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%\usepackage[ruled]{manyfoot}
\usepackage[ruled]{bigfoot}
\usepackage{perpage}
%\SetFootnoteHook{\noindent}  % This didn't do anything
\DeclareNewFootnote{A}[fnsymbol] % Collingwood's notes
\MakePerPage{footnoteA}
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\usepackage[polutonikogreek,english]{babel}
\usepackage{gfsporson}
\newcommand{\gr}[1]{\foreignlanguage{polutonikogreek}{\relscale{0.9}\textporson{#1}}}  % used for Collingwood's text

\usepackage{hfoldsty}
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\begin{document}
\title{The Existence of God}
\subtitle{Part IIIA of \emph{An Essay on Metaphysics}}
\author{R. G. Collingwood}
\date{1940}
\publishers{Edited and annotated by\\
David Pierce\\
Mathematics Department\\
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University\\
Istanbul\\
\url{mat.msgsu.edu.tr/~dpierce/}\\
\url{polytropy.com}\\
May 22, 2019}
\lowertitleback{\tableofcontents}
\maketitle
\refoot{On Collingwood's ``Existence of God''}

\mychap[Preface]{Preface}


R. G. Collingwood's \emph{Essay on Metaphysics} 
(1940\nocite{Collingwood-EM1}) 
consists of three parts:
\begin{inparaenum}[(I)]
  \item Metaphysics,
\item Anti-Metaphysics,
\item Examples.
\end{inparaenum}
The last part itself consists of three parts:
\begin{inparaenum}[(A)]
  \item
The Existence of God,
\item
The Metaphysics of Kant,
\item
Causation.
\end{inparaenum}
The present document consists of 
the four chapters of Part A of Part III.
I gave a similar treatment to Part C in 2014,
and the present Preface is adapted from the Preface of that treatment.

All underlinings in Collingwood's text are my own;
they are intended to extract a kind of summary.
My own footnotes are of three kinds:
\begin{compactenum}[1)]
\item
on the ideas, 
numbered consecutively throughout the document by Arabic numerals
1, 2, 3, 4, \lips;
\item
on typography,
numbered consecutively by italic minuscule Latin letters
\textit{a, b, c, d,} \lips;
\item
on notes themselves, numbered by minuscule Roman numerals
i, ii, iii, iv, \lips%%%%%
\footnoteC{For the multiple footnote sequences,
I use the \url{bigfoot} package for \LaTeX,
which is based on the \url{manyfoot} package.
The latter is documented as part of the bundle called \url{ncctools}.
For reasons unknown to me,
footnotes can be needlessly split across two pages.%%%
\footnoteD{There can be other difficulties, 
as when a footnote that \emph{must} be broken between pages 
seems not to be broken in the best place.
This may have to do with the normal page-breaking algorithm
implemented by the \url{KOMA-script} document class that I use.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Without \url{bigfoot}, the \LaTeX\ default
is to number footnotes by chapter.
With \url{bigfoot}, this does not happen;
if one wants it to happen,
one can use the commands of the \url{chngcntr} package.%
\footnoteD{I could not find these matters discussed in the
  \url{bigfoot} or \url{manyfoot} documentation.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\end{compactenum}
I have caused Collingwood's own footnotes
to be marked now by a symbol%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\newcounter{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration}
(\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration}%
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration},
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration},
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration},
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration},
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration},
%\fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration}, 
%and \fnsymbol{illustration}\stepcounter{illustration}
)---%
there are three in all, and originally they were marked by Arabic numerals,
starting with 1 on each page
(and no page had a second footnote).
Collingwood had a fourth note at the end of the last chapter;
I have made this into the footnote now on page \pageref{endnote}.

A revised edition of the \emph{Essay on Metaphysics},
``with an Introduction and additional material edited by Rex Martin,''
was published by Oxford with the following notice:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{center}\smaller
  First edition \copyright\ Clarendon Press 1940\\
Revised edition \copyright\ Teresa Smith 1998; introduction and new\\
annotation \copyright\ Rex Martin 1998
\end{center}
Teresa Smith is Collingwood's daughter.
I possess the revised edition of the \emph{Essay} 
in the paperback version published in 2002 
(namely \cite{Collingwood-EM} in the Bibliography).
The editor's Preface reports, 
``the original text\dots has been left completely unchanged, 
including even the pagination.''
Those original page numbers are bracketed and bolded 
in the transcription below, which is of the original pages 185--227.%%%%%%%%%%%%
\footnoteC{Each chapter of the original text begins on a new page,
and a number is not printed on this page;
neither then is its number given in the transcription.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Any references made by me to passages of the present text
use the present pagination.%%%%%%%%%%%%
\footnoteC{Collingwood himself refers once
  to a page of the \emph{Essay} that is not in part III\textsc a.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I have taken Collingwood's text from a \url{pdf} scan,
found on the Web, 
of a reissuing \cite{Collingwood-EM1} of the first edition.
The colophon there includes:
\begin{center}
  \smaller
\textsc{first edition 1940}\\\vspace{0.5\baselineskip}
Reprinted photographically in Great Britain\\
at the Oxford University Press, 1948\\
from sheets of the first edition
\end{center}
In particular, there is no assertion of copyright.
Presumably this is because of Collingwood's express opposition to copyright 
in \emph{The Principles of Art} \cite{Collingwood-PA}.
Collingwood died in 1943.

I used the online optical character recognition (\textsc{ocr}) program
at \url{www.ocrconvert.com}
to convert 
the desired pages of the \url{pdf} file of the \emph{Essay} 
into a \url{txt} file.
I made the latter into the \LaTeX\ file that produced the present document.
Doing this involved the following.
\begin{compactitem}
\item
  Removing page headings,
  while retaining page numbers as above.%%%%%
\footnoteC{In the original,
the heading of each page that does not begin a chapter
consists of the name of the chapter, in Chapters XVIII and XXI.
In chapters XIX and XX, 
the name being too long for one page,
it is divided across each two-page spread:
\begin{center}\relscale{0.9}
  \begin{tabular}{@{}cc@{}}
RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE&IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETY\\
POLYTHEISTIC AND&MONOTHEISTIC SCIENCE
  \end{tabular}
\end{center}
The last page of chapter XIX
is headed like the other even pages of the chapter;
of chapter XX, by the whole title, squeezed to fit.
I use footers in the present document,
and I do not have to divide chapter titles.
But a \LaTeX\ package might be desirable
that provided a command with five arguments:
\begin{inparaenum}[(1)]
  \item
chapter title;
\item
first half of title, for heading or footing even pages inside the chapter;
\item
second half of title, for odd pages inside the chapter;
\item
abbreviated title, for the last page of the chapter, if even;
\item
abbreviated title for the table of contents.
\end{inparaenum}
The existing \url{\chapter} command takes only two arguments: 
title and abbreviated title.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\item
  Marking up footnotes, \emph{italics,} and \textsc{small capitals} as such.%%%%%
  \footnoteC{Italics are often ill scanned.
    Small capitals are used for the first word of every chapter;
    for the abbreviations \textsc{b.c.}\ and \textsc{a.d.};
    for the roman numerals \textsc i, \textsc{ii},
    \textsc{iii}, and \textsc{iv};
    for the abbreviation \textsc{Def.}\ on page \pageref{Def};
    and for the letter \textsc a
    designating the whole essay.}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  \item
Replacing ligatures like \emph{fi} and \emph{fl} (often ill-scanned)
with distinct letters \url{fi} and \url{fl}
(which the \TeX\ program then makes into ligatures again).
\item
  Replacing line-breaking hyphens with ``discretionary'' hyphens
  (the \textsc{ocr} program had often read hyphens as en-dashes).
\item
Correcting the instances of Greek text
(which the \textsc{ocr} program did not recognize at all).
\item
  Following abbreviations
  \texttt{a.d.},
  \texttt{b.c.},
  \texttt{cf.},
  \texttt{Chap.},
  \texttt{i.e.},
  \texttt{Mr.},
  \texttt{p.},
  \texttt{pp.},
  \texttt{prop.},
  \texttt{sc.},
  \texttt{St.}, and
  \texttt{vol.}\
with
\texttt{\textbackslash\textvisiblespace} (backslash followed by space)
so that \TeX\ knows that they do not end a sentence;%%%%%
\footnoteC{To see what difference this makes,
  look at the spaces on either side of ``John'' on page \pageref{John}.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
likewise for colons, which \TeX\ also treats as ending sentences,
although they never do here.
\end{compactitem}
I have made other corrections just by reading.
Sometimes the scanner renders letters in the middle of a word as capital,
or confuses
ell with one (l with 1), or oh with zero (o with 0).
Collingwood uses punctuation more sparingly than I might;
I have noted some cases where I confirmed that the scanner missed nothing.

\mychap[Introduction]{Introduction}

Collingwood's four chapters here might be summarized as follows.
\begin{compactenum}
\item  
  That God exists is not a \emph{proposition,}
  but an absolute \emph{supposition};
  it becomes an historical proposition when the ``metaphysical rubric''
  is prefixed, yielding that \emph{we believe} in God.
  It is \emph{this} proposition that Anselm proves.
  Our concern will be what the implied supposition means for natural science.
\item
  Doing natural science requires supposing (1)
  that there \emph{are} natural things, which are independent of our art;
  and (2) that we can classify them.
  Such suppositions cannot come from experience,
  and yet they had to arise somehow.
  \begin{compactitem}
  \item
    By themselves, they constitute a religion;
  \item
    thinking about them is theology or metaphysics;
  \item
    putting them to use is science.
  \end{compactitem}
The earliest religion and science must have been ``polymorphic,''
  concerned with ``totems'' and realms of nature,
  with no clear relations among the totems or the realms.
\item
  Thales represents the first attempt to unify the sciences,
  to create a ``monomorphic science'';
  this means creating a monotheistic religion.
  Philosophers called the one god just that, \emph{theos,}
  since names such as Zeus and Aphrodite had poetical uses.
\item
  That there is but one god means (1) one world of nature, one system of laws,
  one science investigating it.
  That the one god has many ``modes'' of activity
  means (2) distinctions between ``departmental'' sciences are possible.
  Aristotle understood this,
  thus solving the problem of ``the one and the many,''
  though not in a way that lends itself to expression in art.
  Aristotle was mistaken to say that God (3) did not create the world
  and (4) did not set it in motion.
  Confusion on these points
  was why the Empire fell,
  not barbarian invasions.
  The Patristic writers cleared up the confusion,
  which is a confusion about the presuppositions
  of the science that we actually do.
\end{compactenum}

A problem with such a summary is that Collingwood's essay
is already a summary of what might well have been a book in itself.
There are various controversial points, worthy of elaboration.

Collingwood's motto might as well be,
A word to the wise is enough.
He has no time for anybody else.
He names philosophers who do not understand metaphysics,
and thus presumably will not agree with his essay:
logical positivists---Russell and Ayer---of his own time, and Kant.

