RELIGION.
Two facts relating to the history of religious belief stand out with
clearness and prominence in the past. The first is, that man's belief in
his relation toward and responsibility to a Supreme Being has been one of
the most important and influential factors in guiding his conduct, and
leading him on and up in the pathways of civilization, since his history
began. Indeed, it has been the foundation on which governments and
societies have been built up, and the relations and obligations of man
toward man have been established.
The other, which is no less clear and important, is, that this belief has
been made an instrument, in the hands of designing men, of vast suffering
to thousands of the human race, and its history, under the influence of
fanaticism, has been too often written in suffering. The most gigantic
wars have been instituted, and the most cruel wrongs have been
perpetrated; the advancement of science and liberty has been retarded, in
too many instances, by those claiming to be the ministers of religion.
Perhaps it is not too much to allow that some of the most bigoted
cruelties which have ever disgraced the human race have been done in the
name and under the garb of religion.
These things, however, have not resulted directly from the character of
religious influence, but rather from an absence of such influence upon the
conduct of men; and in some cases from the darkness of misconceptions and
only partly realized truths.
If, then, religious belief has exerted so powerful an influence for good,
and indirectly for ill, on human character and conduct while in health, we
are prepared to appreciate the fact that, when weakened by the influence
of disease, it still manifests itself, and that, in some cases at least,
the mind is tinged with morbid views concerning it. When the brain is
under the influence of disease, or when the will-power is much impaired,
thought runs in channels long used, or where deepest impressions have been
made during some former period of life, and hence it would be expected
that the disordered mind, in some cases, would dwell more or less
continually on such a subject as religious experience or a lack of it; and
accordingly, we find in most asylums patients whose thoughts are occupied
more especially on their failures in the past in relation to religious
obligation and conduct.
In my view, however, it would be a mistake to conclude in these or other
cases, that the insanity has been in any wise occasioned by any form of
religious belief, or by the absence of it, unless in consequence, the
individual has been more ready to violate the laws of health by courses of
conduct which he would have been hindered from had he been under the
restraint of such belief. That these religious sentiments have become
excessive is a result of the disease of brain, and has no relation to
_cause_; and, if the mind did not dwell upon this subject with a morbid
anxiety and intensity, it would be sure to do so on some other. The fact
that it happens to be upon religion, rather than on some other subject, is
a mere accident, or rather is probably due to the past experience of the
individual, or lack of it in this respect.
The truth is, that religious ideas and beliefs are innate in man. We find
them in some form or other among all tribes and races, from the lowest
South Sea Islander up to the representative types of the race; all alike
realize, imperfectly it may be, and yet distinctly, that they are both
feeble and ignorant, in the midst of the infinite variety and extent of
the universe about them, and they instinctively look, in their feebleness,
toward a Power above and superior to them, as naturally as the child looks
to the parent for support and protection.
There is a law operative among all creatures, that every instinct of the
being has something answering to it from without, toward which it turns in
its periods of need and helplessness. The breast of the mother answers to
the instinctive action of the hungry infant; the strength of parents to
the feeble clinging of the child; the atmosphere to the outstretched
moving wing of the bird; the water to the waving fin of the newly hatched
fish; and these instincts would not exist except for the answering reality
outside and about them, which calls them into activity.
So it must ever be, as to religious belief in the human race. Man realizes
at times, and will always continue to do so, that he is a very helpless
being in the midst of a stupendous system, a relentless on-going of
nature, silent as the tomb and terrible as fate, and from which there come
to him no voices of assurance and no gleams of hope. It cannot otherwise
be, than that he should feel, even in the fulness of his strength and the
highest realization of his powers, that he stands as on a grain of sand
only; that the longest ranges of his vision are soon enveloped in
darkness; that his knowledge is as ignorance when compared with that
wisdom which is manifested by the greatness of worlds which look down upon
him from the depths of space. He must always realize how feeble are his
highest conceptions or imaginations, when he tries to push them out among
the systems of worlds which are so much larger and grander than his own,
or when he undertakes to change or regulate a movement or operation of
nature.
This being so, it must be that man will, in the future as in the past,
look toward and seek help from some Power above and beyond himself. The
instinct is and must be as true to the reality as is that of the hungry
child when it turns to its mother, or that of the fish which leads it to
move when in the water; and, as the water answers to the instinct of the
fish, as the breast of the mother to the calling of the child, and the
atmosphere to the wing of the bird, so, too, must there exist a Being
responsive to that instinct which leads man to pray and trust.
That this quality or faculty of his nature has been unwisely used, that it
has been greatly abused; that it has been mis-educated, and often
mis-directed, and too often turned into an instrument for inflicting
suffering and ill, history, alas! makes only too clear; but so have other
faculties of man's mind, and so will they continue to be, except they are
trained and educated toward higher and better purposes; and the problem in
reference to religious belief is, not how to ignore or blot it out, or
ridicule it as a monument of superstitious belief, or explain it away,
but rather how to so educate and strengthen it, that it shall conduce
toward endurance and stability of the brain, and thus render it better
able to bear up under the strain, labors, and harassing disappointments of
life. It appears to me that religious belief may be made one of the most
potent of agencies in this direction, and the following suggestions would
seem to strengthen this view.
