"There is something profoundly philosophical in the use of _The Song of
Songs_ to typify the communion of the soul with its ideal. The passion
which is expressed by the Shulamite for her earthly lover in such
glowing phrases becomes the type of the love of the soul towards
God."[120]
One fails to see the profoundly philosophic nature of the selection. The
_Song of Songs_ is a frankly erotic love poem, written with no other aim
than is common to such poetry, and its spiritualisation is due to the
same process of reinterpretation that is applied to other parts of the
Bible in order to make them agreeable to modern thought. Had it not been
in the Bible, Christians would have found it neither profoundly
philosophical nor spiritually illuminating; and, as a matter of fact,
similar effusions are selected by Christians from non-Christian writings
as proofs of their sensual character. The real significance of its use
in religious worship is that it gives a marked expression to feelings
that crave an outlet. And the lesson is that sexual feeling cannot be
eliminated from life; it can only be diverted or disguised. Some
expression it will find--here in open perversion resulting in positive
vice, there in obsession that leads to a half-insane asceticism, and
elsewhere the creation of the unconsciously salacious with an unhealthy
fondness for dabbling in questions that refer to the illicit relations
of the sexes.
"One of the reasons why popular religion in England," says Professor
Granger, "seems to be coming to the limits of its power, is that it has
contented itself so largely with the commonplace motives which, after
all, find sufficient exercise in the ordinary duties of life." Here,
again, is a curious obtuseness to a plain but important truth. With
what else should a healthy religion associate itself but the ordinary
motives or feelings of human life? With what else has religion always
associated itself? Far from that being the source of the weakness of
modern religion, it is its only genuine source of strength. If religion
can so associate itself with the ordinary facts and feelings of life
that these are unintelligible or poorer without religion, then religious
people have nothing to fear. But if it be true, as Professor Granger
implies, that life in its normal moods can receive complete
gratification apart from religion, then the outlook is very different.
From a merely historic point of view it is true that as men have found
explanations of phenomena, and gratifications of feelings apart from
religion, the latter has lost a deal of its power. This is seen in the
growth of the physical sciences, and also, although in a smaller
measure, in sociology and morals.
This, however, opens up the enquiry, previously indicated, as to how far
the whole range of human life may be satisfactorily explained in the
complete absence of religion or supernaturalism. And with this we are
not now directly concerned. What we are concerned with is to show that
from one direction at least supernaturalism has derived strength from a
misinterpretation of the facts. These facts, once interpreted as clear
evidence for supernaturalism, are now seen to be susceptible to a
different explanation. But they have nevertheless played their part in
creating as part of the social heritage a diffused sense of the reality
of supernatural intercourse. It is not, then, a question of religion
losing power because it has contented itself with commonplace motives,
and because these have now found satisfaction in ordinary life. It is
rather a question of the adequacy of science to deal with facts that
have been taken to lie outside the scientific order. Has science the
knowledge or the ability to deal with the extraordinary as well as with
the ordinary facts of life? I believe it has. The facts we have passed
in review _are_ amenable to scientific treatment, for the reason that
they belong to a class with which the physician of to-day finds himself
in constant contact. And it is too often overlooked that the belief in
the existence and influence of a supersensible world is itself only a
theory put forward in explanation of certain classes of facts, and like
all theories it becomes superfluous once a simpler theory is made
possible.