only believe obstinately, continuously, and in spite of persecution, in
those things which seem greatly to matter. When they no longer seem
to matter, belief falls away from them. And, broadly speaking, we have
come to see that things do not greatly matter unless they affect life
and conduct.
“The Kingdom of Heaven” is within you; and if your doctrinal test does
not produce good ethical results, you begin to doubt--not the Kingdom
of Heaven--but the doctrine on which it was made to depend.
Similarly, if a doctrine obviously lays itself open to grave abuse,
or presents strong temptation to the infirmities of human nature, you
begin to doubt whether it is so heavenly in origin as it pretends to be.
The doctrine held by some cannibal African tribe that the bride’s
mother shall provide the wedding-breakfast in her own person, is so
clearly a truckling to the prejudice against mothers-in-law--which
exists even in this country--that such a religious tenet immediately
becomes suspect, and we guess that it emanates not from the gods but
from their maker, man.
Notice, too, how the gradual displacement of miracle has been brought
about. So long as miracles appealed to the human mind as a moral and
not a licentious expedient for the Creator of the universe to indulge
in, they remained acceptable to the human understanding and were easily
believed. Their real dethronement began when it was seen that a belief
in them gave the greatest possible assistance to the cruel, grasping,
and criminal instincts of the human race--that, from the social point
of view, they opened a way for the terrorising of the weak, for fraud,
for covetousness, for murder, for theft--in a word for priest-craft in
all its worst forms.
The belief in miracle enabled Samuel, with his punitive threats of
divine vengeance, to terrorise first Eli and then Saul, and bring
Israel to such a pass under his priestly government that at no period
of that people’s early history were they more in subjection to their
enemies.
The belief in miracle enabled Elisha to cajole Elijah into the
wilderness and there murder him, persuading subsequent inquirers that
he had gone up to Heaven in a chariot of fire. Everybody believed him
except the children; and when they mocked him and told him to go and
do likewise, he threatened that bears would come and eat them. And
Scripture, as a warning to us against like conduct, tells us that they
did.
That is how miracle was played under the old dispensation; and (as
long as it could possibly be maintained) under the new also. Then, as
the bad social results of a belief in miracles became accumulatively
apparent--when carried outside the canon of Scripture into contemporary
life--then it began to dawn upon some people how bad also a belief
in them was for the mind of man in relation to the Deity. It began
to be seen that the institution of a law of nature (in conjunction
with an arbitrary suspension thereof whenever divinely convenient)
was not compatible with what men have now come to regard as “moral
conduct.” It was literally “discreditable”; for it made men disbelieve
the law of their own being. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases
out of a thousand a man was to be guided by experience, by thought,
reason, and conscience--by a belief in cause and effect. Then--in the
off case--unreason and inexperience were to descend upon him like a
thunderbolt, and either beat him to dust, or lift him, an ingenuously
amazed Ganymede to the seats of bliss.
Now, we may admit--indeed we must--that there are many mysteries and
secrets of nature which man has not yet fathomed; there may be many of
which as yet he has no suspicion. A sudden exhibition of any of those
powers and mysteries might even to-day seem “miraculous.” When in the
past some fortuitous circumstance brought them about, “miracle” was the
only explanation of them which human understanding was able to offer.
But now we are coming more and more to believe that if blind men have
suddenly received their sight it has not been by miracle but by law;
if faith has removed mountains literally, or caused the sun and the
moon to stand still, it has done so by reliance on sources which lay
hitherto untapped in the general order of things, and implicit ever
since the creative scheme was established. For if any other explanation
is to be offered, then the work of creation is discredited, and the
meaning and the moral values of those processes which we sum up in the
word “life” become cheapened, because we can no longer regard them as
a law, but only as a sort of police-regulation, arbitrary, capricious,
and provocative of misconduct, in that we are unable to depend
upon them, or to have any guarantee that they will be impartially
administered.
Miracle discredits the ordered scheme of creation; and quite as much
does it do so if you believe creation to be the work of a personal
Deity. Creation (science shows us more and more) was from its inception
a process of absolutely related causes and effects--a whole system
reared up through millions and millions of years upon a structure
involving infinite millions of lives and deaths--and the whole a
perfect sequence of causal happenings.
