Agnosticism as a worldview according to Max Müller

With the light hand of Herbert Spencer, whose works are very popular among well-known classes of the Russian educated public, who consider it a duty of honor to follow all the movements of Western European thought, a special worldview has spread in the West, which received the characteristic name of agnosticism. Agnosticism (from the Greek word ἀγνοῖα - ignorance) is a teaching that proceeds from the assumption that man, due to his limitations, cannot know the essence of things and all his so-called knowledge is limited only to the external side of things, as far as they appear to our senses as phenomena. In view of such limitations, a person must abandon all attempts, as completely vain and beyond his strength, to comprehend the essence of things and the entire world around him; and since in the sphere of the essence of things lie the ideas of God, the soul and all the facts of the spiritual world in general, the conclusions to which such a worldview comes are understandable. According to him, all these objects, as lying beyond the possibility of their cognition by man, should therefore be completely abandoned and to deal with them means to indulge in an even more fruitless task than scooping up a boundless ocean with a spoon. The worldview is obviously bleak, although understandable, as a well-known phase in the mental movement of modern humanity. Agnosticism in this case is a transitional step from materialism. The latter, in his extreme conclusions, did not even want to recognize any essence of things. For him, the world was exactly as it appears to our senses, and outside this world of phenomena he did not want to know anything, relating everything to the realm of fiction and idealistic nonsense that he hated. But it was precisely this kind of extreme materialism that contained within itself its own refutation, and its principle could stand only as long as it was not subjected to serious philosophical criticism. But one touch of this criticism was enough to immediately reveal the gross inconsistency of materialism as a system, which in reality was only an expression of an elementary, completely childish, completely unphilosophical worldview, since it did not even understand the difference between the essence of things and their manifestation. And then this pitiful side of materialism was revealed in all its nakedness; its adherents, unable to hold on any longer on the basis of their favorite system and at the same time, not wanting to sacrifice their principles in favor of the opposite system, namely idealism, invented a kind of average worldview, which, although theoretically no longer denies the existence of the extrasensory world, but denies it in fact, proclaiming that this extrasensory world, as containing the essence of things, is for us inaccessible and there is an unknowable world. This average worldview is agnosticism and, since at one time materialism was widespread in Europe, then, naturally, its successor - agnosticism, as its direct heir, also spread widely, capturing all those who, having rejected the crude principles of materialism, do not yet have the courage to directly and openly incline towards the true worldview sanctified by Christianity. Agnosticism, as a philosophical worldview, is especially widespread in England, the birthplace of deism, with which it has some points of contact, and where it found its most prominent philosophical exponent in the person of Spencer 1 . There is even a special organ of agnosticism 2 published there, around which all the best representatives of this trend are grouped and in which various philosophical questions find resolution from the point of view of this worldview. But it is clear that this worldview can satisfy only those who are sufficiently indifferent to the highest questions of existence to, so to speak, give up on them. But there are another kind of people, and precisely the most serious ones, who with painful anguish strive to resolve these “sworn” questions, and such persons, of course, can never become agnostics. In this sense, the famous English Orientalist Max Muller recently spoke out, who, having been invited to take part in drawing up a collective answer to the question: “Why do I lead a moral life,” intended for publication in an agnostic journal, rejected this proposal, since he does not recognize himself as a follower of agnosticism. In his justification, he then published a short article entitled: “Why I am not an agnostic,” and this article, for all its brevity, is so remarkable in content, containing, so to speak, the philosophical confession of the famous Orientalist scientist, that it attracted the general attention of philosophically developed and thinking people, both abroad and here, and since the author’s conclusions are very interesting even from a theological point of view, we consider it useful reproduce this article in its essential content on the pages of our journal 3 . Pointing out that agnosticism as a philosophical system still needs a more precise definition, Max Müller says that if agnosticism contains nothing more than the negation of Gnosticism, and if by Gnosticism is meant the teaching of such philosophers as Cerinthus, Valentine, or Marcion, then he, of course, does not adhere to the views of these philosophizing heretics. But “this purely negative definition of agnosticism would hardly be satisfactory for the outstanding agnostics of our time 4 . Although agnosticism excludes Alexandrian Gnosticism, it can still contain many views on the universe that disagree