CREED AND INSTINCT.
I had six years of that life in India. I passed six years living in a
solitary bungalow miles away from any other European, meeting them but
occasionally, six years with practically no intercourse at all with the
natives. For the jungle people who lived in the hills were few, and
savage, and shy; and besides these, there were only a few Hindu or
Mahommedan shop-keepers in the main bazaar, and the great crowd of
coolie-folk who cultivate the estates. It was not a life in which it was
possible to learn much of any people. Solitary planters living unnatural
lives in isolated bungalows do not usually offer much of interest to an
observer. The wild tribes were mere savages. The coolies came in gangs
and worked for a few months and went home. It was a life of almost
complete solitude, a life where for days and weeks perhaps, except for
a few orders in the native tongues to headmen of gangs, or a short
discussion about the work, no word was spoken. It was, may be, a time
for reflection and thought, for reading and meditation, for such a
search as was made. But it was no life for observation, for collection
of facts, for seeing and understanding. Even had one tried to know the
coolies or the jungle people, it had been impossible; for they too have
the inaccessability of the Indian, and are not to be approached too
near.
But after these six years there came a change. Of the reasons, the
methods of that change there is no necessity to write. It was a great
change. From a country of mountains to a great plain, from forests to
vast open spaces, widely cultivated; from a life of stagnation to a life
full of the excitement of war and danger, from a life of books and
dreams to a life of acts almost without books; from a people sulky and
savage and unapproachable to a nation of the widest hospitality, where
caste was unknown, where the women were free, a people with whom
intimacy was not only easy but very pleasant; and, finally, from the
life of a private person pursuing private ends to the working life of an
official, where responsibility was piled on responsibility, and the
necessity of knowing the language and the people was obvious if they
were to be discharged even decently. Yet still it was a life of
solitude. True, in the cold weather there were columns and expeditions
made with troops, when there was pleasant companionship of my own
people. But there were great stretches of solitude, months and months
together, with no Englishman, and especially no Englishwoman, near. For
four years I saw never an English girl or woman. And there were no
books. What few I had were burnt one night with all my possessions, and
thereafter I had hardly any. They were years of hardship, of scanty
lodging, little better than the natives, ill-cooked, unvaried food, a
life that had in it none of the delights of civilisation. And yet I can
look back to it with pleasure. For there were always the people to talk
to, the people to study, to try and understand, their religion to
observe and try to understand.
I have written in "The Soul of a People" about that religion, of the
things I learned about it, of what it taught me. I tried to understand
it not from without but from within, to see it as they saw it, not to
criticise but to believe. If I am to credit my reviewers I have done
this, for the thoughts in the book are all considered to be my own also.
That may not be so, and yet I may have learnt much that I could only
have learnt by adopting the attitude I did. It is possible to understand
if not always to accept, and out of understanding to reach something
needful. A critic can never understand; he destroys but does not create.
So I learnt many things. I learnt among others these.
That the religion of the Burman is a religion of his heart, never of his
head. It is spontaneous, as much as the forest on the hillside. He has
in his heart many instincts, that have come there who knows how, and out
of these he has made his faith. What that faith is I have told in my
first book. It is not pure Buddhism. But because Buddhism has come
nearest to what his heart tells him is true, because its tenets appeal
to him as do none others, because they explain the facts he feels,
therefore he professes the faith of the Buddha and calls himself a
Buddhist. That is what I learnt to be sure of. And what I heard from
others, what I read in many books I learned absolutely to disbelieve. I
was told, for instance, that a Burman villager far away in the hills
thought he could remember his former lives _because_ the doctrine of
the transmigration of souls had been introduced by Buddhist monks. But
I, looking into his heart, was sure that the villager was a Buddhist
because the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration resembled the instinct
and knowledge of his own soul. It is not the same. The Buddhist faith
recognises no ego. The Burman does. But in some sort or other he could
fit the imported theory to his facts, and he therefore was a Buddhist.
Communities of Christians and Mahommedans, Jews and Hindus, have lived
among the Burmans for hundreds of years; there have been no converts to
any of these faiths. Burma now is full of Christian missions and there
are converts--a few--but never, I believe, pure Burmans; they have
always some other blood in their veins, usually Mahommedan. And why?
Because Buddhism accords with the instincts of the Burman and no other
faiths do.
Yet pure Buddhism knows no prayer, and the Burman prays. Why? Ah! again
it is the instinct of the heart. He wants to pray, and pray he will, let
his adopted faith say what it will.
But on the whole the beliefs of his heart are nearer akin to the
theories of Buddhism than the theories of any other faith, and therefore
he is a Buddhist. That was one thing I learnt, that religious systems
are one thing and a man's religion another. The former proceeds from the
latter and never the reverse, and men profess creeds because the creeds
agree more or less with their religious feelings; they do not have
religious feelings because they have adopted a creed, whatever that
creed may be.
I had at last come down from creeds, which are theories, to religions,
which are feelings and instincts; I had left books, which are of the
intellect, and come to the hearts of men.
From these facts was born a large distrust. I had learnt what the
Burman's faith was. I learnt that his beliefs came from his heart, were
innate, that they agreed only partially with his creed. I found that so
much stronger were they that where possible the observance of the faith
had been altered to suit him, that where the rigidity of the creed
forbade, he simply put the creed aside--as with prayer. I found also
that to begin with the theory of Buddhism and reason down landed me
nowhere, but to begin with the Burman and reason up explained everything
that at first I could not understand.
Clearly the way to arrive at things was to begin with facts. What were
the Burman's instincts, not only as referred to religion; but generally?
What were his peculiarities?
