"not by the Creed but by the Deed."
The Spciety which I have the privilege of addressing, has been organized
with the above for its motto. Some of my hearers have entirely abandoned
the tenets of the positive religions; others continue to hold them true,
but, are discouraged by the lack of spiritual force, the prominence
given to mere externals, the barren formalism in the churches and
synagogues. We agree in believing that theology is flourishing at
the expense of religion. It seems to us that differences in creed are
constantly increasing, and will continue to multiply with the growth and
differentiation of the human intellect. We perceive that every attempt
to settle problems of faith has thus far signally failed, nor can we
hope for better results in the future. Certainty even with regard to
the essential dogmas appears to us impossible. We do not therefore deny
dogma, but prefer to remit it to the sphere of individual conviction
with which public associations should have no concern. Far from
believing that the doctrines of religion as commonly taught are
essential to the well being of society, we apprehend that the disputes
concerning the "author of the law" have diverted the attention of men
from the law itself, and that the so-called duties toward God too often
interfere with the proper performance of our duties toward one another.
It were better to insist less upon a right belief, and more upou right
action.
In order to find a common basis whereon good men, whether believers or
unbelievers can unite, we look to the moral law itself, whose certainty
rests in the universal experience of civilized Humanity. We shall
hold questions of faith in abeyance, shall endeavor to stimulate the
conscience and to this end shall seek to awaken an interest in the grave
social problems of our day, which need nothing so much as a vigorous
exertion of our moral energies, in order to arrive at a peaceable
solution. To broaden and deepen the ethical sentiment in ourselves, and
to hold up to the sad realities of the times, the mirror of the ideal
life, is the object with which we set out. We do not therefore delude
ourselves with the hope that the ideal will ever be fully realized,
but are convinced that in aspiring to noble ends the soul will take on
something of the grandeur of what it truly admires. Starting with the
assumption that the doctrines of religion are incapable of proof,
it behooves us to show in one or more instances the fallacy of the
arguments upon which they are commonly founded, and we shall begin with
the doctrine of IMMORTALITY.
In approaching our subject we are first confronted by the argument
from the common consent of mankind. Like the belief in God, the hope
of immortality is said to be implanted in every human heart, and the
experience of travellers is cited to show that even the most barbarous
races have given it expression in some form, however crude. Aside from
the fact that the statement, as it stands, is somewhat exaggerated, we
will admit that the belief in a future state is widely current among
savage tribes. But the value of this testimony becomes extremely
doubtful on closer inspection. A brief account of the origin of the
conception of soul among our primitive ancestors, will make this plain.
If we observe a child in its sleep, some half articulate word, some cry
or gesture occasionally reveals to us the vividness of the dreams with
which the little brain is teeming. It is hardly doubtful that the child
mistakes the visions of its dream for actual occurrences, and attaches
the same reality to these miasmas of the stagnant night as to the
clear prospects of daylight reason. Even the adult sometimes finds it
difficult to clear his brain of the fancies which occupied it in the
hours of sleep. And the test of large experience can alone enable him to
distinguish between fact and phantom. I call attention to these facts,
because the phenomena of sleep and dreams seem to offer a satisfactory
clue to the naive theories of the lower races concerning death and the
after life. The savage indeed is the veritable child-man. His ardent
emotions, his crude logic, the eagerness with which he questions the how
and wherefore of nature, and the comparative ease with which his simple
understanding accepts the most fanciful solutions, all combine to place
him on the level of the child.
Aware that the body in sleep is at rest, while at the same time the
sleeper is conscious of acting and suffering, visiting distant regions
perhaps, conversing with friends, engaging in battle with enemies, the
savage reasoned that there must be a man within the man, as it were,--an
airy counterfeit of man which leaves its grosser tenement in the night,
and in the course of its wanderings experiences whatever the fortunes of
the dream may chance to be. Instances are related where the body was
prematurely disturbed, the inner man was prevented from returning to his
envelope, and death resulted. The shadow cast by the human figure, an
attenuated image of man, connected with the body and yet distinct from
it, afforded a curious confirmation of this artless theory. The Basutos*
affirm that a person having on one occasion incautiously approached the
bank of a river, his shadow was seized by a crocodile, and he died in
consequence. The story of shadowless or soulless men has been made
familiar to modern literature by Chamisso's well known tale. The
spectral man who severs his connection with the body during sleep,
remains concealed within it during the hours of waking, and in this
manner, the idea of a human soul as distinct from the body, takes its
rise.** It is easy to see how by extending the analogy, what we call
death must have appeared as only another form of sleep, and how the
theory of dreams gave rise to a belief in the continuance of life beyond
the grave. That sleep and death are twin brothers, was to the primitive
man more than mere metaphor. As in sleep, so in death, the body is at
rest, but as in sleep, so also in death, a shade was supposed to go
forth capable of acting and suffering, and yearning to return to its
former condition. The apparitions of the deceased seen at night by the
friends they had left behind, were taken to be real visitations, and
corroborated the assumption of the continued existence of the departed.
