the brink of the present and the future, can that be said to have _eo
ipso_ existed in the past? I put it to you most seriously, is the brink
of the present, the past? Is the brink of the future, the past? Can,
then, the brink of the present _and_ the future be called the past?
Athens may have existed. That is, a number of houses and streets, once
called Athens, may have existed. But can you say, I put it to you most
mostly, can you say that the houses of Athens asked you to exist? Or
did the streets do so?'
"'By Athens we mean the Athenians.'
"'Oh, I see, the Athenians. Who were they? Two-thirds were
foreign slaves; one-fifth were _metiks_, that is, denizens of
foreign extraction. Consequently, two-thirds and one-fifth being
thirteen-fifteenths, the overwhelming majority of the town being
_uitlanders_, you cannot possibly be said to have been asked into
existence by them. Remain two-fifteenths of Athenians proper. Of these
the great majority were your enemies, who drove you into death. Can
they, who furiously clamoured for your death, be said to have violently
wished for your birth?
"'Remain, therefore, only a handful of Athenians who _may_ have desired
you to exist. How could they give due expression to their wish? In
the Assembly matters were decided by a majority, which they did not
control. In the law courts were hundreds, nay thousands of judges in
each case, of whom, as _per supra_, the great majority were your
enemies, who would have decided against your birth. In the Temples such
decisions were never taken.
"'The intention of your prenatal friends could thus remain but a mere
private wish of a few citizens, but could not possibly be an inherent
tendency or desire of Athens. _Quod erat demonstrandum._ And since you
have been unable to give a satisfactory answer to the first of the
crucial questions, I put you down as a suspect.'
"I did not say anything," said Socrates. "I was amazed beyond
expression that such nonsense could be allowed to pose as searching and
'scientific' analysis of facts. But he triumphantly continued:
"'You say nothing? _Qui tacet consentire videtur_,--silence means
consent. I can see in your face how overawed you are by my sagacity, I
have unmasked you. We unmask everything and anything. We unmask stones,
pyramids, crocodiles, ichneumons, princes, kings, prophets, and heroes.
We strike terror into the common people by our vast erudition and our
penetrating sagacity.
"'We are the Sherlock Holmes of theology.
"'We run down any pretender, any scribe, any man who has the impudence
of posing as a somebody. Given that we are not much; how can he be
anything?
"'If you will stay here for some time, you will soon know a lot about
what did not happen in ancient Israel.
"'Oxford is the Scotland Yard of all those humbugs that pass by the
name of Abraham, Moses, King David, Samson, the Prophets, and other
impostors. We have pin-pricked them out of existence!
"'At present we have proved that all the Religion of Israel was stolen
from Babylon. In a few years we shall prove that the Babylonians stole
it all from the Elamites, farther east. This, once well established,
will give us a welcome means of proving that the Elamites stole it
all from the Thibetans; who stole it from the Chinese; who stole it
from the Japanese; who stole it from the Redskins in America; who
stole it from the Yankees; who stole it from Oxford. And so we shall
return to this great University and provide occupation and fame for the
higher critics of the next three hundred years. Where are you now, O
Pseudo-Socrates?'
"I was unable to say a word for some time. When I collected myself to a
certain extent, I said:
"'O Sophist, if our Religion in ancient Greece had had no other
advantage than that of saving us from the works of "higher critics," it
has deserved well of us. We were immune from that disease, at any rate.
Dion of Prusa and others wrote declamations against the historicity
of the Trojan War; but nobody took them for more than what they were,
for rhetorical exercises. No Hellene would have paid the slightest
attention, nor accorded the slightest recognition to men like yourself.
The English must be suffering from very ugly religious crochets and
spiritual eczemas, to have recourse to drugs and pills offered by such
medicine-men.'
* * * * *
"Other friends in England to whom I expressed my profound aversion to
this puny scepticism in matters of Religion, advised me to attend the
sermons given by a relatively young man with white hair in a temple in
the city. They said that in him and his addresses there was religious
sentiment. I accepted their advice and went repeatedly to hear what was
called _The New Religion_.
"The young man talked well and impressively. He told them that two and
two made four, and absolutely refused to make five.
