anything supernatural and anti-scientific, but a life the motives of
which are beyond the world of sense, and the aim of which is an ideal,
individual and collective, which may be approached but cannot be
attained under our present conditions, and the conception of which
involves the hope of an ulterior and better state. The Positivists
themselves often use the word "spiritual," and it may be assumed that
they mean by it something higher in the way of aspiration than what is
denoted by the mere term moral, though they may not look forward to any
other state of being than this.
We do not presume, of course, in these few pages to broach any great
question, our only purpose being to point out a possible aberration or
exaggeration of the prevailing school of thought. But it must surely be
apparent to the moral philosopher, no less than to the student of
history, that at the time of the appearance of Christianity, a crisis
took place in the development of humanity which may be not unfitly
described as the commencement of Spiritual Life. The change was not
abrupt. It had been preceded and heralded by the increasing spirituality
of the Hebrew religion, especially in the teachings of the prophets, by
the spiritualization of Greek philosophy, and perhaps by the sublimation
of Roman duty; but it was critical and decided. So much is admitted even
by those who deplore the advent of Christianity as a fatal historical
catastrophe, which turned away men's minds from the improvement of their
material condition to the pursuit of a chimerical ideal. Faith, Hope,
and Charity, by which the Gospel designates the triple manifestation of
spiritual life, are new names for new things; for it is needless to say
that in classical Greek the words have nothing like their Gospel
signification. It would be difficult, we believe, to find in any Greek
or Roman writer an expression of hope for the future of humanity. The
nearest approach to such a sentiment, perhaps, is in the political
Utopianism of Plato. The social ideal is placed in a golden age which
has irretrievably passed away. Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, even if it were
a more serious production than it is, seems to refer to nothing more
than the pacification of the Roman Empire and the restoration of its
material prosperity by Augustus. But Christianity, in the Apocalypse, at
once breaks forth into a confident prediction of the ultimate triumph of
good over evil, and of the realization of the ideal.
The moral aspiration--the striving after an ideal of character, personal
and social, the former in and through the latter--seems to be the
special note of the life, institutions, literature, and art of
Christendom. Christian Fiction, for example, is pervaded by an interest
in the development and elevation of character for which we look in vain
in the _Arabian Nights_, where there is no development of
character, nothing but incident and adventure. Christian sculpture,
inferior perhaps in workmanship to that of Phidias, derives its superior
interest from its constant suggestion of a spiritual ideal. The
Christian lives, in a manner, two lives, an outward one of necessary
conformity to the fashions and ordinances of the present world; an inner
one of protest against the present world and anticipation of an ideal
state of things; and this duality is reproduced in the separate
existence of the spiritual society or Church, submitting to existing
social arrangements, yet struggling to transcend them, and to transmute
society by the realization of the Christian's social ideal. With this is
necessarily connected a readiness to sacrifice present to future good,
and the interests of the present to future good, and the interests of
the present world to those of the world of hope. Apart from this, the
death of Christ (and that of Socrates also), instead of being an
instance of "sweet reasonableness," would be out of the pale of reason
altogether.
It is perhaps the absence of an ideal that prevents our feeling
satisfied with Utilitarianism. The Utilitarian definition of morality
has been so much enlarged, and made to coincide so completely with
ordinary definitions in point of mere extent, that the difference
between Utilitarianism and ordinary Moral Philosophy seems to have
become almost verbal. Yet we feel that there is something wanting. There
is no ideal of character. And where there is no ideal of character there
can hardly be such a thing as a sense of moral beauty. A Utilitarian
perhaps would say that perfect utility is beauty. But whatever may be
the case with material beauty, moral beauty at all events seems to
contain an element not identical with the satisfaction produced by the
appearance of perfect utility, but suggestive of an unfulfilled ideal.
Suppose spiritual life necessarily implies the expectation of a Future
State, has physical science anything to say against that expectation?
Physical Science is nothing more than the perceptions of our five bodily
senses registered and methodized. But what are these five senses?
According to physical science itself, nerves in a certain stage of
evolution. Why then should it be assumed that their account of the
universe, or of our relations to it, is exhaustive and final? Why
should it be assumed that these are the only possible organs of
perception, and that no other faculties or means of communication with
the universe can ever in the course of evolution be developed in man?