The ghosts of the dead were dreaming phantoms, debarred from permanently
returning to their abandoned bodies.
* The dream theory seems to be the one generally adopted by
writers on primitive culture. For an extended account of
this subject vide the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Bastian,
from which the illustrations given in the text are taken.
** Peter Schlemihl.
*** The soul was believed to be corporeal in nature, only
more vague and shadowy than the framework of the body, and
distinguished by greater swiftness of locomotion.
The view we have taken of the origin of the conception of soul is
greatly strengthened when we consider the thoroughly material character
of the ghost's life after death. The ghost continues to be liable to
hunger, pain, cold, as before. But the living have shut it out from
their communion; in consequence it hates its former companions,
persecutes them where it can, and wreaks its vengeance upon them when
they are least prepared to resist it. In a certain district of Germany
it was believed that the dead person, when troubled by the pangs of
hunger, begins by gnawing its shroud until that is completely devoured,
then rising from the grave, it stalks through the village and in the
shape of a vampire, sits upon the children in their cradles, and sucks
their blood. When sated with the hideous feast, it returns to the
churchyard to renew its visits on the succeeding nights. In order to
hinder them from using their jaws, it was customary to place stones or
coins into the mouths of the dead before burial and the most grotesque
devices were resorted to, to prevent the much dreaded return of the
denizens of the tomb. In the middle ages the corpse was often spiked
down to hinder its rising. Among the Hottentots a hole was broken into
the wall, through which the corpse was carried from the house, and then
carefully covered up, it being the prevailing superstition, that the
dead can only reenter by the same way in which they have previously made
their exit. Among a certain negro tribe of Africa, the path from the
house to the grave was strewn with thorns, in the hope that the ghost
would find the path too painful, and desist. As late as 1861, it
occurred in a village in Gallicia, that the ghost of a dead peasant was
found to pursue the living, and the inhabitants rushing out to the grave
fearfully mutilated the body, to prevent it from committing further
injury.
The same conception, from a more charitable point of view, led to the
institution of regular meals for the ghosts at stated intervals. In
North-eastern India, after the body has been consigned to its final
resting-place, a friend of the deceased steps forward, and holding food
and drink in his hand, speaks the following suggestive words, "Take and
eat; heretofore you have eaten and drunk with us, you can do so no more;
you were one of us, you can be so no longer; we come no more to you;
come you not to us." In Eastern Africa, the Wanicas are accustomed to
fill a cocoa-nut shell with rice and tembo, and place it near the grave.
In the Congo district, a channel is dug into the grave leading to the
mouth of the corpse, by which means food and drink are duly conveyed.
The sense of decorum impels certain Turanian tribes to place not only
food, but even napkins, on the graves of their relatives. We cannot
resist the temptation of quoting the following passage from Mr. Tylor's
graphic account of the manner in which the Chinese feast their ghostly
visitors. "Some victuals are left over for any blind or feeble spirit
who may be late, and a pail of gruel is provided for headless souls,
with spoons for them to put it down their throats with. Such proceedings
culminate in the so-called Universal Rescue, now and then celebrated,
when a little house is built for the expected visitors, with separate
accommodations, and bath rooms for male and female ghosts." * In the
Alpach Valley of Tyrol, ghosts released from purgatory on the night
of All Souls, return to the houses of the peasantry. A light is left
burning in the dining room, and a certain cake, prepared for the
occasion, is placed upon the table for their delectation, also a pot of
grease for the poor souls to anoint their wounds with.
* Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii, p. 34.
Occasionally, to obviate the necessity of continued attendance upon
the dead, a single sumptuous feast is provided immediately after their
demise, and this is believed to cancel their claims once for all. In
this manner arose the custom of funeral banquets. In England, in the
fifteenth century, a noisy revel of three days' duration attended the
obsequies of Sir John Paston. The so-called Irish wake originated in
the same way. After the first outbreaks of grief have subsided, meat and
drink are brought in, chiefly the latter, and what was at first intended
for a parting entertainment to the dead, often ends in the boisterous
excesses of the living.
It is here proper to remark that the savage tribes who believe in an
after existence, do not in many instances claim this privilege for
themselves alone, but share it willingly with the lower animals and even
with inanimate objects. Weapons, utensils, and even victuals--have their
ghostly representatives like men. When a great chief dies, his widow is
often forced by public opinion to follow him to the grave, in order that
the departed brave may not be wifeless in the hereafter. But besides the
widow, his horse, his war-club, his girdle, his favorite trinkets are
buried or burned with him to serve his use or vanity in spectre-land.