with each other in many respects, even if they agree with each other in the general rejection of Gnosticism. But agnosticism, as it is now understood, seems to mean something quite different. It is understood in the sense that “a person should not say that he knows or recognizes something for which he has no scientific basis for knowing or recognizing.” This is perhaps a position that few would refuse to subscribe to, although it leaves the door open to much debate as to what is meant by scientific grounds. Some astronomers thought that the earth formed the center of the world, others denied it; both of them, as one might think, expressed their opinions on scientific grounds. Galileo's opponents cited what they considered scientific reasons for their opinion; Galileo also gave scientific reasons for his belief, and hardly anyone would find it desirable for representatives of both these camps to limit themselves to simple agnosticism, to admit their ignorance regarding the true position of the earth or the sun in our planetary system, and shrug their shoulders and say: who can know that? We enter a new field of thought if we, as agnostics, are asked to “confess that we know nothing of what may lie beyond phenomena.” But this too, if properly interpreted, is a position that few of those who are capable of penetrating the meaning of words would refuse to accept, and those familiar with philosophical terminology might perhaps consider such a position almost tautological. What can be, or even what is beyond phenomena, is the very thing that we call transcendental, that is, that which exceeds or lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge, and therefore leaves us ignorant or makes us agnostic. Phenomenal or phenomenal means that which appears to be different from what is, and if knowledge were limited to what exactly is, then everything that only appears could not have any claim to be a product of real knowledge. But if all these preliminary provisions are so obvious that they make any dispute almost impossible, then it may seem strange that agnosticism, not only as a name, but also as a doctrine itself, has recently come to be presented as a peculiar feature of the 19th century. The whole history of philosophy is but one continuous commentary on the fact that there are things that we can know and there are things that we cannot know; This is not enough: the main goal of any critical philosophy is to draw a sharp line between these two classes of things. If we begin the history of systematic philosophy with Socrates, as set forth by his disciples, then we know that Socrates, although declared to be the wisest of men by the Delphic Oracle, declared that he knew only one thing, and that one thing was that he knew nothing. Some thought that this was only a simple expression of extreme modesty on the part of Socrates, just as in Hippias the Younger he says: “My limitations are proved to me by the fact that when I meet one of you, so famous for wisdom and to whose wisdom all the Greeks testify, I find myself ignorant.” But there is a much deeper meaning in his recognition of his ignorance, because he considered this consciousness of his ignorance as proof of his wisdom. Therefore, he could only understand that, in his conviction, all human knowledge is limited only to phenomena, and that he himself did not know anything that is beyond phenomena. If this was the beginning of all philosophy, then the purpose of all philosophy was to investigate how we can know even this; how we know that we, in essence, know nothing, and why we should be ignorant of what is beyond phenomena. This question had to await a final answer until Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason and gave scientific proof of the inherent limitations of human knowledge. Meanwhile, the recognition of our ignorance, this truly philosophical agnosticism, continually found expression in the mouths of all the most famous philosophers. They did not call it agnosticism, because this very word, as apparently excluding only Gnosticism, would give too narrow and therefore a false concept. The Greek philosophers called this by the technical name αγνοῖα 5, or, if they wanted to express the soul's own attitude to transcendental questions, they called it ἐποκῆ, that is, abstention from decisive judgment. During the Middle Ages, the same concept that now goes under the name of agnosticism was known as docta ignorantia, that is, ignorance based on the knowledge of our ignorance or our inability to comprehend anything beyond phenomena. In both these senses, therefore, that is, in the sense that I am not a follower of the Alexandrian Gnostics and admit that all objects of our knowledge are ipso facto phenomenal, I would not hesitate to call myself an agnostic. And yet I cannot do this for two reasons: firstly, because I strongly sympathize with the ends originally intended by Alexandrian Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, and secondly, because I am of the opinion that the human spirit in its highest functions is not limited to the knowledge of mere phenomena. Let's start with the second point. I hardly need to say that the very name phenomenon or appearance contains the idea that there is something that appears, something that we can say that it appears, something that seems to stand in a certain relation to us, and just as much can be known by us. What appears to us, before it appears, remains unknown to us; but it becomes known to us only from the side from which it can be known, that is, from the side of its visibility, from