First principles / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/584 (page 13)
    Keeping guard against tlie bias of education and shutting out the whisperings of sectarian feeling, let us consider what are the a priori probabilities in favour of each party. § 4. When duly realized, the general principle above illustrated must lead us to anticipate that the diverse forms of religious belief which have existed and which still exist, have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy the implication is, not that any one of them is altogethei right; but that in each there is something right more or less disguised by other things wrong. It may be that the soul of truth contained in erroneous creeds is very unlike most, if not all, of its several embodiments ; and indeed, if, as we have good reason to expect, it is much more abstract than any of them, its unlikeness necessarily follows. But however different from its concrete expressions, some essential verity must be looked for. To suppose that these multiform conceptions should be one and all absolutely groundless, discredits too profoundly that average human intelligence from which all our individual intelligences are inherited. This most general reason we shall find enforced by other more special ones. To the presumption that a number of diverse beliefs of the same class have some common founda- tion in fact, must in this case be added a further presumption derived from the omnipresence of the beliefs. Religious ideas of one kind or other are almost if not quite universal. Even should it be true, as alleged, that there exist tribes of men who have nothing approaching to a theory of creation—even should it be true that only when a certain phase of intelligence is reached do the most rudimentary of such theories make their appearance; the implication is practically the same. Grant that among all races who have passed a certain stage of intellectual development there are found vague notions concerning the origin and hidden nature of surrounding things ; and there arises the inference that such notions are necessary products of progressing intelligence. Their endless variety serves but