THE SENSE OF SIN
Concerning the sense of sin we have already in Chapter I had occasion
to say something, but we must now go into it more fully, since it is
one of the most important of the underlying psychological causes of
unhappiness in adult life.
There is a traditional religious psychology of sin which no modern
psychologist can accept. It was supposed, especially by Protestants,
that conscience reveals to every man when an act to which he is tempted
is sinful, and that after committing such an act he may experience
either of two painful feelings, one called remorse, in which there is
no merit, and the other called repentance, which is capable of wiping
out his guilt. In Protestant countries even many of those who lost
their faith continued for a time to accept with greater or smaller
modifications the orthodox view of sin. In our own day, partly owing to
psycho-analysis, we have the opposite state of affairs: not only do the
unorthodox reject the old doctrine of sin, but many of those who still
consider themselves orthodox do so likewise. Conscience has ceased to
be something mysterious which, because it was mysterious, could be
regarded as the voice of God. We know that conscience enjoins different
acts in different parts of the world, and that broadly speaking it
is everywhere in agreement with tribal custom. What, then, is really
happening when a man’s conscience pricks him?
The word “conscience” covers, as a matter of fact, several different
feelings; the simplest of these is the fear of being found out. You,
reader, have, I am sure, lived a completely blameless life, but if
you will ask someone who has at some time acted in a manner for which
he would be punished if it became known, you will find that, when
discovery seemed imminent, the person in question repented of his
crime. I do not say that this would apply to the professional thief who
expects a certain amount of prison as a trade risk, but it applies to
what may be called the respectable offender, such as the Bank Manager
who has embezzled in a moment of stress, or the clergyman who has been
tempted by passion into some sensual irregularity. Such men can forget
their crime when there seems little chance of detection, but when they
are found out, or in grave danger of being so, they wish they had
been more virtuous, and this wish may give them a lively sense of the
enormity of their sin. Closely allied with this feeling is the fear
of becoming an outcast from the herd. A man who cheats at cards or
fails to pay his debts of honour has nothing within himself by which
to stand up against the disapproval of the herd when he is found out.
In this he is unlike the religious innovator, the anarchist, and the
revolutionary, who all feel that, whatever may be their fate in the
present, the future is with them and will honour them as much as they
are execrated in the present. These men, in spite of the hostility of
the herd, do not feel sinful, but the man who entirely accepts the
morality of the herd while acting against it suffers great unhappiness
when he loses caste, and the fear of this disaster, or the pain of
it when it has happened, may easily cause him to regard his acts
themselves as sinful.
But the sense of sin in its most important forms is something which
goes deeper. It is something which has its roots in the unconscious,
and does not appear in consciousness as fear of other people’s
disapproval. In consciousness certain kinds of acts are labelled Sin
for no reason visible to introspection. When a man commits these acts
he feels uncomfortable without quite knowing why. He wishes he were the
kind of man who could abstain from what he believes to be sin. He gives
moral admiration only to those whom he believes to be pure in heart.
He recognizes with a greater or less degree of regret that it is not
for him to be a saint; indeed, his conception of saintship is probably
one which it is nearly impossible to carry out in an ordinary everyday
life. Consequently he goes through life with a sense of guilt, feeling
that the best is not for him, and that his highest moments are those of
maudlin penitence.
The source of all this in practically every case is the moral teaching
which the man received before he was six years old at the hands of his
mother or his nurse. He learned before that age that it is wicked to
swear, and not quite nice to use any but the most ladylike language,
that only bad men drink, and that tobacco is incompatible with the
highest virtue. He learned that one should never tell a lie. And above
all he learned that any interest in the sexual parts is an abomination.
He knew these to be the view of his mother, and believed them to be
those of his Creator. To be affectionately treated by his mother, or,
if she was neglectful, by his nurse, was the greatest pleasure of his
life, and was only obtainable when he had not been known to sin against
the moral code. He therefore came to associate something vaguely
awful with any conduct of which his mother or nurse would disapprove.
Gradually as he grew older he forgot where his moral code had come from
and what had originally been the penalty for disobeying it, but he did
not throw off the moral code or cease to feel that something dreadful
was liable to happen to him if he infringed it.
