"False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by
true ideas they can be expelled."
--Cardinal Newman.
ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error,
if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be
otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has
established:
1. That God is unknown.
2. That a future life is unprovable.
3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
4. That Providence sleeps.
5. That prayer is futile.
6. That original sin is untrue.
7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however
untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these
doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do
it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men
that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest
their attention if we can point out the right road to take.
No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that
it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow,
cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is
suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is
eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment,
he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you
cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles,
they should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth
should tread close upon the heels of theological error.
1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes
the study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman
admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.
2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as
he who fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any
other.
3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation,
and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth
for authority.
4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the
providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings
deliverance when peril comes.
5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the
resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the
waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the
wheel.
6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort
for personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those
conditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it
shall be "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim
of Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which
Christianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish.
7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism
substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the
violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth--penalties
inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to
the individual no farther than this life, they are without the
terrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and
inevitable--following the offender close as the shadow of the
offence--are more deterrent than future punishment, which "faith" may
evade without merit.
The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of
man. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection,
and from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and
was indifferent whether an error--which no longer harmed him--prevailed
or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for
the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his
day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the
_duty_ of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person--as we know
in political as well as in questions of mental freedom--who cares for a
right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have
seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he
does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think
that a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the
right. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is
morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest
numbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. "He,"
says Buddha, "who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest,
lights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud."
Constructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some
men have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have
occurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only
fall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is
essential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it.
This is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes,
and ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person
whether what he says is what he _thinks_, or what he _knows_, to be
true, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not
occurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes
is the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are
very different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it
was before.
There is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all
truth is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not
equally tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift.
Yet many never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or
swift, nor all truth of equal value or usefulness.
Social truth has three marks,--it must be explicit, relevant to the
question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires
some intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.