vol. 100 no. 4 e1.50 april 1995 tars of titillation · the ethical recionn0rma vol. 100 no. 4 e1.50...

The Ethical RecIonN0rmaVol. 100 No. 4 E1.50 April 1995

100 tars of titillationI'll I:

SOUTH PLACE MAGAZINE:A MONTHLY RECORD

or T PIE W a ^ r

the %MAI) place Ethical Zocidg.^ • 1 -4

Phdowohy iN 5. Sm..] Devolopmess and Rs

155,5otaien FAah 5•51Cowww.ye

.555.155 Arita, 05-55

Yee I., PkI. APRIL. 1895.

- -

TWO HISTORICAL SOUTH PLACE EDITORS.

lIe MOOWAXP. D. CONWAY. M.A.

ge WOW WSO fileir MISNInt jou!: ni

the orlon %ice and WINK of Ow South PI inn, hut

the Society may heel some reason in its

unpotending dimenonns and Alla rd

Cation id the Society's large . o Spend

desimbls. bM the sun, 1 .sl lit,, snowy

is sufficiently period

its pat:to ;offs.

to h pan e tiff ef a

5 dal and nimi only to iliffitee a

et nrld. l'hie was. no always the case_

F kondaiino of the Socincy lielnuary

Weis were also editors. and Moroi: the

for English which follow riI

th,,betetii.enlim,ne in France. they did ohant =noise

in keep he traditions of onnstitulionAl libel Iv. We

can ealisc the heaiy price prod by nor limbos

for do freedom we. enjoy. " From the beginning of the

century to thedeath rif Loot Liorpifil," stole Sidon Smith.

.:Aa5 An owdul perioil for any line whii•entmcd in

Moral principles. Ile was sure to be assailed with all the

billingsgate ef the Punch Hoolutioni Jacebio:' Leo Iler;

',Wood' • Incendiary; ' Regicide,' won OW OprOloW turns

used. And any man "he breathed a ollahle acainsi the

senseless bignuy dif Mc Georges was shunnid as unlit for

social Mei To kay a word one pingo, that a lich

man inflicted. and a poor man offool. was bitte, I. and

slcadilv reconWA. and in eau yeni 125510 ps sons %ie.,

committed ler ofEnces againal Ihe game laws.'

Leigh Ilunt was among the first who began the parconfil.

1895 — 1995To commemorate the CENTENARY of the issue of a monthly journal recording theproceedings of the South Place Ethical Society in April 1895, this April 1995 issuecontains two articles on the publishing history of the Society.

THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS Nicolas Walter 2THE ORIGINS OF THE SOUTH PLACE MAGAZINE Jennifer JaynesFRANCIS HUTCHESON (1694-1746), Peter Beaks 8THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Nicholas Maxwell 16FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND HUMANISM, II. James Birx 20VIEWPOINTS: Paddy Smith, John White, Colin Mills. Robert Awbery 26OBITUARY - GRACE ADAMS, Keith Mark 27ETHICAL SOCIETY PROGRAMME 28

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYConway Hall Humanist Centre

25 Red Lion Square, London WC I R 4RL. Telephone: 07 Ir831 7723

Appointed Lecturers Harold Blackham, T.F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker,

Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter. Officers

Honorary Representative: Nicolas Walter. General Committee Chairman Barbara Smoker. Treasurer Don Liversedge. Registrar: Marion Granville. Librarian: Edwina Palmer.

Editor, The Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac. Secretary to the Society: Nina Khare. Tcl: 071-831 7723 Fax: 071-430 1271

(The Secretary's office is on the 2nd Floor, Bradlaugh House, 47 Theobald's Road) Hall Staff

Manager:Stephen Norley. Tel: 071-242 8032 for Hall bookings. Head Caretaker: David Wright. New Members

Gerard Briody, Alan Budd, Ralph Ison, Arthur Atkinson Moppett, Dr. G. Ottensooser, John Valentine.

Obituary We regret to report the deaths of Grace Adams (see page 27),

O.D. Leslie (London) and Wyman Smith (Vermont, USA).

HUMANIST ANTHOLOGY

Edited by Margaret Knight * Revised by Jim Herrick * Prefaced by Edward Blishen

A new edition of Margaret Knight's much praised anthology, giving the sweep ofhumanist thought from Confucius to Bronowski, from Epicurus to RichardDawkins, from Voltaire to David Attenborough.

Order from: RPA, Bradlaugh House, 47 Theobald's Road, London WCIX 8SP at £7.50 plus El p & p. Tel: 0171 430 1371

THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS

Nicolas Walter Hon. Representatise, SPES; Managing Director. RPA.

This magazine, which has been published under various names for the past century, was by nomeans the first periodical associated with the Society. All the ministers during its first centuryused to publish their sermons either as separate pamphlets or collected in books, and several ofthem also produced magazines.

The first three ministers had their own monthly magazines. Elhanan Winchester, thefounding minister from 1793 to 1794, had produced The Philadelphian Magazine, 'containing aGreat Variety of Important, instructive, and Entertaining Matter, chiefly original, calculated topromote True Religion and Virtue', from February to December 1788, five years before our firstchapel was opened in Parliament Court. Its policy was Universalism, the doctrine that all shallbe saved, which was the basic principle of this society from its formation.

2 Ethical Record, April, 1995

Willian Vidler, the minister from 1794 to 1816, from January 1797 produced TheUniversalist's Miscellany or Philanthropist's Museum, 'Intended chiefly as an Antidoteagainst the Antichristian Doctrine of Endless Misery'; in January 1802 it became TheUniversal Theological Magazine. 'Intended for the Free Dicussion of all ReligiousSubjects, to which persons of every Denomination are invited'; and in January 1804 itbecame The Universal Theological Magazine and Impartial Review. Its policy was firstUniversalism and then Unitarianism, the doctrine that God has only one person and thatJesus was a human being, which was the basic principle of this society from 1802.According to his biographer, however, 'it must be confessed that Mr. Vidler excelled innothing so little as in the office of editor of a magazine', and in 1806 it was absorbed intoThomas Aspland's new Monthly Repository, which became the Unitarian paper in thecountry.

W.J. Fox, the very successful minister from 1817 to 1853, who moved the society to itssecond chapel in South Place, Finsbury, was a prolific freelance journalist, writing inmany newspapers and magazines, including the Monthly. Repository. He eventually took itover himself, becoming the editor in 1826 and the owner in 1831, and conducted it until1836. He ended the Unitarian connection, and turned it into a leading literary andpolitical magazine, the contributors including Thomas Crabbe Robinson, HarrietMartineau, John Stuart Mill and Robert Browning. According to his biographer, it was'secularised in his hands, and reconciled with the broadest humanism'.

Henry N. Barnett, the very unsuccessful minister from 1858 to 1863, published a weeklySouth Place Pulpit during 1863, in which he published his sermons and described hisquarrel with the society. After he left he became editor of The Advocate, a Christianmagazine.

Moncure Conway, the very successful minister from 1864 to 1884 and again from 1892to 1896, who led the Society from theism to humanism, was also a prolific freelancejournalist, writing in many newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. Hehad edited the anti-slavery weekly Commonwealth in America during 1862-1863, but hehad too little time for such work in Britain — though the weekly Lessons for the Dayappeared from October 1882 to September 1883 to publish his South Place sermons.

Stanton Coit, the minister from 1888 to 1891, who turned us into an Ethical Society,didn't stay long enough to start a paper. But in 1898, after he had founded the WestLondon Ethical Society and the Union of Ethical Societies (later the Ethical Union), hebegan The Ethical World, which lasted under various names until 1922.

In the end a permanent magazine of the society at last appeared. In April 1895 anindependent group of members began the South Place Magazine,' A Monthly Record ofthe Work of the South Place Ethical Society', which was taken over by the society in 1896.From the start it was a combination of a house magazine and a record of the mainlectures. It eventually proved to be too expensive, and in October 1909 it was replaced bythe smaller Monthly List. In January 1920 this was in its turn replaced by the largerMonthly Record. From April 1922 to March 1923 this was merged with the Ethical Unionpaper The Humanist, but from April 1923 it resumed independent publication (while theEthical Union published the Ethical Societies' Chronicle from 1924 to 1944). In January1965 it became the Ethical Record, which it remains thirty years later. 0

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

Ethical Record, April, 1995 3

THE ORIGINS OF -Tile*tali Place Magazine

Jennifer R. Jeynes, M.Sc., Executive Librarian

By 1884 the South Place Religious Society,according to the article written by MoncureConway's assistant, Dr. Andrew Wilson, whichappeared in the Pall Mall Gazette under theheading, 'Centres of Spiritual Activity', 'hadevolved itself into a society, without creed ordogmatic formulation of belief — but eager toavail itself of every aid of science, art andliterature, towards the culture of liberal thought'.Each Sunday there was delivered a 'discourseon some topic of interest either of general orspecial kind'. Conway's last discourse as theregular minister of South Place Chapel, aposition he had held for 20 years, was entitled'Apologia' and given in July 1884.

Photo: Martin Hanis

Jennifer Jeynes

The Report of the Committee of the South Place Religious Society of 1884 thanked him forpresenting this discourse, which 'was of the most interesting character and forms an appropriateclose to his long ministry', for publication, along with others. Discourses of Andrew Wilson arealso reported to have been published, plus the second of the two given by Mr. Arthur W.Hutton, 'Early Footsteps and Their Guidance', on the grounds that 'the truths enunciated atSouth Place are eminently fitted to produce good effects upon a much larger number of personsthan can hear them delivered. It is hoped, therefore, that from time to time many of thediscourses given to the Society may be issued to the public'.

Whereas the 1885 Report of the Committee regretted that 'there is no immediate prospect ofsuitably filling the platform with a permanent minister; but, on the other hand, there appears nodifficulty in carrying on the work of the Society and providing, week by week, discourses of acharacter befitting South Place and its tradition , it may be also borne in mind that it is notexclusively a misfortune to come under the influence of more than one mind. Truth, on allcomplex subjects, is naturally many-sided'. A complete list of the discourses given in 1885 wasappended to the Report, six of which had been printed. These included Conway's 'A Charge tobe kept at South Place'; Mr Edward Clodd's 'Science and the Emotions'; and Professor KarlPearson's 'Enthusiasm of the Market Place and of the Study'. Unfortunately not included wereMrs. A. Besant's 'The Evolution of Morality' and Mr. J. Bums-Gibson's 'Anarchism'; nor Mr.James Oliphant's 'The Ideal of Womanhood' or Mr. Leslie Stephen's 'Henry Fawcett's Careerand Character'.