Around us are animals absolutely unconscious, so far as we can discern,
of that universe which Science has revealed to us. A sea anemone, if it
can reflect, probably feels as confident that it perceives everything
capable of being perceived as the man of science. The reasonable
supposition, surely, is that though Science, so far as it goes, is real,
and the guide of our present life, its relation to the sum of things is
not much more considerable than that of the perceptions of the lower
orders of animals. That our notions of the universe have been so vastly
enlarged by the mere invention of astronomical instruments is enough in
itself to suggest the possibility of further and infinitely greater
enlargement. To our bodily senses, no doubt, and to physical science,
which is limited by them, human existence seems to end with death; but
if there is anything in our nature which tells us, with a distinctness
and persistency equal to those of our sensible perceptions, that hope
and responsibility extend beyond death, why is this assurance not as
much to be trusted as that of the bodily sense itself? There is
apparently no ultimate criterion of truth, whether physical or moral,
except our inability, constituted as we are to believe otherwise; and
this criterion seems to be satisfied by a universal and ineradicable
moral conviction as well as by a universal and irresistible impression
of sense.
We are enjoined, some times with a vehemence approaching that of
ecclesiastical anathema, to refuse to consider anything which lies
beyond the range of experience. By experience is meant the perceptions
of our bodily senses, the absolute completeness and finality of which,
we must repeat, is an assumption, the warrant for which must at all
events be produced from other authority than that of the senses
themselves. On this ground we are called upon to discard, as worthy of
nothing but derision, the ideas of eternity and infinity. But to
dislodge these ideas from our minds is impossible; just as impossible as
it is to dislodge any idea that has entered through the channels of the
senses; and this being so, it is surely conceivable that they may not be
mere illusions, but real extensions of our intelligence beyond the
domain of mere bodily sense, indicating an upward progress of our
nature. Of course if these ideas correspond to reality, physical
science, though true as far as it goes, cannot be the whole truth, or
even bear any considerable relation to the whole truth, since it
necessarily presents Being as limited by space and time.
Whither obedience to the dictates of the higher part of our nature will
ultimately carry us, we may not be able, apart from Revelation, to say;
but there seems no substantial reason for refusing to believe that it
carries us towards a better state. Mere ignorance, arising from the
imperfection of our perceptive powers, of the mode in which we shall
pass into that better state, or of its precise relation to our present
existence, cannot cancel an assurance, otherwise valid, of our general
destiny. A transmutation of humanity, such as we can conceive to be
brought about by the gradual prevalence of higher motives of action, and
the gradual elimination thereby of what is base and brutish, is surely
no more incredible than the actual development of humanity, as it is
now, out of a lower animal form or out of inorganic matter.
What the bearing of the automatic theory of human nature would be upon
the hopes and aspirations of man, or on moral philosophy generally, it
might be difficult, no doubt, to say. But has any one of the
distinguished advocates of the automatic theory ever acted on it, or
allowed his thoughts to be really ruled by it for a moment? What can be
imagined more strange than an automaton suddenly becoming conscious of
its own automatic character, reasoning and debating about it
automatically, and coming automatically to the conclusion that the
automatic theory of itself is true? Nor is there any occasion here to
entangle ourselves in the controversy about Necessarianism. If the race
can act progressively on higher and more unselfish motives, as history
proves to be the fact, there can be nothing in the connection between
our actions and their antecedents inconsistent with the ascent of man.
Jonathan Edwards is undoubtedly right in maintaining that there is a
connection between every human action and its antecedents. But the
nature of the connection remains a mystery. We learn its existence not
from inspection, but from consciousness, and this same consciousness
tells us that the connection is not such as to preclude the existence of
liberty of choice, moral aspiration, moral effort, moral responsibility,
which are the contradictories of Necessarianism. The terms _cause and
effect_, and others of that kind, which the imperfection of
psychological language compels us to use in speaking of the mental
connection between action and its antecedents, are steeped from their
employment in connection with physical science, in physical association,
and the import with them into the moral sphere the notion of physical
enchainment, for which the representations of consciousness, the sole
authority, afford no warrant whatever.
