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God The Invisible King-Part9_H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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formula. Every material phenomenon is consonant with and helps to



define this ether, which permeates and sustains and is all things,

which nevertheless is perceptible to no sense, which is reached only



by an intellectual process. Most minds are disposed to treat this

ether as a reality. But the acutely critical mind insists that what



is only so attainable by inference is not real; it is no more than

"a formula that satisfies all phenomena."



But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that

satisfies all my forms of consciousness?



Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to

believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly



real, from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy

moral and spiritualphenomena. The former has encountered him, the



other has as yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God's will

is so; the other that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this



or that; the other the Good Will in me which I share with you and

all well-disposed men, moves me to do this or that. But the former



makes an exteriorreference and escapes a risk of self-

righteousness.



I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called "The

Tyranny of Shams," in which he displays very typically this curious



tendency to a sort of religion with God "blacked out." His is an

extremely interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman



Catholic priest, and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a

resolution even sterner than Professor Metchnikoff's, to deny that



anything religious or divine can exist, that there can be any aim in

life except happiness, or any guide but "science." But--and here



immediately he turns east again--he is careful not to say

"individual happiness." And he says "Pleasure is, as Epicureans



insisted, only a part of a large ideal of happiness." So he lets

the happiness of devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens



indefinite possibilities of getting away from any merely

materialistic rule of life. And he writes:



"In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and

indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their



inertness. Why, they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a

thing as a duty to improve the earth? What is the meaning or



purpose of life? Or has it a purpose?

"One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece



of controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People

tell you that the conflict of science and religion--it would be



better to say, the conflict of modern culture and ancient

traditions--has robbed life of its plain significance. The men who,



like Tolstoi, seriously urge this point fail to appreciate the

modern outlook on life. Certainly modern culture--science, history,



philosophy, and art--finds no purpose in life: that is to say, no

purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered by man. A great



chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine 'a series of

lucky accidents'--the chance blowing by the wind of certain



chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the

first appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the



influences which have lifted those early germs to the level of

conscious beings as a similar series of lucky accidents.



"But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If

there is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the



development of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose

its own purpose and set up its own goal; and the most elementary



sense of order will teach us that this choice must be social, not

merely individual. In whatevermeasure ill-controlled individuals



may yield to personal impulses or attractions, the aim of the race

must be a collective aim. I do not mean an austere demand of self-



sacrifice from the individual, but an adjustment--as genial and

generous as possible--of individual variations for common good.






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