they are felt as a part of violent emotion; and the mind that feels
them is a different one from that which reasons; it is thought
of a different power and a different person. The first serious
consciousness of Nature's gesture--her attitude toward life--took form
then as a phantasm, a nightmare, an insanity of force. For the first
time the stage scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt
itself stripped naked, vibrating in a void of shapeless energies,
with resistless mass, colliding, crushing, wasting and destroying what
these same energies had created and labored from eternity to perfect."
Here is a vivid interpretation of a universal human experience.
Might not any one of us who had endured it turn upon the pagan and
sentimentalist, crying in the mood of a Swift or a Voltaire, "_Ca vous
amuse, la vie_"? The abstract natural rights of the eighteenth century
smack of academic complacency before this. The indignation we feel
against the insolent individualism of a Louis XIV who cried "_L'état
c'est moi_!" or against the industrial overlord who spills the tears
of women for his ambition, the sweat of the children for his greed,
is as nothing beside the indignation with the natural order which any
biological study would arouse except as the scientist perceives that
indignation is, for him, beside the point and the religionist believes
that it proceeds from not seeing far enough into the process. This
is why there is an essential absurdity in any naturalistic system of
ethics. Even the clown can say,
"Here's a night that pities
Neither wise men nor fools."
This common attitude of the religionist toward nature as a remote
and cruel world, alien to our spirits, is abundantly reflected in
literature. It finds a sort of final consummation in the intuitive
insight, the bright understanding of the creative spirits of our race.
What Aristotle defines as the tragic emotions, the sense of the terror
and the pity of human life, arise partly from this perception of the
isolation always and keenly felt by dramatist and prophet and poet.
They know well that Nature does not exist by our law; that we neither
control nor understand it; is it not our friend?
There is, then, the law of identity between man and nature, found in
their common physical origin; there is also the law of difference. It
is on that aspect of reality that religion places its emphasis. It
is with this approach to understanding ourselves that preachers, as
distinguished from scientists, deal. Our present society is traveling
farther and farther away from reality in so far as it turns either to
the outside world of fact, or to the domain of natural law, expecting
to find in these the elements of insight for the fresh guidance of
the human spirit. Not there resides the secret of the beings of whom
Shelley said,
"We look before and after
And pine for what is not,
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught."
Instinct is a base, a prime factor, part of the matrix of personality.
But personality is not instinct; it is instinct plus a different
force; instinct transformed by spiritual insight and controlled by
moral discipline. The man of religion, therefore, finds himself not
in one but two worlds, not indeed mutually exclusive, having a common
origin, but nevertheless significantly distinct. Each is incomplete
without the other, each in a true sense non-existent without the
other. But that which is most vital to man's world is unknown in the
domain of nature. Already the perception of a dualism is here.
But now a third element comes into it. There is something spiritually
common to nature and man behind the one, within the other. This
Something is the origin, the responsible agent for man's and nature's
physical identity. This Something binds the separates into a sort of
whole. This, I suppose, is what Professor Hocking refers to when he
says, "the original source of the knowledge of God is an experience
which might be described as of _not being alone in knowing the world_,
and especially the world of nature."[23] Thus the religious man
recognizes beyond the gulf, behind the chasm, something more like
himself than it. When he contemplates nature, he sees something other
than nature; not a world which is what it seems to be, but a world
whose chief significance is that it is more than it seems to be. It is
a world where appearance and reality are inextricably mingled and yet
sublimely and significantly separate. In short, the naturalist, the
pagan, takes the world as it stands; it is just what it appears; the
essence of his irreligion is that he perceives nothing in it that
needs to be explained. But the religionist knows that the world
which lies before our mortal vision so splendid and so ruthless, so
beautiful and so dreadful, does really gain both its substance and
significance from immaterial and unseen powers. It is significant
not in itself but because it hides the truth. It points forever to a
beyond. It is the vague and insubstantial pageant of a dream. Behind
it, within the impenetrable shadows, stands the Infinite Watcher of
the sons of men.
[Footnote 23: _The Meaning of God in Human Experience_, p. 236.]
In every age religious souls have voiced this unearthliness of
reality, the noble other-worldliness of the goals of the natural
order. "Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard melodies are sweeter."
Poet, philosopher and mystic have sung their song or proclaimed their
message knowing that they were moving about in worlds not realized,
clearly perceiving the incompleteness of the phenomenal world and the
delusive nature of sense perceptions. They have known a Reality which
they could not comprehend; felt a Presence which they could not grasp.
They have found strength for the battle and peace for the pain by
regarding nature as a dim projection, a tantalizing intimation of that
other, conscious and creative life, that originating and directive
force, which is not nature any more than the copper wire is the
electric fluid which it carries--a force which was before it, which
moves within it, which shall be after it.