Now very large parts of this infantile moral teaching are devoid
of all rational foundation and such as cannot be applied to the
ordinary behaviour of ordinary men. A man who uses what is called
“bad language”, for example, is not from a rational point of view any
worse than a man who does not. Nevertheless, practically everybody in
trying to imagine a saint would consider abstinence from swearing as
essential. Considered in the light of reason this is simply silly. The
same applies to alcohol and tobacco. With regard to alcohol the feeling
does not exist in Southern countries, and indeed there is an element
of impiety about it, since it is known that Our Lord and the Apostles
drank wine. With regard to tobacco it is easier to maintain a negative
position, since all the greatest saints lived before its use was known.
But here also no rational argument is possible. The view that no saint
would smoke is based in the last analysis upon the view that no saint
would do anything solely because it gave him pleasure. This ascetic
element in ordinary morality has become almost unconscious, but it
operates in all kinds of ways that make our moral code irrational.
In a rational ethic it will be held laudable to give pleasure to
anyone, even to oneself, provided there is no counter-balancing pain
to oneself or to others. The ideally virtuous man, if we had got rid
of asceticism, would be the man who permits the enjoyment of all good
things whenever there is no evil consequence to outweigh the enjoyment.
Take again the question of lying. I do not deny that there is a great
deal too much lying in the world, and that we should all be the better
for an increase of truthfulness, but I do deny, as I think every
rational person must, that lying is in no circumstances justified. I
once in the course of a country walk saw a tired fox at the last stages
of exhaustion still forcing himself to run. A few minutes afterwards
I saw the hunt. They asked me if I had seen the fox, and I said I had.
They asked me which way he had gone, and I lied to them. I do not think
I should have been a better man if I had told the truth.
But it is above all in the realm of sex that early moral teaching does
harm. If a child has been conventionally educated by somewhat stern
parents or nurses, the association between sin and the sex organs
is so firmly established by the time he is six years old that it is
unlikely ever to be completely undone throughout the rest of his
life. This feeling is, of course, reinforced by the Œdipus complex,
since the woman most loved in childhood is one with whom all sexual
freedoms are impossible. The result is that many adult men feel women
to be degraded by sex, and cannot respect their wives unless their
wives hate sexual intercourse. But the man whose wife is cold will be
driven by instinct to seek instinctive satisfaction elsewhere. His
instinctive satisfaction, however, even if he momentarily finds it,
will be poisoned by the sense of guilt, so that he cannot be happy
in any relation with a woman, whether in marriage or outside it. On
the woman’s side the same sort of thing happens if she has been very
emphatically taught to be what is called “pure”. She instinctively
holds herself back in her sexual relations with her husband, and
is afraid of deriving any pleasure from them. In the present day,
however, there is very much less of this on the part of women than
there was fifty years ago. I should say that at present among educated
people the sex life of men is more contorted and more poisoned by the
sense of sin than that of women.
There is beginning to be widespread awareness, though not of course
on the part of public authorities, of the evils of traditional sex
education in regard to the very young. The right rule is simple: until
a child is nearing the age of puberty teach him or her no sexual
morality whatever, and carefully avoid instilling the idea that there
is anything disgusting in the natural bodily functions. As the time
approaches when it becomes necessary to give moral instruction, be sure
that it is rational, and that at every point you can give good grounds
for what you say. But it is not on education that I wish to speak in
this book. In this book I am concerned rather with what the adult can
do to minimize the evil effects of unwise education in causing an
irrational sense of sin.
