Produced by David Widger
ENGLISH SECULARISM
A CONFESSION OF BELIEF
By George Jacob Holyoake
1896
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
THE OPEN COURT, in which the series of articles constituting this
work originally appeared, has given account of many forms of faith,
supplementary or confirmatory of its own, and sometimes of forms of
opinions dissimilar where there appeared to be instruction in them. It
will be an advantage to the reader should its editor state objections,
or make comments, as he may deem necessary and useful. English
Secularism is as little known in America as American and Canadian
Secularisation is understood in Great Britain. The new form of free
thought known as English Secularism does not include either Theism or
Atheism. Whether Monism, which I can conceive as a nobler and scientific
form of Theism, might be a logical addition to the theory of Secularism,
as set forth in the following pages, the editor of The Open Court may
be able to show. If this be so, every open-minded reader will better see
the truth by comparison. Contrast is the incandescent light of argument.
George Jacob Holyoake.
Eastern Lodge,
Brighton, England, February, 1896.
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
AMONG the representative freethinkers of the world Mr. George J.
Holyoake takes a most prominent position. He is a leader of leaders,
he is the brain of the Secularist party in England, he is a hero and a
martyr of their cause.
Judged as a man, Mr. Holyoake is of sterling character; he was not
afraid of prison, nor of unpopularity and ostracism, nor of persecution
of any kind. If he ever feared anything, it was being not true to
himself and committing himself to something that was not right. He was
an agitator all his life, and as an agitator he was--whether or not
we agree with his views--an ideal man. He is the originator of the
Secularist movement that was started in England; he invented the name
Secularism, and he was the backbone of the Secularist propaganda ever
since it began. Mr. Holyoake left his mark in the history of thought,
and the influence which he exercised will for good or evil remain an
indelible heirloom of the future.
Secularism is not the cause which The Open Court Publishing Co. upholds,
but it is a movement which on account of its importance ought not to be
overlooked. Whatever our religious views may be, we must reckon with
the conditions that exist, and Secularism is powerful enough to deserve
general attention.
What is Secularism?
Secularism espouses the cause of the world versus theology; of the
secular and temporal versus the sacred and ecclesiastical. Secularism
claims that religion ought never to be anything but a private affair; it
denies the right of any kind of church to be associated with the public
life of a nation, and proposes to supersede the official influence which
religious institutions still exercise in both hemispheres.
Rather than abolish religion or paralyse its influence, The Open Court
Publishing Co. would advocate on the one hand to let the religious
spirit pervade the whole body politic, together with all public
institutions, and also the private life of every single individual; and
on the other hand to carry all secular interests into the church, which
would make the church subservient to the real needs of mankind.
Thus we publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith, which is y an
exposition of Secularism, not because we are Secularists, which we are
not, but because we believe that Mr. Holyoake is entitled to a hearing.
Mr. Holyoake is a man of unusually great common sense, of keen reasoning
faculty, and of indubitable sincerity. What he says he means, and what
he believes he lives up to, what he recognises to be right he will do,
even though the whole world would stand up against him. In a word, he is
a man who according to our conception of religion proves by his love of
truth that, however he himself may disclaim it, he is actually a deeply
religious man. His religious earnestness is rare, and our churches would
be a good deal better off if all the pulpits were filled with men of his
stamp.
We publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith not for Secularists only,
but also and especially for the benefit of religious people, of
his adversaries, of his antagonists; for they ought to know him and
understand him; they ought to appreciate his motives for dissenting from
church views; and ought to learn why so many earnest and honest
people are leaving the church and will have nothing to do with church
institutions.
Why is it that Christianity is losing its bold on mankind? Is it because
the Christian doctrines have become antiquated, and does the church no
longer adapt herself to the requirements of the present age? Is it that
the representative Christian thinkers are lacking in intellectuality and
moral strength? Or is it that the world at large has outgrown religion
and refuses to be guided by the spiritual counsel of popes and pastors?