On Sunday afternoons in 1885, Free Lectures were being given, on topics such as the basis ofmorals, teachings of biology, and matter and materialism. There were also courses of lectures onweekday evenings and Mr. J. Allanson Picton's on 'The Conflict of Oligarchy and Democracywith special reference to the political and social problems of our time,' was printed.

In 1887 Dr. Stanton Coit, of the Ethical Culture Movement in the USA, gave severaldiscourses, on 'Ethical Culture as a Religion for our People', so successfully that two werepublished and he was invited to become permanent Minister. He accepted on condition that theSociety's name be altered to South Place Ethical Society. The plaque in South Place records thebeginning of SPES officially from 1888. However, his letter of resignation of September 1891


comments that he hears of much dissatisfaction with his lectures among an influential minority

of the Society.

Although Conway returns to be Minister again, by 1895 it had been arranged, according to

the SPES Report for 1895-6, that he should be relieved 'from the strain of giving discourses

Sunday after Sunday throughout the year'. Perhaps also the tradition of a variety of lecturers for

Sunday morning discourses was too firmly established to be abandoned as it 'enables the

members to listen to the highest and best thoughts of various distinguished minds on ethical and

religious subjects' and in (Conway's) absence the Committee have fortunately been able to

obtain the services of lecturers of eminence and ability to fill the platform'.

Thus when the South Place Magazine is established in April 1895, price 2d monthly or two

shillings and sixpence annually, to be a monthly record of the work of SPES, Volume I, the year

to March 1896, records the discourses of 16 speakers apart from Conway.

However, Conway's first contribution is not a discourse but an article, presumably written

specially to inaugurate the new literary endeavour, on Two Historical South Place Editors'. Its

first sentence is, The large sects with their militant joumals may smile at the small size and scope

of the South Place Magazine, but the Society may find some reason for satisfaction in its

unpretending dimensions and aims. Some record and indication of the Society's large and varied

work has been found desirable'.

He illustrates how 'for 50 years after the foundation of the Society (February 14th 1793), its

ministers were also editors and during the long reign of terror for English liberalism which

followed the brief reign of terror in France, they did valiant service in keeping alive the traditions

of constitutional liberty'. The editors concerned were William Johnson Fox and Leigh Hunt.

After Fox, who became minister of the Society soon after Waterloo, had been 'editing the

Monthly Repository as an organ of the Unitarian denomination, he purchased it (1831) and

transformed it from a theological publication into an organ of political and social reform, and of

literary and dramatic criticism. In this work his chief helper and frequent contributor was Leigh

Hunt, who in 1837, succeeded him as the Editor'.

Leigh Hunt and his brother John had founded The Examiner in 1808 to 'promote

parliamentary reform, liberality of opinion in general and especially freedom from superstition'

but they were both imprisoned, separately, for two years and fined £500 for criticism of the

Prince Regent in 1813. However, Leigh Hunt was still able to continue editing The Examiner

from Surrey gaol and it 'acquired, of course, increased popularity and became a power in the

land'. Conway reports that 'Thomas Carlyle told me that among his early recollections was the

excitement caused in Scotland by this journal... the place of its delivery was every week besieged

by an eager crowd and its columns furnished the town talk till another number came'.

Conway also comments, 'We can now hardly realise the heavy price paid by our fathers for

the freedom we enjoy'. Indeed the Report of the Committee of SPES for 1895-6 records the

death of a number of Chapel members and friends, many of whom 'belonged to the Society

when it required no little courage and self-sacrifice to openly be members of such a body' and the

list includes `J.B. Grant, the last person imprisoned for non-payment of Church Rates'.

The first discourse mentioned in volume one, number one, of the South Place Magazine is

that on William Penn by a Mr. H. Rawlings, MA, though sad to report 'we very much regret

being compelled to omit any further reference to an extremely suggestive study of the character

of the founder of Pennsylvania'. No elaboration. Perhaps so soon in its history appeared a failing


among discoursers not unknown to the present editor — the non-appearance of a promised textof a lecture.

Whereas now the talks appear predominantly as written by the speaker, then the talk isusually reported on, presumably by the editor, though the name of that personage does notappear in the Volume as such. There is an appeal, however, in October 1895 by The Editor formembers to furnish him with matter each month on all branches of the Society's operations. Asthe address for contributions is given, it is possible to scan the list of members' names andaddresses appended to the 1895-6 Report and ascertain it belonged to Mr. J.R. Carter.

We can observe contrasts in the 1895-6 Magazine, between what seems to us a century later,forward looking thinking and also sentiments very much of their late 19th century time.Although SPES is still very interested now to discuss Utilitarianism, it is difficult to imagine acurrent lecture on this topic entitled, as was Mrs. Gilliland Husband's discourse in July 1895as a Remedial Agency'. The question at issue is whether it could ever be right either to inflict painon any human being or fail to intervene to reduce it.

`What do we most desire for ourselves and others? Is it above all freedom from pain? No: it is"life".., to fit a human being for this it is necessary to develop character and faculty... Increase oflife means increase of happiness. But.., increase of faculty is the cause, increase of happiness theeffect... If human development is to be furthered by the alleviation of any particular pain, thenrelieve it; but pain may be necessary to repress evil tendencies, to break down evil, so that goodwill may have a chance'.

Also, in the Debate on Capital Punishment held by the South Place Discussion Society,reported on in April 1895, Mrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner (daughter and biographer of CharlesBradlaugh) thought `Capital Punishment is at once too severe and too lenient; too severe in thatthe punishment provokes compassion and can never be remitted; too lenient in that the wholesuffering is confined to the brief period of, at the most, three weeks'. She also had 'grave (!)doubts about advocating the total abolition of Capital Punishment, as in it she sees the mosteffective means of coping with those cases of hereditary criminality which not infrequentlyoccur'.

Whereas Herbert Burrows who gave a Sunday Afternoon Free Lecture about the CivilService, also reported in April 1895, after describing the reforms whereby appointment nowdepended on open competitive examination, commented on 'the increased tendency of theCrown to employ more and more women and (he) could never understand why they were paidon a lower scale than men, realising as he did that it threw many men out of employment.Without offering any solution of the problem he wished to warn his hearers the difficulty wouldpress more and more heavily as time went on and sooner or later would have to be grappledwith'.

Also, there are stirrings of a 'green' sensibility in the first issue, to be found in PrinceKropotkin's lecture on 'What Man Can Obtain from the Land', in aid of the fund for paying offthe debt on the building and presided over by Sidney Webb. Altough 'not strictly germane to theaims of an Ethical Society, the land question had very strong ethical bearings'... 'In Russia at thepresent time Tolstoi and his followers were working like pea:sants on the land... Work on theland will certainly be the means of bringing men more closely together in sympathies. The earthin all religions and philosophies was personified as the Mother of Man. This feeling of affectionfor the land was a very natural one, and as time went on man would go direct to the land'.

On a lighter note from April 1895, 'Mr. Charles Holroyd conducted a number of ramblers


through the Sienese, Tuscan, Italian and Venetian Rooms of the National Gallery'. Other rambleswere to the Reading Room of the British Museum Library, the Guildhall and the Strand MagazinePrinting Works. (On the leaving of the last of these venues, each rambler was presented with a copyof Tit Bits and a Strand Novelette). As regards the South Place Sewing Meetings, 'nearly 100 flannelgowns for the Royal Free Hospital represent the praiseworthy industry of these benevolent ladies'.

Longevity was last century as this, often a benefit of membership. `Mr. J.A. Lyon, a South PlaceVeteran, whose recollections of the South Place Society go back to the time when the Chapel wasnot yet built, and who remembers Mr. Fox's predecessor, Mr. Vidler, completed his 86th yr onMarch 23rd. On the evening of that day he presided, with the vigour of a man of fifty, at a meetingof the Discussion Class connected with the South London Ethical Society, and assisted in thediscussion, which was on the thrilling theme of "Bimetallism"!

Certainly Conway's Memorial Discourse on "Huxley", given in October and reported on in theDecember 1895 issue, conveys material about his life and work that could be repeated with benefitat the Conference on 'T.H. Huxley: Victorian Science and Culture', to be held this month atImperial College. The Discourse begins by referring to the Liberal Thinkers' Congress whichgathered at South Place on June 13 and 14, 1878. Huxley was made President of the Associationthen formed, a position he held till death, and in accepting it remarked, "Freethinkers are no longerto be merely bullied". Conway then commented, 'We cannot help feeling some regret when such aman is buried with rites representative of creeds he pronounced untrue. But the surrender is not allon one side. The Church has buried in sure and certain hope of his resurrection to eternal life a manwho denied every dogma on which the Church declares eternal life to depend. The old doctrine, "hethat believeth not shall be damned" is reserved for common people: it does not apply to Fellows ofthe Royal Society (!)... Remember Shakespeare's profound words: "Best men are moulded of theirfaults".'

Huxley had been criticised, Conway continued. 'for assenting to the use of the Bible in the publicschools, and for inventing the term "Agnostic", which some have used to evade the disrepute ofplainer designations'. However, his 'long personal acquaintance with Huxley as well as study of hiswritings, convinced him that there was no lack of courage in the man, but he had a strongimagination, which while it was mainly developed into the scientific imagination so fruitful ofresults.., also rendered him in political and social affairs somewhat visionary. When the neweducational system began he really believed that the Bible was to be read in the schools as he himselfwould use it — for its good English, its poetry, historical value, selected ethics. He had a vision ofheretical Huxleys instructing innumerable little Huxleys'.

'As to the term "Agnostic", it was a word fundamentally Greek which accurately described thepresent inability of philosophy to postulate a material substance causing mind, or a spiritualsubstance causing matter. He refused to be labelled either "Theist" or "Atheist"; he said, "I do notknow". But this word was used by Huxley only in a small club of learned men — the MetaphysicalSociety. It was published and popularised by others, and if any have used it to conceal theirscepticism, he certainly did not'.