the side of its phenomenal manifestation, insofar as it becomes the subject of human knowledge. It is known to us as something without which the phenomenal would be impossible and even unthinkable. That, without which the phenomenal would be unthinkable, is sometimes called noumenal, real, absolute, and if we call its absence unthinkable, then by this we believe that there are certain forms of our thinking from which our phenomenal knowledge cannot free ourselves - the famous Kantian forms of intuition and understanding. These forms, as Kant showed, cannot be the simple result of phenomenal experience, because they have a character of necessity that cannot belong to any phenomenal experience. Let's take a very simple case. It is known that we always see only one side of the moon, and yet, due to both our sensory intuition (Andschaungsformen) and the categories of our reason, we know with complete confidence - with such confidence that experience could never give us, even if we repeat it thousands of times - that there must be another side to the moon, which we will never see from our earth, but which is as real for our consciousness as the side that we see. These forms of sensory intuition allow no exceptions. The rule that every material body must have more than one side is unconditional. In exactly the same way, if we think at all, we must obey the law of causality, a special category of our mind, without which even the simplest phenomenal knowledge would be impossible. We never see a horse: we know only about certain states of our own consciousness, produced through our senses. But that these impressions presuppose a cause, or, as we call it, an object outside us, depends on that law of causality within us, which we must obey unconditionally, whether we like it or not. If we must recognize in each individual object of our phenomenal knowledge something or a force that manifests itself in it and which we know and can know only through its phenomenal manifestation, then we must also recognize a special force that manifests itself throughout the entire universe. We can perhaps call this force unknowable or incomprehensible, but we can also call it the most known, because all our knowledge comes from the study of its phenomenal manifestations. We know that it exists; what it is in itself, that is, outside of relation to us or outside of our knowledge, of course, we cannot know; but we undoubtedly know that without it the very world of phenomena or the phenomenal universe would be impossible. This is the first step that takes you beyond agnosticism and which immediately disqualifies me from being called an agnostic. But there is another, and even more fatal step, which completely deprives me of any right to this name. I cannot help but notice in the universe an all-pervading causality or reason for every thing, because even when in my phenomenal ignorance I do not yet know the reason for this or that, I am already forced to admit that such a reason in any case exists; I feel obliged to admit this, because for such a mind as ours, nothing can exist without a sufficient reason. But how do I know this? This is precisely the point at which I cease to be an agnostic. I do not know this from experience, and, however, I know this with much greater confidence than what experience could give. This is also not a new discovery. The first step towards this discovery was taken very early by the Greek philosophers, when they turned from the observation of external nature to the higher regions of thought and recognized in nature the action of reason or νοῦς'a, which penetrates the universe. Anaxagoras, who first recognized the necessity of the existence of reason in nature, attributed to it no more than the first impulse to the interaction of its indifferent elements. But even his νοῦς, as was soon noticed, was more than a simple primum mobile; more than κινοῦν ἀκινητόν (motor of the immovable). We ourselves, after a thousand years of physical and metaphysical research, can say no more than that there is νοῦς, that spirit and reason exist in nature. “His Majesty Chance” (Sa majesté le hasard) has long been dethroned in all scientific research, and neither natural selection, nor the struggle for existence, nor the influence of the environment or any other factors of this kind are able to explain the Logos or that mind that looks at us with a thousand eyes through the transparent veil of nature and demands reasonable recognition from our inner Logos located in us. If any philosopher can convince himself that the true and well-ordered genera (generic units) of nature are the result of mechanical causes, whatever name he may give to them, then he moves in a world completely different from mine. He belongs to the period of thought that preceded Anaxagoras. For Plato these genera were ideas; for the Peripatetics these were words or logoi; for both these were manifestations of thought. If these thoughts had not existed before their manifestation or their individuation in the phenomenal world, the human mind could never have discovered them there and named them. From here we, as Christians, can well say in the words of St. John: “In the beginning was the Logos.” If we call this Logos the Son, and if we speak of the Father, whom no one knows except the Son, the so-called Deus ante intellectum, then we are using human language; but if we know that all human language is metaphorical, then we should never try to limit these words to the narrow limits of the literal sense. What lies behind the veil of these words is in reality the legitimate