I simply do not know how to take Collingwood's emphasis
on the importance of religious institutions
for maintaining the presuppositions that underly natural science.
That which maintains these presuppositions is by \emph{definition}
a religious institution.
The International Congress of Mathematicians
and the Association for Symbolic Logic
might be called religious in this sense,
for working to uphold the unity of their subjects.

%\bibliographystyle{plain}
%\bibliography{../references}
\begin{thebibliography}{10}

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\bibitem{Augustine-Latin}
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\bibitem{Collingwood-SM}
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\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1924.
\newblock Reprinted photographically in Great Britain at the University Press,
  Oxford, 1946.

\bibitem{Collingwood-PA}
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\newblock Issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1958.

\bibitem{Collingwood-EM1}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em An Essay on Metaphysics}.
\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1940.
\newblock Reprinted photographically 1948 from sheets of the first edition.

\bibitem{Collingwood-IN}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em The Idea of Nature}.
\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1945.
\newblock Issued as an Oxford University Press paperback 1960.

\bibitem{Collingwood-Auto}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em An Autobiography}.
\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978.
\newblock First published 1939. With a new introduction by Stephen Toulmin.
  Reprinted 2002.

\bibitem{Collingwood-IH}
R.~G. Collingwood.
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\newblock Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, revised edition, 1994.
\newblock With Lectures 1926--1928. Edited with an introduction by Jan van der
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\bibitem{Collingwood-EM}
R.~G. Collingwood.
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\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, revised edition, 1998.
\newblock With an Introduction and additional material edited by Rex Martin.
  Published in paperback 2002. First edition 1940.

\bibitem{Collingwood-PH}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em The Principles of History and other writings in philosophy of
  history}.
\newblock Oxford, 2001.
\newblock Edited and with an introduction by W. H. Dray and W. J. van der
  Dussen.

\bibitem{Collingwood-FML}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em The First Mate's Log: {O}f a Voyage to {G}reece on the Schooner
  Yacht `{F}leur de {L}ys' in 1939}.
\newblock Thoemmes Press, 2003.
\newblock With an Introduction by Peter Johnson. Reprinted from the 1940
  edition.

\bibitem{Collingwood-EPM}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em An Essay on Philosophical Method}.
\newblock Clarendon Press, Oxford, new edition, 2005.
\newblock With an Introduction and additional material edited by James Connelly
  and Giuseppina D'Oro. First edition 1933.

\bibitem{Collingwood-Auto-2}
R.~G. Collingwood.
\newblock {\em R. G. Collingwood: \emph{{A}n {A}utobiography} and Other
  Writings}.
\newblock Oxford, 2013.
\newblock Edited with an introduction by David Boucher and Teresa Smith.
  Paperback edition 2017. Photographs at \url{http://rgcollingwood.uk}.

\bibitem{Dreher-MMR}
Rod Dreher.
\newblock Miguel {M}onjardino's rep\'ublica.
\newblock {\em The American Conservative}, June 28 2018.
\newblock
  \url{www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/miguel-monjardino-republica/},
  accessed July 3, 2018.

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Edward Gibbon.
\newblock {\em The History of the Rise and Fall of the {R}oman Empire}.
\newblock Penguin Books, London, 1995.
\newblock Edited by David Womersley. In three volumes.

\bibitem{BCP}
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\newblock {\em The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments
  and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church}.
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\newblock Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David. According to the use of
  The Episcopal Church. Proposed.

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  accessed July 3, 2018.

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\newblock With an English translation by Paul Shorey. First printed 1930.
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\end{thebibliography}


\addpart[R. G. Collingwood, ``The Existence of God'']%
        {R. G. Collingwood\\``The Existence of God''\\
          from \emph{An Essay on Metaphysics}}

\refoot{\emph{Essay on Metaphysics}, Part III\textsc a (The Existence of God)}

\mychap[XVIII.  The Proposition `God Exists']{XVIII\\
THE PROPOSITION `GOD EXISTS'}

\textsc{In} the last chapter but one I had occasion to com\-%
ment on the way in which \uline{a `logical positivist'}, wish\-%
ing to recommend the doctrine that `metaphysical
propositions' not being verifiable by appeal to ob\-%
served fact%%%%%
\footnoteC{I would have set off the participial phrase,
  ``not being verifiable by appeal to observed fact,''
  with commas, if not parentheses;
but there is indeed no more punctuation in the original than here.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
are pseudo-propositions and meaningless,
quoted as examples propositions about God, such as
the proposition `God exists'.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Chapter XVI is ``Suicide of Positivistic Metaphysics,''
  where Collingwood describes logical positivism
  as deriving from
  ``Earl Russell, who began his brilliant philosophical career
  in close association with Bradley,'' and having been
  ``set forth with admirable conciseness and lucidity
  by Mr.\ A. J. Ayer in his book \emph{Language Truth and Logic}
  (1936).''}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\uline{To him the proposition
`God exists' would seem to mean that there is a
being} more or less like human beings in respect of
his mental powers and dispositions, but \uline{having the
mental powers of a human being greatly, perhaps
infinitely, magnified} (cf.\ supra, p.\ 167).

In a sense any one is free to mean anything he likes
by any words whatever; and if the writer whom I
quoted had made it clear that this was only a private
meaning of his own, the meaning he personally in\-%
tends to convey when he says things about God, I
should not have interfered. But \uline{he professed to be
explaining what other people mean} when they say
the same things; and these other people, from what
he says, I suppose to be Christians. In that case the
question what the words mean is not one to be capri\-%
ciously answered. It is a question of fact.

What Christians mean when they say that God
exists is a complicated question. It is not to be
answered except after a somewhat painstaking study
of Christian theological literature. I do not profess
\textbf{[186]}
to be an expert in theology; but I have a certain
acquaintance with various writers who are thought
to have been experts in their time; and I have no
fear of being contradicted when I say that the mean\-%
ing I suppose to be attached by this author to the
proposition `God exists' is \uline{a meaning Christian
theologians have never attached to it}, and does not
even remotely resemble the meaning which with
some approach to unanimity they have expounded
at considerable length. Having said that, I am obliged
to explain what, according to my recollection of their
works, that meaning is.

But I shall not try to explain the whole of it.
For my present purpose a sample is quite enough.
According to these writers (I am speaking of the
so-called Patristic literature) \uline{the existence of God is
a presupposition}, and an absolute one, \uline{of all the
thinking done by Christians}; among other kinds of
thinking, that \uline{belonging to natural science}. The con\-%
nexion between belief in God and the pursuit of
natural science happens to be a subject with which
they have dealt at some length. I shall confine myself
to it.

\uline{For the Patristic writers the proposition `God
exists' is a metaphysical proposition} in the sense in
which I have defined that phrase. In following them
here, I am joining issue with my `logical positivist',
who evidently does not think it is anything of the
kind. In his opinion it has to do not with the pre\-%
suppositions of science but with the existence of a
quasi-human but superhuman person. And the
\textbf{[187]}
department of knowledge (or if you like pseudo-%
knowledge) to which a proposition concerning a matter
of that kind would belong is, I suppose, psychical
research; or what booksellers, brutally cynical as to
whether these things are knowable or not, classify
as `occult'. There can be no conceivable excuse for
classifying it under metaphysics.

If the proposition that God exists is a metaphysical
proposition \uline{it must be understood as carrying with
it the metaphysical rubric};%%%%%
\footnoteB{\label{rubric}Collingwood defines the metaphysical rubric
  on his page 55 as the formula,
  ``in such and such a phase of scientific thought
  it is (or was) absolutely presupposed that\lips'';
as will be seen, this may be shortened to \emph{credo,} ``I believe.''}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
and as so understood what
it asserts is that as a matter of historical fact a certain
absolute presupposition, to be hereafter defined, is
or has been made by natural science (the reader will
bear in mind my limitation of the field) at a certain
phase of its history. It further implies that owing to
the presence of this presupposition that phase in
the history of natural science has or had a unique
character of its own, serving to the historical student
as evidence that the presupposition is or was made.
The question therefore arises: \uline{What difference does
it make to the conduct of research in natural science
whether scientists do or do not presuppose the
existence of God}?

The importance of the metaphysical rubric has
been well understood by those responsible for estab\-%
lishing and maintaining the traditions of Christen\-%
dom. The creeds in which Christians have been
taught to confess their faith have never been couched
in the formula: `God exists and has the following
attributes'; but always in the formula: `I believe' or
originally `We believe in God'; and have gone on to
\textbf{[188]}
say what it is that I, or we, believe about him. A
statement as to the beliefs of a certain person or body
of persons is an historical statement; and since
Christians are aware that in repeating their creeds
they are summarizing their theology, \uline{one need only
ac\-cept Aristotle's identification of theology with meta\-%
physics to conclude that the Christian Church has
always taught that metaphysics is an historical science}.
I do not say that it has taught all the implications
of this principle. For example, it has not consistently
taught that there can be no proof of God's existence.
Inconsistency on this point is easy to understand.
The words are ambiguous. That God exists is not
a proposition, it is a presupposition (Chap.\ IV,
prop.\ 5).%%%%%
\footnoteB{The proposition referred to is,
  ``Absolute presuppositions are not propositions.''}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Because it is not a proposition it is neither
true nor false. It can be neither proved nor dis\-%
proved. But a person accustomed to metaphysical
thinking, when confronted with the words `God
exists', will automatically put in the metaphysical
rubric and read `we believe (i.e.\ presuppose in all
our thinking) that God exists'. Here is something
which is a proposition. It is either true or false. If
true, it can be proved: if false, it can be disproved.
Unless it is proved it cannot be known at all; for like
all absolute presuppositions a man's belief in God can
never be discovered by introspection. If `God exists'
means `somebody believes that God exists' (which it
must mean if it is a metaphysical proposition) it is
capable of proof. The proof must of course be an
historical proof, and the evidence on which it is based
will be certain ways in which this `somebody' thinks.

\textbf{[189]}
A famous example lies ready to hand. If Gaunilo
was right when he argued that \uline{Anselm's `ontological}%%%%%
\footnoteA{The name is Kant's. Invented seven centuries later than the
thing named, and by a man who did not understand that thing, it
has no authority.%%%%%
\footnoteD{In the earlier \emph{Essay on Philosophical Method}
  \cite[p.\ 123--7]{Collingwood-EPM},
  after referring simply to ``Anselm's argument,''
  Collingwood uses the term ``Ontological Proof''
  without apology, and he describes Kant's attempt to refute it
as ``perhaps the only occasion
on which any one has rejected it who really
understood what it meant.''
See also the last two sentences of the present chapter.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
As a description it is not felicitous. Let us, or
those of us who are not polysyllable-addicts, speak in future of
`Anselm's proof'.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\uline{proof of the existence of God' proved the existence
of God only to a person who already believed it}, and
if Anselm told the truth when he replied that he did
not care, it follows that Anselm's proof, whatever else
may be said either for it or against it, was sound on
this point, and that Anselm was personally sound on
it too. For it follows not only that Anselm's proof
assumed the metaphysical rubric but that Anselm
personally endorsed the assumption when it was
pointed out to him, whether he had meant to make
it from the first or no. Whatever may have been in
Anselm's mind when he wrote the \emph{Proslogion,} his
exchange of correspondence with Gaunilo shows be\-%
yond a doubt that on reflection he regarded the fool
who `hath said in his heart, There is no God' as a fool
not because he was blind to the actual existence of
\emph{un nomm\'e Dieu,} but because he did not know that
the presupposition `God exists' was a presupposition
he himself made.