Another possible source of serious aberration, we venture to think, will
be found in the misapplication of the doctrine of _survivals_. Some
lingering remains of its rudimentary state in the shape of primaeval
superstitions or fancies continue to adhere to a developed, and matured
belief; and hence it is inferred, or at least the inference is
suggested, that the belief itself is nothing but a "survival," and
destined in the final triumph of reason to pass away. The belief in the
immortality of the soul, for example, is found still connected in the
lower and less advanced minds with primaeval superstitions and fancies
about ghosts and other physical manifestations of the spirit world, as
well as with funeral rites and modes of burial indicating irrational
notions as to the relations of the body to the spirit. But neither these
nor any special ideas as to the nature of future rewards and punishments
or the mode of transition from the present to the future state, are
really essential parts of the belief. They are the rudimentary
imaginations and illusions of which the rational belief is gradually
working itself clear. The basis of the rational belief in the
immortality of the soul, or, to speak more correctly, in the continuance
of our spiritual existence after death is the conviction, common, so far
as we know, to all the higher portions of humanity, and apparently
ineradicable, that our moral responsibility extends beyond the grave;
that we do not by death terminate the consequences of our actions, or
our relations to those to whom we have done good or evil; and that to
die the death of the righteous is better than to have lived a life of
pleasure even with the approbation of an undiscerning world. So far from
growing weaker, this conviction appears to grow practically stronger
among the most highly educated and intelligent of mankind, though they
may have cast off the last remnant of primitive or medieval
superstition, and though they may have ceased to profess belief in any
special form of the doctrine. The Comtists certainly have not got rid of
it, since they have devised a subjective immortality with a retributive
distinction between the virtuous and the wicked; to say nothing of their
singular proposal that the dead should be formally judged by the
survivors, and buried, according to the judgment passed upon them, in
graves of honour or disgrace.
With regard to religion generally there is the same tendency to
exaggerate the significance of "survivals," and to neglect, on the other
hand, the phenomena of disengagement. Because the primitive fables and
illusions which long adhere to religion are undeniably dying out, it is
asserted, or suggested, that religion itself is dying. Religion is
identified with mythology. But mythology is merely the primaeval matrix
of religion. Mythology is the embodiment of man's childlike notions as
to the universe in which he finds himself, and the powers which for good
or evil influence his lot; and, when analysed, it is found beneath all
its national variations to be merely based upon a worship of the sun,
the moon, and the forces of Nature. Religion is the worship and service
of a moral God and a God who is worshipped and served by virtue. We can
distinctly see, in Greek literature for instance, religion disengaging
itself from mythology. In Homer the general element is mythology,
capable of being rendered more or less directly into simple nature-
worship, childish, non-moral, and often immoral. But when Hector says
that he holds omens of no account, and that the best omen of all is to
fight for one's country, he shows an incipient reliance on a Moral
Power. The disengagement of religion from mythology is of course much
further advanced and more manifest when we come to Plato; while the
religious faith, instead of being weaker, has become infinitely
stronger, and is capable of supporting the life and the martyrdom of
Socrates. When Socrates and Plato reject the Homeric mythology, it is
not because they are sceptics but because Homer is a child.
But it is in the Old Testament that the process of disengagement and the
growth of a moral out of a ceremonial religion are most distinctly
seen:--
"'Wherewith shall I come before Jahveh,
And bow myself down before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
With the sacrifice of calves of a year old?
--Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams,
With ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?'
'--He hath showed thee, O man, what is good,
And what Jahveh doth require of thee;
What but to do justly to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God?'"
Here no doubt is a belief in the efficacy of sacrifice, even of human
sacrifice, even of the sacrifice of the first-born. But it is a receding
and dying belief; while the belief in the power of justice, mercy,
humility, moral religion in short, is prevailing over it and taking its
place.
So it is again in the New Testament with regard to spiritual life and
the miraculous. Spiritual life commenced in a world full of belief in
the miraculous, and it did not at once break with that belief. But it
threw the miraculous into the background and anticipated its decline,
presaging that it would lose its importance and give place finally to
the spiritual. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all
mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.... Charity
never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether
there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall
vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done
away." Clearly the writer of this believes in prophecies, in tongues, in
mysteries. But clearly, also, he regards them as both secondary and
transient, while he regards charity as primary and eternal.
It may be added that the advent of spiritual life did at once produce a
change in the character of the miraculous itself, divested it of its
fantastic extravagance, and infused into it a moral element. The Gospel
miracles, almost without exception, have a moral significance, and can
without incongruity be made the text of moral discourses to this day. An
attempt to make Hindoo or Greek miracles the text of moral discourses
would produce strange results.