Whatever the reason may be, the fact itself cannot be doubted, and the
question is only, What will become of religion in the future? Will the
future of mankind be irreligious (as for instance Mr. Lecky and M. Guyau
prophesy); or will religion regain its former importance and become
again the leading power in life, dominating both public and private
affairs?
The first condition of a reconciliation between religion and the
masses of mankind would be for religious men patiently to listen to
the complaints that are made by the adversaries of Christianity, and to
understand the position which honest and sensible freethinkers, such as
Mr. Holyoake, take. Religious leaders are too little acquainted with the
world at large; they avoid their antagonists like outcasts, and
rarely, if ever, try to comprehend their arguments. In the same way,
freethinkers as a rule despise clergymen as hypocrites who for the sake
of a living sell their souls and preach doctrines which they cannot
honestly believe. In order to arrive at a mutual understanding, it
would be necessary first of all that both parties should discontinue
ostracising one another and become mutually acquainted. They should lay
aside for a while the weapons with which they are wont to combat one
another in the public press and in tract literature; they should cease
scolding and ridiculing one another and simply present their own case in
terse terms.
This Mr. Holyoake has done. His Confession of Faith is as concise as any
book of the kind can be; and he, being the originator of Secularism and
its standard-bearer, is the man who speaks with authority.
For the sake of religion, therefore, and for promoting the mutual
understanding of men of a different turn of mind, we present his book to
the public and recommend its careful perusal especially to the clergy,
who will learn from this book some of the most important reasons why
Christianity has become unacceptable to a large class of truth-loving
men, who alone for the sake of truth find it best to stay out of the
church.
The preface of a book is as a rule not deemed the right place to
criticise an author, but such is the frankness and impartiality of Mr.
Holyoake that he has kindly permitted the manager of The Open
Court Publishing Co. to criticise his book freely and to state the
disagreements that might obtain between publishers and author in the
very preface of the book. There is no need of making an extensive use of
this permission, as a few remarks will be sufficient to render clear the
difference between Secularism and the views of The Open Court Publishing
Co., which we briefly characterise as "the Religion of Science."
Secularism divides life into what is secular and what is religious,
and would consign all matters of religion to the sphere of private
interests. The Religion of Science would not divide life into a secular
and a religious part, but would have both the secular and the religious
united. It would carry religion into all secular affairs so as to
sanctify and transfigure them; and for this purpose it would make
religion practical, so as to be suited to the various needs of life; it
would make religion scientifically sound, so as to be in agreement with
the best and most scientific thought of the age; it would reform church
doctrines and raise them from their dogmatic arbitrariness upon the
higher plain of objective truth.
In emphasising our differences we should, however, not fail to recognise
the one main point of agreement, which is our belief in science. Mr.
Holyoake would settle all questions of doubt by the usual method of
scientific investigation. But there is a difference even here, which
is a different conception of science. While science to Mr. Holyoake
is secular, we insist on the holiness and religious significance of
science. If there is any revelation of God, it is truth; and what is
science but truth ascertained? Therefore we would advise all preachers
and all those to whose charge souls of men are committed, to take off
their shoes when science speaks to them, for science is the voice of
God.
The statement is sometimes made by those who belittle science in the
vain hope of exalting religion, that the science of yesterday has been
upset by the science of to-day, and that the science of today may again
be upset by the science of to-morrow. Nothing can be more untrue.
Of course, science must not be identified with the opinion of
scientists. Science is the systematic statement of facts, and not the
theories which are tentatively proposed to fill out the gaps of our
knowledge. What has once been proved to be a fact has never been
overthrown, and the actual stock of science has grown slowly but surely.
The discovery of new facts or the proposition of a new and reliable
hypothesis has often shown the old facts of science in a new light, but
it has never upset or disproved them. There are fashions in the opinions
of scientists, but science itself is above fashion, above change,
above human opinion. Science partakes of that stern immutability, it is
endowed with that eternality and that omnipresent universality which
have since olden times been regarded as the main attribute of Godhood.