That is “life” as it is presented to man’s reason and understanding;
and if his reason and understanding are not to faint utterly, he must
in his search for a moral principle “find God (as the Psalmist puts
it) in the land of the living,” or not at all. For as he estimates
the moral value of things solely by that empyric sense which has been
evolved in him through a faithful recognition of the inevitable laws of
cause and effect, so must he become demoralised, if he is to be taught
that what he has regarded as inevitable can be capriciously suspended
by a power independent of those laws which life has taught him to
reverence.
Do not think, for a moment, that I am questioning the power of faith
or the power of prayer. It is a tenable proposition that they are the
most tremendous power in the world; and yet we may hold that they take
effect through the natural law alone, and have come into existence
through the courses of evolution--or, if you like to put it so--in a
faithful following of the Will which, in the act of Creation, made a
compact and kept it.
But if the compact of Creation was not kept, if that impact of spirit
upon matter (which through such vast eras and through such innumerable
phases of life worked by cause and effect) was ever tampered with so
that cause and effect were suspended, then the whole process becomes
discredited to our moral sense, and its presiding genius is discredited
also.
Are we to suppose that through the earlier millions of years, when only
the elementary forms of life were present upon this globe, cause and
effect went on unsuspended and unhindered, and that these processes,
having once been started (engendered, let us assume, by the Immanent
Will), held absolute sway over the development of life for millions and
millions of years, until a time came when humanity appeared, and the
idea of religion and a Deity entered the world; and that this process
then became subject to a dethronement? Are we to believe that then
intervention in a new form, and upon a different basis (not of cause
and effect) began to take place? If that is the proposition, then, it
seems to me, we are asked (having accepted the idea of a Creator) to
impute to Him discreditable conduct--to believe that a point came in
these causal processes which He had instituted when He could no longer
“play the game” without arbitrary interference with its rules, and
that the appearance of man upon the globe was the signal for a fatal
weakening to His character.
I have seen a clergyman cheat at croquet. He was the by-word of the
neighbourhood for that curious little weakness; but I assure you that
the spectacle of that reverend gentleman surreptitiously pushing his
ball into better position with his foot instead of depending upon the
legitimate use of his mallet, was no more ignoble a spectacle than
that which I am asked to contemplate by believers in miracle when they
present to my eyes a Deity who (upon their assertion) does similar
things.
Test upon this basis of morality the most crucial of all events in
Christian theology.
The idea of the Incarnation of God in human form as the final
and logical fulfilment of the Creative purpose and process--the
manifestation of the Creator in the created--has had for many great
thinkers a very deep attraction. But if the process which brings Him
into material being--the so-called Virgin-Birth--is not a process
implicit in Nature itself and one that only depends for its realisation
on man’s grasp of the higher law which shall make it natural and normal
to the human race--if the Virgin-Birth is miracle instead of perfectly
conditioned law revealing itself, then, surely, such a device for
bringing about the desired end is “discreditable conduct”--because
it discredits that vast system of evolution through cause and effect
which we call “life.” From such an Incarnation I am repulsed as from
something monstrous and against nature; and the doings and sayings of
a being so brought into the world are discredited by the fact of a
half-parentage not in conformity with creative law.
Now when one ventures to question the moral integrity of so fundamental
a religious doctrine, and to give definite grounds as to why adverse
judgment should be passed on it, there will not be lacking theologians
ready to turn swiftly and rend one something after this manner: “Who
are you, worm of a man, to question the operations of the Eternal mind,
or dare to sit in judgment on what God your maker thinks good?”
The answer is “I don’t. It is only your interpretation of those
operations that I question.” But on that head there is this further to
say: “By the Creative process God has given to man a reasoning mind;
and it is only by the use of the reason so given him that man can
worship his Maker.” To give man the gift of reason and then to take
from him the right fully to exercise it, is discreditable conduct.
That tendency I attribute not to the Deity but to the theologian--more
especially as I read in the Scriptures that where God had a special
revelation to make to a certain prophet who thought a prostrate
attitude the right one to assume under such circumstances, divine
correction came in these words, “Stand upon thy feet, and I will speak
to thee.” Some people seem to think that the right attitude is to stand
upon their heads.
It is told in some Early Victorian memoirs that a group of Oxford
dons were discussing together the relations of mortal man to his God,
and one postulated that the only possible attitude for man to assume
in such a connection was that of “abject submission and surrender.”
But even in that dark epoch such a doctrine was not allowed to go
unquestioned. “No, no,” protested another, “deference, not abject
submission.” And though it is a quaint example of the Oxford manner,
surely one must agree with it. Reason being man’s birthright, “Stand
upon thy feet and I will speak to thee,” is the necessary corollary.