From what has preceded, it must be clear that the savage's conception of
a ghost bears but a faint and distant resemblance to the idea of soul,
as it became current in the schools of philosophy; nor can the latter
derive support from the ignorant reasonings, the hasty inductions of
primitive man. On the lower levels of culture the idea of immortality
indeed is quite unknown. If the ghost continues its shadowy existence
after death, it is none the less liable to come to an abrupt end, and
then nothing whatever of its former substance remains; it is a pale,
filmy thing, exposed to the inroads of the hostile elements, surrounded
by numerous dangers, to which it may at any moment succumb. In the Tonga
Islands only the souls of the well-born are supposed to survive at all.
The common people have no souls worth speaking of, and when they die,
are completely extinguished. The ghosts of Guinea negroes are compelled
to approach the bank of the terrible river of death. Some of them are
thereupon wafted across to lead pleasant lives on the opposite side,
others are drowned in the stream, or beaten to atoms with a club. With
the Fijians it is always a matter of doubt whether a soul will succeed
at all in maintaining its feeble existence after it has left its
protecting house of sinew and bone. But they open a peculiarly dismal
prospect to wifeless souls. Nanananga, a fierce demoniac being, watches
for them on the shore as they approach, and dashes them to pieces upon
the rocks. The Greenlanders affirm that after death the soul enters
upon a long, lone journey over a mountain full of precipitous descents,
covered with ice and snow. The storms howl about its path, and every
step is fraught with pain and danger. If any harm happens to the poor
wanderer here, then it dies "the other death" from which there is no
re-awakening.
In the theories of a future state, as devised by the lower races, we are
at a loss to detect the germs of any more spiritual longings. Far from
looking forward with pleased anticipation or confidence to the world to
come, the barbarian shuddered as he thought of his approaching end,
and was loath to exchange the white and sunny world for the dreary
companionship of luckless shades. The life that awaited him was not in
the majority of instances a better or a higher life than this; not free
from the limitations of sense; no larger perfecting of what is here
dwarfed and crippled; it was lower, poorer, meaner; it was to the
present, what the pressed flower is to the full-blown rose; the same
in substance, indeed, but with its beauty perished, and its joyous
fragrance evanesced.
The argument from the common consent of mankind in truth deserves no
serious attention.*
* The doctrine of spiritual immortality is not common to the
human race. The material life of the ghost bears no
analogy to what we mean by the soul's continuance. The
continuance of the ghost's existence is not an immortal
continuance.
The argument cannot be substantiated, it would prove nothing, if it
could. The general concurrence of the whole human race in any form of
error would not make that error less erroneous, and the testimony of
united millions against a solitary thinker might kick the beam when
balanced in the scales of truth.
When we behold an ignorant knave squandering his ill-gotten gains
on superfluities, while honest people are famishing for want of the
necessaries; when we see the unscrupulous politician outstripping the
deserving statesman, in the race for fame and station; when modest merit
shrinks in corners, and the native royalty of talent plays courtier to
the kings of lucre, we are reminded of the complaint of Job, that the
bad prosper, and the righteous are down-trodden, yet that they sleep
together in the dust and the worm covers them alike.
This evident disparity between virtue and happiness has led men to take
refuge in the thought of compensation hereafter, and the necessity of a
future state in which the good shall be rewarded, and the evil punished,
according to the verdict of a just judge, has been deduced even from the
apparent injustice of the present. Thus the very imperfections of our
own life on earth, afford a pretext for the most ambitious conceptions
of human destiny.
The argument from the necessity of reward and punishment is extremely
popular among the uneducated, since it appeals ostensibly to their sense
of justice and assures them that by the aid of Divine omnipotence, a
full correspondence between worthiness and happiness, though vainly
expected here, will be established in another sphere. It behooves us to
enquire whether there is anything in the nature of virtue, that demands
a correspondence of this kind.
The philosopher Epicurus was perhaps the first among the ancients to
take strong ground in favor of the utilitarian view of virtue. Pleasure,
he holds, is the purpose of existence, and virtue is thus reduced
to enlightened self-interest. There are different kinds of pleasure;
pleasures of the senses and of the soul. Epicurus points out that the
former cannot be considered true pleasures, since they defeat their
own end, blunting the capacity of enjoyment in proportion as they are
indulged, and incapable of affording permanent satisfaction. Himself
a man of refined tastes and fastidious habits, he shrank from the very
coarseness of the passions, and counselled moderation, friendship and
benevolence. But he refused to recognize in these virtues any intrinsic
value of their own, and lauded them only because in contrast to the
lower appetites, the enjoyment they afford is lasting and constantly
increases with their exercise. It is easy to perceive that when the
moral law is thus stripped of its authority to command, the choice
between duty and inclination will be governed by fortuitous preferences,
and not by principle. It then remains for each individual to decide what
form of pleasure may be most congenial to his temper and desires. The
philosopher will value the delights of contemplative ease, and of kindly
communion with his fellow-men; the passionate youth may hold that a
single deep draught from the chalice of sensual pleasure is worth more
than a whole lifetime of neutral self-restraint; "eat and drink" will
be his motto; "remote consequences--who knows? To-morrow we may die."