There appears in all religions, at a certain stage of the religious
development, a party of dogmatists. They are people who, in their zeal,
insist on the exclusiveness of their own religion, as if truth were a
commodity which, if possessed by one, cannot be possessed by anybody
else. They know little of the spirit that quickens, but believe blindly
in the letter of the dogma. It is not faith in their opinion that saves,
but the blindness of faith. They interpret Christ's words and declare
that he who has another interpretation must be condemned.
The dogmatic phase in the development of religion is as natural as
boyhood in a human life and as immaturity in the growth of fruit; it
is natural and necessary, but it is a phase only which will pass as
inevitably by as boyhood changes into manhood, and as the prescientific
stage in the evolution of civilisation gives way to a better and deeper
knowledge of nature.
The dogmatist is in the habit of identifying his dogmatism with
religion; and that is the reason why his definitions of religion and
morality will unfailingly come in conflict with the common sense of
the people. The dogmatist makes religion exclusive. In the attempt
of exalting religion he relegates it to supernatural spheres, thus
excluding it from the world and creating a contrast between the sacred
and the profane, between the divine and the secular, between religion
and life. Thus it happens that religion becomes something beyond,
something extraneous, something foreign to man's sphere of being. And
yet religion has developed for the sake of sanctifying the daily walks
of man, of making the secular sacred, of filling life with meaning and
consecrating even the most trivial duties of existence.
Secularism is the reaction against dogmatism, but secularism still
accepts the views of the dogmatist on religion; for it is upon the
dogmatist's valuations and definitions that the secularist rejects
religion as worthless.
* * *
The religious movement, of which The Open Court Publishing Co. is an
exponent, represents one further step in the evolution of religious
aspirations. As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into
astronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief
changes into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of
a salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the
religion of pure and ascertainable truth. The old dogmas, which in their
literal acceptance appear as nonsensical errors, are now recognised
as allegories which symbolise deeper truths, and the old ideals are
preserved not with less, but with more, significance than before.
God is not smaller but greater since we know more about Him, as to what
He is and what He is not, just as the universe is not smaller but larger
since Copernicus and Kepler opened our eyes and showed us what the
relation of our earth in the solar system is and what it is not.
Secularism is one of the signs of the times. It represents the unbelief
in a religious alchemy; but its antagonism to the religion of dogmatism
does not bode destruction but advance. It represents the transition to
a purer conception of religion. It has not the power to abolish the
church, but only indicates the need of its reformation.
It is this reformation of religion and of religious institutions which
is the sole aim of all the publications of The Open Court Publishing
Co., and we see in Secularism one of those agencies that are at work
preparing the way for a higher and nobler comprehension of the truth.
Mr. Holyoake's aspirations, in our opinion, go beyond the aims which he
himself points out, and thus his Confession of Faith, although nominally
purely secular, will finally, even by churchmen, be recognised in its
religious importance. It will help to purify the confession of faith of
the dogmatist.
In offering Mr. Holyoake's best and maturest thoughts to the public, we
hope that both the secularists and the believers in religion will by
and by learn to understand that Secularism as much as dogmatism is a
phase--both are natural and necessary phases--in the religious evolution
of mankind. There is no use in scolding either the dogmatist or the
secularist, or in denouncing the one on account of his credulity and
superstition, and the other on account of his dissent; but there is a
use in--nay, there is need of--understanding the aspirations of both.
There is a need of mutual exchange of thought on the basis of mutual
esteem and good-will. Above all, there is a need of opening the church
doors to the secularist.