Even if there be such a thing as divine revelation--the revelation
must be convincing to man’s reason, and not merely an attack upon his
nerves, or an appeal to his physical fears.
Similarly any form of government or of society which does not allow
reason to stand upon its feet and utter itself unashamed is a
discreditable form of discipline to impose, if reason is to be man’s
guide.
Now I do not know whether, by characterising the device of a
“miraculous” birth as discreditable to its author, I am not incurring
the penalty of imprisonment in a country which says that it permits
free thought and free speech (at all events in peace-time). A few years
ago a man was sent to prison--I think it was for three months--for
saying similar things: a man who was a professed unbeliever in
Divinity. And quite obviously the discreditable conduct in that case
was not of the man who acted honestly up to his professions, but of
this country which, professing one thing, does another. And the most
discreditable figure in the case was the Home Secretary who, though
entirely disapproving of this legal survival of religious persecution,
and with full power to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy which
has now become his perquisite, refused to move in the matter, and said
he saw no reason for doing so. His discredit was, of course, shared by
the Cabinet, by Parliament and by the Country--which (without protest
except from a few distinguished men of letters and leaders of religious
thought) allowed that savage sentence to stand on grounds so antiquated
and so inconsistent with our present national professions.
Nationally we are guilty of a good deal of discreditable conduct on
similar lines. We profess one thing, and we do another.
Our politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people,
yet often they employ the political machine which they control, for
the express purpose of evading it. A few years ago a Liberal statesman
was appointed to Cabinet-rank, and had in consequence to go to his
constituency for re-election. He belonged to the party which makes a
particular boast of its trust in the popular verdict. But in order
to make his election more safe--before his appointment became public
property--he communicated to his party agent his ministerial knowledge
of the coming event so that the date of the bye-election could be
calculated. And the agent proceeded to book up all the public halls
in the constituency over the period indicated. Then, in order that
the scandal might not become too flagrant he generously released a
proportion of his bookings to his Conservative opponent, but refused to
release any at all to his Labour opponent; and on those nicely arranged
conditions he fought his election--and got beaten.
Now that was surely discreditable conduct, for here was a statesman
who, while ostensibly appealing to the voice of the people was doing
his level best behind the scenes to deny to it a full and a free
opportunity of expression. Yet the whole political world was in so
discreditable a condition that there were actually people who thought
then--and perhaps still think to-day--that that budding politician
was unfairly and hardly treated when he was thereafter pursued from
constituency to constituency by his cheated opponent, and successfully
prevented from re-entering Parliament even to this day. Probably in
other branches of life he was an upright and honourable man, but
politics had affected him, as religion or social ambition has affected
others, and made him a discreditable witness to the faith which he
professed.
Now when you have great organisations and great institutions thus
discrediting themselves by conniving at the double-dealings of those
whom they would place or keep in authority--you cannot expect the
honestly critical observer to continue to place their judgment above
his own, or to believe (when some difficult moral problem presents
itself) that there is safety for his own soul in relying upon their
solution of it.
The sanction of the popular verdict in a community which is true to
its professions is very great and should not lightly be set aside. But
the sanction of a community or of an organisation which is false to
its professions is nil. And it is in the face of such conditions (to
which Society and religion always tend to revert so long as their claim
is to hold power on any basis of inequality or privilege) that the
individual conscience is bound to assert itself and become a resistant
irrespective of the weight of numbers against it. And so, in any State
where it can be said with truth that the average ethical standard for
individual conduct is better than the legal standard, the duty of
individual resistance to evil law begins to arise. “Bad laws,” said a
wise magistrate, “have to be broken before they can be mended.” And
to be broken with good effect they must be broken not by the criminal
classes but by the martyrs and the reformers. It is not without
significance that every great moral change in history has been brought
about by lawbreakers and by resistance to authority.
When the English Nonconformists of two or three centuries ago were
fighting governments and breaking laws, they were doing so in defence
of a determination to hold doctrines often of a ridiculous kind and
productive of a very narrow and bigoted form of religious teaching--a
form which, had it obtained the upper hand and secured a general
allegiance, might have done the State harm and not good. But, however
egregious and even pernicious their doctrine, the justice (and even
the value) of the principle for which they contended was not affected
thereby. The life of the spirit must take its chance in contact with
the life material, and Society must have faith that all true and vital
principles will (given a free field and no favour) hold their own
against whatever opponents. That is the true faith to which Society is
called to-day--but which it certainly does not follow--especially not
in war time.