Moreover the doctrine of enlightened self-interest has this fatal
objection to it, that if consistently applied, at least among the
powerful of the earth, it would lead to consequences the very reverse
of moral. It is but too true that honesty is not always the best policy;
that fraud and violence, when perpetrated on a scale of sufficient
magnitude, (instance the division of unfortunate Poland,) are not always
punished as they deserve to be. Far from teaching the tyrant to subdue
his baser instincts, enlightened self-interest might rather lead him to
stifle the accusing voice of conscience, and to root out the scruples
that interfere with his ambition. Unless we concede that the moral law
has a claim upon us which the constitution of our nature does not permit
us to deny with impunity, and that its pleasures differ, not only in
degree, but in kind, from all others, virtue, while a necessity to the
weak, becomes folly in the strong; and Napoleon, that gigantic egotist,
was correct, when he called love a silly infatuation, and sentiment a
thing for women.
The principles of Epicurus not only adulterate the motives of goodness
with the desire of reward, but they make the reward of desire the very
sanction of all virtue, and thus deprive human nature of its best title
to nobility.
Truly disinterestedness is the distinguishing mark of every high
endeavor. The pursuit of the artist is unselfish, the beauty he creates
is his reward. The toil of the scientist in the pursuit of abstract
truth is unselfish, the truth he sees is his reward. Why should we
hesitate to acknowledge in the domain of ethics, what we concede in the
realm of art and science? To say that unselfishness itself is only
the more refined expression of a selfish instinct, is to use the term
selfish with a double meaning, is a mere empty play on words. We have
the innate need of harmony in the moral relations; this is our glory,
and the stamp of the Divine upon our nature. We cannot demonstrate the
existence of disinterested motives, any more than we can demonstrate
that there is joy in the sunlight and freedom in the mountain breeze.
The fact that we _demand unselfishness_ in action alone assures us that
the standard of enlightened self-interest is false.
And indeed if we consult the opinions of men, where they are least
likely to be warped by sophistry, we shall find that disinterestedness
is the universal criterion by which moral worth is measured. If we
suspect the motive we condemn the act. If a person gives largely for
some object of public useful ness or charity, we do not permit the
munificence of the gift to deceive our judgment. Perhaps he is merely
desirous of vaunting his wealth, perhaps it is social standing he aims
at, perhaps he is covetous of fame. If these suspicions prove well
founded, the very men who accept his bounty will in their secret hearts
despise him, and by a certain revulsion of feeling we shall resent his
action all the more, because, not only is he destitute of honorable
purpose, but he has filched the fair front of virtue, and defiled the
laurel even in the wearing of it.
We do not even accord the name of goodness to that easy, amiable
sympathy which leads us to alleviate the sufferings of others, unless it
be guided by wise regard for their permanent welfare.
The tattered clothes, the haggard looks, the piteous pleading voice of
the pauper on the public highway may awaken our pity, but the system of
indiscriminate alms-giving is justly condemned as a weakness rather than
a virtue.
On the other hand obedience to duty, when it involves pain and
self-abnegation, seems to rise in the general estimation. Clearly
because in this instance even the suspicion of interested motives is
removed, since hardship, injury in estate and happiness, and even the
possible loss of life, are among the foreseen consequences of the act.
It is for this reason that the Book of Martyrs has become the golden
book of mankind, and that the story of their lives never fails to fill
us with mingled sorrow, and admiration, and pride. They are monuments
on the field of history, milestones on the path of human progress. We
regard them and gain new courage and confidence in our better selves.
The blazing pyre on the Campo Fiore, whereon Giordano Bruno breathes his
last, becomes a beacon-light for the truth-seeker; the dying Socrates
still pours benignant peace over many a sufferer's couch; the Man of
sorrows, on Calvary, comforts the hearts of the Christian millions.
In the presence of these high examples the inadequacy of the selfish
standard becomes clearly apparent. We recognize what a sublime quality
that is in man which enables him, not only to triumph over torment and
suffering, but to devote his very self to destruction for the sake of
honor and truth. Freely must virtue be wooed, not for the dowry she may
bring; by loyal devotion to her for her own sake only, can she be won!
If thus it appears that not only is there nothing in the nature of
virtue to warrant a claim to reward, but that it is her very nature to
disclaim any reward, it will become plain that the problem, as stated
in the beginning, rests upon an entirely false foundation. That the
unrighteous and unprincipled should enjoy temporal happiness, does not
offend the law of justice. That you, my good sir, honest in all your
dealings, truthful in all your acts, should be unhappy, is greatly to
be deplored. Why evil and unhappiness should have been allowed at all to
enter a world created by an all good and all powerful Being may fairly
be asked. Why those who possess the treasure of a clear conscience
should not also possess the lesser goods of earth, is a question with
which morality is in no wise concerned.