\uline{Anselm's proof is strongest at the point where it is
commonly thought weakest}. People who cannot see
that metaphysics is an historical science, and there\-%
fore habitually dock metaphysical propositions of
their rubric, fancying that Anselm's proof stands or
\textbf{[190]}
falls by its success as a piece of pseudo-metaphysics,
that is, by its success in proving the proposition that
God exists, as distinct from the proposition that we
believe in God, have allowed themselves to become
facetious or indignant over the fact, as they think it,
that this argument starts from `our idea' of God and
seems to proceed thence to `God's existence'. People
who hug this blunder are following Kant, I know.
But it is a blunder all the same. When once it is
realized that Anselm's proof is a metaphysical argu\-%
ment, and therefore an historical argument, it can
no longer be regarded as a weakness that it should
take its stand on historical evidence. What it proves
is not that because our idea of God is an idea of \emph{id
quo maius cogitari nequit} therefore God exists, but
that because our idea of God is an idea of \emph{id quo
maius cogitari nequit} we stand committed to belief in
God's existence.

It is because Anselm's proof so explicitly takes its
stand on history that \uline{it provides so valuable a test
for a metaphysical turn of mind}. A man who has a
bent for metaphysics can hardly help seeing, even if
he does not wholly understand it, that Anselm's
proof is the work of a man who is on the right lines;
for a man with a bent for metaphysics does not need
to be told that metaphysics is an historical science,
and at his first meeting with Anselm's proof he will
realize that it is historical in character. I do not
suggest that persons with a bent for metaphysics are
the only ones who can do valuable work in meta\-%
physics. Kant is an instance to the contrary.

\mychap[XIX.  Religion and Natural Science in Primitive Society]
{XIX\\
RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE IN
PRIMITIVE SOCIETY}

\textsc{The} question I have undertaken to answer is primarily
a question about the history of thought in the fourth
century \textsc{a.d.}, that being the time when the Christian
world made up its mind by hook or by crook as to
what it meant when it described itself as believing in
God. Historical questions are questions in which one
tries to understand what somebody was doing on a
certain occasion. This can be done only if one under\-%
stands what sort of an occasion it was; for every
action arises out of the situation in which it is done,
and there is no understanding the action unless one
understands the situation. In metaphysics as in every
other department of history the secret of success is to
study the background.

It is \uline{through the historical background}, therefore,
that \uline{I shall approach the question what Christians
mean by saying that they believe in God}. Like an
old-fashioned artist, I shall divide this background
into two planes:\ an arbitrary simplification of what
is in reality far more complex; but the best I can do.
\uline{First I shall sketch} in the `distance', by saying some\-%
thing about \uline{the religion and science of primitive
peoples; then} the `middle distance', by doing the
same for the people of \uline{ancient Greece}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Evidently the distance is sketched in the present chapter;
  the middle distance, the next.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\uline{If there is to be} anything at all which can in any
sense be called \uline{natural science, the people} in whose
\textbf{[192]}
minds it is to exist \uline{must take it absolutely for granted
that there is such a thing as `nature'}, the opposite
(contradictory) of `art':\ that there are \uline{things that
happen quite irrespectively of anything these people
themselves do}, however intelligently or fortunately,
and irrespectively also of anything any one else may
do even with skill and luck greater than their own.
They must take it absolutely for granted that some\-%
where in the world there is a dividing line between
things that happen or can be made to happen or can
be prevented by art (and art never succeeds without
a certain support from luck), and things that happen
of themselves, or by nature. This line will doubtless
shift its position according to the degree of skill and
luck possessed by different people; for an extremely
powerful magician it will recede a long way; but
unless even in this extreme case it is supposed still to
exist somewhere, and to have beyond it a region in
which things happen that no magic can control, there
is not supposed to be any nature, and the ultimate
and fundamental presupposition on which depends
the very possibility of a natural science remains
unmade.

\uline{There is no reason to think that this presupposi\-%
tion is native to man}. Except that it lies farther down
in the edifice of his intellectual habits, it is in principle
very much like other presuppositions which we know
that some groups of human beings have made while
others have not. To animals which physiologically
speaking are in either case human we can hardly
doubt that it is an open question whether they shall
\textbf{[193]}
suppose that this line exists and that beyond it lies a
world of nature, or whether they shall suppose that
there is no such line and that whatever happens in
the world happens by art; though certainly it is not
a question that could be decided by an act of choice
whereby a human animal actually in one of these two
alternative states abandons that state and embraces
the other.%%%%%
\footnoteC{Again I have checked that the minimal punctuation
  in this complex sentence
  has been transcribed faithfully.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Anthropologists tell us of peoples who
believe that there is no such thing as natural death.
They think, we are assured, that every instance of
death is due to magic. If that is so there might be
peoples who hold the same belief about everything
whatever. No such people has been reported by
anthropologists, and very likely none exists; but if it
did it would afford an example of a society in which
no possible science of nature could arise until that
belief had disappeared; and it is at least conceivable
that this was once the belief of some or even of all
human beings.

It might be fancied that the mere course of experi\-%
ence would suffice to destroy it. Psychologists, or
some of them, if they read these words, will remind
me that according to themselves every child begins
life with a conviction of its own omnipotence, and
that this conviction is lost only by degrees, as its
baselessness becomes evident in the light of experi\-%
ence. But if that happens, this infantile conviction
of omnipotence is not at all like the absolute pre\-%
suppositions which this book is about. \uline{An absolute
presupposition cannot be undermined by the verdict
of `experience'}, because it is the yard-stick by which
\textbf{[194]}
`experience' is judged. To suggest that `experience'
might teach my hypothetical savages that some events
are not due to magic is like suggesting that experience
might teach a civilized people that there are not
twelve inches in a foot and thus cause them to adopt
the metric system. As long as you measure in feet
and inches, everything you measure has dimensions
composed of those units. As long as you believe in a
world of magic, that is the kind of world in which
you live. \uline{If any group or community of human beings
ever held a pan-magical belief about the world}, it is
certainly not `experience' that could shake it. Yet
certainly it might be shaken. \uline{It might be shaken
through the influence of a very powerful tribesman}
who found himself taking a different view; \uline{or by the
prestige of some other community}, accepted and
revered in the first instance as extremely powerful
magicians, and later found to reject and despise it.%%%%%
\footnoteB{\label{Wigner}One might wonder how
  ``the influence of a very powerful tribesman''
or ``the
prestige of some other community'' is to be distinguished from
``mere course of experience'' mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph.
The point is that,
as the world does not tell us whether to measure lengths in feet and inches,
so generally it does not tell us how we must think about it.
Eugene Wigner provides a deeper example
in ``The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the
Natural Sciences'' \cite{Wigner}:
\begin{quote}
  Every empirical law has the disquieting quality that one does not know
  its limitations\lips
  It
  is even possible that some of the laws of nature will be in conflict
  with each other in their implications, but each convincing enough in its
  own domain so that we may not be willing to abandon any of them. We may
  resign ourselves to such a state of affairs or our interest in clearing
  up the conflict between the various theories may fade out. We may lose
  interest in the ``ultimate truth,'' that is, in a picture which is a
  consistent fusion into a single unit of the little pictures, formed on
  the various aspects of nature.
\end{quote}
We \emph{may} lose interest in the big picture; but this is not inevitable.
In an article called ``All Ye Need to Know''
\cite{Sarewitz}, Daniel Sarewitz describes
Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist,
as having learned at a scientific conference that, in her words,
\begin{quote}
  Popper's idea that scientific theories must be falsifiable
  has long been an outdated philosophy.
  I am glad to hear this,
  as it's a philosophy that nobody in science ever could have used\lips
  since ideas can always be modified or extended to match incoming evidence.
\end{quote}
Again, incoming evidence alone
will never stop anybody from looking for the big picture.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\uline{The second step towards a science of nature is to
organize your thoughts about this world of nature},
where nature means the things that happen of them\-%
selves and not owing to anybody's art, \uline{by discrimina\-%
ting within it various realms or de\-partments}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{I think here of university departments,
  such as chemistry and biology;
  but we are not at the stage where these would be conceived
  as departments of a \emph{single} university.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Each
of these realms will be a class of things or events
resembling one another in certain recognizable ways
and all agreeing to differ in these same ways from the
things or events that make up the other realms. This
step, once more, is a step in the development of
absolute presuppositions; it is \uline{not a step which can
be dictated, or even prompted, by any acquisition of
`experience'}. For people like ourselves the habit of
\textbf{[195]}
classifying things according to their resemblances
and differences is so ingrained that we can hardly
believe we are doing it. We can hardly believe that
things do not present themselves to us whether we
will or no ready labelled with reference-numbers to
the classes in which we habitually put them.%%%%%
\footnoteB{In his own textbook of metaphysics,
  Michael J. Loux explicitly declines
  to consider his subject as Collingwood does.
  Loux believes things \emph{do} just come to us classified
  \cite[p.\ 21]{Loux}:
  \begin{quote}
    few will deny that many of our ways of sorting things
    are fixed by the objects themselves.
    It is not as if we just arbitrarily choose to call some things triangular,
    others circular, and still others square;
    they \emph{are} triangular, circular, and square.
    Likewise, it is not a mere consequence of human thought or language
    that there are elephants, oak trees, and paramecia.
    They come that way,
    and our language and thought
    reflect these antecently given facts about them.
  \end{quote}
  Loux is right that we do not ``arbitrarily choose'' to call things as we do.
  What we call things depends, however, \emph{not} on the things themselves,
  but on \emph{our} absolute presuppositions about them.
  That there are elephants
  is not a consequence of our thought;
  that we recognize them \emph{as} elephants---that we can even speak of
  ``them'' at all---this \emph{is} a consequence of our thought.
  Disagreement with Loux here is not just a word-game:\
  this is shown by ongoing public controversies
  about race, nationality, and gender.
See also Collingwood's ensuing discussion.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\uline{It may help us to realize the arbitrary character of
our own classifications if we study the very different
classifications} of the same material \uline{which other
peoples have practised} in the past or indeed still
practise in the present; for example, the way in
which \uline{the ancient Greeks and Romans classified
colours} not as we classify them, by the qualitative
differences they show according to the places they
occupy in the spectrum, but \uline{by} reference to some\-%
thing quite different from this, something connected
with \uline{dazzlingness or glintingness or gleamingness or
their opposites}, so that a Greek will find it as natural
to call the sea `wine-looking' as we to call it blue, and
a Roman will find it as natural to call a swan `scarlet'%
---or the word we conventionally translate scarlet---%
as we to call it white. It has been suggested that this
is because the Greeks and Romans were colour-blind.
But no sort of colour-blindness known to physiology
would account for the facts. In both languages there
are the rudiments of what we should call a true colour-%
nomenclature; and in both languages it happens
that there are words for red and green, the colours
that colour-blind persons cannot distinguish.

