British statesman (1848-1930)
In the historic movements of scientific thought I see, or think I see, drifts and currents such as astronomers detect among the stars of heaven.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
That there are beliefs which can and should be held, with the same shade of meaning, by all men, in all ages, and at all stages of culture, is a view to which by nature we easily incline. But it is, to say the least, most doubtful. Language is here no true or certain guide. Even when beliefs have not outgrown the formulas by which they have been traditionally expressed, we must beware of treating this fixity of form as indicating complete identity of substance. Men do not necessarily believe exactly the same thing because they express their convictions in exactly the same phrases. And most fortunate it is, in the interests of individual liberty, social co-operation, and institutional continuity that this latitude should be secured to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or divines, but by the inevitable limitations of language.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
To him who is not a specialist, a comprehension of the broad outlines of the universe as it presents itself to the scientific imagination is the thing most worth striving to attain.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Lord Rector's Address, delivered at St. Andrews University, December 10, 1887
There are, no doubt, sceptics in religion who treat skepticism as a luxury which can be safely enjoyed only by the few. Religion they think good for morals; morals they think good for society; society they think good for themselves.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
It is no doubt true that we are surrounded by advisers who tell us that all study of the past is barren except in so far as it enables us to determine the principles by which the evolution of human societies is governed. How far such an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in results it would be unkind to inquire. That it will ever enable us to trace with accuracy the course which states and nations are destined to pursue in the future, or to account in detail for their history in the past, I do not in the least believe. We are borne along like travelers on some unexplored stream. We may know enough of the general configuration of the globe to be sure that we are making our way towards the ocean. We may know enough, by experience or theory, of the laws regulating the flow of liquids, to conjecture how the river will behave under the varying influences to which it may be subject. More than this we cannot know. It will depend largely upon causes which, in relation to any laws which we are ever likely to discover may properly be called accidental, whether we are destined sluggishly to drift among fever-stricken swamps, to hurry down perilous rapids, or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful cultivation.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Lord Rector's Address, delivered at St. Andrews University, December 10, 1887
It is perfectly possible for a man, not a professed student, and who only gives to reading the leisure hours of a business life, to acquire such a general knowledge of the laws of nature and the facts of history that every great advance made in either department shall be to him both intelligible and interesting; and he may besides have among his familiar friends many a departed worthy whose memory is embalmed in the pages of memoir or biography. All this is ours for the asking. All this we shall ask for if only it be our happy fortune to love for its own sake the beauty and the knowledge to be gathered from books. And if this be our fortune, the world may be kind or unkind, it may seem to us to be hastening on the wings of enlightenment and progress to an imminent millennium, or it may weigh us down with the sense of insoluble difficulty and irremediable wrong; but whatever else it be, so long as we have good health and a good library, it can hardly be dull.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Lord Rector's Address, delivered at St. Andrews University, December 10, 1887
The well-known paradox of the theory of probabilities is that, to all seeming, it can extract knowledge from ignorance and certainty from doubt.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of parties and of statesmen. The imagination is moved by the slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability, as it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding stars. The ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long-forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes in which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom which huzzas at the triumph of folly—fate, meanwhile, amidst this turmoil and perplexity, working silently towards the predestined end—all these form together a subject the contemplation of which need surely never weary.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Lord Rector's Address, delivered at St. Andrews University, December 10, 1887
The prestige of Western arts and science may assist the diffusion of Western morals, as it assists the diffusion of Western languages, or Western clothes.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
As, therefore, nature knows nothing of good intentions, rewarding and punishing not motives but actions; as things are what they are, describe them as we may, and their consequences will be what they will be.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Essays and Addresses
It is, no doubt, better for us to apply appropriate remedies to our diseases than to put our whole trust in the healing powers of nature. But it is better to put our trust in the healing powers of nature than to poison ourselves straight off by swallowing the contents of the first phial presented to us by any self-constituted physician.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Essays and Addresses
Whereas reasons may, and usually do, figure among the proximate causes of belief ... it is always possible to ... penetrate but a short way down, and they are found no more.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
I, of course, admit that the conception of God has taken many shapes in the long-drawn course of human development, some of them degraded, all of them inadequate.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
We are, no doubt, accustomed to connect the notion of value rather with things believed in, than with the beliefs of which they are the subjects. A fine symphony, an heroic deed, a good dinner, an assured livelihood, have admitted values. But what values can we attribute to beliefs and judgments, except in so far as they are aids and instruments for obtaining valuable objects?
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
Scientific curiosity hungers for a knowledge of causes; causes which are physical, and, if possible, measurable.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
Some great crisis in its fate may stamp upon a race marks which neither lapse of time nor change of circumstance seem able wholly to efface; and empires may rise from barbarism to civilization and sink again from civilization into barbarism, within periods so brief that we may take it as certain, whatever be our opinion as to the transmission of acquired faculties, that no hereditary influence has had time to operate.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Essays and Addresses
Few persons are prevented from thinking themselves right by the reflection that, if they be right, the rest of the world is wrong.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
Instincts are (relatively) definite and stable; they move in narrow channels; they cannot easily be enlarged in scope, or changed in character. The animal mother, for example, cares for its young children, but never for its young grandchildren. The lifelong fidelity of the parent birds in certain species (a fidelity seemingly independent of the pairing season, or the care of particular broods) never becomes the nucleus of a wider association. Altruistic instincts may lead to actions which equal, or surpass, man's highest efforts of abnegation; but the actions are matters of routine, and the instincts never vary. They emerge in the same form at the same stage of individual growth, like any other attribute of the species—its color, for instance, or its claws. And if they be, like color and claws, the products of selection, this is exactly what we should expect. But then, if the loyalties of man be also the product of selection, why do they not show a similar fixity?
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
But I hope that I shall not on that account be deemed indifferent to the claims of reason, or inclined to treat lightly our beliefs either about the material world or the immaterial. On the contrary, my object, and my only object, is to bring reason and belief into the closest harmony that at present seems practicable. And if you thereupon reply that such a statement is by itself enough to prove that I am no ardent lover of reason; if you tell me that it implies, if not permanent contentment, at least temporary acquiescence in a creed imperfectly rationalized, I altogether deny the charge.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism
Races may accumulate accomplishments, yet remain organically unchanged. They may learn and they may forget, they may rise from barbarism to culture, and sink back from culture to barbarism, while through all these revolutions the raw material of their humanity varies never a bit.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
Theism and Humanism