So poet and believer and mystic find the key to nature, the
interpretation of that alien and cruel world, not by sinking to its
indifferent level, not by sentimental exaltation of its specious
peace, its amoral cruelty and beauty, but by regarding it as the
expression, the intimation rather, of a purposive Intelligence, a
silent and infinite Force, beyond it all. So the pagan effuses over
nature, gilding with his sentimentality the puddles that the beasts
would cough at. And the scientist is interested in efficient causes,
seeing nature as an unbroken sequence, an endless uniformity of cause
and effect, against whose iron chain the spirit of mankind wages a
foredoomed but never ending revolt. But the religionist, confessing
the ruthless indifference, the amorality which he distrusts and
fears, and not denying the majestic uniformity of order, nevertheless
declares that these are not self-made, that the amorality is but
one half and that the confusing half of the tale. The whole creation
indeed groaneth and travaileth in pain, but for a final cause, which
alone interprets or justifies it, and which eventually shall set it
free. As a matter of fact, nearly all poets and artists thus view
nature in the light of final causes, though often instinctively and
unconsciously so. For what they sing or paint or mould is not the
landscape that we see, the flesh we touch, but the life behind it,
the light that never was on land or sea. What they give us is not
a photograph or an inventory--it is worlds away from such naïve and
lying realism. But they hint at the inexpressible behind expression;
paint the beauty which is indistinguishable from nature but not
identical with Nature. They make us see that not she, red in tooth and
claw, but that intangible and supernal something-more, is what gives
her the cleansing bath of loveliness. No reflective or imaginative
person needs to be greatly troubled, therefore, by any purely
mechanical or materialistic conception of the universe. They who
would commend that view of the cosmos have not only to reckon with
philosophical and religious idealism, but also with all the bright
band of poets and artists and seers. Such an issue once resolutely
forced would therewith collapse, for it would pit the qualitative
standards against the quantitative, the imagination against
literalism, the creative spirit in man against the machine in him.
Here, then, is the difference between the naturalist's and the
religionist's attitude toward Nature. The believer judges Nature, well
aware of the gulf between himself and her, hating with inexpressible
depth of indignation and repudiating with profound contempt the
sybarite's identification of human and natural law. But also he comes
back to her, not to accept in wonder her variable outward form, but to
worship in awe before her invariable inner meaning. Sometimes, like
so many of the humanists, he rises only to a vague sense of the mystic
unity that fills up the interspaces of the world, and cries with
Wordsworth:
"... And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."[24]
Sometimes he dares to personalize this ultimate and then ascends to
the supreme poetry of the religious experience and feels the cosmic
consciousness, the eternal "I" of this strange world, which fills it
with observant majesty. And then he chants,
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
The firmament showeth his handiwork."
Or he whispers,
"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit,
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there,
If I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there,
If I take the wings of the morning
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth,
Even there shall Thy hand lead me
And Thy right hand shall hold me."[25]
Indeed, the devout religionist almost never thinks of nature as such.
She is always the bush which flames and is not consumed. Therefore he
walks softly all his days, conscious that God is near.
"Of old," he says, "Thou hast laid the foundations of the earth;
And the heavens are the work of Thy hands.
They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure;
Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment;
As a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed;
But Thou art the same,
And Thy years shall have no end."[26]
To him nature is the glass through which he sees darkly and often with
a darkling mind, the all-pervasive Presence; it is the veil--the veil
that covers the face of God.
[Footnote 24: _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_, stanza
3, ll. 36-45.]
[Footnote 25: Psalm cxxxix. 7-9.]
[Footnote 26: Psalm cii. 25-27.]
Here, then, we have the contrasting attitude of worldling and believer
toward nature, the outward universe. Now we come to the contrasting
attitude of humanist and believer toward man, the world within. For
why are we so sure, first, of the chasm between ourselves and
Nature and, second, that we can bridge that chasm by reaching out to
something behind and beyond her which is more like us than her?
What gives us the key to her dualism? Why do we think that there is
Something which perpetually beckons to us through her, makes awful
signs of an intimate and significant relationship? Because we feel
a similar chasm, an equal cleft in our own hearts, a division in the
moral nature of mankind. We know that gulf between us and the outward
world because we know the greater gulf between flesh and spirit,
between the natural man and the real man, between the "I" and the
"other I."