\uline{The problem I am suggesting} for consideration is
similar in principle to this, but it \uline{goes far deeper}.
\textbf{[196]}
Instead of merely asking whether our conventional
modern European way of classifying colours is the
only possible way, a question which need only be
asked to be answered in the negative, since records
of other ways are actually in our possession, I am
asking whether the age-old habit of considering the
natural world (or world of things which happen of
themselves) as a world consisting of various natural
realms is the only possible way of considering that
world. The answer is that \uline{any system of classification
or division}, whether the things classified or divided
are colours or things that happen of themselves, \uline{is} a
system \uline{not `discovered' but `devised' by thought}.
The act of thought by which it is laid down is not
proposition but supposition. The act of supposing
the natural world to be divided into various natural
realms is an act which for all human societies known
to us has been habitual time out of mind; but \uline{it must
have had a beginning}. I do not see how we can ever
hope to find out when or where so distant an event
in human history took place; but I think we can be
sure that it did take place; and I think we can describe
with reasonable probability the kind of way in which
human institutions are likely to have been affected by it.

\uline{The result of thinking systematically according to
any given set of presuppositions is the creation of
science}; and this, like everything else that the human
mind creates, grows for itself a body of institutions
to keep it alive. In the case of science these are institu\-%
tions for the pursuit of scientific research and for the
education of young people in its methods and its
\textbf{[197]}
fruits. \uline{The result of thinking systematically about
what presuppositions are actually in use is the creation
of metaphysics or theology}, and this too has its own
institutions, which in modern Europe (where `theo\-%
logical colleges' are more concerned with vocational
training for the clerical profession than with theo\-%
logical or metaphysical instruction and research) have
been almost squeezed out of existence between scien\-%
tific institutions on the one hand and religious institu\-%
tions on the other, but flourished once in Europe as
they still flourish in the East, though even there the
influence of European example threatens them. It is
because they hardly exist in Europe that pseudo-%
metaphysics of various kinds is so rife there. \uline{The
result of simply presupposing our presuppositions},
clinging to them by a sheer act of faith, whether or
not we know what they are, whether or not we work
out their consequences, \uline{is the creation of a religion};
and the institutions of a religion have this as their
object, to consolidate in believers and perpetuate in
their posterity the absolute presuppositions which lie
at the root of their thought.

It is \uline{because absolute presuppositions are not
`derived from experience'}, but are catalytic agents
which the mind must bring out of its own resources
to the manipulation of what is called `experience'
and the conversion of it into science and civilization,
that \uline{there must be institutions for perpetuating them}.
If they were once lost, they could never be recovered
except by repeating the same kind of process by which
they were originally created. As to the nature of this
\textbf{[198]}
process very little is known. That is one of the ques\-%
tions on which light will be thrown by the reformed
metaphysics described in Chapter VII. At present
there is little we can say about it except that it must
have been extremely slow. Granted the preservation
of what may be called the `scientific frame of mind'
characteristic of European civilization, the whole of
modern European science could be reinvented in a
very few thousand years, or even in a matter of
hundreds, if all record of its achievements should be
lost. But if the `scientific frame of mind' were lost
it would be a question of perhaps tens or hundreds
of thousands before any tolerable substitute for it
could be invented.

\uline{The guardianship of the European `scientific frame
of mind' is vested in the religious institutions of
European civilization}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Is Collingwood actually referring here to churches
  (such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Church),
  rather than to universities or, say,
  the institutional practices of research journals?}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
In any civilization it is man's
religious institutions that refresh in him from time
to time the will (for it is a matter of will, though not
a matter of choice) to retain the presuppositions by
whose aid he reduces such experience as he enjoys
to such science as he can compass; and it is by dint
of these same religious institutions that he transmits
these same presuppositions to his children. For if
science is `experience' interpreted in the light of \uline{our
general convictions as to the nature of the world,
religion is what expresses these} convictions in them\-%
selves and for their own sake \uline{and hands them on} from
generation to generation. And it does this \uline{irrespective\-%
ly of whether we know by means of metaphysical
analysis what these convictions are}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Collingwood's thought resembles that of
  Alexandre Koj\`eve, who, in
  ``The Christian Origin of Modern Science''
  in the \emph{St.\ John's Review} \cite{Kojeve},
  argues that mathematical physics
  is due to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation;
  for, this doctrine showed that the perfect mathematical regularity
  of the heavens must also be found on earth.
  St.-John's tutor Curtis Wilson objects to this kind of argument,
  which he perceives as ``doctrinairely Hegelian'' \cite{Wilson}.
  One may raise a similar objection
  to the seeming suggestion that successful science
  depends on going to church (or perhaps synagogue or mosque).
  We may however understand Collingwood
  as providing a framework for anthropological research.
  If science \emph{is} being successfully carried out,
  then its absolute presuppositions \emph{are} being transmitted.
  However that is, it \emph{is} religion.
  What then can we find out about the religion of the scientists?}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\textbf{[199]}
\uline{Whenever and wherever men first acquired the
habit of dividing the natural world into realms} ac\-%
cording to resemblances and differences among the
things and events which they regarded as composing
that world, we may be sure that \uline{this new habit of
mind had its expression in their religious practices}.
We may assume with a certain degree of confidence
that \uline{its effect was to split these up into a plurality of
different cults} practised, perhaps, by different sections
of society, where each section regarded the others
not as practising a rival religion to their own but
rather as combining with themselves to maintain a
single complex of religious institutions each one of
which was necessary to the total welfare of society.
It is a mark of ignorance in anthropology to speak
as if there were one single institution or set of institu\-%
tions called `totemism', or one single stage of human
history or civilization to which the name `totemistic'
can be applied; but it is certainly true that in many
different parts of the world, where peoples have been
studied in what seems a very low and primitive grade
of civilization, a single society has been found to
regard itself as divided into a number of lesser units
each having its own special religious institutions and
each thus co-operating with all the rest in the collec\-%
tive maintenance of \uline{a religion which is not perhaps
exactly polytheistic}, for the idea of a god has hardly
at this stage taken a definite shape, \uline{but is certainly
polymorphic in respect of its ritual activities}.

In a society of this kind there would be a sort of
natural science; but in certain ways it would be very
\textbf{[200]}
much unlike what we call natural science. In \uline{each
`totemic clan'}, or whatever name we like to use for
a single one of the various religious groups within a
society thus organized, there would be persons who
achieved at least a quasi-scientific point of view to\-%
wards their `totem'. One such group, \uline{taking a special
interest in one class of natural things or events, would
become the repository of information about it}; and
in this way there would grow up a kind of depart\-%
mentalized science of nature whose polymorphism
would repeat the polymorphism of ritual activities.

What would make this extremely unlike the speciali\-%
zation of modern science is that \uline{modern specializa\-%
tion arises and runs its course within a unity} logically
prior to it which it never attempts to break up. The
mutual independence of departmental specialists in
modern science depends for its very existence on the
presupposition that one and the same set of laws
hold good throughout the entire world of nature.
Unless it were thought an absolute certainty that in
this sense nature is one, and therefore that natural
science is one also, relations between the various
departmental sciences would be as chaotic as the
relations between various communities whose fron\-%
tiers had never been agreed upon, which had never
made any treaties, and whose respective positions
had never been marked on any map. \uline{In the poly\-%
morphic science which I am trying to envisage there
would be chaotic interrelations} of this kind between
any one set of inquirers and any other.%%%%%
\footnoteB{In trying to ``envisage'' polymorphic science,
  Collingwood engages in what he understands history to be.
  In \emph{An Autobiography} \cite[pp.\ 110--4]{Collingwood-Auto},
  he summarizes his findings about history in three propositions:
  (1) ``all history is the history of thought'';
  (2) ``historical knowledge is the re-enactment in the historian's mind
  of the thought whose history he is studying'';
  (3) ``Historical knowledge is the re-enactment of a past thought
  incapsulated in a context of present thoughts which, by contradicting it,
  confine it to a plane different from theirs.''}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\mychap[XX.  Polytheistic and Monotheistic Science]
{XX\\
POLYTHEISTIC AND MONOTHEISTIC
SCIENCE}

\textsc{When} first our evidence enables us to discern the
thing we call Greek science it already shows marks
of maturity. We have no direct evidence as to what
it was doing before the lifetime of the Ionian `philo\-%
sophers' in the late seventh and early sixth centuries
\textsc{b.c.}; but what we know about their work gives us
plenty of indirect evidence both as to the existence
and as to the character of the science which they set
out to reform. There is also, as I shall point out
towards the end of this chapter, evidence of another
kind.%%%%%
\footnoteB{The evidence is poetry such as the \emph{Hippolytus} of Euripedes,
  and Aristotle's \emph{Metaphysics.}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\uline{Greek religion was polytheistic; the Greek `philo\-%
sophers' from Thales onwards almost uniformly
preached a monotheis\-tic religion}, and in many cases
did so in conscious opposition to the current beliefs
and institutions of their time. It would hardly be an
exaggeration if one should describe the Greek `philo\-%
sophers' as a dissenting and sometimes persecuted
sect of monotheists in a polytheistic society. Nor
would it be much of an exaggeration if one should
describe them in their scientific capacity as a suc\-%
cession of thinkers all bent upon showing that the
world is one. \uline{Their monotheistic religion went hand
in hand with a monomorphic science}. And when
we look at this science in some detail we find it so
framed as to show that \uline{it must have arisen out of a}
\textbf{[202]}
\uline{pre-existing polymorphic science} in the same kind
of way in which their monotheistic religion arose out
of a pre-existing polytheistic religion.

Thales is famous as the `philosopher' who main\-%
tained that the world and everything in it was made
of water. His contemporaries thought him a great
man, and that opinion represents the popular judge\-%
ment of which an ounce is worth more than a ton of
academic or professional reputation. \uline{To have said in
the time of Thales that the world is made of water
must}, therefore, \uline{have been regarded as an intellectual
achievement of the first magnitude}. To us it sounds
rather childish. But that is because we, as heirs to
the scientific tradition of Christendom, inherit a full
and satisfactory solution, being in fact the fourth-%
century Greek solution, of what the Greeks called the
problem of the one and the many. Thales was just
beginning to tackle that problem.