"With much emphasis he declared that he could not believe in miracles,
because of the miraculous way in which they happened. If, he said, a
miracle should happen in an orderly fashion, performed under police
revision, say, in Regent Street in front of Peter Robinson's, the
arrangement and whole sequence of the procedure being duly anticipated
and announced by the _Daily Nail_ or the _Daily X-Rays_, then indeed he
would say: 'O Lord, O Lord, I am convinced.'
"'But,' the white-haired young man said, 'how can you, the rest of the
world, or anyone else suppose that I could believe a miracle, that
pops in from mid-air, in the most disorderly and unreasonable fashion,
without having given notice either to the police or to the editor of
the _Daily Nail_ or the _Daily X-Rays_?
"'Such a miracle is a mere vagrant, a loafer, a _déclassé_ or
_déraciné_, as we say in Burmese. It has neither documents to
legitimate itself with, nor any decent social connections. It disturbs
the professor of physics at that great seat of untaught knowledge, the
London University; it annoys all chemists, and confirms my colleagues
in the other pulpits in their preposterous superstitions.
"'My brethren and _sithren_, I tell you there are no miracles; there
never were any; there never can be any. Just let me tell you an
interesting experience I had the other day with a man who travelled in
the south of France, a country which, but for the fact that England is
good enough to patronise her, would long since have disappeared from
the surface of this or any other planet.
"'The gentleman in question spoke of Lourdes, and the miracles he had
seen there. I listened for a while with patience; at last I could bear
it no longer, and the following dialogue arose between us:
"He: '"Lourdes is the most convincing case of the miraculous power of
the true Church."
"I: '"The true Church is in the city of London, sir, and there is no
miracle going on there whatever."
"He: '"I completely differ, especially if, for argument's sake, I
accept your statement that the temple in the city is the true Church.
If that be so, then the miracles wrought there are even greater than
those observable at Lourdes."
"I: '"I thank you for your rapid conversion. I am glad to see that you
feel the power of my Church. This power comes from the great truths I
teach. But as to miracles proper, I must, if reluctantly, decline the
honour. I repeat it, there are no miracles in my Church, neither taught
nor wrought."
"He: '"Come, come! Not only are there miracles in your Church, but they
are also of the very same type that I noted at Lourdes."
"I: '"Sir, how can you insult me so gratuitously? Lourdes swarms with
so-called miracles, which are no miracles at all, but only the effects
of auto-hypnotisation. A person who can believe in the healing power of
St ----"
"He: '"Steady, steady, my dear sir. I do not allude to that healing
power at all. Again, placing myself on your standpoint, I will, for
argument's sake, admit that the waters at Lourdes have no miraculous
healing power owing to the influence of this saint or that. You might
permit me to remark, nevertheless, that it is just as much of a miracle
as when the drugs prescribed by our doctors happen to cure us. For,
what could be more miraculous than that? But this is only by the way.
I allude to quite another miracle, and I can only express my amazement
that you do not guess it more quickly."
"I: '"I am quite out of touch with miracles."
"He: '"Bravo! This is precisely what the great Lessing used to say: the
greatest of all miracles is the one that people do not notice as such
at all. Just consider: do you not draw vast masses of people to your
sermons? Have you not persuaded most of them that you have founded a
new Religion? What on earth could be more miraculous than that!
"'"In your sermons you dance on a thin rope of logic made out of the
guts of a few anæmic cats dropped from the dissecting table of science.
If therefore you had won a reputation as a rope-dancer, one could
readily understand it. But you have won the reputation of a founder
of a new religion, which is to a logical rope what catguts are to a
great violinist. Is that not marvellous? Savonarola would have charged
you, at best, with blacking his shoes, and yet people take you for a
modern Savonarola. Is that not marvellous? Is it anything short of a
miracle? Is not this the very miracle of Lourdes? Hundreds of thousands
of intelligent Frenchmen believe in the healing power of water in
consequence of its canonisation by a saint. Is this not a miracle in
our time?"
"I: '"If I am to be infinitely less worthy a man than Savonarola
because I believe in the infinity and truth of Science, I gladly forego
the honour. The more light we pour into the human heart, the nobler it
will be."