Here is where the humanist bids us good-by and we must go forward on
our road alone. For he will not acknowledge that there is anything
essential or permanent in that divided inner world; he would minimize
it or explain it away. But we know it is there and the reason we know
there is Something without which can bridge the outer chasm is because
we also know there is Something-Else within which might bridge this
one. For we who are religious know that within the depths and the
immensities of this inner world, where there is no space but where
there is infinite largeness, where there is no time but where there is
perpetual strife, there is Something-Else as well as the "I" and the
"other I," and it is that He who is the Something-Else who alone can
close the gap in that divided kingdom and make us one with ourselves,
hence with Himself and hence with His world.
You ask how we can say, "He's there; He knows." We answer that this
"other," this "He" is a constant figure in the experience; always
in the vision; an integral part of the perception. What is He like?
"He" is purity and compassion and inexorableness. Something
fixed, immutable, not to be tricked, not to be evaded and oh!
all-comprehending. He sees, his eyes run to and fro in all the dark
and wide, the light and high dominions of the soul. If we will not
come to terms with "Him," that eternal and changeless life will be the
cliff against which the tumultuous waves of the divided spirit shall
shatter and dissipate into soundless foam; if we will come to terms,
relinquish, accept, surrender, then that purity and that compassion
will be the cleansing tide, the healing and restoring flood in which
we sink in the ecstasy of self-loss to arise refreshed, radiant, and
made whole.
So we reckon from within out. The religious view of the world is based
upon the religious experience of the soul. We have no other means of
getting at reality. I know that there is Something-more than me and
Something-more than the nature outside of me, because we know that
there is Something which is not me and is not nature, inside of me. So
the man of religion, like any other poet, artist, seer, looks in his
own heart and writes. What he finds there is real, or else, as far
as he is concerned, there is no reality. He does not assert that
this reality is the final and utter truth. But he knows it is his
trustworthy mediator of that truth.
Here, then, is an immense separation between religionist and both
humanist and naturalist; a separation so complete as to come full
circle. We are convinced of the secondary value, both of natural
appearances and of the mortal, temporal consciousness. So we
substitute for impertinent familiarity with Nature, a reverent regard
for what she half reveals, half hides. We interpret her by ourselves.
We are the same compound of identity and difference. We acknowledge
our continuity with the natural world, our intimate and tragic
alliance with the dust, but we also know that we, within ourselves,
are Something-Else as well. And it is that Something-Else in us which
makes the significant part of us, which sets our value and place in
the scale of being.
In short, the dualism of nature is revealed in the dualism of the
soul. There is a gulf within, and if only man can span the inner
chasm, he will know how to bridge the outer. He must begin by finding
God within himself, or he will never find Him anywhere. Now, it is out
of this sense of a separation within himself, from himself and
from the Author of himself, that there arises that awful sense of
helplessness, of dependence, of bewilderment, which is the second
great element in the religious life. Man is alone in the world; man
is helpless in the world; man ought not to be alone in the world;
man is therefore under scrutiny and condemnation; he must find
reconciliation, harmony, companionship, somehow, somewhere. Hence
the religious man is not arrogant like the pagan, nor proud like the
humanist; he is humble. It is Burke, I think, who says that the whole
ethical life of man has its roots in this humility.[27] The religious
man cannot help but be humble. He has an awful pride in his kinship
with heaven, but, standing before the Lord of heaven, he feels human
nature's proper place, its confusion and division and helplessness;
its dependence upon the higher Power.
[Footnote 27: _Correspondence_, III, p. 213.]
It is at this point that humanism and religion definitely part
company. The former does not feel this absolute and judging Presence,
hence cannot understand the spiritual solicitude of the latter. St.
Paul was not quite at home on Mars Hill; it was hard to make those who
were always hearing and seeing some new thing understand; the shame
and humility of the cross were an unnecessary foolishness to them. So
they have always been. The humanist cannot take seriously this sense
of a transcendent reality. When Cicero, to escape the vengeance of
Clodius, withdrew from Rome, he passed over into Greece and dwelt for
a while in Thessalonica. One day he saw Mount Olympus, the lofty and
eternal home of the deities of ancient Greece. "But I," said the bland
eclectic philosopher, "saw nothing but snow and ice."
How inadequate, then, as a substitute for religion, is even the
noblest humanism. True and fine as far as it goes, it does not go far
enough for us. It takes too little account of the divided life. It
appears not to understand it. On the whole it refuses to acknowledge
that it really exists, or, if it does, it is convinced of man's
unaided ability to efface it. It isn't something inevitable. Hence the
pride which is an essential quality of the humanistic attitude.
But the religious man knows that it does exist and that while he is
not wholly responsible for it, yet he is essentially so and that,
alas, in spite of that fact, he alone cannot bridge it. So he cries,
"Wretched man that I am, what shall I do to be saved?" Here is the
feeling of uneasiness, the sense of something being wrong about us
as we naturally stand, of which James speaks. In that sense of
responsibility is the confession of sin and in the confession of sin
is the acknowledgment of the impotence of the sinner.