If you got hold of any intelligent but `uneducated'
man to-day, and asked him why he thought it childish
to say that everything was made of water, he would
give you some such answer as this:\ `I suppose it is
true that in the long run everything is made out of
the same sort of stuff. And I dare say water is as
good a name for it as any other. But why make such
a song about it? It is the differences between things
that are interesting. If you told me why the piece of
water that I call a stone sinks to the bottom of the
sea when the piece of water that I call a flame jumps
up into the air, or why the piece of water that I call
a caterpillar turns into a butterfly when the piece of
\textbf{[203]}
water that I call an egg turns into a hen, you would
be telling me the kind of things I want to know.'

This is as much as to say that \uline{nowadays we take
the oneness of things for granted} and are chiefly
interested in their manyness. If we repeat the mistake
which in an earlier chapter I ascribed to the eigh\-%
teenth century, and fancy that the way in which we
think nowadays is the way in which all human beings
think and always have thought, we shall infer that in
the time of Thales, too, `human nature' being what
it is, people took the oneness of things for granted
and were chiefly interested in their manyness. If
they had, it would certainly have been childish of
Thales to go on in this way about the oneness of
things. As they did not think him childish for doing
that, we may infer that they did not draw the line
between the things one takes for granted and the
things one wants to know in quite the same place as
ourselves.

\uline{The work of the Ionian `philosophers' becomes
intelligible when we think of it as an attempt to
introduce unity} into a pre-existing mass of scientific
work which was polymorphic in character. Being
polytheistic in their religion but already quite capable
of scientific work (for the existing fragments of Thales
are no more the work of a `primitive' than are the
existing poems of Homer; and if Homer implies a
pre-existing tradition of literary art, Thales no less
implies a pre-existing tradition of scientific thought%%%%%
\footnoteB{As Collingwood describes it in
  \emph{The Idea of Nature} \cite[pp.\ 29--30]{Collingwood-IN},
  that tradition must have settled
  ``a large number of preliminary points,'' including
  (1) that there are natural things,
  (2) which constitute a single world of nature, because
  (3) they are made of a single material.}%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
)
the Greeks must already have worked out a num\-%
ber of departmental sciences of the kind roughly
\textbf{[204]}
described in the preceding chapter; but with this dif\-%
ference, that in the preceding chapter I was describing
a very primitive state of society in which the `informa\-%
tion', as I called it, that went to make up one such
`science' would be from our point of view less like a
collection of scientific observations than like a collec\-%
tion of folk-lore, and pretty savage folk-lore at that;
whereas \uline{the Greeks of a time not long before Thales}
were very far from being savages; they \uline{were already}
Greeks, already \uline{heirs to} the Minoan world with its
\uline{accurate observation of natural detail}, already pupils
to the \uline{scribes and star-gazers} of Mesopotamia, the
\uline{sculptors and engineers} of Egypt.

It is something more than a guess, then, to say that
before the time of Thales there already existed in
Greece, and especially in the Greek cities of the Asian
coast, a well-founded and well-developed science of
nature, or rather a number of departmental sciences
of this, that, and the other natural realm; and that
the professional and educational organization of these
sciences must have been focused in the specialized
cult-centres of polytheistic religion; a state of things
which survived here and there to a much later date
in such examples as the college of medical men
attached to the temple of Asklepios at Epidauros.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Since Collingwood mentions ``the Greek cities of the Asian coast,''
  I note that one can also visit the remains of a medical college
  in Bergama,
  the ancient Pergamum.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
And Thales would not have produced on the history
of Greek thought the effect which he did produce
unless this departmental and polymorphic natural
science had reached a point of development, neces\-%
sarily a rather high point of development, at which
\uline{the lack of any co-ordinating authority to draw up a}
\textbf{[205]}
\uline{map of the sciences} and arbitrate in frontier disputes
between them \uline{was beginning to be acutely felt}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Frontier disputes are a theme of Collingwood's earlier
  \emph{Speculum Mentis},
  which has the alternative title \emph{The Map of Knowledge.}
  Such a map is needed, because
  ``the field of human experience seems to be divided into provinces
  which we call art, religion, science, and so forth'';
  presently history and philosophy are added to the list
  \cite[p.\ 39]{Collingwood-SM}.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
People had become a little tired of the manyness of
things. It was when Thales began talking about the
oneness of things that they began to hear the kind of
things they wanted to hear.

To drop the political and cartographic metaphor,
the collection and study of isolated blocks of material,
each drawn from a single realm of nature, was finding
itself handicapped by the obscurity of the relations
between one such block and another. \uline{It is not easy
for us to grasp such a state of things}, because for us
it is an axiom that rules of method which are valid in
one science will hold good, either without modifica\-%
tion or \emph{mutatis mutandis,} in those most nearly akin
to it. But this is because science is for us no longer
polymorphic. \uline{In a polymorphic sci\-ence there is no
sense in calling one science nearly or distantly akin
to another. They are all just different}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Compare the \emph{Ion}
  \cite[p.\ 415]{Plato-Loeb-VIII},
  where the title character can recite Homer and talk about him
  \emph{ad nauseam,}
  but can say nothing about any other poet:
  \begin{quotation}
\textsc{Socrates.}
Then, my excellent friend, we shall not be wrong in saying that our Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in the other poets, seeing that you yourself admit that the same man will be a competent judge of all who speak on the same things, and that practically all the poets treat of the same things.

\textsc{Ion.}
Then what can be the reason, Socrates, why I pay no attention when somebody discusses any other poet, and am unable to offer any remark at all of any value, \textbf{[532\textsc c]} but simply drop into a doze, whereas if anyone mentions something connected with Homer I wake up at once and attend and have plenty to say?  \end{quotation}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
If anybody
after a training in one science began to study another,
his previous training would be valueless; he would
have to start again at the beginning. It is an axiom
for us that in any realm of nature there are certain
laws which hold good not only there but in all other
natural realms without exception, and others which
hold good either without modification or \emph{mutatis
mutandis} in the realms nearest akin to it. In a poly\-%
morphic science there is no such axiom. There is no
more ground for expecting discoveries in one science
to point a way towards discoveries in another than
for expecting methods in one science to indicate
\textbf{[206]}
methods in another. And where it is impossible for
one science to come to another's help with hints and
suggestions depending on assumed analogies between
their respective subject-matters or their respective
methods it will be impossible for any one science in
this isolated condition to attain more than a very low
degree of orderliness and method in its inquiries, or
of certainty in its results.

\uline{All modern scientific work rests on the absolute
presupposi\-tion that nature is one and that science is
one}:\ that the different realms of nature are in part
governed by one and the same code of absolutely
identical laws, the laws of mathematics, and in part
by special codes which do not differ radically among
themselves but are so linked together by analogies
and similarities that they may be regarded as so many
local variants of laws which in spite of these variations
can still be called `laws of nature'; while the various
sciences that investigate the various realms of nature
are not independent sciences but only modifications
of one and the same thing, a single thing which we
call by the single name of natural science. What
Thales was fighting for, when he `childishly' said
that the world was made of water, was this principle
we so lightly take for granted:\ the principle that in
spite of all the differences between different natural
realms and the different sciences that study them
there is one thing that is nature, and one science that
is natural science.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Collingwood's argument seems belied by the quotation from Wigner
  in note \ref{Wigner} on page \pageref{Wigner};
  the elided passage reads,
  \begin{quote}
    We have seen that there are regularities in the events
in the world around us which can be formulated in terms of mathematical
concepts with an uncanny accuracy. There are, on the other hand, aspects
of the world concerning which we do not believe in the existence of any
accurate regularities. We call these initial conditions. The question
which presents itself is whether the different regularities, that is,
the various laws of nature which will be discovered, will fuse into a
single consistent unit, or at least asymptotically approach such a
fusion. Alternatively, it is possible that there always will be some
laws of nature which have nothing in common with each other. At present,
this is true, for instance, of the laws of heredity and of physics.
  \end{quote}
  Wigner may thus have experienced the loss of faith---the
  betrayal of Thales---that Collingwood is concerned about.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\uline{The attempt to replace a polymorphic by a mono\-%
morphic natural science was logically bound up with}
\textbf{[207]}
the attempt to replace a polytheistic by a monotheistic
religion. Or rather, since even in Homer a kind of
monotheistic tendency exists side by side with a
polytheistic, \uline{an attempt to develop the monotheistic
tendency already present in popular religion}, and to
prevent it from being choked by the polytheism
which prevailed over it in popular ritual practice.
Perhaps to avoid this danger, \uline{the `philosophers'}
did not, as certain poets like Aeschylus did, graft
their monotheism upon the monotheistic element in
Homer by giving to their one God the name of Zeus.
They did not constitute themselves a sect of Zeus-%
worshippers. They declined to use any personal
name at all, and \uline{spoke simply of \gr{<o je'os}, God}.

\uline{This was in effect a refusal to allow certain poetical
motives to interfere} with the motives of religion on
the one hand and those of theology or metaphysics
on the other. The Greeks were a people whose
artistic genius was not less remarkable than their
scientific. In the work of the Greek mind it is not
always easy to distinguish the respective operations
of their artistic and their scientific genius. Their
habit of \uline{representing their gods in vividly realized
human form was not a piece of theology, it was a piece
of poetry}. When they described or portrayed Aphro\-%
dite, for example, they did not think they were
describing or portraying a magnified and non-natural
woman who, by the exercise of something like will,
but a superhuman will, brought about the various
events which together made up her realm, namely
\uline{the events connected with sexual repro\-duction}. They
\textbf{[208]}
did not think they were describing or portraying a
person who controlled or produced these events, they
thought they were describing or portraying these
events themselves, regarded generically as natural
events, or events not under human control, and
specifically as sexual events. \uline{The human or quasi-%
human figure of Aphrodite is merely the poetical way
in which they represented these} events to themselves.
The power or might or royal status annexed to that
figure is merely the poetical way in which they
represented to themselves their conviction that events
of this kind are not only beyond our control but
are also of the utmost importance in our lives; so
that \uline{we must adjust ourselves to them as best we
can}, since a successful adjustment will mean a happy
and successful life for ourselves so far as that realm
of nature is concerned, whereas an unsuccessful ad\-%
justment will entail our misery or destruction.
\uline{There can be no more fatal mis\-understanding of
Greek literature than the failure to grasp this princi\-%
ple}. In the \emph{Hippolytus} of Euripides, for example, a
young man is cruelly done to death because he refuses
to gratify the incestuous passion of his stepmother.
In terms of poetry, his destruction is compassed by a
quasi-human person called Aphrodite, in the execu\-%
tion of her vengeance upon him for refusing, not
then only but always, to take part in sexual inter\-%
course; a refusal which she regards as insulting to
herself as the patron of sex. In order to achieve her
vengeance this goddess deprives his stepmother first
of her happiness and self-respect and then of her
\textbf{[209]}
life, and robs his father both of wife and of son,
making him his son's murderer.