"He: '"So you believe that your hearers follow you on account of the
light you give them? Pray, abandon any such idea forthwith. They cling
to you because of your interesting personality, and because you give
satisfaction to their vanity. In persuading them that the life-blood of
the 'old' Religion is mere stale water, they congratulate themselves on
their being intellectually superior to the orthodox believers.
"'"Is there no one who has the courage to say aloud that the canker
of all Religions in England is their constant toadying to Reason and
Science? The theory of Evolution, first rightly condemned by the
clergy, is now an established costume without which no bishop would
dare to officiate in sermons or books. Naturalists all over the world
lustily attack and combat Evolution; but no English clergyman ventures
to doubt it. He will and must toady to what he thinks is 'Science.'
"'"Formerly Science was the _ancilla_, or maid of Theology; now
Theology is the mere charwoman of any physiologist or biologist."
"I: '"And so it shall be. I see, my good man, I must talk to you a
little more plainly. We theologians want nothing but authority. We
have long since learned that this world is governed by authority, and
by nothing else; just as is the next world, if there be any. Now, in
former times Science was not imposing enough. Being, as it was, in
its infancy, it had little authority. So we trampled upon it, and
side-tracked it with disdain. At present, on the other hand, Science
has become quite an influential member of society. It goes on doing
marvellous things and inventing incredible feats of physical, chemical,
or biological triumph.
"'"What is more natural than that we now not only receive the _homo
novus_, the man of Science, but that we also try to avail ourselves of
the authority his exploits give him?
"'"Take this nation. It is thoroughly materialist and on its knees
before Science. For the last sixty years Science, and nothing but
physical Science has been knocked into its head. This nation thinks
that any study outside Science proper is pleasant humbugging. They are
completely ignorant of human history. Give us Science! Give us facts,
facts! Of course they say so, because facts save them the trouble of
thinking, and do not allow one to pose as a thinker.
"'"Facts, scientific facts, that is all that they want. Human thought,
they think, is a physical excretion from the brain, just as tears
are from the lachrymal glands, or other liquids from the kidneys.
Hence, they infer, all that is needed is to study, in a physiological
laboratory, the brain.
"'"What's the use of literary history, for instance? If you want to
know it, you have only to study the brain which is the cause of at
least some portions of literature.
"'"What is the use of military history? Study, in a physiological
laboratory, the arm, not arms; since it is the arm that fights.
"'"What is the use of Sociology, say, the study of the Family? Study,
in a physiological laboratory, the nerves of certain organs which
constitute the true cause of families. And similarly with all other
studies relating to the humanities. Science; it is all a matter of
Science proper."
"'Under these conditions,' the white-haired one continued, 'what can
we do but take the requisite authority there where we find it best
developed, in Science? Anything that pleases the _grand seigneur_, we
hasten to acquiesce in while shoe-licking him. Science proper, that is,
Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology disavow Imponderables, Tendencies,
Present Projections of the Future, Incomprehensibles, etc., etc.; so do
we.
"'Science cannot move from certain mathematical principles; speedily we
too cry aloud that we cannot cease hugging these dear principles.
"'Science can never analyse or reconstrue the mystery of all mysteries:
Personality; at once we novel theologians exclaim, beating our worn
breasts, that Personality is no historic force at all.
"'Science cannot possibly so much as approach the problem of
creativeness, creation, or origin of life; hence we gallop after it
like newsboys, screaming at the top of our voices: "Latest news! No
creation! No origins! Bill just passed! Enormous majority! One penny!
Latest news!"
"'Cannot you see that? Can you not grasp that as in Republican
countries we are Republicans, and in Monarchical ones, Monarchists;
even so in an age overawed by the surface-scratchers of physical
Science, we too must feel the itch and scratch away with violence?
"'We cannot possibly afford to forego the authority at present in
the gift of Science. How could I dare to treat Jesus as one of
those mysterious persons that bring to a head both vast and secular
tendencies of the Past, and Present Projections of an immense Future?