The Annual Book Sale in aid of the Debenture Redemption Fund is to take place on May 14 and15, 1895. Under the heading, 'A New Hall For South Place' we are told that 'although there is nofurther development of the re-building scheme since the appointment of the Special Sub-Committee to thresh out the matter, we would still urge the members, in the words of GeorgeMeredith, to "keep the young generation in hail,

And bequeath them no tumbled house!"I am sure all of us celebrating the first hundred years of the South Place Magazine hope Moncure

Conway and the 1895 SPES members would have felt gratified to know that the pursuit of tnithand ethical principles would continue in a purpose-built and debenture-less Hall and be fittinglypreserved in the Ethical Record.

Ethical Record, April 1995 7

FRANCIS HUTCHESON (1694-1746)ONLY A SECOND RANK PHILOSOPHER OF MORALS?

Peter Heales Lecture to the Ethical Society, 5 February 1995

In the estimation of most historians of philosophy, Francis Hutcheson is of the secondrank. Like many second rankers, in whatever field, he receives much less attention than ishis due; the few who exceeded his stature have eclipsed him. My aim is to redress thebalance, and to show how much the work of better known thinkers owes to his teaching.

Hutcheson has sometimes been called the 'father of the Scottish Enlightenment'. Wemay deem him a Scottish philosopher, for his family was of Scottish descent; he receivedhis university education at Glasgow, and his career reached its culmination when hebecame Professor of Moral Philosophy at his alma mater. Ireland can lay claim to himtoo, for it was there that he was born, spent his early maturity teaching and accomplishedhis best philosophical writing.

One problem we have in reaching a fair assessment of his worth is that he appears tohave been much more competent as a teacher than as a writer. His most important work,An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) is intriguing, andcontains ideas which would have appeared as original as thcy were scandalous to many ofhis readers. It falls short of being a totally adequate account of the system it implies.Unhappily he found no occasion to publish a more refined and worked out version; themuch larger System of Moral Philosophy, published after his death, is disappointing inthat it is based on a compendium of the lectures he delivered at Glasgow. It explains andadvances many aspects of the earlier work, but the reader will not find the full expositionof a coherent 'system' which the title promises.

Contemporary accounts of Hutcheson's work are studded with references to his greatgifts as a lecturer. His books, whatever their shortcomings, were widely read. Theyattracted the admiration of the forward thinking and hostility from the conservative,notably from the church of which he was a minister. At least two American presidentsfound inspiration in his writing. Two Scots who publicly acknowledged their debt toHutcheson were David Flume and Adam Smith.

Francis Hutcheson, like many educated and thinking people of his age, came of afamily with strong protestant associations. He was born in his grandfather's manse nearSaintfield, County Down, in 1694. His father, John Hutcheson, was at the time a ministerin neighbouring Downpatrick and later moved to Armagh. Francis received a classicaleducation, first at Saintfield and later at James McAlpin's academy, or 'philosophyschool', at Killyleagh, where he was taught 'the ordinary Scholastic Philosophy that wasin vogue in those days'. This amalgam of manse and academy characterised the whole ofhis career.

In the small towns of County Down, Hutcheson completed a programme of study thatapproached the Scottish college curriculum of his day. He was well placed to go on toGlasgow to complete his studies, including 'natural philosophy', or science. Afterachieving his degree and undergoing theological training, he remained for another year asa private tutor. He then returned to the family home, by now in Armagh, and was licensedas a minister in about 1718.


The Toleration Act had recently liberalised doctrinal teaching. Consequently, he hadno difficulty in accepting an invitation to establish a dissenting academy in Dublin. Hetaught 'the languages' (Latin and Greek) and 'all the different parts of Philosophy'.Hutcheson ran this academy for about ten years during which time he published a numberof works; they included the Inquiry mentioned above and an Essay on the Passions and

Affections(1728). The success of these publications led to his being elected to the chair ofMoral Philosophy at Glasgow, a post he assumed in 1730. There he remained as Professoruntil his death in 1746 at the age of fifty one.

The date of Hutcheson's birth makes him a younger contemporary of George Berkeley.There is no evidence that they ever met. There is no obvious reason why they should:Berkeley was born in Southern Ireland of English and not Scottish descent; he wasaffiliated to the Anglican rather than the Presbyterian church; and he received hiseducation at Trinity College, Dublin. Nonetheless, it seems likely that Hutcheson wouldhave read Berkeley, whose philosophical challenge to John Locke appeared at about thetime Hutcheson first arrived in Glasgow. Hutcheson certainly read Locke; his ideasclearly tended in the direction of Locke and Berkeley rather than philosophers such asThomas Hobbes and Bernard Mandeville, whom he had also read.

Locke is, perhaps, the best starting point. Hutcheson, like Locke, was a practisingChristian who supported the growth of the newly enfranchised disciplines of empiricalscience. He had accepted holy orders, which Locke had refused, but they were very alikein the influence they permitted their religion to have on their lives. Both wished to upholda broad commitment to Christianity; both thought (and wrote) at various times abouttheology and the scriptures. Both were also keen to advance the new understandingavailable through science and saw the thrust of their endeavours working in thatdirection; both saw the social and political importance of the new knowledge, with itsdemocratic implications. As a small indication of his 'reforming zeal', it is worthrecording that Hutcheson was the first professor at Glasgow to give up lecturing in Latin.

Hutcheson's position as a minister of religion may account in part for his mostsignificant difference from Locke. As a minister, he would have a great concern forquestions of moral conduct, and how people can lead good and wise lives. His principalconcern as a philosopher was for ethics. This meant that he did not much engage in thestudy for which Locke is best known, namely epistemology and scientific method. Nordid he seek to challenge Locke's conclusions, as Berkeley had done. Rather, he used theirconclusions as the foundation of his own views about morality.

An Entirely Secular System of MoralityThe 'system of morality' which Hutcheson advocated owes little more to his Christianfaith than the impulse towards improving morals. It is entirely secular, and any atheistcould have accepted it. That David Flume did not accept it as it stood had little to do withhis aversion to matters clerical. He was seeking to take philosophy in a different direction.

Hutcheson took his direction from the Earl of Shaftesbury (grandson of the first Earl,who had been Locke's employer and mentor). Shaftesbury (1671-1711), who todayreceives less attention even than Hutcheson, exercised a considerable influence on thethought of his age. His contention was that nature forms an orderly pattern, which we canappreciate if we follow empirical, rather than metaphysical, enquiries. Morality is basedon the precept that every person should dedicate themselves to the discovery of what istrue, beautiful and good. God fits into Shaftesbury's philosophy as a benign creator, butthere is no place for revelation or dogma. Every person must reach their own conclusions.


The second and third items in Shaftesbury's 'trinity' especially fired Hutcheson. Hetook more care than Shaftesbury to distinguish the idea of beauty from that of moralityand to consider them separately. They are, however, inseparably linked in thedevelopment of his philosophy, for beauty is, as it were, the gateway to morality. The twoideas work in similar ways, even though the principles of their operation differ in detail.

In his Inquiry he analyses how the ideas first of 'beauty' and then of 'virtue' arisenaturally as we develop to maturity. There is a broad analogy with the way Lockeanalyses the growth of knowledge from the tabula rasa he postulates at birth. As well asoffering a psychological, or experiential, account Hutcheson attempts to analyse theobjective properties on which our understanding of beauty and virtue depend. Ourreactions are not random or subjective. Like the natural properties that Locke considers,they have their causes in the orderly 'external world'.

The experiential part of Hutcheson's philosophy rests on a development of the 'innersense' which both Locke and Berkeley consider. Hutcheson believes that we have both asense of beauty and a moral sense. In some respects, these senses are analogues of thestrictly empirical senses in that they provide immediate information that is not dependentupon principles or reasoning. Our moral sense tells us that an action is good in much thesame way as our eyes tell us that a post box is red. Hutcheson does not push that analogyto its conclusion, however, for our feelings are always necessarily involved. The essentialfeature of these two 'inner' senses is that they provide a direct link between properties ofobjects or situations to which we are attending and feelings they arouse in us. Our sense ofbeauty produces pleasure in the presence of beautiful objects; our moral sense yields apleasurable approbation of morally good actions.

In the Inquiry, Hutcheson defines the moral sense as:

"a determination of the mind to receive any idea from the presence of an object whichoccurs to us, independently on (sic) our will. The moral sense makes rational actionsappear beautiful or deformed."

and goes on:

"We are not to imagine that this moral sense, more than other senses, supposesanyinnate ideas or knowledge, or practical propositions. We mean by it only adetermination of our minds to receive amiable or disagreeable ideas of actions whenthey shall occur to our observation, antecedent to any opinions of advantage or loss toredound to ourselves from them; even as we are pleased with a regular form or anharmonious composition without having any knowledge of mathematics or seeingany advantage in the form, or composition, different from this immediate pleasure."

The experience of having our moral sense stimulated is the basis on which we build our'knowledge of right and wrong':

"The pleasure of our sensible perceptions of any kind gives us our first idea of naturalgood; or happiness; and then all objects which are apt to excite this pleasure are calledimmediately good. The objects which may procure others immediately pleasant arecalled advantageous: and we pursue both kinds from a view of interest or self-love."

That leads on to the development of our moral vocabulary:

"The word moral goodness denotes our idea of some quality apprehended in actionswhich procures Approbation and love towards the actor from those who receive noadvantage by the action. Moral evil denotes our idea of a contrary quality whichexcites aversion and dislike toward the actor, even from persons unconcerned in itsnatural tendency..."


Beauty as a Compound of Uniformity and VarietyHutcheson next addresses himself to the question: just what aspects of real thingsstimulate the sense of beauty and the moral sense? He deals first with beauty:

"The figures that excite in us the ideas of beauty seem to be those in which thereis uniformity amidst variety. There are many conceptions of objects that areagreeable on other accounts, such as grandeur, novelty, sanctity, and someothers that shall be touched on afterwards. But what we call beautiful in objects,to speak in the mathematical style, seems to be in a compound ratio ofuniformity and variety; so that where uniformity of bodies is equal the beauty isas to the variety."