The problem here is the same as has confronted us in earlier
chapters, namely that of compelling the unconscious to take note of
the rational beliefs that govern our conscious thought. Men must not
allow themselves to be swayed by their moods, believing one thing at
one moment and another at another. The sense of sin is especially
prominent at moments when the conscious will is weakened by fatigue,
by illness, by drink, or by any other cause. What a man feels at these
moments (unless caused by drink) is supposed to be a revelation from
his higher self. “The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be.” But
it is absurd to suppose that moments of weakness give more insight
than moments of strength. In moments of weakness it is difficult to
resist infantile suggestions, but there is no reason whatsoever for
regarding such suggestions as preferable to the beliefs of the adult
man when in full possession of his faculties. On the contrary, what a
man deliberately believes with his whole reason when he is vigorous
ought to be to him the norm as to what he had better believe at all
times. It is quite possible to overcome infantile suggestions of the
unconscious, and even to change the contents of the unconscious, by
employing the right kind of technique. Whenever you begin to feel
remorse for an act which your reason tells you is not wicked, examine
the causes of your feeling of remorse, and convince yourself in
detail of their absurdity. Let your conscious beliefs be so vivid and
emphatic that they make an impression upon your unconscious strong
enough to cope with the impressions made by your nurse or your mother
when you were an infant. Do not be content with an alternation between
moments of rationality and moments of irrationality. Look into the
irrationality closely, with a determination not to respect it, and
not to let it dominate you. Whenever it thrusts foolish thoughts or
feelings into your consciousness, pull them up by the roots, examine
them, and reject them. Do not allow yourself to remain a vacillating
creature, swayed half by reason and half by infantile folly. Do not be
afraid of irreverence towards the memory of those who controlled your
childhood. They seemed to you then strong and wise because you were
weak and foolish; now that you are neither, it is your business to
examine their apparent strength and wisdom, to consider whether they
deserve that reverence that from force of habit you still bestow upon
them. Ask yourself seriously whether the world is the better for the
moral teaching traditionally given to the young. Consider how much of
unadulterated superstition goes into the make-up of the conventionally
virtuous man, and reflect that, while all kinds of imaginary moral
dangers were guarded against by incredibly foolish prohibitions, the
real moral dangers to which an adult is exposed were practically
unmentioned. What are the really harmful acts to which the average man
is tempted? Sharp practice in business of the sort not punished by
law, harshness towards employees, cruelty towards wife and children,
malevolence towards competitors, ferocity in political conflicts--these
are the really harmful sins that are common among respectable and
respected citizens. By means of these sins a man spreads misery in his
immediate circle and does his bit towards destroying civilization. Yet
these are not the things that make him, when he is ill, regard himself
as an outcast who has forfeited all claim to divine favour. These are
not the things that cause him in nightmares to see visions of his
mother bending reproachful glances upon him. Why is his subconscious
morality thus divorced from reason? Because the ethic believed in by
those who had charge of his infancy was silly; because it was not
derived from any study of the individual’s duty to the community;
because it was made up of old scraps of irrational taboos; and because
it contained within itself elements of morbidness derived from the
spiritual sickness that troubled the dying Roman Empire. Our nominal
morality has been formulated by priests and mentally enslaved women. It
is time that men who have to take a normal part in the normal life of
the world learned to rebel against this sickly nonsense.
But if the rebellion is to be successful in bringing individual
happiness and in enabling a man to live consistently by one standard,
not to vacillate between two, it is necessary that he should think
and feel deeply about what his reason tells him. Most men, when they
have thrown off superficially the superstitions of their childhood,
think that there is no more to be done. They do not realize that
these superstitions are still lurking underground. When a rational
conviction has been arrived at, it is necessary to dwell upon it, to
follow out its consequences, to search out in oneself whatever beliefs
inconsistent with the new conviction might otherwise survive, and when
the sense of sin grows strong, as from time to time it will, to treat
it not as a revelation and a call to higher things, but as a disease
and a weakness, unless of course it is caused by some act which a
rational ethic would condemn. I am not suggesting that a man should be
destitute of morality, I am only suggesting that he should be destitute
of superstitious morality, which is a very different thing.
But even when a man has offended against his own rational code, I doubt
whether a sense of sin is the best method of arriving at a better way
of life. There is in the sense of sin something abject, something
lacking in self-respect. No good was ever done to anyone by the loss
of self-respect. The rational man will regard his own undesirable
acts as he regards those of others, as acts produced by certain
circumstances, and to be avoided either by a fuller realization that
they are undesirable, or, where this is possible, by avoidance of the
circumstances that caused them.
