“The Return of Foxy Grandpa,” Eliot’s unpublished review of Alfred North Whitehead’s successive Lowell Lectures at Harvard, Science and the Modern World(NY: Macmillan, 1925) and Religion in the Making(NY: Macmillan, 1926), was set in type for The Enemy, edited by Wyndham Lewis, for publication in the third issue, March 1927. See textual note at end. Foxy Grandpa was the title character of a popular American newspaper comic strip (1900-18), in which Grandpa consistently outwitted his two trickster grandsons.
Professor Whitehead’s two recent books, Science and the Modern Worldand Religion in the Making, have been received with acclamation. 1 Indeed they deserve it; Dr. Whitehead has a power of lucid exposition of the most difficult subjects, great historical knowledge and ability to generalise his knowledge. He has a rare and remarkable combination of ability. It is remarkable that so eminent a mathematician and physicist should also have an historical mind. It would be still more remarkable to find that he had, in addition, a theological mind. His books have been received with jubilation by liberal Christians, and with great annoyance by atheists. But before we allow ourselves to be gratified or vexed, as the case may be, by Dr. Whitehead’s rehabilitation of religion, it might be well to enquire what sort of religion his writings are likely to further, and whether that sort is intrinsically valuable. It is a matter which all earnest atheists and Christians should take to heart.
Dr. Whitehead belongs to a generation which may be said to include within its limits elder statesmen such as the late William James, and younger statesmen such as Mr. Wells and Mr. Russell. Many of the eminent men of that generation conceal the tender heart of sentiment behind the brilliant emblems of authority. Mr. Shaw, after all his pamphlets, his economics, his Fabianism and mild ferocity, had no better vision to offer us than the earthly paradise of Back to Methuselah, to be staged by perspiring pupils of Miss Margaret Morris. 2 Mr. Russell’s lonely Prometheus of thought, the undaunted hero of Liberalism, flourishes smirkingly the instruments of contraception in the faces of the clergy. 3 Mr. Wells, with a tremendous machinery of comparative anatomy, evolves a Deity who is merely a celestial captain of industry. 4 The disproportion between the elaborateness of the equipment and the mediocrity of the product is still more impressive in the work of Professor Whitehead. In every case the Father Christmas turns out to be merely our Sunday school superintendent in disguise.
We might take warning at the outset from Whitehead’s use of the term “religion.” He says “The conflictbetween religion and science is what naturally occurs to our minds when we think of this subject.” 5 This hoary old notion must have done duty, clothed in practically the same words, in score upon score of sermons in the last 75 years. Whether there is such a thing as “science” above the various sciences, is a question which I should not venture to contest with Professor Whitehead; but that there is such a thing as “religion” above the various particular religions, seems to me very doubtful. For the anthropologist, the student occupied with the “history of religions,” the term “religion” is perfectly valid. It is not sufficiently understood – though it is simple enough – that the point of view of the anthropologist and of the theologian are quite different. They are not opposed: they are merely different; as different, and no more opposed, than the appearance of a house to someone who is inside and to someone who is outside it. The anthropologist is concerned with what has been believed; the theologian is concerned with what is true. So far as you are an anthropologist, you are not, in your professional capacity, the “believer” of any religion; you are occupied only with the phenomena of all. On the other hand, so far as you are the “believer” of any religion, then “religion” no longer exists for you, or the contrast between “religion and science...