The examples he gives are of mathematical figures, such as triangles and hexagons. It hasto be admitted that his treatment here is inadequate, and was felt to be so by hiscontemporaries. His intention seems to be to establish that the orderliness of the humanworld, like that of the natural world, can be expressed mathematically. The idea thatbeauty consists in a balance of variety and uniformity is, however, worth more than thisinept treatment seems to imply. He goes on:

"As to the works of art, were we to run through the various artificialcontrivances or structures, we should find the foundation of the beauty whichappears in them to be constantly some kind of uniformity, or unity ofproportion among the parts, and each part to the whole. As there is a vastdiversity of proportion possible, and different kinds of uniformity, so there isroom enough for the diversity of fancys observable in architecture, gardeningand such like arts in different nations; they may all have uniformity, though theparts in one may differ from those in another: the Chinese or Persian buildingsare not like the Grecian and Roman, yet the former has its uniformity of thevarious parts to each other, and to the whole, as well as the latter. In that kind ofarchitecture which the Europeans call regular, the uniformity of parts is veryobvious".

If we abandon attempts at precise calculation, this idea can help us understand whatmakes a successful work of art. The analysis of a Beethoven symphony will tell us that it iscomposed of a modest number of elements combined and varied in many ways. A finepainting, however naturalistic to the first glance, consists of colours and shapes variedand repeated. A work which displays too much uniformity is dull; one that displays toomuch variety or randomness fails to cohere.

Hutcheson himself does not explore all the consequences of this view. For instance,although our appreciation arises immediately from the stimulation of our sense of beauty,it is possible for us to analyse and think about the qualities that render an object beautiful.We might regard this activity as part of the process of educating taste and understanding.It might also be part of the development of an artist's skill, enabling the creation ofbeautiful works. That implies not that the act of artistic creation involves mathematicalcalculation (for the artist, no doubt, relies on a sense of beauty to make the finaljudgements), but simply that a work that is found to be beautiful will also be found toconform to the mathematical principle.

Ethical Record, April, 1995 II

The Classic Utilitarian CalculusThe mathematical component is as prominent in Hutcheson's morality as it is in his aesthetics. He reaches a conclusion that may surprise anyone unfamiliar with his writing:

"In comparing the moral qualities of actions, in order to regulate our electionamong the various actions proposed or to find which of them has the greatestmoral excellency, we are led by our moral sense or virtue thus to judge that inequal degree of happiness expected to proceed from the action, the virtue is inproportion to the number of persons to whom this happiness shall extend: andhere the dignity or moral importance of persons may compensate numbers; andin equal numbers the virtue is in a compound ratio of the quantity and numberof enjoyers, and in the same manner, the moral evil or vice is the degree of miseryand the number, so that that action is best which accomplishes the greatesthappiness for the greatest numbers, and that the worst which is in like manneroccasion of misery".

Here is a statement of the classic Utilitarian calculus urged on the British public sometwenty years before the birth of its most celebrated advocate, Jeremy Bentham.

The need to understand as well as to appreciate is vital to Hutcheson's account ofmorality. In the sphere of beauty the majority of people may be content just to appreciatewhat a minority of artists produce. In the sphere of morality we are all actors; our primeduty is to direct our lives well by choosing as far as we can the best actions. It is notsufficient merely to appreciate when an action is good. We all need education tounderstand how to make morally sound decisions.

It is noteworthy that, by combining the utilitarian principle with his idea of the moralsense, Hutcheson avoids at least one difficulty encountered by later utilitarian accounts ofpersonal ethics. Calculations are not necessary for all decisions to act. Just as a trainedartist has learned how to draw a beautiful figure, so a morally educated person knowshow to act well, at least in familiar circumstances. Hutcheson's account of utilitarianismundoubtedly falls short of the most rigorous applications of the calculus, but most laterphilosophers had to accept some compromise in the interests of practical application.

Francis Hutcheson enjoys the distinction of being one of the most optimistic ofmoralists. He quite openly opposed the harsh view of human nature that Hobbes and, inHutcheson's own time, Bernard Mandeville advocate. They maintained that self-interestalone motivates human conduct. Indeed we have no option, for our self interestdetermines our actions with deterministic rigour. We undertake the most apparentlyaltruistic action purely for the selfish satisfaction it produces.

Hutcheson, by contrast, believed that we are all naturally equipped with instincts of'benevolence', we desire and do take pleasure in the good of others. Benevolence showsitself in the love of parents for their children, in the gratitude we show to benefactors, inthe compassion we feel towards the unfortunate. It is true that we often feel pleasure as aresult of our good deeds, but Hutcheson denies that that is the reason or motive for ouraction. Benevolent actions are done with the motive of helping others; that is the motivewe have for seeking to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

"Two False and Dangerous Doctrines"This amiable view of human nature shocked the Presbyterian orthodoxy of his day, for itimplied that men could live virtuous lives without any special divine intervention. As professorat Glasgow, in 1737, he was prosecuted, albeit unsuccessfully, before the Presbytery for


"... teaching to his students in contravention to the Westminster Confession the

following two false and dangerous doctrines, first that the standard of moral

goodness was the promotion of the happiness of others; and second that we

could have a knowledge of good and evil without, and prior to a knowledge of

God".

Hutcheson, and other opponents of 'psychological hedonism' (as the Hobbes/Mandeville

position has been called) won most of the arguments in their day, but they did not totally

defeat that view. It has resurfaced periodically and is currently fashionable in right-wing

'libertarian' circles.

David Flume is undoubtedly the one great philosopher to come under Hutcheson's

influence, although he was never a supporter of Hutcheson's position. Some fifteen years

Hutcheson's junior, Hume completed his education at Edinburgh shortly before the

former assumed his professorship at Glasgow. He never studied under Hutcheson.

Hutcheson first heard of Hume in 1739, through the initiative of one of Hume's

cousins, who sent Hutcheson Books I and II of the Treatise that had just been published.

On the strength of this introduction, Hume sent Hutcheson a draft of Book III, his

treatment of morals, for his approval. The older philosopher was greatly impressed with

Hume's skill and intellectual power, but found 'himself deeply at odds with Hume's

position on morality. Hume redrafted parts of his work, in an attempt to persuade

Hutcheson to his view, but to no avail. The two men never agreed on their philosophy, but

appear to have remained on cordial terms of mutual respect.

The source of their difference lay in Hume's radical view of sense perception. For

Hume, no analogue of the empirical sense would do. Every idea we possess must originate

among our sense impressions; there can never be any kind of knowledge of moral worth.

Adam Smith a Follower of HutchesonThe second Scottish philosopher to be greatly influenced by Hutcheson was Adam Smith. We

remember him for his seminal work in political economy, An Induiry into the Nature and

Causes of the Wealth of Nations. That book was the starting point of the whole science of

economics. Its dramatic impact upon political thinking in the century after its publication

overshadows all else that Smith achieved. In fact he, like Hutcheson spent most of his

professional life in the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow (he was the next but one to be

elected) and made many contributions to the development of ethical philosophy.

Smith went to study at Glasgow University at the age of about fourteen. He attended

Hutcheson's lectures and received some personal tuition from him. It has been reported

that Hutcheson set him the task of making an abstract of Hume's Treatise, and that he

was so impressed that he sent a copy to Hume himself. Hume is said to have responded by

sending a presentation copy of his book to Smith. Adam Smith does not appear to have

graduated from Glasgow, for in 1740 he won a Snell scholarship to Balliol College,

Oxford.

Smith spent six years at Oxford, although he found the tuition there little to his taste. By

comparison with the 'new light' at Glasgow, he found attitudes restricted and inward-

looking. Hume was especially disliked there, and when Smith was discovered reading his

copy of Hume's Treatise in his rooms, the authorities disciplined him and confiscated the

book. It was almost certainly the library, and the opportunity it gave for wide and deep

reading, that kept him at Oxford for so many years.


Unlike Hume, Smith can truly be described as a follower of Hutcheson. Throughout hislife he held his old professor in high regard. He was wont to recall "the abilities and virtuesof the never-to-be-forgotten Dr Hutcheson". He would describe him as "unorthodox yetnot irreligious, radical yet not revolutionary, receptive yet inspiring, erudite yet original".Smith shared with Hutcheson the desire to promote better government; they both soughtto increase happiness of humankind by diffusing useful truths and exposing mischievouserrors.

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith follows Hutcheson in exploring the moralquality of human nature. Perhaps more than Hutcheson he stresses the importance ofallowing human nature to develop of itself; that it is often damaging and counter-productive to constrain or direct it. This appeal to natural processes is fundamental alsoto Smith's economic theory, a fact that led to the disastrous social policy of Laissez-faire.But, like most political policies, Laissez-faire was a crude and partial approximation toSmith's real views. He did not envisage the uncaring government that evolved in his name.For him, governing a society was rather like tending a garden, where the gardener knowsthe nature of the plants and prepares the ground for them to flourish. Following theanalogy, Laissez-faire amounted to allowing the weeds to grow rampantly.

Perhaps Smith and Hutcheson had misjudged human nature. The y both believedeveryone to be endowed with moral sentiments. which they could express on appropriateoccasions. Hutcheson, as we have seen, considered benevolence to be the key impulse;Smith thought it was 'sympathy'. Smith believed that our ability to imagine ourselves inthe position of others led to moral and humane behaviour. Experience may teach us that'benevolence' and 'sympathy' alone offer inadequate foundations for just governmentpolicies. Nonetheless, Hutcheson and Smith are surely right to point to finer feelingsrooted in the complexity of human nature.

The Natural Equality of MenHutcheson's contemporaries and students remembered him as earnestly concerned withcivil and religious liberty. He was an outspoken critic of any attempt to justify slavery,and a staunch advocate of political freedom. Naturally, these views excited much interestin the American colonies of the day. John Adams, who was to become the secondPresident of the United States recorded in his diary:

"16 January 1756: A fine morning. A large white frost upon the ground.Reading Hutcheson's Introduction to Moral Philosophy".

Thomas Jefferson had also read Hutcheson, and if not wholly agreeing with him haddeemed his philosophy worthy of deep thought.