Virtue can have no recompense, save as it is its own recompense, and
vice can receive no real punishment save as it is its own avenger.
The hope of immortality, in so far as it is based upon the supposed
necessity of righting in a future state what is here wrong, is therefore
untenable, for it is based upon the assumption of a wrong which exists
in the imagination merely. _And he who claims a reward because of his
virtue, has thereby forfeited his right to maintain the claim, since
that is not virtue, which looks for reward._
*****
Having endeavored to show that the joys of earth cannot be claimed as
the recompense of a moral life, we must yet admit that the desire of
happiness is altogether too strong and deep-seated in human nature to
be thus summarily dismissed. We seek happiness on its own account quite
apart from any title which virtue may give us to its enjoyment. Were we
created for misery? Does not the poverty and general unsatisfactoriness
of our present condition warrant us in expecting ampler fulfilment,
permanent bliss in an after life? I think we shall derive some
assistance in discussing this question, by attempting to resolve the
conception of happiness into its constituent elements.
Pleasure has been defined to consist in the satisfaction of any of man's
natural wants. The variety of our pleasures corresponds to the diversity
of our wants.
Food to the hungry, rest to the weary, are sources of pleasure. To feel
on some cold wintry day the genial warmth of true hearth fire creeping
into our blood, and the frozen limbs relaxing their stiffness, is
pleasure. All men admire the beautiful and delight in adornment. Even
the rude savage seeks to gratify his aesthetic tastes, so far as the
means which nature places at his command permit. The custom of tattooing
the skin is widely practiced among the lower races, and stars and
circles, trees and plants, and other ingenious devices are impressed
with laborious patience upon the different members of the body. The
chiefs of the Fiji Islanders, a nude and cannibal race, are represented
as wearing an elaborate head-dress of three and even five feet in
dimensions, and were accustomed to spend several hours each day, under
the care of the royal hair-dresser. Among civilized men the desire for
adornment finds vent chiefly in external objects, while every coarse
solicitation of attention to the person is shunned. Tastily decorated
houses, flowers, paintings, music, gratify our sense of symmetry, and
spread an atmosphere of culture and refinement in the vicinity of our
daily occupations. But there are deeper and purer joys in reserve. Man
is eminently a social being; he has the need of sympathy and depends
upon the affections of his fellows. The presence of cherished companions
and friends becomes a necessity to him; in absence he yearns for it,
and the lack of it is one of the most serious afflictions of human life.
"Woe unto him who, far from parents and loved kinsmen, a lonely life
must lead. His present joys devouring grief doth snatch. His thoughts
are ever straying in the distance back to his father's hall, where the
sun of life first rose upon him, and where children of the common
home, playfully, with gentle bonds, close and closer drew their hearts
together."* The tranquil delight which we derive from the enlargement of
intellect, and the exquisite inward satisfaction that results from high
fidelity to duty, may be mentioned as the last to crown the scale of
pleasures.
* Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris, Act I.
Now, it is evident that all these elements of happiness, these diverse
rays that nowhere melt into the perfect light, are dependent upon the
physical organization of man, such as it is, even for their partial
attainment; of the lower pleasures, this is at once evident. But a
little reflection will show the same to be the case with the higher. If
we consider the aesthetic faculty, we find its gratification conditioned
by a physical basis. What were music without the ear; what the symmetry
of form, without the eye and touch? The intellect, in its turn,
fashions-the rough timber of experience, which an ever flowing stream of
sensation carries into the workshop of the brain. Can the mind feed upon
itself? Can the laws of thought act otherwise than upon the material
afforded by the senses? The same is also true with respect to our moral
qualities, and the exercise of the virtues is inconceivable beyond the
pale of human society. All virtue presupposes a tendency to err;
the failings and limitations of our mortal condition. Justice is the
adjustment of limitations common to all men in such manner that their
stress shall not bear more heavily upon one than upon the other. Love
is the expansion of one limited nature in another and their mutual
enrichment by such union. Charity, fortitude, continence, whatever we
applaud in human conduct, is but an indirect testimony to the natural
imperfections inherent in the human heart, and is accounted admirable
only in so far as it tends to ensure the best interests of the race on
earth. When therefore this body is corrupted, when we depart from out
the fellowship of men, the gratification of the appetites, the enjoyment
of beauty, the exercise of reason, and the practice of virtue become
alike unthinkable.