He, I hear from a certain humanist, was the heir of all that marvellous
Power of Personality, called Cephalism, which shaped all classical
antiquity; and at the same time He was the Anticipative Projection of a
vast Future.
"'Perhaps.
"'But could any process approved by Science proper be applied to such a
mode of thinking? None. Consequently I am bound to belittle, to ignore
it.
"'As long as Jesus is not amenable to that mode of biography or to that
kind of reflections which we apply to the life of cockroaches or gnats,
we cannot seriously speak of Him.
"'Or is not His preaching like the laying of eggs by a bird, out of
which eggs new birds arise in due time?
"'Is not His Church like the nest of a spotted woodpecker made in the
hollow of some ancient tree?
"'Are not His apostles like the watch-birds amongst wandering cranes?
"'If, then, we want to study Him scientifically, we must treat Him
and His exactly as we treat a hoopoe or a jackdaw. Not that we really
know anything about a hoopoe or a jackdaw. But in treating Him in
that fashion we can use all the sounding terms of Science, and thus,
don't you see, secure all the authority of which Science to-day has so
plentiful a share.
"'I have so far founded the New Religion. But I am not quite satisfied
with it. I feel we need a Newest Religion. Ever since my birth the
world has stepped into a new era. Something has been wrenched from its
former place. I must at once see to it.
"'Meanwhile I am preparing a Life of Jesus on a truly scientific basis.
The Lives hitherto published are completely out of date. They lack the
true scientific spirit.
"'My "Life of Jesus" will have three sections. The first will contain
the Antecedents. I will start with the soil, the air, and the waters
of Palestine. I will investigate the influence which the geology of
Palestine had on Jesus; especially, whether the stratification of that
soil does not correspond to the stratification of the mind of Jesus. In
that way I will obtain the precise nomenclature of the various layers
of the intellect, human and Messianic, of Jesus.
"'Thus, I will determine his palæolithic, neolithic, pliocene, miocene
and other tertiary mental formations. That will be inestimable.
"'I will then proceed to a close analysis of the air in Palestine, and
try to determine how much argon it contains. This, together with the
jargon talked round Bethlehem, and a close study of the remains of the
King Sargon will give me a solid foundation for my researches into
the feelings of Jesus. I will thus make sure whether these feelings
were subconscious, auto-hypnotic, auto-Röntgenising, æroplanesque, or
zeppelinury.
"'Should I find some radium in the stones near Bethlehem or Nazareth,
I shall be enabled to account for the precociousness and light-emitting
gift of Jesus.
"'Once I have thus settled the Antecedents, I will proceed to His life.
In accordance with the method of zoologists and biologists, to whom one
fox is as good as another, and one rabbit as serviceable as another, I
will study the daily life of a modern rabbi in Sichem, or Jerusalem.
"'I will measure his nose, his lips, the width and height of his mouth
when yawning and when asleep, his weight, his rapidity of walk, the
loudness of his voice, his pulse, his heart, his meals, and his drinks.
This will give me valuable data for the life of Jesus. I will reduce
all these data to finely-drawn statistical tables.
"'As soon as I shall be in possession of these tables I will attack
the most important part of my work: I will not tire until I discover
the microbe which imparted to all that Jesus said an extraordinary
power of captivation. That microbe, I have no doubt, can be distilled
from a comparative solution of Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet
and Jesus. I name it _microbus prophetizans Huxleyi_. I shall, I
trust, isolate it and send specimens to the South Kensington Museum, I
will----'
* * * * *
"When the white-haired one," said Socrates, "had arrived at that stage
of his wanderings, I left the hall. I felt sea-sick. These little ones
think that they can triangulate the human personality, because they
have triangulated many of their countries. They never consider that
triangulation, and all scientific methods, refer, and can refer only
to quantity or material quality. There is no geometry of love, hatred,
or spiritual power. It is the old error of the Pythagoreans which you,
O Pythagoras, admitted to me after having whiled in Olympus for a few
hundred years.
"Numbers are not the souls of things.
"Personality is the soul of things.