Hutcheson insisted that the "natural equality of men" consists chiefly in the fact that"natural rights belong equally to all". Even the least talented humans "have the use ofreason" and possess the full human capacity for happiness or misery. All humans

... have strong desires of liberty and property, have notions of right, and strongnatural impulses to marriage, families and offspring, and earnest desires of theirsafety... We must therefore conclude, that no endowments, natural or aquiredcan give a perfect right to assume powers over others, without their consent.

This, he adds,

... is intended against the doctrine of Aristotle, and some others of the ancients,that some men are naturally slaves, of low genius but great bodily strength forlabour.


The view that those taken prisoner in a just war may be justly enslaved as punishment orsecurity against further offence is equally abhorrent:

No damage done or crime committed can change a rational creature into a piece ofgoods void of all right, and incapable of acquiring any, or of receiving any injury fromthe proprietor.

In response to the claim, often made in his day, that Africans were better off as slaves thanthey would have been if left in Africa, Hutcheson is scathing:

Strange, that in any nation where a sense of liberty prevails, where the Christianreligion is professed, custom and high prospects of gain can so stupefy theconsciences of men, and all sense of natural justice, that they can hear suchcomputations made about the value of their fellow-men and their liberty, withoutabhorrence and indignation.

Hutcheson's humanitarianism was employed in Pennsylvania by, among others, AnthonyBenezet, a French Huguenot Quaker whose efforts to end slavery and the slave-trade arefamiliar to historians of the abolitionist movement. Benezet expressed his debt to Hutchesonin the second edition of his Short Account of the Part of Africa Inhabited by Negroes... in orderto Shew the Iniquity of the Slave Trade, and the Falsity of the Arguments usually Advanced in itsVindication.He included Hutcheson's name on the title-page among those whose argumentsshow the iniquity of slavery.

Government is for "the Safety and Happiness of the Whole Body"At the heart of Hutcheson's political thinking is the principle salus populi supreme lex (thesafety of the people is the supreme law). He insists that there are specifiable limits to thepowers of the state and that citizens retain the right to resist the excesses of any form ofgovernment. No government; no monarch, no individual, he says, has an inherent right torule; the right to rule stems only from the wishes of the ruled. Consequently, anygovernment that fails to function for the "safety and happiness of the whole body" can belegitimately abolished.

Hutcheson explicitly applied these principles to colonies. Colonial subjects have also aright to legitimate — that is to say, beneficial — government. If they fail to receive suchgovernment, and are oppressed, they may "justly shake off the yoke" of their oppressor.

Hutcheson's views naturally carried weight in the American colonies. Another Irishman,Francis Alison (born at Leek, County Donegal, in 1705) became their principal advocate.Alison is thought to have studied divinity at Glasgow (c1730) and may well have knownHutcheson personally. Alison emigrated to America in 1735 and, once there, proceeded toteach and preach Hutchensonian politics. He began by establishing a school at New Londonin Pennsylvania, and ended his career as Professor of Moral Philosophy at Philadelphia.

What effect did this outspoken Hutchensonian voice have? John Adams was later to saythat the "nature and extent of the authority of Parliament over the colonies" was "discussedeverywhere", with the result that it was noticed that parliament had no authority at all! Alisoninspired many people to action in the War of Independence. Five of his past students(Thomas McKean, George Read, James Smith, Francis Hopkinson and William Pacca) wereamong the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Yet more past students playedactive public roles in the development of the newly independent state. Difficult though it maybe to assess the part played in this by Hutcheson, it seems beyond doubt that his was animportant, positive role, the role of a philosopher who provides a substantive moralfoundation for concerted and radical political behaviour. o


THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Nicholas Maxwell Lecture to the Ethical Society, 19 February 1995

In seeking to solve the mind/brain problem, does it help to invoke Darwin's theory of evolutionto consider how consciousness may have evolved? This is the question I wish to discuss.

The mind/brain problem, as I understand it, is the problem of understanding howneurological processes going on in our brains can conceivably generate our consciousexperiences, our sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts. It is the problem of understandingthe relationship between brain processes on the one hand and consciousness on the other.

The Six Approaches to the Mind/Brain ProblemHere are six different approaches to solving the problem.

I. Cartesian Dualism. There are two distinct (but interacting) kinds of entities: physical entities (which include brains) and mental entities, namely minds, the stuff of consciousness.Brain Process Theory, Identity Thesis or Physicalism. The mind is the brain. Physical entitiesand processes alone exist.Idealism. Only minds exist.Two-Aspect Theory. Processes going on in our heads have two aspects, physical andmentalistic. It is a version of this view that I will defend.Behaviourism. The mind is no more than a lot of capacities and dispositions to behave indiverse ways.Functionalism. The mental aspect of brain processes is nothing more than the functional orcontrol aspect, guiding the animal or person to behave in certain ways.

Does it help to look at the mind/brain problem from the perspective of Darwinian evolution?In one way, yes; it makes clear that the biological function of the brain is to be a control systemthat guides the animal to perform those actions that are conducive to survival and reproductionin its given environment. In another way, however, the answer is no; from the standpoint ofsurvival and reproduction success, all that matters is how the animal acts; being able to act as ifone is conscious, but actually having no inner experiences, sensations, feelings, states ofawareness whatsoever must have, it seems, all the survival value of being really conscious. Inother words, it would seem that Darwinian theory may be able to explain the evolution ofconsciousness as construed by Behaviourism or Functionalism, but seems incapable ofaccounting for consciousness in any stronger sense.

In order to proceed, we must put the mind/brain problem into a broader context. First, a fewwords about the religious origins of the problem.

How Can We Forgive God?The basic religious question, I suggest, is not "Does God exist?" but rather "What is God?" Inorder to tackle this question rationally, we need to propose and critically assess diverseconjectures about the nature of God. One traditional conjecture is that God is a conscious beingwho is (I) all-powerful (2) present everywhere (3) all-knowing and (4) all-loving, the source of allvalue. This traditional conjecture is however decisively refuted by the observation that such aGod, if he existed, would torture and murder whenever people suffer and die as a result ofnatural processes (for which such a God would be responsible). The traditional excuses for sucha God's mass criminality are intellectually and morally disreputable.

The problem, in short, is not "How can God forgive us?" but rather "How can we forgiveGod?" And the solution is to cut God in half.

16 Ethical. Record, April, 1995

On the one hand there is the God of power, Einstein's God. This is what correspondsphysically to the true unified theory of everything that science now actively tries todiscover. It is (1) all-powerful and (2) present everywhere; but it is also utterly impersonal.It cannot know what it does, and hence can be forgiven its unspeakable crimes.

On the other hand there is the God of value. This, I conjecture, is what is of most value,actually and potentially, associated with human life, or sentient life more generally.

Having cut God into two parts, in this way, we are immediately confronted with theproblem of how to stick the two parts together again to form a coherent whole. We areconfronted with a new fundamental problem: "How can the God of value exist embeddedin the God of power? How can our human world, the world as we experience it,containing such things as colours, sounds, people, consciousness, free will, meaning andvalue, exist embedded in the physical universe?" This "Human World/Physical UniverseProblem", as it may be called, is the fundamental problem that there is — thefundamental problem of understanding, the fundamental problem of knowledge, andeven the fundamental practical problem of living, insofar as, in the end, all our problemsof living have to do with seeking to realise what is of value to us in the real world.

Cartesian DualismThe Human World/Physical Universe problem arises with the birth of modern science.One can regard Cartesian dualism as an early stab at a solution. Dualism tries to solve theproblem by first, conceding that the universe is indeed such that it is in principle possiblefor physics to give a comprehensive account of it, everything which physics seems to leaveout — such as colours and sounds as we experience them, inner experiences, feelings andthoughts, meaning and value — being accommodated in a quite distinct world of themind. All non-physical features of things, such as colours as we experience them, arescraped off the surface of physical objects and are accommodated within the world ofmind as ideas or perceptions, such as the perception of colour. The original fundamentalHuman World/Physical Universe problem is transformed, by Cartesian dualism, into themind/brain problem. If Cartesian dualism were correct, we would have to accept thistransformation; but it is not correct, and this means that we must return to the originalHuman World/Physical Universe problem, and regard the mind/brain problem as nomore than an important part of the general problem.

Cartesian dualism begins, in effect, by making the apparently innocent assumption thatthe material world is such that a complete physical account of it would be complete; itwould describe all that there is. (It is this assumption that leads to the idea that a distinctrealm, the mental, must be postulated to accommodate everything that physics leavesout). But the assumption is false; a complete physical account of the material world would

not be a complete account; it would not include an account of the "experiential" featuresof things — what things look like, sound like, smell and feel like, what it is like to be this orthat person or sentient being.

The Two Aspect ViewThe approach to the Human World/Physical Universe problem that I wish to defend is aversion of the Two Aspect View. According to this view, there are things (and processes) inthe world that have two distinct kinds of features and can, as a result, be dekribed,explained and understood in two different kinds of ways.

First, everything can, in principle, be described, explained and understood physically.

Einstein's God exists. The universe is such that it is principle possible to formulate the


true, unified physical theory of everything, T, which is such that, given a completephysical specification of the instantaneous state, Si, of any isolated system at time ti, thenT + Si logically implies future states of the system, S2, for any future time t2, where "S2"describes the system in the same sort of way as "S I" (so that T + S2 implies further futurestates of the system).

Second, some things can be described, explained and understood personalistically orexperientially. The God of value, of human experience, exists in addition to Einstein'sGod. Personalistic descriptions apply to people, to all sentient creatures, to everythingthat we can see, hear, touch, smell, feel, and to that which has meaning and value. Inseeking to explain and understand a person personalistically, we seek to understand whatit would be like to be that other person, seeing, experiencing, thinking, feeling what thatother person sees, experiences etc.