realm of ἀγνοῖας or agnosticism. But everything that lies on this side of the veil is our heritage, the heritage of language and subsequent science, which in the chaos of phenomena discovered and with each new generation of Aristotle and Bacon, strives to more and more discover the hidden cosmos or reflection of that Logos, without which nature would be illogical, irrational, chaotic and would exist only by chance, and not by the will of an intelligent Power. Call this Power Father or call it Person, and you will lose and gain nothing, because these words are also allegorical, and what constitutes the personal element in a person or in any other living being is as unknown to us as what constitutes the personal element in an author, thinker, orator, or creator of logos. All that I assert is that if we speak of Logos and logoi, and clearly understand what we mean by these words, then we can no longer say that in the beginning there was protoplasm, and that the whole world developed from it through purely mechanical or external forces. Since we have recognized in all the genera or genera of the natural world not merely the unknowable or substance and incomprehensible power, but also the thoughts and will of the spirit, then this Spirit is not only not incomprehensible, but is subject to constant investigation in its endless manifestations by human science. In fact, it is the single subject of all our knowledge, from the first attempts at crude grouping and naming to the latest efforts of scientific research to classify, investigate and understand this subject. All our knowledge of nature thus becomes the recognition of the logoi of nature on the part of our own logos. Each genus becomes a logos, an eternal thought or an eternal word; This is not enough, it apparently follows that there is no place in nature for anything other than genera; there is no room for species or εἴδη in the proper sense of these terms. Here we see how the science of language becomes the science of thought. If that which constitutes the genus is a unity of origin, then true science knows the individuals representing the genus, and not the species, although for practical purposes the human mind may give this name to varieties in their more or less hereditary and stable form, such varieties being in reality no more than the necessary consequence of individualization and diversity. If each individual differs and must differ in some way from all other individuals of the same kind, then the accumulation of these differences naturally leads to the formation of what is called a species. We can thus talk, for example, about differences in varieties or even species of horses, including the three-toed hipparion. But in reality there is only one ἱππότης, if only we have eyes to see it, as Plato used to say. I hardly dare say whether I know all this, or whether I only believe it. I cannot help but see order, law, reason or logos in the world, and I cannot explain this to myself simply by subsequent events, call them what you want - the experience of the most capable, natural selection or some other way. In any case, this knowledge is insurmountable for me, and I therefore do not dare to join the camp of agnostics under a false flag. I am not sure whether on my way to this knowledge I did not use anything other than the facts of our direct consciousness and the conclusions that can be logically deduced from them. Without these two authorities I do not consider myself obliged to accept any other evidence. History alone can tell you how these ideas arose and how they developed from century to century. All I have attempted to do (and of course in a very imperfect manner) is to discover the causes which, in the history of the world, have led men to recognize what, according to the teaching of some philosophers, is based neither on the evidence of their senses, nor on the logical conclusions of their reason. I have recently tried to trace these causes and their historical progress in my Gifford Lectures and especially in the last volume, entitled: “Theosophy or Psychological Religion” 6 . In one sense, I hope, I was and am an agnostic, that is, in the sense that I rely only on historical facts and follow reason, so far as it is able to guide us in mental matters, and never make a claim to the certainty of those conclusions that have not been proven or cannot be proven. This direction of the mind has always been recognized as a conditio sine qua non of all philosophy. If in the future it will be called agnosticism, then I am a true agnostic; but if agnosticism excludes the recognition of an eternal Reason pervading the natural and moral world, if to suppose an intelligent cause for an intelligent universe is to belong to Gnosticism, then I am a Gnostic and a humble follower of the greatest thinkers of mankind from Plato and the author of the fourth gospel to Kant and Hegel. We hardly need to add anything to these philosophical arguments and conclusions of the famous Orientalist. Suffice it to say that his conclusions deal a decisive blow to such a fashionable, but logically untenable view as agnosticism, and coincide with those eternal truths that, as revealed in the Word of God, constitute the property of every rationally believing Christian. See his “Fundamentals”, where he especially developed this view. See The Nineteenth Century for Dec. 1894: Why jam not an Agnoctic? By Prof. Max Muller. All further text is a translation of Max Müller's article with very minor and insignificant abbreviations. M. M. Natural Religion, p.225. Theosophy or Psychological Religion.