First, the laws of health and those of religion go hand in hand; the two
fundamentally agree. There exists a broad basis in the very nature of
man's system, on which to build up religious belief and practice.
Temperance, honesty, obedience to parents, truthfulness, chastity,
recognition of sacred times, and brotherly kindness are no less in
accordance with the laws of bodily and mental health, than they are with
the laws and ordinances of the Christian religion, and when man sins
against one he does also against the other. The two are in harmony with
the constitution of his system, and their observance can conduce only
toward his highest health and consequent happiness. On the other hand, a
failure in their observance, or intemperance, licentiousness, and
dishonesty, no less surely war against the nature of his mental
constitution, and tend toward ill-health.
Again, a religious belief and practice conduce largely toward sustaining
the mind in the experience of suffering and misfortune, and thus are
indirectly of very essential service toward securing and preserving
integrity of mental action.
Account for the fact as we may, the conditions of society are sadly out of
gear. The vast majority of the human race now are, always have been, and
are always likely to be, in a condition largely of dependence. The most
sanguine optimist must admit that long ages will pass, ere that time shall
come when the superior in physical and mental ability shall not use that
superiority for his own advantage, as against that of his less-favored
brother. In the later phases of civilization, this has passed somewhat
from the manifestation of muscular force, but it has only gone over into
that of mental force. Brain now rules where formerly muscle did; and the
man of superior brain, to-day, under the forms and protection of law, and
by virtue of his intelligence, rules over others, and secures his
purposes, as surely as formerly the man of greater physical strength did.
So long as such conditions continue, so long will ignorance, disease, and
misery exist, and consequently there will exist in the human system needs
of the consolation and hope which can come to man only from the teachings
of religion. And he will not only require the teachings of religion by
which to be guided and its admonitions to influence, but also such hopes
and anticipations as it alone can offer as to a higher and better
condition of existence hereafter. The expectation that, some time in the
ages of the world, some of those who are to come after him may possibly be
in a more favored condition of existence on earth, will afford too little
comfort to him in his ofttimes-condition of suffering and ignorance. If
the present is to end all, and there may be no to-morrow for him in which
he may hope for some adjustment and anticipate a higher plane of
existence, then the darkness and mystery of life itself become profoundly
inexplicable. But the expectation of a condition of existence hereafter,
wherein he shall be released from the companions of disease and want,
which now so often haunt his every year of life, will stimulate hope, and
consequently tend toward health of mind.
Again, man requires that which religion alone can bring to him to satisfy
the aspirations of his higher nature. The press and throng of daily life,
in its many-sided avocations, satisfy only as to material things and for a
brief present. Science, in its numerous phases and advancing strides, has
done something, and there can be no doubt will in the future do still
more, for man's happiness and material gain; but these are not all, nor
sufficient for his greatest needs. They deal only with things observable
and physical.
Science unfolds some of the mysterious processes which are constantly
going on in man's system; it demonstrates or photographs for the eye the
approximate structure of nerve-cells or globules of blood; it has traced
out some of the mysterious mechanism of cerebration, and delineated with
more or less exactitude some of the great chemical activities which are
forever going on in organic bodies. It has gone farther, and revealed some
of the hitherto wonderful mysteries in the earth and in the worlds above.
But, after all, its sphere is circumscribed, and mystery still surrounds
us with an impassable wall. The greatest and wisest of its votaries have
at last to confess with confusion of face that they have arrived only on
the brink of an ocean which is infinite--that they know but little.
Science is good and its study ennobling, but it does not suffice for man's
highest aspirations, nor for the development of his moral nature. It has
never explained the mystery of a single act of his will, and can never
ascend into the region of the spiritual. Man may press onward and upward
in its paths never so far, and there still remains the infinite beyond.
His imaginations may invade the furthest circle of planetary motion, and
yet we know there remain system after system of worlds, and suns shining
with ineffable light, still beyond. His questions are never answered; his
longings are never satisfied, and never can be until they reach The
Infinite One--the object of his worship,--the Source of light and all
knowledge.
His questions have ever been, whence am I? and whither do I go? and it can
never satisfy his aspirations, to reply that he is from the ape, and goes
to the ground, and that this ends all. There still remains to him a
longing for immortality; a craving for something above and beyond what he
now sees and knows, and only in the hope of this something hereafter, does
he have a realization of his highest possibilities.
I believe that thus far in man's experience he has been the loser, not by
too much religion, but rather by his unbelief and misconceptions as to its
true nature and the extent of its obligations. The plan should therefore
be, for a broader, higher, and more pervading religious influence, which
can come only from an intelligence educated as to his relations toward and
responsibility to God, and his fellow-men. As the tendency of the laws of
health and religion are in the same direction, it is not easy to
understand how a religious belief, or the influences which legitimately
flow from it, can be otherwise than for the highest interests of society,
and the mental health of its individual members.