These two kinds of description, explanation and understanding are equally legitimatebut quite distinct: each provides a quite different kind of explanation and understanding.Above all, the personalistic cannot be reduced to the physical. Physical descriptions andexplanations are concerned only with that aspect of things which (a) everything has incommon with everything else, and (b) determines the way events unfold. Physicalexplanations are severely impersonal: they are not concerned with what things look like,feel like, or with what it is like to be this or that physical system (which happens to be aperson). Physics can, in principle, predict all phenomena; but it cannot predict all factsabout all phenomena. It can predict that a rose is red as long as "redness" is understood tomean something like "absorbs and reflects light of such and such wavelengths". But itcannot predict that the rose is red, where "red" has a meaning which can only beunderstood by someone who has himself experienced the visual experience of redness. Aperson blind from birth is not thereby barred from understanding all of physics, and yetsuch a person cannot understand what redness means, where this is understood to refer tothe colour that those of us who have colour vision see. Redness, in this experiential sense,is thus beyond the scope of physics. The true physical theory of everything, T, could, ofcourse, in principle, be made fully comprehensive with the addition of a multitude ofhighly complicated postulates correlating physical and experiential features; but such atheory would be so hopelessly complex it would cease to be explanatory. In order to havethe powerfully explanatory theories that we do have in physics, a price must be paid; thepersonalistic or experiential features of things must be omitted. The crucial point is thatthis omission does not prevent physics, in principle, from predicting all phenomena, whendescribed physically.

Processes going on inside our heads can be understood in two quite different ways; theycan be understood scientifically, as neurological processes or, ultimately, as physicalprocesses, in which case the experiential or mental aspect necessarily seems to disappear;or they can be understood personalistically, in which case the experiential aspect comes tothe fore at the expense of the physical aspect. In the end, the mental/physical problem isno more mysterious as it arises in connection with our brains than it is as it arises inconnection with the red rose, let us say, or green grass.

According to this two aspect view, the world is riddled with what may be termed"double comprehensibility". People, especially, are doubly comprehensible in that theyare such as to be understandable in two distinct ways, as physical systems and as consciouspersons. blow and why has this extraordinary state of affairs come about? It is at this pointthat we need to appeal to evolution.

18 Ethical Record, April. 1995

We need to introduce two further kinds of description, explanation and understanding.The third kind may be called purposive. This applies to anything capable of pursuinggoals. but without the presupposition that the thing in question is in any way sentient,conscious, aware of what it is doing. Purposive explanations apply to all living things, andto goal-seeking artefacts that we have created such as thermostats, guided missiles androbots. Purposive explanations render intelligible the actions of a thing by showing howthese actions tend towards the realisation of the goal of the thing, in the givenenvironment. Whereas physical explanations apply to everything, purposive explanationsapply only to living things, generated by Darwinian evolution, and to offshoots ofevolution, namely artefacts created by us. Personalistic explanations apply to purposivethings which, in addition, have inner sensations or experiences of some kind or other.

The fourth kind of explanation may be termed hutorical. This is parasitic upon theother three. This explains present features of something in terms of past occurrences.Evolutionary explanations are characteristic historical explanations.

In seeking to explain how and why consciousness has evolved, we cannot hope todeduce, from a purely physicalistic and purposive description of things before conscious-ness has arrived, the subsequent arrival of consciousness, since this would amount toreducing the personalink to the physical and purposive, which we have agreed cannot bedone. The most that can be achieved is to indicate the main stages of evolution which lead,gradually, to the development of creatures open to being described, explained andunderstood experientially and personalistically. as sentience and consciousness emerge.

Nicholas Maxwell has produced a diagram indicating the main stages towards theevolution of consciousness. To obtain this, send a S.A.E. to The Secretary, SPES.

Further ReadingN. Maxwell. Physics and Common Sense. TheBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16.1966, pp. 295-311.

N. Maxwell, Understanding Sensations. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 46. 1968, pp. 12746.

N. Maxwell. From Knowledge to Wisdom. Blackwell. 1984. chapter 10: I low Can There Be Life of value in the

Physical Universe?

Note: Readers may be interested in Nicholas Maxwell's previous talk to the Society, called"Science for Civilisation." (Ethical Record, May 1993) Li

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYRegistered Charity No. 251396

Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are the study anddissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational andhumane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in all relevant fields.

We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and find themselvesin sympathy with our views.

At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of culturalactivities, including discussions, lectures, concerts and socials. The Sunday EveningChamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved international renown. Areference and lending library is available, and all members receive the Society's journal,The Ethical Recordeleven times a year. Funerals and Memorial Meetings are aVailable tomembers.


FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE AND HUMANISM

Professor H. James BirxCanisius College, Buffalo, N.Y.

Lecture to the Ethical Society, 12 March 1995

In the history of Western intellectual thought,Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) emerges as themost significant and controversial thinker ofmodern times. No recent philosopher has excitedor enraged individuals as has Nietzsche, whoseworldview challenges the reader to overcome allpast institutions and values in order to focus his orher attention on the human situation of today aswell as the future of our own species on this planet.His philosophy of overcoming is a dynamic inter-pretation of this universe which challenges thehuman animal seriously to consider its meaning,purpose, and destiny with an evolving nature.Nietzsche's challenge requires human life tobecome more than what it is through a rejection ofall false ideas, beliefs, and values followed byindependent creativity. Quintessentially, Nietzsche'sworldview is grounded in the bold statement that"God is dead" (a position which rightly earnedhim the title 'father of atheistic existentialism').

During his early years, Nietzsche was attracted to the arts, especially music and poetryand opera; he himself composed piano music and even wrote an autobiography. As auniversity student. Nietzsche was attracted to literature, e.g., the tragedies of ancientGreece. Nietzsche's study of antiquity also embraced the presocratic philosophers,especially those whose rational speculations on this universe argued for a dynamicinterpretation of the natural world. It was his interest in the music and dramas of ancientGreece that caused Nietzsche to see Richard Wagner (1813-1883) as the saviour ofGerman culture through his idea of the symphonic music-drama, as is best represented by"Das Rheingold", part of his masterpiece Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876).

While a university student, Nietzsche's own interests passed from theology throughphilology to philosophy. Eventually losing interest in the study of language as such,Nietzsche more and more focused his attention on the history of philosophy and thosemajor questions concerning existence; he had been particularly attracted to themetaphysical speculations of the presocratic philosophers and, like them, he saw a directrelationship between cosmology and the significance of human existence. In his writings,Nietzsche would analyse and interpret the human condition within dynamic nature itself(with irony, often referring to biblical symbolism).

In his study of Greek tragedy, Nietzsche distinguished between the distinct but notseparate Apollonian and Dionysian worldviews: the Apollonian personality wasconcerned with order and harmony, as manifested in sculpture and architecture, while theDionysian personality expressed itself in music and festivities. Like a secular humanist,Nietzsche appreciated the arts. He saw the Greek tragedies mirroring both humanexistence and the natural world. These tragedies expressed the irrational component of

Friedrich Nietzsche


the human personality. Nietzsche then argued that the later priority given to reason by Socrates,Plato and Aristotle did in fact destroy the passion for creativity among the ancient Greeks;although it may be argued that he himself never completely abandoned the significance ofreason. Although focusing on feelings and emotions, Nietzsche referred to himself as the"artistic Socrates" (clearly showing that he respected both the irrational and the rational, whilegiving preference to the former and being critical of the latter).

During his university studies, Nietzsche was particularly influenced by the ideas of ArthurSchopenhauer (1788-1860). At first, Nietzsche found a kindred spirit in Schopenhauer's majortwo-part work, The World as Will and Representation (1818, 1844). Understandably, Nietzscheappreciated Schopenhauer's interest in music as well as his cosmic perspective and evolutionaryview of nature. However, Nietzsche came to reject Schopenhauer's view of the cosmos asessentially an evil will indifferent to human existence and the resultant pervasive pessimism. Insharp contrast to Schopenhauer's negative worldview, Nietzsche will ground his philosophy inthe will to power and an optimistic view of the future.

Yet, one may argue that it was Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who had the most profoundinfluence on Nietzsche's own worldview. Surely, Darwin's scientific theory of organic evolutionenabled Nietzsche to see the human animal as a recent species in the organic history of all life onearth and to consider the further development of the human animal throughout ages to come.Likewise, values are not eternally fixed but do change and evolve into new values. Of course,Nietzsche would focus on the future mental and ethical development of our species, whereasDarwin had been concerned with only the biological evolution of the human animal. No doubt,the evolutionary framework discredited the biblical myth of creation as presented in Genesis.

Instead, for Nietzsche as for Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), all religious beliefs and practicesare ultimately grounded in the needs, wishes, and desires of human beings. Therefore, there is noreason to maintain that there are any metaphysical correlates to the religious beliefs of theJudeo-Christian tradition. Consequently, Nietzsche could claim that "God is dead" because theidea of a personal god referred to nothing in concrete reality and, furthermore, the continuedbelief in a personal god is vacuous in terms of reality. If there is no personal god, then individualsthemselves create values and thereby they give meaning and purpose to human existence. Thus,Nietzsche's atheistic existentialism owes a great deal to both Feuerbach and Darwin (a fact notoften acknowledge by philosophers).

Thus Spake ZarathustraNietzsche's major four-part work is Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-1885), a poetic introduction

to his iconoclastic exploration of modern civilisation. Rich with insights and symbolism, thisbook presents the German philosopher's basic ideas and unabashed atheism. To paraphrase itsauthor, this ruthless condemnation of all values is written in blood and strikes like asledgehammer. It anticipated the ethical problems and moral dilemmas of our war-torn centuryand offers an extraordinary vision of things to come. One cannot help but be influenced by thisdaring critique of human existence within this dynamic universe.

Like Nietzsche, secular humanists embrace both the cosmic perspective and the evolutionaryframework while rejecting those ideas and beliefs and values of the Judeo-Christian traditionwhich ultimately give priority to an assumed transcendent spiritual realm rather than dynamicmaterial reality. Surely, Nietzsche's "God is dead" position was a major impetus to thedevelopment of secular humanism in this century. The focus away from a personal god and ontoour own species within earth history paved the way for scientific naturalism and rationalhumanism as well as a cross-cultural approach to studying human societies and their cultures asis stressed in anthropology.


Like secular humanists, Nietzsche called for a rigorous re-evaluation of all values. His owncritical analysis of "decadent" Europe resulted in his rejecting both the entrenched belief systemsand political institutions of Western society. Devoted to the quest for truth despite hisperspectivism, Nietzsche came to reject as false the values of communism, socialism, anddemocracy. Furthermore, he rejected both Judaism and Christianity. Certainly utilitarianismdid not escape his rigorous analysis. Religious belief systems and socio-political ideologies werehuman in origin, stressed Nietzsche, and therefore they distort the true nature of things.Essentially, all these beliefs and institutions reduced the human being to the lowest commondenominator (a position which Nietzsche found repugnant to the potentialities of our species, atleast in terms of its superior individuals both present and those to emerge in the future).

