our minds be only half fit to take in truth, they are a great deal too fit to take in falsehood, and but for the sceptical instinct, they would swallow falsehoods wholesale, and live on them till they were poisoned. Mr. De Vere, it is certain, does not do full justice to the sceptical bias.
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