"So many gods, so many creeds--
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs."
--Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
LADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew "Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he
was always _intending_ something." Any improvement in the method of
life is "intending something," and society ought to be tolerant of those
whose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes
for human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they
indicate a dangerous form of "badness." They are:
1. Truth in speech.
2. Honesty in transaction.
3. Industry in business.
4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and
vigilance help to produce it.
"Though this world be but a bubble,
Two things stand like stone--
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own."
Learning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot
supersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart.
It is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard
balls--they would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if
rightly propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as
they are, being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox
thought, have had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in
request: "Beware of an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk
on every side." The monk, tonsured and untonsured, is found in every
religion.
In Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old
hall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a
woman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall,
and the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so
that the entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were
preached in the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The
woman remarked to a neighbor that "Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but
he seemed to have clean principles." He who believes in the influence
of material conditions will do what he can to have them pure, not
only where he speaks, but where he frequents and where he resides. The
theological reader, who by accident or curiosity looks over these pages,
will find much from which he will dissent; but I hope he will be able
to regard this book as one of "clean principles," as far as the limited
light of the author goes. Accepting the "golden rule" of Huxley--"Give
unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so
clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted"--causes the Secularist
to credit less than his neighbors, and that goes against him; being, as
it were, a reproach of their avidity of belief. One reason for writing
this book is to explain--to as many of the new generation as may
happen to read it--the discrimination of Secularism. Newspapers and the
clerical class, who ought to be well informed, continually speak of mere
free-thinking as Secularism. How this has been caused has already been
indicated. Two or three remarkable and conspicuous representatives of
free thought, who found iconoclasticism easier, less responsible,
and more popular, have given to many erroneous impressions. When
Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the Secularistic
movement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they understood
its principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed. I cite
their opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an
account of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:
"From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it
is impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or
less clear the opposing truth."*
* "Secularism: What Is It?" National Secular Society's
Tracts--No. 7. By Charles Bradlaugh.
Again:
"Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches
the improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian
not only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is
blasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance
on divine aid."*
Mrs. Besant said:
"Still we have won a plot of ground--men's and women's hearts. To them
Secularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them
it gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of
life. Our morality is tested only--be it noted--by utility in this life
and in this world."**
Mr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:
"Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time
and the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares
to be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily
teach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding
it upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its
being set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative
divine injunction."***
* "Why Are We Secularists?" National Secular Society's
Tracts--No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh.
** "Secular Morality." National Secular Society's Tracts--
No. 3. By Annie Besant.
*** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote,
who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the
National Secular Society.
For several years the _National Reformer_ bore the subtitle of "Secular
Advocate."
We could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring
ethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality.
We accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney--namely, that "Reason cannot
show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above
reason." We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not
half so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an
atheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The
Secularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved
less exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies
to work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is
easier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who
have the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before
you can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times
show that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of
progress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the
builder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who
delayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all
the inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on
breaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give
superstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols
because you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the
influence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his
worship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery
of deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt
to close the door of the future, but holds that the desert of another
existence belongs only to those who engage in the service of man in this
life. Prof. F. W. Newman says: "The conditions of a future life being
unknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others
in it, except by aiming after present goodness."*
Men have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it.
Men, if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot
disconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The
purport of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by
the Rev. James Caird, of which the Queen said:
"He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is--not a
thing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good'
books; but being and doing good."**
* Prof. P. W. Newman, who is always clear beyond all
scholars, and candid beyond all theologians, has published a
Palinode retracting former conclusions he had published, and
admitting the uncertainty of the evidence in favor of after-
existence.
** The Queen on the Rev. J. Caird's sermon, Leaves from the
Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
This end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.