As a philosopher, Nietzsche rejected ideafism, dualism and supernaturalism. He had nopatience for the ideas of Plato, Paul, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Comte, Hegel, or finally evenSchopenhauer. Of particular interest to secular humanists was Nietzsche's rejection of theCartesian mind-body dualism; a philosophical position that had claimed the human being to becomposed of a material body and an immaterial mind. For Nietzsche, mental activity cannotexist without a material brain, and therefore any dualistic interpretation of the human being isfalse in light of the evolutionary perspective and ongoing scientific discoveries concerningneuroscience and psychology.

Nietzsche was willing to follow the quest for truth wherever it may lead and whatever theconsequences. After rejecting both pessimism and nihilism, he emerged as an optimist whodeveloped a new philosophy for the success and fulfilment of our species. Remembered as theAntichrist, Nietzsche rejected religious fear as well as guilt, pity, resentment, and spiritualtranscendence. He saw the human animal as a product of, dependent upon, and totally withinthe natural world; an embryonic species between the past ape and future overman.

The Individual's PotentialityIt is Nietzsche's rejection of democracy that places him far outside the development of secularhumanism. Indeed, Nietzsche has no compassion for the masses of humanity which he claimsrepresent the lowest common denominator of human existence. Instead, Nietzsche clearlydistinguishes between the master morality of the few superior individuals who are "beyond goodand evil" and the slave or herd morality of the masses who accept the "decadent" values ofmodern civilisation. For him, the value of humankind resides in its most creative andindependent members free of pervasive mediocrity. Nietzsche focuses on the individual and itspotentiality for advancing human evolution beyond its present species existence. He sees thefuture evolution of superior individuals to come in terms of a new ethics and a new moralitydevoted to creativity and independence but not beyond "good and bad" (since Nietzsche wouldundoubtedly maintain that it is "bad" for a superior individual not to use his or herextraordinary intellect to create new values as well as artworks, philosophies, and scientificframeworks). In fact, one may argue that a superior individual has a duty to create somethingnew.

Like secular humanists, Nietzsche advocates the joyful affirmation of life itself. As anoptimist, he saw our species evolving beyond the "human, all-too-human" by implementing hisphilosophy of overcoming. The challenge to become more is taken up by superior individualswho rise above the false values of the masses.

In the last analysis, Nietzsche describes nature as the will to power and sees history orevolution as a creative process manifesting progress. As such, his dynamic philosophy of natureis grounded in a vitalistic and teleological interpretation of the real world. It is not clear,however, whether this will to power is merely a description of nature or a statement on the

22 Ethical Record. April, 1995

ontological status of reality itself. Nevertheless, this will to power recognises the advancement oflife and the emergence of novelty throughout organic history. As a product of evolution, thehuman animal is a manifestation of this pervasive will to power that drives life forward andupward from the lowest forms of organisms to the appearance of our own species and beyond.

Nietzsche maintains that the ultimate value of humankind is found only in its superiorindividuals and, therefore, the destiny of our species resides in the future emergence of suchsuperior individuals who will overcome the mediocrity of the present masses who make up mostof humankind today. Looking far into the future, Nietzsche prophesied the coming of theoverman as that superior individual yet to emerge out of our own species through intellectualand ethical advancement. This overman to come will be as superior to our own species today asthe human animal is now superior to the lowly worm. Thus, one cannot even imagine what thisfuture overman will be like, although the emergence of such superior individuals clearlyrepresents, for Nietzsche, the end-goal of human evolution on earth. The destiny of our species isthis creative, passionate, self-mastering and self-deifying exceptional being still to appear in theaeons to come. Consequently, Nietzsche rejects biological Darwinism and collective Marxism aswell as spiritual and mystical Teilhardianism. Instead, Nietzsche sees humankind evolving fromthe ape and then lower man, through our species, to the higher man and finally to the overman:the lower man is the passive camel of burden, the higher man is the active lion of wisdom, andthe overman is the receptive child of creativity. Of course, the end of the world may also see theexistence of the last man, represented by those wretched individuals who will still manifestpervasive mediocrity.

Secular humanists may accept the future evolution of our species into something far moreintellectual and ethical than what most human beings represent on the earth today. Nonetheless,secular humanists do not accept Nietzsche's lack of compassion for the masses or ruthlessindividualism.

Nietzsche and ImmortalityIn the light of the "God is dead" position and the enormous burden to create placed on thehigher man and the overman, one may ask why a superior individual would bother to use his orher intellect to create new values when death is the ultimate end for each human being. Even thecoming of the overman and the emergence of new values will succumb to the end of thisuniverse. It must be remembered that Nietzsche himself desired personal immortality, notwishing to accept the inevitable fate of his own death which would plunge him into everlastingoblivion. Nevertheless, he embraced life with all its joys and sorrows but ultimately foundconsolation in his major idea of the eternal recurrence of the same. For Nietzsche, it is thiscosmic idea that gives his own worldview both meaning and purpose despite the "death of God"and the seemingly continuing mediocrity of the masses. Like secular humanists, Nietzschemaintained a cosmic perspective in which he considered the place our species occupies in thesweeping history of this universe. Having been influenced by Heraclitus and other processthinkers, he emphasised the flux of reality but claimed that time and everything in it is circular.As such, this universe is ultimately the eternal recurrence of the same objects and events andrelationships in a sequence which repeats itself forever from one finite cosmic cycle to the next.Although both evolution and devolution are within each finite cosmic cycle, there is no overallprogressive development from identical cycle to identical cycle. Nietzsche himself thought thatnew discoveries in physics and chemistry would give scientific credence to the alarmingimplications of eternal recurrence, his most comprehensive but seemingly implausible idea.Actually, his awesome doctrine of the eternal recurrence strikes a modern note if one takes thebig bang and the subsequent big crunch interpretation of an oscillating universe seriously.

Ethical 'Record, April 1995 23

Free Will an AppearanceIf one accepts the everlasting eternal recurrence of the same as the truth, then it seems thateverything in this universe is absolutely determined for all time (since each finite cosmic cycleis absolutely identical to all the others). The present reflects the past, while the present alsoanticipates the future. In short, necessity pervades everything. This raises the question of freewill, which cannot exist in the human being if cosmic necessity is a fact of reality. However, itseems as if human consciousness is free to make choices despite the deterministic imperativeof the eternal recurrence. Perhaps this dilemma can be solved by making a crucial distinctionbetween the appearance of free will and the reality of necessity. Epistemologically, the humanknower is unaware of the past and future cycles of the eternal return so that he or she acts as ifhe or she is a free agent in this determined universe. However, the question of responsibilityremains. In terms of metaphysics (ontology and cosmology), all reality is necessarilydetermined and therefore free will cannot exist in any meaningful sense for any human being.

Since the Nietzschean philosophy is filled with paradoxes, contradictions, and outrageousstatements, it is difficult to evaluate this worldview in terms of any final judgment concerningits consequences for science and philosophy. Even so, perhaps a fcw generalisations may bemade from the secular humanist standpoint. It seems clear that Nietzsche maintained theunity of reality, there being no separation between the natural world and an allegedsupernatural realm. Furthermore, like ideas and beliefs, values are created by the humanbeing within an historical and sociocultural context. Knowledge is perspectival, although thequest for truth and excellence and wisdom remains a goal for the artist as well as scientist andphilosopher. Certainly, the human being should act as if life is worth living.

And it must be emphasised that Nietzsche never totally abandoned science and reason. Hehad a respect for chemistry, biology, physiology, and especially psychology. His criticisms ofscience and reason did not amount to excluding their value in understanding and appreciatingthe place of humankind within this universe (the cosmic return of everything is, in fact, arational framework). He was certainly concerned with the survival and fulfilment of ourspecies, even though he focused on superior individuals and had no concern for themediocrity of the masses. Although an elitist in terms of philosophy, Nietzsche was apoliticaland is not to be blamed for the later misuse and insidious abuse of his ideas for any particularpolitical ideology. Going beyond Darwin, Nietzsche speculated on the future of our species interms of the overman and the eternal recurrence of the same. One wonders what Nietzschewould have thought about the awesome possibilities in terms of the computer andnanotechnology and genetic engineering which, working together, may literally transform thehuman being into a new form of life.

In the last analysis, Nietzsche was not a secular humanist. He favoured the irrational,giving priority to the will, and emphasised the value of superior individuals. His vision loveduniversal necessity, but had no compassion for the masses and rejected outright democracy.Nevertheless, his doctrine of cosmic recurrence argued for the eternal value of each particularmoment. And Nietzsche did recognise the great potentialities within our species for risingabove false values in order to create new values that enhance the joyful affirmation of life.

Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on philosophy and the arts has been enormous, and he maybe even more influential in the next century. Certainly, his -God is dead" pronouncementreverberates throughout modern civilisation. It is, then, ironical that one of his lastingcontributions has been the part he himself played as a solitary genius in helping to establishsecular humanism as an important philosophical movement for the benefit of humankind asa whole in this century and for the centuries to come.

24 Ethical Record, April. 1995

FURTHER RECENT READINGS

Bahich, Babette E.. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Ufa

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Bataille, George. On Nietzsche. New York: Paragon House. 1994.

Berkowitz, Peter. Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist. Cambridge: Harvard Unive y Press, 1995.

Bi rx, H. James. "Introduction" to Friedrich Niel cche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1993. pp.I3-27.

Lampert, Lawrence. Nietzsche's Thaching: An Introduction to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

New Haven: Yale University Press. 1986.

Madigan, Tim."Afterword: The Answer of Humanism" in The Question qfllumanism: Challenges and Possibilities.

ed. by Donald Goicoechea, John Luik, and Tiin Madigan, Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991. pp.326-339.

Moles, Alistair. Nietzsche's Philosophy of Nature and Cosmology. New York: Peter Lang. 1990.

Pletsch, Carl. Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius. New York: The Free Press, 1991.

