[Sidenote: Naturalism as the Basis for a Religion of Service, Wonder, and Renunciation.]
§ 125. But though our philosopher must accept the truth of this terrible picture, he is not left without spiritual resources. The abstract religion provided for the agnostic faithful by Herbert Spencer does not, it is true, afford any nourishment to the religious nature. He would have men look for a deep spring of life in the negative idea of mystery, the apotheosis of ignorance, while religious faith to live at all must lay hold upon reality. But there does spring from naturalism a positive religion, whose fundamental motives are those of service, wonder, and renunciation: service of humanity in the present, wonder at the natural truth, and renunciation of a universe keyed to vibrate with human ideals.
"Have you," writes Charles Ferguson, "had dreams of Nirvana and sickly visions and raptures? Have you imagined that the end of your life is to be absorbed back into the life of God, and to flee the earth and forget all? Or do you want to walk on air, or fly on wings, or build a heavenly city in the clouds? Come, let us take our kit on our shoulders, and go out and build the city _here_."[265:25]
For Haeckel "natural religion" is such as
"the astonishment with which we gaze upon the starry heavens and the microscopic life in a drop of water, the awe with which we trace the marvellous working of energy in the motion of matter, the reverence with which we grasp the universal dominance of the law of substance throughout the universe."[266:26]
There is a deeper and a sincerer note in the stout, forlorn humanism of Huxley:
"That which lies before the human race is a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity; in which, and by which, man may develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have entered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes its sway; and, once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface of our planet."[266:27]
[223:1] PRELIMINARY NOTE.--By _naturalism_ is meant that system of philosophy which defines the universe in the terms of _natural science_. In its dogmatic phase, wherein it maintains that _being is corporeal_, it is called _materialism_. In its critical phase, wherein it makes the general assertion that the natural sciences constitute the only _possible knowledge_, whatever be the nature of reality itself, it is called _positivism_, _agnosticism_, or simply _naturalism_.