Simple-minded modern readers can hardly restrain
their indignation; allow themselves strong language
about the low moral quality of Greek religious ideas;
and hint a suspicion that Euripides may have been
deliberately attacking the beliefs of his countrymen.
Yet if these same readers heard somebody say that a
steeple-jack, notoriously careless about the condition
of his ropes, fell one day by the operation of the law
of gravity from the top of a church tower, so that
himself and a harmless passer-by were killed, and
his aged father ended his days in the workhouse,
they would hardly suspect their informant of mean\-%
ing to suggest that so inhuman a law ought to be
repealed. They have simply been deceived by the
Greek habit of personification. The story of the
\emph{Hippolytus} would be exactly the same if you left
the goddess out. Here it is.%%%%%
\footnoteB{After \emph{An Essay on Metaphysics,}
  Collingwood started on \emph{The Principles of History}
  \cite{Collingwood-PH},
  which contains three stories:
  (1) ``Who Killed John Doe?''\ (pp.\ 21--4),
  illustrating the meaning of historical evidence;%%%%%
  \footnoteD{This story is part of what
    Collingwood's literary executor Knox included in
    \emph{The Idea of History} \cite[pp.\ 266--8]{Collingwood-IH}.}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  (2) ``Excavations at Highbury, 193--'' (pp.\ 63--7),
  an account of archeological research at an imaginary dig;
  and (3) ``Psychology in Lagado'' (pp.\ 89--91), a Swiftian satire:
  \begin{quote}
    `There is a sect of philosophers among them' (I quote the words of
Philip Gulliver, whose manuscript account of the voyages in which
he retraced his grandfather Lemuel's footsteps came to my hands in
very strange circumstances that I am not yet at liberty to disclose)
`who hold that whatever exists can be measured and weighed, and
that nothing can be known except what is known by these means.
Now many persons in that island are much addicted to music; and
this is a great annoyance to these philosophers, because as a
condition of entering their sect they have been forced to undergo an
operation which renders them perfectly deaf\lips'
  \end{quote}
   Collingwood describes his writing
  in a letter to his wife Ethel on February 18, 1939,
  from ``Djokja,'' or Jogyakarta
  \cite[p.\ 537]{Collingwood-Auto-2}:
  \begin{quote}
    I have got in some priceless episodes,
    one a full-size detective novel,
    another a bogus report on the excavation of a hill-fort,
    both in my opinion great fun\lips
    I don't think I ever realized before,
    how fatally I missed my bus when I took a job at Oxford
    instead of becoming a professional writer.
    I know why I did it, it was because I was angry with my father
    for being that sort of person
    and not being able to bring up his family in consequence\lips
  \end{quote}
  Collingwood will turn fifty in four days.
  In the summer he will cruise to Greece with Oxford undergraduates
\cite{Collingwood-FML}.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

`Once upon a time there was a young man who had
a horror of women. To persuade himself that there
was nothing wrong with him, he devoted himself to
blood-sports. His mother was dead, and his father
married again, a nice young woman, good-looking
and of good family, though there were odd stories
about them.\lips Well, as luck would have it, or
perhaps it was that queer streak in her family, she
fell violently in love with her stepson. She was
almost dying of love, when her old nurse found out
about it and persuaded her to speak to the young
man. He refused her with such disgust that she
\textbf{[210]}
didn't know what to do. So she committed suicide,
leaving a letter for her husband saying that it was
because her stepson had made love to her. The old
man believed it; so he had him murdered.' The
moral is that sex is a thing about which you cannot
afford to make mistakes.

\uline{These stories}, already hundreds of years old when
they were piously preserved in the Greek literature
of the fifth century before Christ, a literature which
was consciously and professedly the handmaid of
Greek polytheistic religion, are often found to inculcate
such morals as this, and \uline{may be regarded as docu\-%
mentary relics of the polymorphic science which the
`philosophers' set out to reform}. Refracted as they
are through the atmosphere of fifth-century Greek
civilization, they can hardly be called direct evidence
as to what that polymorphic science was like; but
indirectly they are evidence of a very valuable kind,
and enable the metaphysician who is conscious of the
historical character of his own work to carry the
history of the absolute presuppositions involved in
Greek science back beyond the point to which it was
brought by \uline{the reformation that Thales initiated}.

\uline{The high-water mark of this} reformation \uline{is} re\-%
corded in \uline{Aris\-totle's \emph{Metaphysics}}, where the central
problem is to expound the presuppositions of a
science of nature (the science of nature which was
pursued by Aristotle himself, the foremost natural
scientist of his age, and those whom he regarded as
his fellow workers in that field) in which the balance
was evenly held between the oneness of things and
\textbf{[211]}
their manyness. Aristotle's \emph{Metaphysics,} \uline{openly and
professedly a theology}, reminds the reader by this
fact of the intimate connexion that there must always
be between the doctrines of religion and the founda\-%
tions of natural science. In it \uline{Aristotle tries to ex\-press}
both the genuine unity of the natural world, as
envisaged by this science, and also the genuine plura\-%
lity of the realms within it, in other words, \uline{both the
genuine unity of natural science and the genuine
plurality of the natural sciences, as these things
existed in his own time}, by affirming the following
propositions. The reader will understand that my
purpose is only \uline{to summarize a few of Aristotle's
points}, and that in every case I leave it to him to
insert the metaphysical rubric.%%%%%
\footnoteB{``We believe''
  or ``It is presupposed,'' as in note \ref{rubric}, page \pageref{rubric}.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{center}\itshape Of Nature
\end{center}

1. (\textsc{Def.})\label{Def} \emph{The `world of nature' is a world of move\-%
ments which happen of themselves.}

\emph{Note on prop.\ 1.} That there is such a world is a
thing we discover by the use of our senses.

\begin{center}\itshape Of the Unity of Nature, or of God
\end{center}

2. \emph{There is one God, and only one.}

3. \emph{God is not a creator from whom natural move\-%
ments receive their origin (for if so they would not
happen of themselves); he is the perfect being whom all
the things in nature are trying to imitate.}

4. \emph{God is mind; but all these imitations are movements;
therefore natural movements imitate God in the only way
in which movements can imitate the activity of mind.}

5. \emph{The activity of mind is rational activity; therefore}
\textbf{[212]}
\emph{natural movements in general, as imitations of God, are
rational movements, i.e.\ movements taking place accord\-%
ing to laws.}

\begin{center}\itshape
  Of the Plurality of Natural Realms,\\
  or of the Intelligences
\end{center}

6. \emph{There are various realms of nature, in which
various different kinds of movement obtain.}

7. \emph{There is only one realm of nature, the sphere of
the fixed stars, which directly imitates God.}

8. \emph{It does so by moving with a uniform rotation,
this being the only kind of motion which can go on
uniformly for ever, and thus serve to imitate the eternal
and unchanging activity of God.}

9. \emph{The non-circular and non-uniform movements
characteristic of other natural realms are imitations,
in terms of movement, of other kinds of mental activity.}

10. \emph{They are imitations, in terms of movement, of
the activities of certain Intelligences, which are minds
themselves imitating in various partial and incomplete
ways in terms of mental activity the one activity of God;
these Intelligences being neither divine nor human, but
belonging to an order intermediate between the two.}

\emph{Note on prop.}\ 10. The statement that there are
many different ways in which God's single activity
can be imitated by other minds implies that all these
different forms of mental activity already exist within
God's single activity. This may be expressed by
saying that the unity of God's activity is a `self-%
differentiating unity', like the unity of the logical
universal (see p.\ 6).%%%%%
\footnoteB{In the example on the page referred to,
  \emph{number} differentiates itself into the even and the odd.
  Collingwood then makes a forward reference to pages 212 (the present page),
  219, and 220.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\mychap[XXI.  Quicunque Vult]{XXI\\
  QUICUNQUE VULT\footnoteB{The chapter title is the first words of
    the Athanasian Creed \cite[pp.\ 864--5]{BCP}:
    ``Whosoever will be saved,
    before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.''}}

\uline{\textsc{If} Aristotle's account of the presuppositions under\-%
lying nat\-ural science} as he understood it \uline{are compared
with those of modern European science}, certain points
of agreement and certain points of difference will be
found. \uline{I will begin with the most important points
of agreement}.

\textsc i. That \emph{there is one God}; in other words, that there
is one world of nature with one system of laws run\-%
ning all through it, and one natural science which
investigates it.

\textsc{ii}. That \emph{there are many modes of God's activity}; in
other words, that the oneness of nature does not
preclude, it logically implies, the distinction of many
realms within nature, and the oneness of natural
science does not preclude, it logically implies, dis\-%
tinctions between many departmental sciences.

\uline{This solves the `problem of the one and the many'}.
The solution in terms of religion is not to be found
in a polytheism which asserts a diversity, however
harmonious, of departmental gods; it can only be
found in a monotheism which regards the one activity
of the one God as a self-differentiating activity. \uline{This
solution has the minor drawback}, if you think it a
drawback, that although you can quite well under\-%
stand how a single activity differentiates itself into
various activities (Plato had already made this clear
when he showed that the four `virtues' of temperance,
\textbf{[214]}
courage, wisdom, and justice were differentiations of
one single `virtue' which includes them all, so that a
man is properly called `good' not because he is either
temperate or brave or wise or just but because he is
alike temperate and brave and wise and just%%%%%
\footnoteB{The discussion of the four qualities
  is in \emph{Republic} \textsc{iv}, beginning at 427\textsc e
  \cite[p.\ 347]{Shorey-I}.}%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
) \uline{you
cannot personify this in sculpture or painting or
poetry}; so that people who fancy they cannot under\-%
stand a thing unless they can see it mythologically
represented in a picture will fancy they cannot under\-%
stand this. When a sculptor, for example, wishes to
express the idea that the divine activity is one, he will
personify it in a single human figure invested with
conventional attributes of divinity:\ when he wishes
to express the idea that this one activity diversifies
itself into many activities, he will personify it in a
group of figures, rather comic to an irreverent eye,
appearing to represent a committee of perhaps
strangely assorted gods. An unintelligent spectator
will think that there is inconsistency here, and will
complain that he cannot tell whether monotheism or
polytheism is being expounded.

\uline{There are at least two points}, however, \uline{where}
Aristotle's account of his own presuppositions fails
to agree with the presuppositions of modern natural
science. When these points are examined it will be
seen that \uline{Aristotle was not so much failing to antici\-%
pate the absolute presuppositions of a future age as
failing correctly to define his own}.

\textsc{iii}. When Aristotle says that \emph{God did not create the
world}, this means that the existence of nature is not
a presupposition of natural science but simply an
\textbf{[215]}
observed fact. For if it had been said that God
created nature, this would have meant that the exis\-%
tence of nature is a presupposition of natural science;
since God is such a presupposition, and any activity
which we ascribe to God is an integral part of what
we believe about Him, and therefore when we pre\-%
suppose Him we simultaneously presuppose anything
which we regard as the product of His activity.