Compared with the tract of geological, and still more with that of
astronomical time, spiritual life has not been long in our world; and we
need not wonder if the process of disengagement from the environments of
the previous state of humanity is as yet far from complete Political
religions and persecution, for instance, did not come into the world
with Christ; they are survivals of an earlier stage of human progress.
The Papacy, the great political Church of mediaeval Europe, is the
historical continuation of the State religion of Rome and the
Pontificate of the Roman emperors. The Greek Church is the historical
continuation of the Eastern offset of the same system. The national
State Churches are the historical continuations of the tribal religions
and priesthoods of the Northern tribes. We talk of the conversion of the
Barbarians, but in point of fact it was the chief of the tribe that was
converted, or rather that changed his religious allegiance, sometimes by
treaty (as in the case of Guthrum), and carried his tribe with him into
the allegiance of the new God. Hence the new religion, like the old, was
placed upon the footing of a tribal, and afterwards of a state,
religion; heresy was treason; and the state still lent the aid of the
secular arm to the national priesthood for the repression of rebellion
against the established faith. But since the Reformation the process of
disengagement has been rapidly going on; and in the North American
communities, which are the latest developments of humanity, the
connection between Church and State has ceased to exist, without any
diminution of the strength of the religious sentiment
Whether there is anything deserving of attention in these brief remarks
or not, one thing may safely be affirmed: it is time that the question
as to the existence of a rational basis for religion and the reality of
spiritual life should be studied, not merely with a view of overthrowing
the superstitions of the past, but of providing, if possible, a faith
for the present and the future. The battle of criticism and science
against superstition has been won, as every open-minded observer of the
contest must be aware, though the remnants of the broken host still
linger on the field. It is now time to consider whether religion must
perish with superstition, or whether the death of superstition may not
be the new birth of religion. Religion survived the fall of Polytheism;
it is surely conceivable that it may survive the fall of
Anthropomorphism, and that the desperate struggle which is being waged
about the formal belief in "Personality," may be merely the sloughing
off of something that when it is gone, will be seen to have not been
vital to religion.
There are some who would deter us from inquiring into anything beyond
the range of sensible experience, and especially from any inquiry into
the future existence of the soul, which they denounce as utterly
unpractical, and compare with obsolete and fruitless inquiries into the
state of the soul before birth. We have already challenged the exclusive
claim of the five bodily senses to be the final sources of knowledge;
and we may surely add that it is at least as practical to inquire into
the destiny as it is to inquire into the origin of man.
If the belief in God and in a Future State is true, it will prevail. The
cloud will pass away and the sun will shine out again. But in the
meantime society may have "a bad quarter of an hour." Without
exaggerating the influence of the belief in Future Reward and
Punishment, or of any form of it, on the actions of ordinary men, we may
safely say that the sense of responsibility to a higher power, and of
the constant presence of an all-seeing Judge, has exercised an
influence, the removal of which would be greatly felt. Materialism has
in fact already begun to show its effects on human conduct and on
society. They may perhaps be more visible in communities where social
conduct depends greatly on individual conviction and motive, than in
communities which are more ruled by tradition and bound together by
strong class organizations; though the decay of morality will perhaps be
ultimately more complete and disastrous in the latter than in the
former. God and future retribution being out of the question, it is
difficult to see what can restrain the selfishness of an ordinary man,
and induce him, in the absence of actual coercion, to sacrifice his
personal desires to the public good. The service of Humanity is the
sentiment of a refined mind conversant with history; within no
calculable time is it likely to overrule the passions and direct the
conduct of the mass. And after all, without God or spirit, what is
"Humanity"? One school of science reckons a hundred and fifty different
species of man. What is the bond of unity between all these species and
wherein consists the obligation to mutual love and help? A zealous
servant of science told Agassiz that the age of real civilization would
have begun when you could go out and shoot a man for scientific
purposes. _Apparent dirae facies_. We begin to perceive, looming
through the mist, the lineaments of an epoch of selfishness compressed
by a government of force.
PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION
There appears to be a connection between the proposed substitutes for
religion and the special training of their several authors. Historians
tender us the worship of Humanity, professors of physical science tender
us Cosmic Emotion. Theism might almost retort the apologue of the
specter of the Brocken.