We desire larger happiness than we can here achieve; but because we
desire a thing, are we therefore at all warranted in believing that
we shall obtain it? Is the course of the world's affairs such as to
encourage so flattering an hypothesis? Is not the fatality that so often
attends our best efforts in this life, an argument against, rather than
in favor of increasing felicity in another? We should assume a wiser
attitude as against fate. There are those who fret under disappointment,
and murmur and rebel as if they had been defrauded of a right; as if
they had entered into a compact with destiny to their advantage, as if
the myriad worlds moved through space for their especial good. This is
an insane spirit. We need something of the vim of stoicism to grapple
with the difficulties of life; we need to cultivate a larger patience;
an humble spirit prepared for every loss, and welcoming every hour
of joy as an unlooked for gain. There are a thousand pleasures too in
little things which we, with the petulance of children, daily spurn,
because we cannot have all we ask for. In every stone there is
instruction, in every varying aspect of the sky there is beauty,
wherever men congregate and commune, lessons of wisdom are revealed to
the observer. The movement of everlasting laws quivers in the meanest
trifles, and the eternities, thinly veiled, look out upon us with their
solemn gaze from every passing mask of time. These let us study; art
will help us; science will open to us a wondrous chain of workings which
the mind cannot exhaust, and active exertions for the common weal will
give a generous glow to our lives, and still the unquiet yearnings which
we may never entirely set at rest. You have seen how the flowers grow,
how that many seeds are scattered and but few take root; how the germ
slowly and with difficulty develops. The rain waters it, the warm
sunbeam fosters it; storms sweeping over the earth, may crush it while
it is still a young and tender shoot. At last, sometimes after years of
preparation, it buds and opens and blooms and becomes a delight and a
glory, a fount of fragrance, a crown of beauty. A few days pass and
it droops; what the long process of time has slowly created, a single
moment may suffice to destroy; and yet though its time was brief, the
flower fulfilled its nature only in that passing bloom; all the previous
stages of its existence had a meaning only as they led up to this, the
final revelation of its purpose.
The bloom of human life is morality; whatever else we may possess,
health, and wealth, power, grace, knowledge, have a value only as they
lead up to this; have a meaning only as they make this possible. Nor
should we complain that the blight of death so quickly withers what the
course of threescore years has scarce sufficed to produce. In the hour
of our destruction, we will lift up our hearts in triumph--we have
blossomed! We have blossomed!
But it will be said, that the flower when it is wilted and withered
here, may be transplanted to fairer regions; that the soul may take
on new organs, when it has abandoned its earthly habitation, and in a
series of transformations of which, it is true, we can form no definite
conception, may enter afresh upon its struggles for worthiness in other
spheres. This is, indeed, the loftiest expression which the hope of
immortality has found. Unlike the arguments previously considered, it
is unalloyed by any selfish motive, is founded upon a really exalted
sentiment, and it is Love and Virtue themselves that here take up the
strain, and sing us their animating song of ceaseless progress toward
the good. The argument in this shape, involves the further question
whether the existence of an independent and indestructible soul is
assured, and upon this point the whole problem of immortality finally
hinges.
The question whether what we are accustomed to call the soul is a
distinct and indivisible entity, or merely the result of material
processes, has divided mankind for more than two thousand years, and
some of the ablest thinkers have ranged themselves on either side. As
early as the fifth century B. C. the philosopher Democritus propounded
materialistic doctrines among the Greeks. According to him, the soul is
a combination of smooth, round, polished and moving atoms, and to the
motions of these atoms the phenomena of life are to be ascribed.
Among the Romans, Lucretius advanced similar views. He took particular
pains to combat the "vulgar fear of death," protesting that the prospect
of dissolution would lose its terrors, did we not foolishly imagine
ourselves conscious of being dead, forgetting that death implies the
entire cessation of consciousness. The followers of materialistic
opinions among the ancients, were not a few. But during the ascendancy
of the Christian Church, these opinions retired into the background,
until in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they were revived by
such men as Gassendi and La Mettrie, and others. In modern times they
have been widely spread.
The list of names on the opposite side is headed by Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, and embraces the great majority of writers and public
teachers, down to the present day.
It may appear strange that when the belief in immortality had once
become current, men should have been tempted to forego its pleasing
prospects, and even, with a certain vehemence, to urge their sceptical
views upon others. Let us consider for a moment, what it was that
induced the materialists to assume their position. The observed
correspondence between mental and physical phenomena doubtless led them
in the first instance to adopt their peculiar views.
We see in the tiny body of the new born babe, barely more than the faint
stirrings of animal life; months pass by before it is able to form any
clear conception of the persons and things in its vicinity, the simpler
mental processes appearing simultaneously with the growth of the bodily
organs. The intellect reaches its highest development in the age of
manhood and womanhood, when we stand in the maturity of our physical
powers. In that middle age of life lies, with rare exceptions, the best
work we are destined to accomplish. Having entered upon the downward
slope, our faculties gradually lose their vigor, until we sink into the
final stage of drivelling old age, and become feeble in mind, as we
are helpless in body. In this manner the close connection between our
spiritual and material parts, is brought home forcibly, even to
the unreflecting; as the one enlarges so does the other: as the one
diminishes so does the other: together they increase, together they are
weakened; the inference is drawn, shall it not be, that together they
will perish?
