1874 - John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion
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"Nature," "Utility of Religion," and "Theism" - "Mill remarks in his Autobiography that he must have been one of the very few in Britain who were raised without any instruction in religion or belief in a deity; certainly, he was generally taken to be an atheist or an agnostic. During his life, however, he published little on the topic of religion; as he made clear in his correspondence with Comte his fear of alienating his readers and losing his public influence led him to be determinedly cautious - indeed cautious to the extent that he was criticized for this by those who otherwise sympathized with him. The latter were rather consternated, then, with the posthumous publication of Mill's Three Essays on Religion: in spite of the strictures that appeared in Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, it turned out that Mill was rather more sympathetic to religion than were they. But even then, he showed no sympathy to any form of institutionalized religion: he failed to share Coleridge's love for the established churches, and thought even less of Comte's proposals for a rigid and hierarchical institutional "religion of humanity." These forms of religion and religious practice all stifled individuality and personal development. In "On Nature" Mill argues that the maxim "Follow Nature" proposed equally by the ancient Stoics and the modern Romantics is a poor guide to action, certainly one contrary to the principle of utility. 'Nature' might have two meanings. On the first, 'nature' means 'whatever happens', and it recommends as right whatever happens, be it good or bad. In this case, it offers no moral guidance whatsoever. On the second meaning, 'nature' means 'whatever happens without human interference' - natural as opposed to artificial in the sense of being the result of human art. In this case it is contradictory since it itself is a matter of human art. Mill argues that nature in the second sense offers us a view of as much evil as good, and so proposes more a challenge to change than an ideal for imitation. The task is not to follow nature but to improve it, especially human nature: virtue is not the consequence of nature but of nurture, of cultivation. - In "The Utility of Religion" Mill argues that much of the apparent social utility of religion derives not from its dogma and theology but to its inculcation of a widely accepted moral code, and to the force of public opinion guided by that code. The belief in a supernatural power may have had some utility in maintaining that code, but is no longer needed and may indeed be detrimental. There is an unfortunate tendency in supernatural religion to hinder the development not only of our intellectual, but also our moral nature. Its appeal is to self-interest rather than to disinterested and ideal motives. As with intuitionism in ethics, it stands in the way of the critical evaluation of social norms, and thereby effectively prevents action aimed at social change for the improvement of the human lot in the community. - While the first two essays had been written by 1858, the third, "Theism," was drafted more than a decade later. ... "Theism" makes greater concessions to traditional religion. In this essay Mill evaluates the traditional arguments for the existence of God. He rejects straight out any argument based on an a priori causal principle. But he suggests that the order to be found in the universe, in particular the adjustments of organisms for the ends of survival and reproduction, provides grounds for tentatively accepting the existence of a creator. Even here, however, he allows only that it can be established with "no more than probability" that the cause of such order is the activity of some intelligent designer. He allows, too, that one might ... characterize the creator in a humanly relevant way as benevolent, though it could be neither omniscient nor omnipotent. For Mill the point about a world created by such a God is that it leaves room for the work of human beings in improving both that world and themselves as persons in it. (from Mill on religion in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)