I found many of them. To take one as instance. The Burman has a very
strong objection to authority. There is nothing he dislikes so much, not
only as submitting to an interfering authority, but to exercising it.
Thus he has never developed any aristocracy, nor any feudal system. His
Government was of the slightest, his villages were almost entirely
self-directed. No other people in the same stage of civilisation can
show so much local freedom. He would never serve another if he could
help it. He liked freedom even if accompanied by poverty. The ideas of
obedience and of reverence for authority did not appeal to him as the
highest emotions. He dislikes interference. He will not give advice
often even if sought.
Now I said if this be one of his greatest instincts, and if my theory be
true, this instinct will be exhibited in his religion. Either Buddhism
must accept it, or I shall find that the Burman in this case ignores his
creed. So I looked, and I found that Buddhism was the very thing to
assist such a feeling. Buddhism knew no God, no one to be always
directing and interfering, no one to demand obedience and reverence.
There was only Law. Buddhism was the very ideal faith for such a man.
But in other matters it was not so. The instinct of prayer is in the
Burman as in all people, though perhaps less with him than others. The
Buddhist theory allows of no prayer. Then does the Burman not follow his
instinct? My observation told me that here the Burman ignored his creed
and satisfied his instinct despite of all. But his instinct of prayer is
slight, of dislike to authority very great; therefore he remains a
Buddhist. Had it been the other way he would probably have been a Hindu.
And so with many other things. The Burman might fairly be called a
Buddhist, not because he so dubbed himself, but because his religious
instincts were mainly in accordance more or less with the Buddhist
theory.
Further, I thought if this is true with the Burman, is it not likely to
be true of all people? I know that a creed, a religious theory, is no
guide to the belief of a people. If it were, would not all Christian
nations believe much the same, have the same ideals, the same outcome of
their beliefs? But they do not. They vary in a most extraordinary way.
Each people has its own beliefs, and no one agrees with another on more
than one or two points. And not one at all agrees with the theories they
profess. Now as every European nation has the same holy book, the same
Teacher, the same Example, how is this? Can it be explained by arguing
from the creed down? No. But may be it can by reasoning from the people
up. It may be that I shall find elsewhere what I have found here, that
creeds do not influence people, but people their creeds, and that where
the creed will not give way the people simply ignore it. Each people may
have its own instinctive beliefs from within differing from all others.
And because they require a theory to explain, and as it were codify,
these instincts, they adopt nominally some great creed, but with the
reservation that in practice they will follow that creed only where it
meets or can be made to meet their necessities, and ignore it where it
does not. That may work out. Let me study mankind to find what they
believe.
This I have tried to do, and what I have found comes in the next
chapters, but no one who has not tried knows how difficult it has been;
for I have found no one to help me, no facts hardly, except what I
myself might gather to go on. Books on religion and on folk-lore there
are in plenty. They have been of little use to me. They all begin at the
wrong end. They all assume as facts what I do not think exist at all.
They talk, for instance, of Christianity as if in practice there is now
or ever has been any such clear or definite thing. There is Roman
Catholicism of different forms, the ideas of the Latin races; there are
the many religions of the Slavs, of the Teutons, of the Anglo-Saxons, of
the Iberians, of the western Celts, all differing enormously, all
calling themselves Christian. There is the religion of the Boers, of the
Quakers, of the Abyssinians, of the Unitarians. There used to be the
Puritans, the Fifth Monarchy men, the Arians, and many another heresy.
They call themselves Christians. What are their real beliefs? Whence do
they come?
It is the same with Buddhism. There are the Burmese, Ceylon, Chinese,
Japanese, Jain, Thibetan, and many another people that call themselves
Buddhist. What are the real beliefs of these people? I have found the
Burmese beliefs; who has found the others? The answer is, no one has
even looked for them. They have started at the very end and reasoned
down; they have coloured the facts with their theories till they are
worthless.
And the religions of Greece and Rome, of Egypt, of Chaldea, of many an
ancient people, out of what instincts did these people form their
creeds?
As in tracing the Burmese religion, so in this further and wide attempt
I have had practically only my own observation of facts to go on. How
narrow one man's observation must be can quickly be judged. Some
knowledge of the Burmese, a very little of Mahommedans and Hindus, a
little of the wild tribes, and in Europe some little knowledge of my own
people and their history, of Anglicanism and Puritanism and Lutheranism,
some observation of the Latin peoples and their beliefs. Yet still,
narrow as the range is, I think my theory works out. I think that even
in my narrow circle, with my own limited knowledge and sympathies, I
have found enough to prove my case. The evidences in the next chapter
are, it is true, few, and the discussion of the subject must be greatly
condensed. Still, wherever I have been able to investigate a point I
have always found that my theory does prove true and the old theory
false. Out of my theory is explained at once the divergences of the
Latins and Teutons, why one Christian people worship the Madonna and
another not, why one has confession and another not. I have never
applied my key but the lock has turned. I have never tried to reason the
other way without coming to a full stop, and I have never met anyone
else or read any book that did not do the same.
For my belief is that religion is not a creed and does not come from
creeds. There are in men certain religious instincts, existing always,
modified from time to time by circumstances and brain developments. Out
of these instincts grows religion, and when a creed, which is a theory
of religion, comes along and agrees with the main instincts of the
people they adopt the name of the creed, they use it to codify and
organise their instincts, but they keep and develope their instincts
nevertheless, regardless of the creed. It is a fundamental error to talk
of Christianity or Buddhism. We ought to speak of Latinism, Teutonism,
Burmanism, Tartarism, Quakerism. In all essentials the Quaker is
infinitely nearer the Burman than he is to the Puritan.