The phenomena of sleep and of coma seem to convey the same lesson. A
haze steals over our consciousness; sometimes settling into impenetrable
night; as the body for a time wears the semblance of death, so also
is the mind stupefied or completely paralyzed. Hours pass by; in the
interval, the business of the world has gone on as before, but to us
there has been only a void and utter blank. And thus it is said shall
there be a void and a blank in the tomb; time will pass by, and we shall
not know it; men will move and act and we shall be none the wiser for
it; it will be all like sleep, only that there will be no dreams.
And again when some malignant fever seizes upon the body and corrupts
the currents of the blood, how do the poor disordered thoughts dance
about wildly, driven by the lash of the distemper; how does the use of
stimulants besot the intellect, so that every higher power is deadened;
how in the wild ravings of the diseased brain, do we behold the hideous
mockery of mind.
And does not the grave itself testify loudly that the end is an end
indeed; the body falls to pieces, the dust commingles with the dust, and
nothing remains, nothing at least of which we can ever have experience.
Right or wrong, these facts impress the mind, and their leaden weight
serves to drag down our aspirations.
It is true, the considerations I have enumerated are based upon a mere
surface view of things, but the more accurate methods of science seem,
at first sight, to confirm the general conclusions to which they lead.
On this point, it would be well to dwell for a moment. John Stuart Mill
acknowledges that "the evidence is well-nigh complete that all thought
and feeling has some action of the bodily organism for its immediate
coincident and accompaniment, and that the specific variations, and
especially the different degrees of complication of the nervous and
cerebral organism, correspond to differences in the development of our
mental faculties."
The prodigious difficulties in the way of the study of the brain may
long retard the progress of the investigator, but for the purposes of
our argument we are at liberty to assume whatever is within the limits
of possible achievement. We may suppose that physiology will succeed
so far that the brain will be accurately and completely mapped out, and
that the motions of the atoms upon which the thousand varying modes of
thought and feeling depend, will be known and measured. In anticipating
such results, we have reached the utmost tenable position of
materialism.
But now to our surprise we discover that all this being allowed, the
ultimate question, what is soul, remains still unsolved and as insoluble
as ever. The unvarying coincidence of certain modes of soul with certain
material processes may be within the range of proof, but what cannot be
proven is, that these material processes explain the psychic phenomena.
If it is urged that the same difficulty presents itself in the
explanation of the most ordinary occurrences, this objection is based
upon a misapprehension of the point at issue.
The scientist cannot show why heat should be convertible into motion,
but how it is thus transformed is easy to demonstrate, and the exact
mechanical equivalent of heat has been calculated. But how certain
motions of atoms in the brain should generate, not heat, but
consciousness, but thought and love, is past all conception. There are
here two different orders of facts, having no common principle to which
they could both be reduced. There is an impassable gulf between them
which can in nowise be bridged over.
Nor would it avail us to endow the atom itself with the promise and
potency of intellect; we should thereby throw back the issue a step
further, and disguise the problem whose existence it were better to
plainly acknowledge. The broad fact of consciousness therefore remains
unexplained and inexplicable as before. Arrived at this limit, science
itself pauses and refuses to pass further.
Some of the leading naturalists of our day have lately expressed
themselves clearly and tersely in this sense. The eminent physiologist
Dubois Rey-mond denies that the connection between certain motions of
certain atoms in the brain, and what he calls, the primal, undefinable
and undeniable facts of consciousness, is at all conceivable.
Professor Tyndall in his address on "The scope and limits of Scientific
Materialism," explains his views with similar precision.
Were our minds so expanded, strengthened and illuminated as to enable
us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of
following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric
discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the
corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as
ever from the solution of the problem. How are these physical processes
connected by and with the facts of consciousness? I do not think the
materialist is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and
his molecular motions explain everything, in reality they explain
nothing.... The problem of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern
form as it was in the pre-scientific ages.
Now since it is impossible to demonstrate that the powers of mind are a
product of matter, the possibility undoubtedly remains that these powers
may continue to exist even after their connection with the physical
organism has been dissolved. If all the arguments that are commonly
adduced in support of the doctrine of a future life fall short of their
object, it is but just to add that every argument to the contrary is
equally devoid of foundation. The doctrine of immortality cannot be
disproved. Of the nature of soul we are in absolute ignorance we know
nothing; what is more, we can know nothing At this point we touch the
utmost boundary of human reason, and must be content to write mystery of
mysteries.
In the state of settled uncertainty to which we are thus reduced, the
shape of our opinions will be determined by the bias of our natures or
the influence of education. The sceptic will remind us of the points
in which we resemble all the perishable forms of nature and hold it
improbable that we alone should escape the universal law of dissolution.