The church, if it has any right of existence at all, is for the
world, and not for believers alone. Church members can learn from the
secularist many things which many believers seem to have forgotten, and,
on the other hand, they can teach the unbeliever what he has overlooked
in his sincere attempts at finding the truth, May Mr. Holyoake's
confession of faith be received in the spirit in which the author wrote
it, which is a candid love of truth, and also in the spirit in which
the publishers undertook its publication, with the irenic endeavor
of letting every honest aspiration be rightly understood and rightly
valued.
Paul Carus, Manager of The Open Court Publishing Co.
CHAPTER I. OPEN THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE
"It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in
the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes
happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or
lesser, you will find that one of those truths which you had
kept to yourself as premature, but which has got abroad in
spite of your teeth, has become the most commonplace thing
imaginable."
--Alphonse Karr.
ONE purpose of these chapters is to explain how unfounded are the
objections of many excellent Christians to Secular instruction in State,
public, or board schools. The Secular is distinct from theology, which
it neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate
from the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern
is that things Secular are in themselves quite distinct from Secularism.
The Secular is a mode of instruction; Secularism is a code of conduct.
Secularism does conflict with theology; Secularist teaching would, but
Secular instruction does not.
Persuaded as I am that lack of consideration for the convictions of
the reader creates an impediment in the way of his agreement with the
writer, and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet
some of these pages may be open to this objection. If so, it is owing
to want of thought or want of art in statement, and is no part of the
intention of the author.
He would have diffidence in expressing, as he does in these pages,
his dissent from the opinions of many Christian advocates--for whose
character and convictions he has great respect, and for some even
affection--did he not perceive that few have any diffidence or
reservation (save in one or two exalted instances)* in maintaining their
views and dissenting from his.
Open thought, which in this chapter is brought under the reader's notice
is sometimes called "self-thought," or "free thought," or "original
thought"--the opposite of conventional second-hand thought--which is all
that the custom-ridden mass of mankind is addicted to.
Open thought has three stages:
The first stage is that in which the right to think independently is
insisted on; and the free action of opinion--so formed--is maintained.
Conscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some; others limit
its exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be jeopardised by
applying independent thought to received opinion, keep more persons
silent, and thus many never pass from this stage.
* Of whom the greatest is Mr. Gladstone.
The second stage is that in which the right of self-thought is applied
to the criticism of theology, with a view to clear the way for life
according to reason. This is not the work of a day or year, but is so
prolonged that clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is
at length pursued as an end instead of a means. Disputation becomes
a passion and the higher state of life, of which criticism is the
necessary precursor, is lost sight of, and many remain at this stage
when it is reached and go no further.
The third stage is that where ethical motives of conduct apart
from Christianity are vindicated for the guidance of those who are
indifferent about theology, or who reject it altogether. Supplying to
such persons Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of
which is illimitable. It begins where free thought usually ends, and
constitutes a new form of constructive thought, the principles and
policy of which are quite different from those acted upon in the
preceding stages. Controversy concerns itself with what is; Secularism
with what ought to be.
It is pertinent here to say that Christianity does not permit
eclecticism--that is, it does not tolerate others selecting portions of
Christian Scriptures possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which
many could cheerfully conform in their lives. This rule compels all who
cannot accept the entire Scriptures to deal with its teachings as
they find them expressed, and for which Christianity makes itself
responsible.
All the while it is quite evident that Christians do permit eclecticism
among themselves. The great Congress of the Free Churches, recently held
in Nottingham, representing the personal and vital form of Christianity,
had a humanness and tolerance un manifested by Christianity before,
showing that humanity is stronger than historical integrity. If any one,
therefore, should draw up, as might be done, a theory of Christianity
solely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical
preaching, practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very
different estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from
that with which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them
Christianity is represented as Free-thought has found it, and as it
exists in the Scriptures, in the law, in the pulpit, and in the school,
which constitute its total force in the respects in which it represses
and discourages independent thought. Science, truth, and criticism have
engrafted themselves on historic Christianity. It has now new articles
of belief. When it avows them it will win larger concurrence and respect
than it can now command.