_March 7, 1867._
32. I have your yesterday's letter, but must not allow myself to be
diverted from the business in hand for this once, for it is the most
important of which I have to write to you.
You must have seen long ago that the essential difference between the
political economy I am trying to teach, and the popular science, is,
that mine is based on _presumably attainable honesty_ in men, and
conceivable respect in them for the interests of others, while the
popular science founds itself wholly on their supposed constant regard
for their own, and on their honesty only so far as thereby likely to
be secured.
It becomes, therefore, for me, and for all who believe anything I say,
a great primal question on what this presumably attainable honesty is
to be based.
33. "Is it to be based on religion?" you may ask. "Are we to be
honest for fear of losing heaven if we are dishonest, or (to put it as
generously as we may) for fear of displeasing God? Or, are we to be
honest on speculation, because honesty is the best policy; and to
invest in virtue as in an undepreciable stock?"
And my answer is--not in any hesitating or diffident way (and you
know, my friend, that whatever people may say of me, I often do speak
diffidently; though, when I am diffident of things, I like to avoid
speaking of them, if it may be; but here I say with no shadow of
doubt)--your honesty is _not_ to be based either on religion or
policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on _it_. Your
honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the
lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the
night. If you ask why you are to be honest--you are, in the question
itself, dishonored. "Because you are a man," is the only answer; and
therefore I said in a former letter that to make your children
_capable of honesty_ is the beginning of education. Make them men
first, and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a
knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.
34. It is not, therefore, because I am endeavoring to lay down a
foundation of religious concrete, on which to build piers of policy,
that you so often find me quoting Bible texts in defense of this or
that principle or assertion. But the fact that such references are an
offense, as I know them to be, to many of the readers of these
political essays, is one among many others, which I would desire you
to reflect upon (whether you are yourself one of the offended or not),
as expressive of the singular position which the mind of the British
public has at present taken with respect to its worshiped Book. The
positions, honestly tenable, before I use any more of its texts, I
must try to define for you.
35. All the theories possible to theological disputants respecting the
Bible are resolvable into four, and four only.
(1.) The first is that of the illiterate modern religious world, that
every word of the book known to them as "The Bible" was dictated by
the Supreme Being, and is in every syllable of it His "Word."
This theory is of course tenable by no ordinarily well-educated
person.
(2.) The second theory is, that, although admitting verbal error, the
substance of the whole collection of books called the Bible is
absolutely true, and furnished to man by Divine inspiration of the
speakers and writers of it; and that every one who honestly and
prayerfully seeks for such truth in it as is necessary for his
salvation, will infallibly find it there.
This theory is that held by most of our good and upright clergymen,
and the better class of the professedly religious laity.
(3.) The third theory is that the group of books which we call the
Bible were neither written nor collected under any Divine guidance,
securing them from substantial error; and that they contain, like all
other human writings, false statements mixed with true, and erring
thoughts mixed with just thoughts; but that they nevertheless relate,
on the whole, faithfully, the dealings of the one God with the first
races of man, and His dealings with them in aftertime through Christ:
that they record true miracles, and bear true witness to the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
This is a theory held by many of the active leaders of modern thought.
(4.) The fourth, and last possible, theory is that the mass of
religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto
know to have been made by any of the races of men towards the
discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that they are
only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs
of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no more
authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and
histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in
common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing a
portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which human
intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able
to gather between birth and death.
This has been, for the last half-century, the theory of the soundest
scholars and thinkers of Europe.
36. There is yet indeed one farther condition of incredulity
attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful
intellect--the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense, or of
help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this form
of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving
certain emotions; though many honest and good men belong to this
insentient class.
37. The educated men, therefore, who may be seriously appealed to, in
these days, on questions of moral responsibility, as modified by
Scripture, are broadly divisible into three classes, severally holding
the last three theories above stated.
Now, whatever power a passage from the statedly authoritative portions
of the Bible may have over the mind of a person holding the fourth
theory, it will have a proportionately greater over that of persons
holding the third or the second. I, therefore, always imagine myself
speaking to the fourth class of theorists. If I can persuade or
influence _them_, I am logically sure of the others. I say
"logically," for the actual fact, strange as it may seem, is that no
persons are so little likely to submit to a passage of Scripture not
to their fancy, as those who are most positive on the subject of its
general inspiration.
38. Addressing, then, this fourth class of thinkers, I would say to
them, when asking them to enter on any subject of importance to
national morals, or conduct, "This book, which has been the accepted
guide of the moral intelligence of Europe for some fifteen hundred
years, enforces certain simple laws of human conduct which you know
have also been agreed upon, in every main point, by all the religious,
and by all the greatest profane writers, of every age and country.
This book primarily forbids pride, lasciviousness, and covetousness;
and you know that all great thinkers, in every nation of mankind,
have similarly forbidden these mortal vices. This book enjoins truth,
temperance, charity, and equity; and you know that every great
Egyptian, Greek, and Indian, enjoins these also. You know besides,
that through all the mysteries of human fate and history, this one
great law of fate is written on the walls of cities, or in their dust;
written in letters of light, and letters of blood,--that where truth,
temperance, and equity have been preserved, all strength, and peace,
and joy have been preserved also;--that where lying, lasciviousness,
and covetousness have been practised, there has followed an
infallible, and, for centuries, irrecoverable ruin. And you know,
lastly, that the observance of this common law of righteousness,
commending itself to all the pure instincts of men, and fruitful in
their temporal good, is by the religious writers of every nation, and
chiefly in this venerated Scripture of ours, connected with some
distinct hope of better life, and righteousness, to come.
39. "Let it not then offend you if, deducing principles of action
first from the laws and facts of nature, I nevertheless fortify them
also by appliance of the precepts, or suggestive and probable
teachings of this Book, of which the authority is over many around
you, more distinctly than over you, and which, confessing to be
divine, _they_, at least, can only disobey at their moral peril."
On these grounds, and in this temper, I am in the habit of appealing
to passages of Scripture in my writings on political economy; and in
this temper I will ask you to consider with me some conclusions which
appear to me derivable from that text about Miriam, which haunted me
through the jugglery; and from certain others.