\uline{Aristotle thought}, and he was not the only Greek
philosopher to think it, \uline{that by merely using our
senses we learn that a natural world exists}. He did
not realize that the use of our senses can never inform
us that what we perceive by using them is a world of
things that happen of themselves and are not subject
to control by our own art or any one else's. I have
already pointed out that the existence of such a world
is a presupposition, the first and fundamental pre\-%
supposition, on which alone any science of nature
can arise. When Aristotle described it as a fact dis\-%
covered by the use of the senses, therefore, he was
falling into a metaphysical error. For his own science
of nature, no less than for any other, the thing was in
fact an absolute presupposition. \uline{This metaphysical
error was corrected by Christianity}.

If metaphysics is our name for the statement of
absolute presuppositions, and if metaphysics and
theology are the same, there are \uline{three ways in which
the existence of a world of nature might be made to
figure among the doctrines of theology}.

1. It might be a proposition in metaphysics, as it
is for Spinoza, \uline{that God and nature are the same}.
\textbf{[216]}
But this would entail the consequence that natural
science is the same thing as metaphysics:\ which can\-%
not be right if the business of metaphysics is to state
the absolute presuppositions of natural science.

2. It might be a proposition in metaphysics \uline{that
the world of nature exists}, but this proposition \uline{might
be left wholly unrelated to the proposition that God
exists}. But then it would not be a proposition in
theology; and therefore, if theology and metaphysics
are the same, not a proposition in metaphysics. And
what about the presupposition of which it was the
statement? The act by which we hold such pre\-%
suppositions, I have said elsewhere, is religious faith;
and God is that in which we believe by faith; there\-%
fore all our absolute presuppositions must be pre\-%
suppositions in holding which we believe something
about God.

3. It might be a proposition in which \uline{the existence
of the world of nature} was stated \uline{in the form of an
attribute or activity of God}; and this \uline{seems the only
possible alternative}.

\textsc{iv}. The second point of discrepancy between
Aristotle's metaphysics and the presuppositions of
modern science is concerned with motion as a feature
of the natural world.

Let it be granted that there is a natural world, no
matter what our reasons for believing it. Greek and
modern physics are agreed that the most universal
characteristic of this world is motion. Now, if we
ask how we know that in the natural world there is
such a thing as motion, the Greek answer is that we
\textbf{[217]}
know it by using our senses. That is how we know
that there are natural things; that is likewise how we
know that they move. But \uline{if the existence of natural
things is} not a fact discovered by experience but \uline{a
presupposition without which we could never con\-%
vert the data of experience into a science of nature,
the idea that these things move must be a part of that
same presupposition}. For when we speak of the
existence of natural things we mean (as Aristotle
very truly says) the existence of things that move of
themselves or events that happen of themselves. The
idea of movement or happening, and self-movement
or automatic happening at that, is contained in the
idea of a natural world. The idea of motion, there\-%
fore (for if the world of nature is a world of bodies
all the events in nature are motions), cannot be an
idea which we obtain, as the Greeks thought we
obtained it, through the use of our senses. It is an
idea which we bring with us in the shape of an
absolute presupposition to the work of interpreting
what we get by using our senses. \uline{The proposition
that there is motion in nature is a metaphysical
proposition}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{That there is motion in nature
  is an absolute presupposition;
  from this, incorporating the metaphysical rubric,
  we obtain the proposition that \emph{we believe} there is motion in nature.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

How could this proposition be incorporated in a
theology? Obviously by saying that \uline{God, when he
created the world of nature, set it in motion}. The
other alternatives, (1) that God is nature and that the
movement of nature is God's activity of self-move\-%
ment, and (2) that science involves this presupposi\-%
tion among others, that natural things move, have
been in principle already considered and rejected.
\textbf{[218]}
But if we say that God set the world in motion when
he created it, we are saying that his thus setting in
motion the world he created is an integral part of
his creating it, and therefore arises out of something
in his essential nature. Aristotle did not think that
movement, as such, in the natural world arose out
of anything in God's nature; he thought it happened
of itself. He only thought that the orderliness or
regularity or `rationality' of such movement arose
from something in God's nature, namely from the
rationality of God's thought, which things in nature
imitated. But if we drop the idea of natural move\-%
ments as first (logically first, of course) occurring of
themselves, and only secondly acquiring their orderli\-%
ness through imitating God, and substitute the idea
of these movements as created by God, we are saying
in effect that to be the creator of movement in the
natural world is just as much a part of God's nature
as to be the source of diversified orderliness in the
natural world.

\uline{Here again}, it will be seen, \uline{Aristotle failed in his
metaphys\-ical analysis}; and his failure was not limited
to himself alone; the metaphysical mistake which he
made was a commonplace of Greek thought. And
since metaphysics is inseparable, as regards success
or failure, from ordinary thinking, \uline{this break\-down
of Greek metaphysics implied a breakdown of Greek
science}.

\uline{This was very clearly seen by the Patristic writers},
who made all the four points I have enumerated,
consciously and deliberately emphasizing their im-
\textbf{[219]}
portance for natural science. I will go over the points
in a slightly different order.%%%%%
\footnoteB{The middle two points are interchanged.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\textsc i. \emph{There is one God.} Here \uline{they agreed with the
philosophical tradition of the Greeks, and also with
the prophetic tradition of the Hebrews}, which resem\-%
bled it in asserting a monotheistic religion against
a background of popular polytheism.

\textsc{ii}. \emph{God created the world.} Here \uline{they accepted the
Hebrew tradition and departed from the Greek}. For
Plato, God is not the creator of the world, he is only
its `demiurge'; that is to say, he made it, but made
it on a pre-existing model, namely the eternal hier\-%
archy of Forms. For Aristotle, he did not even make
it; he is only the model on which it tries to make itself.

In order to understand \uline{what the Christian meta\-%
physicians were doing}, and \uline{why the thing they did
was ultimately ac\-cepted by the Greco-Roman world},
in other words why that world was converted to
Christianity, it is necessary to bear in mind that at
this point \uline{they were correcting a metaphysical error
on the part of the Greek philosophers}. I have already
explained that the article of faith `God created the
world' meant `the idea of a world of nature is an
absolute presupposition of natural science'. In main\-%
taining that article of faith, the Christians were sub\-%
stituting a correct piece of metaphysical analysis for
the incorrect piece of metaphysical analysis whereby
the Greek philosophers had been led to the doctrine
that we learn of the natural world's existence by the
use of our senses.

\textsc{iii}. \emph{The activity of God is a self-differentiating}
\textbf{[220]}
\emph{activity, which is why there are diverse realms in nature.}
This doctrine was a blend of the foregoing with a
notion which Christianity owed to the Greek philo\-%
sophers. The notion of a self-differentiating unity
was characteristically Platonic; and from Platonism it
had already found its way into the Jewish Platonism
of Egypt. \uline{The technical term} in Greek \uline{for a self\-%
differentiating unity is \gr{l'ogos}}, and this word was taken
over by the Egyptian schools, and later by Christi\-%
anity itself in the Fourth Gospel. Everybody knows
Gibbon's gibe to the effect that this notion was
taught 300 \textsc{b.c.}\ in the school of Alexandria, revealed
\textsc{a.d.}\ 97 by the Apostle St.\ John.\label{John} Most people know,
too, that Gibbon lifted this statement out of St.\
Augustine's \emph{Confessions,} characteristically omitting
to acknowledge it and at the same time falsifying
the facts by suppressing Augustine's point, which
is that the notion of the \gr{l'ogos} was a commonplace
familiar to every Platonist, but that \uline{the Johannine
doctrine according to which `the \gr{l'ogos} was made
flesh' was a new idea peculiar to Christianity}.%%%%%
\footnoteA{Gibbon's remark occurs in his table of contents to chapter xxi.%%%%%
  \footnoteD{I confirm this with Womersley's edition
    \cite[vol.\ I, p.\ 23]{Gibbon}.}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
`My personal acquaintance with the Bishop of Hippo', he says in
  note 30 to chapter xxxiii (Bury's ed., vol.\ iii, p.\ 607),%%%%%
  \footnoteD{Note 28 of Womersley's edition
    \cite[vol.\ II, p.\ 285]{Gibbon}.}
  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
  `does not
extend beyond the \emph{Confessions} and the \emph{City of God.}' Here is the
passage from the \emph{Confessions,} vii.\ 9:\ `et ibi [sc.\ in libris Platoni\-%
corum] legi non quidem his verbis, sed hoc idem omnino, multis
et multiplicibus suaderi rationibus quod \emph{in principio erat verbum,
et verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat verbum; hoc erat in prin\-%
cipio apud Deum} (and so on, quoting John i.\ 1--5, then omitting
the reference to the Baptist and beginning again at verse 11).
Quia vero \emph{in sua propria venit}\lips (quoting verses 11--12) non ibi
legi. Item ibi legi\lips (quoting verse 13) sed quia \emph{verbum caro}
\textbf{[221]}
\emph{factum est}\lips (quoting verse 14) non ibi legi.'%%%%%
\footnoteD{In the translation of Henry Chadwick
  \cite[p.\ 121]{Augustine}:
  \begin{quotation}\noindent
    There I read, not of course in these words,
    but with entirely the same sense
    and supported by numerous and varied reasons,
    `In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God.
    He was in the beginning with God\lips'
    But that `he came into his own\lips',
    that I did not read there.

    Again, I read there\lips
    but that `the word was made flesh\lips',
    that I did not read there.
  \end{quotation}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The extreme care
with which Augustine details every point in which the Evangelist
is merely repeating the commonplaces of current Platonism throws
into sharp relief the points in which he claims that the Christian
doctrine departs from the Platonic; and makes one regret the
slipshod way in which Gibbon speaks of Plato as having `marvel\-%
lously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the
Christian revelation'.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\textbf{[221]}
\textsc{iv}. \emph{The creative activity of God is the source of
motion in the world of nature.} This, like number \textsc{ii},
was \uline{a departure from Greek precedents and a point
borrowed from the Hebrew creation-myth}, where
`the spirit (breath) of God moved upon the face of
the waters', and where God after modelling Adam
out of clay `breathed into his nostrils the breath
(spirit) of life'. God is pictured as blowing over the
world he makes, thus setting it in motion; blowing
into the living creature he makes, thus giving it
power to move itself.

This point is logically connected with number \textsc{ii}.
If the world of nature is by definition a world of
movements, and if the existence of that world is an
absolute presupposition of natural science, the move\-%
ment which is its essence must be an absolute pre\-%
supposition too. Once it was seen that Greek natural
science did in fact absolutely presuppose the existence
of a natural world, although by an error in meta\-%
physical analysis the Greek philosophers had over\-%
looked the fact; and once the fact had been stated,
strictly in accordance with the Aristotelian principle
that metaphysics and theology are the same, by say\-%
ing that the world of nature exists in virtue of a
\textbf{[222]}
creative act on the part of God; it followed inevitably
that this creative act should be defined as not merely
(\emph a) creative of nature in general, nor merely (\emph b)
creative of distinct realms in nature, but also as
(\emph c) creative of motion in nature.