"The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on
Nor all your wit nor all your tears, can wash a line of it."
Man cannot, unaided, make his connection with this higher power. The
world is at fault, yes, but we are at fault, something both within and
without dreadfully needs explaining. So man is subdued and troubled by
the infinite mystery; and he cannot accept the place in which he finds
himself in that mystery; he is ashamed of it.
Vivid, then, is his sense of helplessness! It makes him resent the
humanist, who bids him, unaided, solve his fate and be a man. That is
giving him stones when he asks for bread. He knows that advice makes
an inhuman demand upon the will; it assumes a reasonableness, an
insight and a moral power, which for him do not exist; it ignores
or it denies the reality and the meaning of this inner gulf. It is
important to note that even as philosophy and art and literature soon
parted company with the naturalist, so, to a large degree, they part
company with the humanist, too. They do not know very much of an
harmonious and triumphant universe. Few of the world's creative
spirits have ever denied that inner chasm or minimized its tragic
consequences to mankind. Isaiah and Paul and John and Augustine and
Luther are wrung with the consciousness of it. Indeed, the antithesis
between flesh and spirit is too familiar in religious literature to
need any recounting. It is more vividly brought home to us from
the nonprofessional, the disinterested and involuntary testimony of
secular writing. Was there ever such a cry of revolt on the part of
the trapped spirit against the net and slough of natural values and
natural desires as runs through the sonnets of William Shakespeare? We
remember the 104th:
"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Foiled by these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thine outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store,
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross
Within be fed, without be rich no more--"
Or turn to our contemporary poet, James Stephens:
"Good and bad are in my heart
But I cannot tell to you
For they never are apart
Which is the better of the two.
I am this: I am the other
And the devil is my brother
And my father he is God
And my mother is the sod,
Therefore I am safe, you see
Owing to my pedigree.
So I cherish love and hate
Like twin brothers in a nest
Lest I find when it's too late
That the other was the best."[28]
Here, then, we find the next thing which grows out of man's sense
of separation both from nature and from his own best self. It is his
moral judgment on himself as well as on the world outside, and that
power to judge shows that he is greater than either. As Dr. Gordon
says, "Every honest man lives under the shadow of his own rebuke." We
can go far with the humanist in acknowledging the failures that are
due to environment, to incompleteness, to ignorance; we do not forget
the helpless multitude who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death;
and we agree with the scientist that their helplessness foredooms
them and that their fate cannot be laid to their charge. But we go far
beyond where scientist and humanist stop. For we know that the deepest
cause of human misery is not inheritance, is not environment, is not
ignorance, is not incompleteness; it is the informed but the perverse
human will. Just as unhappiness is the consciousness of the divided
mind, so guilt is this sense of the deliberately divided will.
Jonathan Swift knew that; on every yearly recurrence of the hour in
which he came into the world, he cried lamentably, "Let the day perish
wherein I was born."
[Footnote 28: _Songs from the Clay_, p. 40.]
The Lord Jesus knew it, too. His teaching, unlike that of Paul, does
not throw into the foreground the divided will and its accompanying
sense of sin and guilt. But he does not ignore it. He brought it out
with infinite tenderness but inexorable clearness in the parables of
the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy. The sheep were but
young and silly, they did not wish to be lost on the mountain-side;
they knew no better; inexperience, ignorance were theirs, and
for their sad estate they were not held responsible. For them the
compassionate shepherd sought until he found them in the wilds, took
them, involuntary burdens, on his heart, brought them back to safety
and the fold. The coin had no native affinity with the dirt and grime
of the careless woman's house. It was only a coin, attached to anklet
or bracelet, having no power, no independence of its own; where it
fell, there must it lie. So with the lives set by fate in the refuse
and grime of our industrial civilization, the pure minted gold
effectually concealed by the obscurity and filth around. For such
lives, victims of environment, the Father will search, too, until they
are found, taken up, and somewhere, in this world or another, restored
to their native worth. But the chief of the parables, and the one that
has captured the imagination and subdued the heart of mankind, because
it so true to the greater part of life, is the story of the lost boy.
For he was the real sinner and he was such because, knowing what
he was about and able to choose, he desired to do wrong. It was not
ignorance, nor environment, nor inheritance, that led him into the far
country. It was its alien delights and their alien nature, for which
as such he craved. How subtle and certain is the word of Jesus here.
No shepherd seeks this wandering sheep; no householder searches for
this lost coin. The boy who willed to do wrong must stay with the
swine among the husks until he wills to do right. Then, when
he desires to return, return is made possible and easy, but the
responsibility is forever his. The source of his misery is his own
will.