I wrote, then, to Bishop Dives asking him for an exposition of the Christian religion suited to the beginner—to one who had been accustomed to regard the supernatural as not real, or, if real, not vital. He was kind enough to send me by return a record taken from one of his own recent sermons, preached at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton. It was part of a course, but he said it was exactly the thing for one in my state of mind. I mean to print the relevant part of it here.
“Everything is relative to a thinker. That is clear from the mere force of words; for what is a thing but a thought? When I think a thing I at the same time thing it: I give it thingness by thinking it. Now, that all thought is relative to a thinker has long been clear so far as the process of thought, what we call nowadays the thinkage, is concerned. It is the boast of modern philosophy, trained, and proud to have been trained, in the school of relativist Science, that it has gone further than this. It assures us (I trust I make my meaning clear) that it is not only our thinkage but our thoughtage that is relative to a thinker. If I think that two and two are four—allowing, for the sake of argument, that this is so, though I know well that there are serious difficulties about believing it to be so—if I think that two and two are four, then the fourness, if I may so express myself, of the two and the two combined is part of my thoughtage, and relative to me as a thinker.
“But not, let us hasten to add, of my thoughtage only. It is part of the race-thoughtage, the thoughtage which rises like an upgushing stream from the harmonious and simultaneous thinkage of the human species. I think we may go further, and say that it upgushes equally from the thinkage of all other spiritual beings, if there are any other spiritual beings in existence, and in so far as they exist. Now, when a thing is merely the thoughtage of my thinkage, what does that prove? Why, nothing or next to nothing; merely that it is thinkable. But when it is the thoughtage not only of my thinkage but of the world-thinkage, then we go further; then we are not content to say, This is thinkable; we must needs add, This is thinkworthy. More than that we do not know, and we shall never know. The old confidence that objects exist, outside of and apart from our thinkage, is gone. The old confidence that things are true, outside of and apart from our thinkage, is gone. That confidence, valuable as it has been in the training of our race, and powerfully as it has contributed to the development of our history, is no longer ours. It made the fatal mistake of distinguishing and abstracting our thoughtage from our thinkage. To repeat that mistake to-day would be to argue as if Mosenheim and Poschling had never existed—I mean, in so far as they ever did exist.