Others will cling to the hope of continued life, even on the brink of
the grave, and the strong instinct of self preservation will give tone
and color to their religious beliefs. Deep philosophical speculations
are possible as to that ultimate source of being, that hidden light of
which both matter and mind are diverse reflections. And here too poetry
assumes its legitimate office. On the mists that cover the infinite
abyss, we may project whatever images, foul or fair, we list. Science
you may be sure will never disturb us. Dogmatic assertion however, on
either side is totally unwarranted: and the question of immortality (I
think we must sooner or later make up our minds to that) will remain an
open one. Certain, only, is the fact of our uncertainty.
If the conclusions to which we have thus been led, seem purely negative
in their bearings, they are none the less capable of certain positive
applications, which deserve our serious attention. The longing for
immortality has been developed into a morbid craving under the influence
of the current religious teachings, and has become a disturbing element
in human society. On more than one occasion it has imperilled the peace
of nations, and the doctrines of salvation became the watchwords of
contending armies. The doubtful chances of eternal felicity or damnation
became the one absorbing topic on which men's minds dwelt, and the wild
horrors of the Christian Hell have cast a gloom over many an innocent
life, and curtailed the scant measure of its earthly happiness. It were
something gained, if by a cool and dispassionate judgment the influence
of these dismal fantasies could be lessened, and men be freed from
their slavish subjection to phantoms born of their own distempered
imaginations.
Furthermore, it follows from what we have said that the belief in
immortality should not be inculcated as a dogma in our schools of
religion, and above all that the dictates of the moral law should in no
wise be made to depend upon it for their sanction. The moral law is
the common ground upon which all religious and in fact all true men may
meet. It is the one basis of union that remains to us amid the clashing
antagonisms of the sects. While dogma is by its nature, open to attack,
and its acceptance at all times a matter of choice, the principles of
morality have a right to demand implicit obedience, and should rest as
everlasting verities in the human heart. Let us reflect well before we
imperil the latter by the undue prominence which we give the former. It
is not needful to impart to a child the whole truth, but what it learns
should be wholly true, and nothing should be taught it as a fundamental
fact which it can ever in after years be led to call in question. How
often has it occurred that when the riper reason of the man has rejected
the tenets of the church in which he was educated, he has been tempted
to cast aside all the religious teachings of his youth, the moral with
the rest, as idle fable and deceit.
And lastly, friends, as we do not, cannot know, it is presumably wise
that we should not know. The vanity of all our efforts to grasp the
infinite, should teach us that on this island of time whereon we live,
lies our work. In its joys we may freely take delight; for its woes we
should reserve our sympathies, and in laboring to advance the progress
of the good we must find our satisfaction.
Before closing this subject however let us recall vividly to our minds
that the desire for continuance after death is capable of the most
noble expression, and of supplying us with wholesome consolation and
inspiriting motives to action. The individual passes, but the race
lives! There is a law in nature that no force is ever lost. The thousand
varying forms that ebb and flow around us are various only to our feeble
vision. At the core they are one, transmuted, yet the same, changing
yet changeless, perishing to rise anew. The law of the conservation of
energy holds good throughout the entire domain of matter. And such a law
too obtains in our spiritual life. The law of the conservation of moral
energy is no less an abiding truth; we are not dust merely, that returns
to dust; we are not summer flies that bask in the sunshine of the
passing day; we are not bounded in our influence by the narrow tenure
of our years. Say not when the sod has closed above those who have been
dear to you that all is gone. Say not that the grace and loveliness, and
wisdom that once dwelt within the pallid form is breathed away like
a hollow wind. Nor yet stand idly gazing upon the cloud-land of the
future, watching if you can trace perchance their shadowy lineaments
fading into the dimness of untried worlds. The dead are not dead if we
have loved them truly. In our own lives we give them immortality. Let us
arise and take up the work they have left unfinished, and preserve the
treasures they have won, and round out the circuit of their being to the
fullness of an ampler orbit in our own.
All the good that was in them lives in you, the germ and nucleus of
the better that shall be. All the evil that inhered in them shall be
cleansed away in you and your virtues shall be the atonement for their
sins. Thus shall the fathers live in the children, and from generation
to generation the bond that connects the past with the future remains
unbroken. They that have left you are not afar; their presence is near
and real, a silent and august companionship. In the still hours of
meditation; under the starlit night, in the stress of action, in trials
and temptations, you will hear their voices whispering words of cheer or
warning, and your deeds are their deeds and your lives are their lives.
So does the light of other days still shine in the bright hued flowers
that clothe our fields; so do they who are long since gathered into
the silent city of the dead still move about our houses, distributing
kindness and nobleness among our lives. So does the toll of the funeral
bell become an alarum to rouse us to more active effort and to the
nobler service of mankind.