As a matter of fact the sense of sin, so far from being a cause of a
good life, is quite the reverse. It makes a man unhappy and it makes
him feel inferior. Being unhappy, he is likely to make claims upon
other people which are excessive and which prevent him from enjoying
happiness in personal relations. Feeling inferior, he will have a
grudge against those who seem superior. He will find admiration
difficult and envy easy. He will become a generally disagreeable
person, and will find himself more and more solitary. An expansive and
generous attitude towards other people not only gives happiness to
others, but is an immense source of happiness to its possessor, since
it causes him to be generally liked. But such an attitude is scarcely
possible to the man haunted by a sense of sin. It is an outcome
of poise and self-reliance; it demands what may be called mental
integration, by which I mean that the various layers of a man’s nature,
conscious, subconscious, and unconscious, work together harmoniously
and are not engaged in perpetual battle. To produce such harmony is
possible in most cases by wise education, but where education has been
unwise it is a more difficult process. It is the process which the
psycho-analysts attempt, but I believe that in a very great many cases
the patient can himself perform the work which in more extreme cases
requires the help of the expert. Do not say: “I have no time for such
psychological labours; my life is a busy one filled with affairs, and
I must leave my unconscious to its tricks.” Nothing so much diminishes
not only happiness but efficiency as a personality divided against
itself. The time spent in producing harmony between the different
parts of one’s personality is time usefully employed. I do not suggest
that a man should set apart, say, an hour a day for self-examination.
This is to my mind by no means the best method, since it increases
self-absorption, which is part of the disease to be cured, for a
harmonious personality is directed outward. What I suggest is that a
man should make up his mind with emphasis as to what he rationally
believes, and should never allow contrary irrational beliefs to pass
unchallenged or obtain a hold over him, however brief. This is a
question of reasoning with himself in those moments in which he is
tempted to become infantile, but the reasoning, if it is sufficiently
emphatic, may be very brief. The time involved, therefore, should be
negligible.
There is in many people a dislike of rationality, and where this
exists the kind of thing that I have been saying will seem irrelevant
and unimportant. There is an idea that rationality, if allowed free
play, will kill all the deeper emotions. This belief appears to me
to be due to an entirely erroneous conception of the function of
reason in human life. It is not the business of reason to generate
emotions, though it may be part of its function to discover ways of
preventing such emotions as are an obstacle to well-being. To find ways
of minimizing hatred and envy is no doubt part of the function of a
rational psychology. But it is a mistake to suppose that in minimizing
these passions we shall at the same time diminish the strength of those
passions which reason does not condemn. In passionate love, in parental
affection, in friendship, in benevolence, in devotion to science or
art, there is nothing that reason should wish to diminish. The rational
man, when he feels any or all of these emotions, will be glad that he
feels them and will do nothing to lessen their strength, for all these
emotions are parts of the good life, the life, that is, that makes for
happiness both in oneself and in others. There is nothing irrational
in the passions as such, and many irrational people feel only the most
trivial passions. No man need fear that by making himself rational he
will make his life dull. On the contrary, since rationality consists in
the main of internal harmony, the man who achieves it is freer in his
contemplation of the world and in the use of his energies to achieve
external purposes than is the man who is perpetually hampered by inward
conflicts. Nothing is so dull as to be encased in self, nothing so
exhilarating as to have attention and energy directed outwards.
Our traditional morality has been unduly self-centred, and the
conception of sin is part of this unwise focusing of attention upon
self. To those who have never passed through the subjective moods
induced by this faulty morality, reason may be unnecessary. But to
those who have once acquired the sickness, reason is necessary in
effecting a cure. And perhaps the sickness is a necessary stage in
mental development. I am inclined to think that the man who has passed
beyond it by the help of reason has reached a higher level than the man
who has never experienced either the sickness or the cure. The hatred
of reason which is common in our time is very largely due to the fact
that the operations of reason are not conceived in a sufficiently
fundamental way. The man divided against himself looks for excitement
and distraction; he loves strong passions, not for sound reasons,
but because for the moment they take him outside himself and prevent
the painful necessity of thought. Any passion is to him a form of
intoxication, and since he cannot conceive of fundamental happiness,
all relief from pain appears to him solely possible in the form of
intoxication. This, however, is the symptom of a deep-seated malady.
Where there is no such malady, the greatest happiness comes with the
most complete possession of one’s faculties. It is in the moments when
the mind is most active and the fewest things are forgotten that the
most intense joys are experienced. This, indeed, is one of the best
touchstones of happiness. The happiness that requires intoxication of
no matter what sort is a spurious and unsatisfying kind. The happiness
that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of
our faculties, and the fullest realization of the world in which we
live.