"We humans are pre-eminently creative. Our chief force is not intellect
nor will-power. We are neither Hegelians nor Schopenhauerians. In point
of sagacity many an animal transcends us; and did you not avow to me, O
Leibniz, that the difference between you and a yokel is not so much in
your being more intellectual, or in your having more brain-power, but
in your having more creative power?
"Intellect, or the force of close thinking, may be found in abundance
in the city of London. Had people devoted as keen an interest to
science or philosophy as city men do to money transactions, we should
be much further than we are.
"But people differ very much less in power of intellect than in
strength of originality.
"The great men of Literature or Science or Art are not very much
cleverer in point of intellect than is the rest of the people. They
exceed them in point of originality; that is, they exceed them because
they devote themselves to digging in unbroken ground. It is in this way
they create.
"It is in this sense that each human is, to a certain extent, new
ground; and consequently, that the Great Humans are absolutely new
phenomena. In other words, they are new creations. They have an X in
them that no x-rays can penetrate into.
"Science can comprehend averages only. _Nova_ she cannot approach.
This is why Great Humans have invariably been disavowed, rejected, and
pooh-poohed by men of Science.
"Why has a lily of the valley bell-like blossoms? Science will never
explain it. Those bells are part of the personality of the lily; and
Science can understand it as little as a crofter could understand a
refined Athenian.
"You may imagine, O gods and heroes, what I felt when I heard so many
clergymen talk so 'scientifically' of The Greatest of Humans, who by
His being so was _eo ipso_ Supra-human too.
"Science is unable to account for a lily of the valley; and yet shall
Science be able to reconstruct Jesus?
"I should have shrunk from the task of reconstructing, in the manner of
men of Science, my Phrygian slave.
"One can re-recreate, as it were, many of the phenomena of Personality,
but not by the methods of Science. Personalities belong to the
Humanities, whose methods are totally different from those of Science
proper.
"It was said of me that in my mortal time I brought Philosophy from
Heaven to Earth. I wish, O Zeus, you would allow me to mix again with
the people in order to raise their Philosophy from Earth to Heaven."
* * * * *
When Socrates had finished, a deep silence fell over the Assembly.
In the divine face of Zeus there was no movement to be noticed, and
not an encouraging word fell from his lips. Suddenly one heard a loud
laughter. Everybody turned towards the place where the laughter came
from, and felt relieved to see that Diogenes was preparing to address
the Assembly. Zeus nodded consent, and the whilom Cynic spake as
follows:
"Few things have afforded me greater pleasure than your tale, O
Socrates. Verily I believe that your renewed presence among the little
ones is much less needed than is mine. I am the only man that could set
right the wrenched religious fibres of these mannikins and womenfolk.
But for my respect for you and the Assembly, I should have burst into
an unseemly laughter while you were talking of their New Religion,
which is but a resurrection-pie less the resurrection.
"To talk to them seriously about the incapacity of any physical
Science or its methods to cope with the problems of Religion is to
waste precious time. Let them have their Evolution, Convolution, or
Devolution, by all means. The more they welter in it, the more my
pupils on earth have a welcome chance of success. The official clergy
think wonders of their cleverness in trying to make Religion into a
Centaur, half man, half horse, or half Science and half Belief. While
they are at it, my pupils, infinitely cleverer than all the clergy,
make glorious headway in all directions.
"Is it not side-splitting to note how these clergymen are unable to see
that the more people learn of Science proper; the more they accustom
their minds to the dry biscuits of scientific methods; the more they
will inwardly long for the drinks of Mysticism?
"The Roman clergy, trained by two thousand years, knows all that but
too well.
"Your plain soul, your hard-working, scientifically untutored peasant
or small _bourgeois_ is quite satisfied with a little, hearty Belief,
and is indifferent to Mysticism and religious Extravagancies. It is
your high-strung, modern, scientifically trained mind that impatiently
craves more than sober Science can give it.
"Just look at the Europoids in the western continent. In the United
States everything is reasoned out, systematised, methodised to a
nicety. Their whole life looks like their towns: regular squares;
straight streets, named after the consecutive numbers; labelled,
docketed, built and shaped according to definite rules. In an American
town nothing surprises one, except that the people themselves do not
have each his respective number painted on his back.