Santanie Ho, weaver. Nietzsche. Gott and the Jews: Ms Critique ofJudeo-Christionity in Relation to the Nazi Myth.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Sleinis, E.E. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Values: A study in Strategies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Stambaugh, Joan. The Other Nietzsche Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Zeidin, Irving M. Nietzsche: A Re-examination. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. 0

VIEWPOINTS

Can Humanists be Spiritual?

Your March editorial poses this question and refers to a humanist dilemma: that humanism is at

least as concerned as any religion might be with the aesthetic and moral aspects of life, and the

fundamental questions of existence. Yet it does not want to seem to endorse obsolete

metaphysical theories.

You refer to the original meaning of 'spiritual' as the spirit of life breathed by God into our inert

bodies. We might consider this to be quite a poetic way of referring to our consciousness! You

seem to endorse ProfJohn White's desire to banish the word 'spirituality' but, pending its demise,

would we not do much better to re-define it for humanist use? After all the current dictionary

definition gives a very wide choice.

Your ccintext is that schools are soon to be evaluated on their provision of spiritual and moral

development. Not physical and intellectual but spiritual and moral. We could say 'emotional and

moral' but does 'emotional', or any other contender, really compare with`spiritual' in conjuring

up an awareness of our inner feelings, joys and sorrows, a sense of belonging, felt relationships,

goodness and beauty?This is surely a reputable humanist use of the term quite consonant with ordinary use. It

includes oUr awareness of the bigger picture:

The natural world, its awesomeness, beauty and intricate complexity.

The mystery of how and why it came about and how life came from seeming barren matter.

The wonder of our own self consciousness, imagination and awareness of purposes and

values.

Our inability to know scientifically what our thoughts and feelings are, as science cannot

identify, measure or even describe them, yet they direct and dominate our lives.

Our deep feeling of belonging and acceptance of the limitations that the natural world puts

upon us.Conviction, or faith, that life can be good, that our serious endeavours are worthwhile and that

there is fun and joy along the way.

Acknowledging our right and responsibility to live our own lives as best we can according to

our fights.Renewing our vision of all people living in friendly fellowship with each other, near and far.

Reminding ourselves of the long tradition supporting this vision and expressed in many cultures

and religions as the golden rule, that as we would be done by so should we do to others.Paddy Smith — Guildford


Spiritual is not ReligiousYou quote my namesake, Professor John White in your Editorial (ER March 1995) "CanHumanists Be Spiritual"? Since writing the words you quoted, he has been sent muchmaterial written on this issue by H umanists. In a recent letter to me he says that he will payparticular attention to this. He writes of a recent seminar held at the Institute ofEducation by OFSTED* (who make clear in their documents that 'spiritual' is notsynonymous with 'religious' and that spiritual development is emphatically not anothername for religious education). This seminar made him realise the advantage ofOFSTED's focussing on spiritual development to press schools to cover the whole person,aims neglected by the National Curriculum.

He continues "Even so, I'd prefer less ambiguous language". So would we all! But wehave to accept that 'spiritual' is the only adjective available to describe the human spiritwhich all Humanists would surely wish to celebrate. OFSTED documents spell outclearly that this is the view that schools should follow.

But one of the leading Humanists of this century, Sir Julian Huxley, did not agoniseover usage of the term. Seventy years ago he wrote: "I prefer to say that the spiritualelements which are usually styled divine are part and parcel of human nature".

John White — London SWI7•OFSTED — Office tor standards in Education Secretary, BHA Education Committee

Green Spirituality DisputedAt its Autumn 1994 conference, the Green Party passed motion CI 7 which committed theparty to accepting the spiritual dimension:-

"Spirituality is a fundamental principle adhered to by a large section of GreenParty members whether they be Christians, Pagans, Buddhists, or those who followno set belief system. Given that the Green Party recognises the spiritual element tohuman existence, we believe this should be a source of strength and celebrated as astatement in the Philosophical Basis of the Green Party.

— the seventh principle is that society should recognise the spiritual aspect ofexistence. Spirituality means different things to different people. In the GreenMovement that quality should be respected without question. Many Greens feelthat it only makes sense to talk of the future with reference to deeper values. GreenSpirituality recognises and accepts a universal human need for meaning and theneed to restore balance through recognising that our planet and all life are uniqueaspects of an integrated whole. We humans are responsible for protecting ordamaging life on Earth. Green Spirituality is a way of being in the world thatacknowledges and celebrates our connectedness to the Earth, to each other, and toall life. This requires an attitude of love, compassion and humility. Everymanifestation of life is unique and must be respected. Green Spirituality reconnectsdeeper values to the political processes in order to find new energy to resistecologically destructive actions. It reminds us to respect future generations of alllife on Earth in everything we do".

As a long standing humanist I object to this motion even being debated, never mindpassed, but I was unable to prevent either. As someone who joined the Green Party ingood faith. I fail to see why I should resign from the party. What have I ever done to theGreen Party? I am currently seeking to table amendments for the Autumn 1995conference, which will limit the damage and make it clear that humanism is a perfectlyvalid Green perspective.

What appals me is not just that a motion was tabled, debated and passed which clearly


commits the Green Party to a religious position, but that those who seek to defend motion

CI7 deny that spirituality has anything to do with religion. When it is put to them that

dictionary definitions, and the generally accepted sense of the term, is clearly religious,

this point is contemptuously dismissed. One Green suggested that any dictionary with

such an offending definition should be consigned to the bin, and those who use the

religious sense of spirituality need to be educated otherwise.

They seem to be unaware that using words in senses distinct from those used by

everyone else (and denying the generally used sense, to boot) is not just nonsense, but

dangerous nonsense as well, with ominous echoes of Through the Looking Glass and 1984.

The motion's source and mystical language also confirm its religious tenor.

A correspondent to the Spring 1995 issue of Green World remarked on how many

times since he joined the party he has been struck by the similarities with his experiences in

the Communist Party. "One example", he writes, "is elitism". He goes on to draw the

comparison between the Communist Party of the Stalin years, and the Green Party of

today: in both cases the point was made that party members were people of a special

mould, quite different from the majority of people. Rather than set ourselves apart from

everyone else, the Green Party needs to work together in broad movements, recognising

the millions of others beavering away on related issues.

I see changing the Green Party to a clearly humanist party as quite unachievable. I am

seeking to set up a Green Humanism Working Group — would those interested please

write to me, stating whether they are a member of the Green Party.Colin Mills, 70 Chestnut Lane, Amersham Common, Bucks HP6 6EH

Science verses SpiritRational thinking using science, rather than irrational thinking using spirit, should

permeate all school subjects. In the NT (New Testament), the pupil learns that disease is

caused by evil spirits, but in science disease is caused by bacteria, etc. In the OT the earth

does not move but the sun does, but in science planets follow an elliptic path. In the 01',

God creates the earth, but in science a suitably sized star can create the chemical elements

to make a planet like the earth. Religious education shOuld be banned in British schools,

because it teaches out-dated knowledge and views of human existence.Robert Awbery — Reading.

Obituary

GRACE L. ADAMS

Grace Adams, who died on 16 February at the age of 96, was a life-long humanist and a

long-standing member of South Place Ethical Society. She had known Stanton Coit and

other pioneers of organised humanism in this country and was a pupil of Harold

Blackham, who was later to become the first Director of the British Humanist

Association. Although her final years were spent at Herne Bay she will he particularly

remembered by humanists in South East London where she was secretary of the

Lewisham Humanist Group in the 1960s and at Hampstead where she moved into a

Humanist Housing Association development after a heart attack. In later years she was a

frequent contributor to Leslie Scrase's Humanist Theme. Apart from her activities in the

humanist movement Grace was involved in a number of other organisations aimed at

improving the human condition and was particularly supportive of the work of the

Nations Association. She will be remembered for the wide range of her interests and for

the common sense and humanity which she brought to bear on any problem.

Keith Mack

Ethical Record, April. 1995

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall Humanist Centre,

25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1Tel: 0171 831 7723

APRIL 1995Sunday 16

EASTER SUNDAY — No Lectures or Concert.

Sunday 2311.00 am

PAPAL FUNDAMENTALISM AND THE FUTURE OF THE R.C. CHURCII.

Michael Walsh, Biographer of the present Pope and former Jesuit.

3.00 pm MEMBERS' DISCUSSION — The Society's Future Programme.

Sunday 3011.00 am AN OVERVIEW OF MEDICAL ETIIICS. Veronica English, the B.M.A.'s

Research Officer, examines in particular the problems of surrogate motherhood.

3.00 pm WHAT IS NEW ECONOMICS? David Boyle, editor of New Economics

magazine.

MAY 1995

Saturday 66.30 for 7.00 pm HUMANIST ANNUAL DINNER

Speakers: Polly Toynbee, Frances D'Souza, Sir Herman Bondi.

Tel: Amanda Todd, B.H.A., 0171 430 0908. Tickets £15.

Sponsored by B.H.A., N.S.S., R.P.A. and SPFS.

Sunday 711.00 am

3.00 pm

Sunday 1411.00am

3.00 pm

A COMMEMORATION OF THE ENDING OF WORLD WAR II.

Bring your Reminiscences and Memorabilia. Conducted by Barbara Smoker.

No Meeting.

WOMEN AND MADNESS. Professor of Psychology Raymond Cochran.

THE PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS OF PEACEFUL DIRECT ACTION.

Chris Busby, Green Committee of 100.

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS — 6.30 pm. Tickets £3.00April 23 LONDON MUSIC PHOENIX. Hindemith; Kodaly: Messiaen.

April 30 BERNARD GREGOR-SMITH (Cello) and YOLANDE WRIGLEY (Piano).

Beethoven. Faure; Bax; Martinu-Rossini; Brahms.

Next Concert — 1 October 1995.

South Place Ethical Society The full text of the important

69th Conway Memorial Lecturegiven on 8 December 1994

Hierarchic Democracy and the Necessity of Mass Civil Disobedience

by 'red flonderich .Grote Professor of Mind and Logic. University College London

with an introduction by Robin Blackburn

is now available from the Secretary, S.P.E.S. at £2 (or £2.25 with p & p)

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. London WC1R 4RL

Printed by IC. Bryson (Printer) Ltd. 156-162 High Road, London N2 9AS

vol. 100 no. 4 e1.50 april 1995 tars of titillation · the ethical recionn0rma vol. 100 no. 4 e1.50...

Documents