When a Christian theologian to-day says \uline{that God
exists}, or (to be precise by making explicit the meta\-%
physical rubric) \uline{that we believe in God}, he is con\-%
sciously using words in the sense in which they were
defined by the Patristic writers who worked out the
notions I have been describing. When an uneducated
Christian makes the same statement, he too is using
words in the same sense, unless indeed he is attaching
to them some private and heretical (that is, historically
unjustified) sense of his own. \uline{What the words do
actually and historically mean} is by now, I hope,
clear. \uline{I will try to summarize} it briefly, bearing in
mind that I have undertaken to deal \uline{only with their
application to the absolute presuppositions of natural
science}.

They mean that natural scientists standing in the
Greek tradition absolutely presuppose in all their
inquiries

1. \emph{That there is a world of nature,} i.e.\ that there
are things which happen of themselves and cannot
be produced or prevented by anybody's art, however
great that art may be, and however seconded by good
luck.

2. \emph{That this world of nature is a world of events,} i.e.\
that the things of which it is composed are things
to which events happen or things which move.

\textbf{[223]}
3. \emph{That throughout this world there is one set of laws
according to which all movements or events, in spite of
all differences, agree in happening}; and that con\-%
sequently there is one science of this world.

4. \emph{That nevertheless there are in this world many
different realms,} each composed of a class of things
peculiar to itself, to which events of a peculiar kind
happen; that the peculiar laws of these several realms
are modifications of the universal laws mentioned
in 3; and that the special sciences of these several
realms are modifications of the universal science
there mentioned.

\uline{Christian writers in the time of the Roman Empire
asserted}, and no historian to-day will deny, \uline{that in
their time the sci\-ence and civilization of the Greco-%
Roman world were moribund}. \uline{Some modern writers},
purveyors of sensational fiction rather than historians,
\uline{say that this was because the Greco\discretionary{-}{}{-}Roman world
  was being destroyed by barbarian attacks}.%%%%%
\footnoteB{Today it seems popular to blame not \emph{attacks,}
  perhaps, but immigration:
  \begin{quotation}
    The massive migration of barbarians into the Roman Empire,
    in the 4th through 6th centuries,
    changed European civilization permanently.
    They caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and centuries later,
    the rise of a new civilization there,
    based on the descendants of old Roman stock
    and Christianized Germanic tribes.
    Will the latter-day descendants of those Europeans
    be able to hold back the ``barbarian invasions''
    from Africa in the 21st century?
    Or will they have to do as the Romans did and absorb the strangers,
    and, over centuries, create a new civilization? These are the stakes.
  \end{quotation}
  Thus Rod Dreher in \emph{The American Conservative,}
  in an article \cite{Dreher-MMR}
  that Josephine Livingstone of \emph{The New Republic}
  saw fit to respond to \cite{Livingstone},
  though not along the lines that Collingwood will set out.}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The causes
of historical events are sometimes clearer to posterity
than to contemporaries; but not in a case like this.
If a man's friends have left it on record that he died
of a lingering disease, and a group of subsequent
writers, in an age for which it is a dogma that no
such disease exists, agreed to say that he was shot by
a burglar, a reader might admit that the story told by
posterity was more entertaining than that told by the
contemporaries, without admitting that it was truer.
\uline{The Patristic diagnosis} of the decay of Greco-Roman
civilization \uline{ascribes that event to} a metaphysical
disease. The Greco-Roman world, we are told, was
\textbf{[224]}
moribund from internal causes, specifically because
it had accepted as an article of faith, as part of its
`pagan' creed, \uline{a metaphysical analysis of its own
absolute presuppo\-sitions which was at certain points
erroneous}. If metaphysics had been a mere luxury
of the intellect, this would not have mattered. But
because metaphysical analysis is an integral part
of scientific thought, an obstinate error in meta\-%
physical analysis is fatal to the science with which
it is concerned. And because science and civilization,
organized thought in its theoretical and practical
forms, stand or fall together, the metaphysical error
which killed pagan science killed pagan civilization
with it.

\uline{This diagnosis is naturally repugnant to an age like
the present}, when the very possibility of metaphysics
is hardly admitted without a struggle, and when,
even if its possibility is admitted, its importance
as a \emph{conditio sine qua non} of science and civilization
is almost universally denied. Naturally, therefore,
this anti-metaphysical temper has produced an
alternative explanation for the collapse of the `pagan'
world:\ that it was destroyed by the barbarians. But
this explanation cannot be taken seriously by any
one with the smallest pretensions to historical learn\-%
ing. A good deal of information about barbarians
and Romans in the later Empire is now accessible
even to persons who profess no special interest in the
subject; and any reader who will spend a little time
upon it can satisfy himself that it was not barbarian
attacks that destroyed the Greco-Roman world.
\textbf{[225]}
Further research will convince him that to this extent
\uline{the Patristic diagnosis was correct}:\ the `pagan' world
died because of its own failure to keep alive its own
fundamental convictions.%%%%%
\footnoteA{\label{endnote}There may be readers who find strange or
even shocking my denial of the vulgar error that Roman civiliza\-%
tion was destroyed by barbarian attacks. In the text I remarked
that this impression would be dispelled by looking up what
modern writers have to say on the subject. Such readers can now
be referred to an authoritative discussion of this very pornt in a
book which has placed its author among the faremost living
historians:\ A. J. Toynbee, \emph{A Study of History,} vol.\ iv, pp.\ 56--63,
published while this Essay was in the press.%%%%%
\footnoteD{This note was originally at the end of the chapter
  and prefaced with ``\emph{Note to pp.\ 223--5.}''}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The Patristic writers not only saw this, but they
assigned to it a cause, and proposed a remedy. The
cause was a metaphysical cause. The `pagan' world
was failing to keep alive its own fundamental con\-%
victions, they said, because owing to faults in meta\-%
physical analysis it had become confused as to what
these convictions were. \uline{The remedy was} a meta\-%
physical remedy. It consisted, as they formulated it,
in abandoning the faulty analysis and \uline{accepting a
new and more accurate analysis}, on the lines which
I have indicated in this chapter.

This new analysis they called \uline{the `Catholic Faith'}.
The Catholic Faith, they said, is this:\ that we worship
(note the metaphysical rubric) one God in trinity,
and trinity in unity, neither confounding the \gr{<upost'aseis}
and thus reducing trinitarianism to unitarianism, nor
dividing the \gr{o>us'ia} and thus converting the one God
into a committee of three. The three \gr{<upost'aseis}, that
is to say the three terms in virtue of whose distinctness
they spoke of a trinity, they called respectively the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. By believing
in the Father they meant (always with reference
solely to the procedure of natural science) absolutely
presupposing that there is a world of nature which
is always and indivisibly one world. By believing in
the Son they meant absolutely presupposing that
this one natural world is nevertheless a multiplicity
\textbf{[226]}
of natural realms.%%%%%
\footnoteA{This is why, as everybody knows who has ever looked at the
sculptures of a French cathedral, the specialized creative work
done on the Days of Creation is represented in medieval Christian
art as being done not by the Father but by the Son. The second
`Hypostasis' of the Trinity is the \gr{l'ogos}, the self-differentiation of
the divine creative activity. `Dieu a cr\'e\'e, mais il a cr\'e\'e par son
Verbe ou par son Fils. C'est le Fils qui a r\'ealis\'e la pens\'ee du
P\`ere, qui l'a fait passer de la puissance a l'\`acte. Le Fils est le vrai
cr\'eateur. P\'en\'etr\'es de cette doctrine, les artistes du moyen \^age
ont toujours repr\'esent\'e cr\'eateur sous les traits de J\'esus-Christ':
\'Emile Male, \emph{L'art religieux du xiii\textsuperscript e si\`ecle en France,} 1925, p.\ 29.
Cf.\ Augustine, \emph{Conf.}\ xi.\ 5, for the origin of the doctrine:\ `quoniam
tu Pater in principio quod est tua sapientia de te nata, aequalis
tibi et coaeterna, id est in Filio tuo, fecisti caelum et terram'.%%%%%
\footnoteD{The reference should be to \emph{Confessions} xiii.\ 5,
  which begins \cite{Augustine-Latin},
  \begin{quote}
    ecce apparet mihi in aenigmate trinitas quod es, deus meus,
    quoniam tu, pater, in principio sapientiae nostrae,
    quod est tua sapientia de te nata, aequalis tibi et coaeterna,
    id est in filio tuo, fecisti caelum et terram.
  \end{quote}
  In Chadwick's translation \cite[p.\ 276]{Augustine},
  \begin{quote}
    Here in an enigmatic image (\textsc i Cor.\ 13:\ 12)
    I discern the Trinity, which you are, my God.
    For in the beginning of our wisdom which is your wisdom,
    Father, begotten of yourself, equal to you and coeternal,
    that is in your Son, you `made heaven and earth' (Gen.\ 1:\ 1). 
  \end{quote}
  The verse of \textsc i Corinthians is,
  \begin{quote}
    For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:\
    now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
  \end{quote}}%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
By believing in the Holy Ghost
they meant absolutely presupposing that the world
of nature, throughout its entire fabric, is a world not
merely of things but of events or movements.
These presuppositions must be made, they said,
by any one who wished to be `saved'; saved, that is
to say, from the moral and intellectual bankruptcy,
the collapse of science and civilization, which was
overtaking the `pagan' world. The disease from which
that world was suffering they regarded as a fatal
disease. A civilization is a way in which people live,
and \uline{if the way in which people live is an impracticable
way} there can be no question of saving it. \uline{What has
to be saved is} not the way of living but \uline{the people}
who live in that way; and \uline{saving them means in\-%
ducing them to live in a different way}, a way that is
not impracticable. The different way of living which
these writers proposed for adoption was the way of
living based upon the absolute presuppositions I
\textbf{[227]}
have tried, in a partial and one-sided manner, to
describe. The new way of living would involve a
new science and a new civilization.

The presuppositions that go to make up this
`Catholic Faith', preserved for many centuries by
the religious institutions of Christendom, have as a
matter of historical fact been the main or funda\-%
mental presuppositions of natural science ever since.
They have never been its only absolute presupposi\-%
tions; there have always been others, and these others
have to some extent differed at different times. But
from the fifth century down to the present day all
these differences have played their changing parts
against a background that has remained unchanged:
the constellation of absolute presuppositions originally
sketched by Aristotle, and described more accurately,
seven or eight centuries later, by the Patristic writers
under the name of the `Catholic Faith'.


\end{document}
