It is alike interesting and satisfactory to reflect that practical
morality in civilized life is much the same for all earnest men,
however they differ in their theories as to the origin of moral ideas
and the kind of motives and sanctions to be insisted on for right
action. It is true that the theologians and supernaturalists have
erected their scaffolding around the building of social and human
morality, vowing that it will not stand without. Yet it remains steady
when the scaffolding is warped by the winds of doctrine or uprooted
by advancing knowledge. The spirit that has built it is free from the
perverted enthusiasms which crusade against freedom, put thought in
fetters, and sanctify persecution. It lends no support to the other
spirit that would dominate minds and consciences by formulæ that lie
outside the court of reason. These things are of clericalism, and it
was clericalism to which Huxley ever found himself in opposition, for
it "raises obstacles to scientific ways of thinking, which are even
more important than scientific discoveries." But all associations for
promoting that sympathy which is at the foundation of human society
need not be infected with clericalism. If such a step were otherwise
expedient, even the State might do something towards that end
indirectly:--
I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which
should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week
by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of
abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before
men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a
place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily
cares should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the
higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so
few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should
have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he
covets compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if
such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it.
But, while sympathy is the basis of society and enthusiasm the
greatest motive power of humanity, there remains something more to
be considered. The man who could appreciate the value of the personal
consolations brought by the Bible-woman to the poor and down-trodden,
and the infinitely comfortable assurance of the mystic, firm as
hypnotic conviction, that he is the direct associate and instrument of
the Almighty, whether submissive or arrogant, from Stephen to the Bâb,
from Cromwell and Gordon to Bismarck and his Imperial associates,
such a man might well say: "I wish I could be so magnificently
self-confident, so untroubled by doubt. But I can't, for I have to
ask: Is it true?; and I find that these persons base themselves upon
very questionable grounds."
True, that in regard to the place of good and evil in this world the
best theological teachers--
substantially recognize these realities of things, however
strange the forms in which they clothe their conceptions. The
doctrines of predestination, of original sin, of the innate
depravity of man and the evil fate of the greater part of the
race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the essential
vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgus subordinate to
a benevolent Almighty, who has only lately revealed himself,
faulty as they are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth
than the "liberal" popular illusions that babies are all born
good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible
for their failure to remain so; that it is given to everybody
to reach the ethical ideal if he will only try; that all
partial evil is universal good, and other optimistic figments,
such as that which represents "Providence" under the guise of
a paternal philanthropist, and bids us believe that everything
will come right (according to our notions) at last.
...I am a very strong believer in the punishment of certain
kinds of actions, not only in the present, but in all the
future a man can have, be it long or short. Therefore in hell,
for I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right
and wrong (and I am not sure that any others deserve such
punishment) have now and then "descended into hell" and
stopped there quite long enough to know what infinite
punishment means. And if a genuine, not merely subjective,
immortality awaits us, I conceive that, without some
such change as that depicted in the fifteenth chapter of
_Corinthians_, immortality must be eternal misery. The fate of
Swift's Struldbrugs seems to me not more horrible than that of
a mind imprisoned for ever within the _flammantia moenia_ of
inextinguishable memories.
Such were the shapes into which the Christian theologians had
fashioned a number of moral truths when they annexed the house of
human morality. But what is the basis of certitude on which these
interpretations rest? If Adam was not an historical character, if the
story of the Fall be whittled down into a "type" which is typical of
no underlying reality, the basis of Pauline theology is shaken, and
practical deductions drawn from it are shaken also. In fact, "the
Demonology of Christianity shows that its founders knew no more
about the spiritual world than anybody else, and Newman's doctrine
of 'Development' is true to an extent of which the Cardinal did
not dream." And as to the argument that the successful spread of
Christianity attests the truth of the New Testament story, he replied
to his questioner with the general propositions:--
1. The Church founded by Jesus has _not_ made its way; has
_not_ permeated the world; but _did_ become extinct in the
country of its birth--as Nazarenism and Ebionism.
2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the
State in the fourth century had no more to do with the Church
founded by Jesus than Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is
Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much
of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under
new or old names.
3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with
more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues
had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"
and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity which was
merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the
Messiah.
4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies,
but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They
hung together for all purposes; the mob hated them as it
now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more
frugal, more industrious, and led better lives than their
neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.
If these things are true--and I appeal to your knowledge of
history that they are so--what has the success of Christianity
to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?
Furthermore, behind all the theological developments of the Church
lies the whole question of Theism, and "the philosophical difficulties
of Theism now are neither greater nor less than they have been ever
since Theism was invented."