We talk a great deal about liberty, democratic principle, and
government by majority; but if those ideals have any real meaning, they
mean that--given free trade in ideas and in propaganda on all ethical
and moral questions--you have got to trust your community to choose
what it thinks good. And to refuse to the general community the means
of deciding for itself by the utmost freedom of discussion, is--in
a State based on these principles--the most discreditable conduct
imaginable.
But of what worth, you may ask, is this moral sanction of a majority?
I am not myself greatly enamoured of majority rule in the sense of a
majority exercising compulsion on a minority. Compulsion by a majority
I should often think it a duty to resist. But to the testimony of a
majority that refrained from compulsion I should attach the greatest
possible weight. There you would get a public opinion which by its own
self-restraint and scrupulous moderation of conduct would be of the
highest moral value. For Society fearlessly to admit the full and open
advocacy of that which it disapproves is the finest proof I can imagine
of its moral stability, and of its faith in the social principles it
lives by.
Broadly speaking--with the exception I have already referred to--that
view is now admitted in matters of religion; you may hold and you
may advocate what religious principles you like. But you are not so
free to hold and advocate social and ethical principles. The veto of
Society has shifted, and you are far less likely to incur opprobrium
and ostracism to-day if you advocate polytheism than if you advocate
polygamy or pacifism. And the reason for this, I take to be, that the
religion of modern Society is no longer doctrinal but ethical; and so
our tendency is to inhibit new ethical teaching though we would not for
a moment countenance the inhibition of new doctrinal teaching.
That is our temptation, and I think that in the coming decade there
will be a great fight about it; we are not so prepared as we ought to
be to allow a free criticism of those social institutions on which our
ideas of moral conduct are based, even when they cover (as at present
constituted) a vast amount of double-dealing.
Take for instance this Western civilization of ours which bases its
social institutions of marriage, property, and inheritance on the
monogamic principle, but persists in moral judgments and practices
whose only possible justification is to be found in the rather
divergent theory that the male is naturally polygamous and the female
monogamous.
These two ideals, or social practices, make mutually discrediting
claims the one against the other. I am not concerned to say which I
think is right. But on one side or the other we are blinking facts, and
are behaving as though they had not a determining effect upon conduct
and character which Society ought straightforwardly to recognise.
The man who maintains that it is impossible for the male to live
happily and contentedly in faithful wedlock with one wife and then
goes and does so, commits himself by such matrimonial felicity to
discreditable conduct--discreditable to his professions, I mean. And it
is, of course, the same if his inconsistency takes him the other way
about.
There may, however, be an alternative and more honest solution to this
conflict of claims; both may contain a measure of truth. It may be true
that monogamy--or single mating--faithfully practised by man and woman
alike, is ideally by far the best solution of the sex-relations, and
the best for the State to recognise and encourage by all legitimate
means; just as vegetarianism and total abstinence may be the best
solution of our relation to food, or non-resistance of our relation
to government, or abject submission of our relation to theological
teaching. But though these may be ideals to strive for, it does not
follow that human nature is so uniformly constructed upon one model
as to justify us in making them compulsory, or in turning round and
denouncing as moral obliquity either plural mating or the eating of
meat, or the drinking of wine, or rebellion against civil authority, or
free thought in matters of religion.
If the community deliberately decides that one of these courses gives
the better social results, it is within its power to discourage the
other course, without descending to compulsion; and I am inclined to
think that this may, in the majority of cases, be done by treating the
desires and appetites of resistant minorities as taxable luxuries. If
the State finds, for instance, that alcoholism increases the work of
its magistrates and police, and diminishes the health and comfort of
home-conditions, it may quite reasonably tax beer, wine and spirits,
not merely to produce revenue but to abate a nuisance. But it would be
foolish, were it to go on to say that everybody who incurred such taxes
was guilty of moral obliquity.
In the same way, if the State wishes to discourage vegetarianism and
temperance, it will tax sugar, currants, raisins, tea, cocoa and
coffee, and will continue to tax them till it has diminished the
consumption; and incidentally it will let meat go free. But it will
not pass moral judgments--having the fear of human nature before its
eyes--on those who conscientiously bear the burden of those taxes
rather than give up what they think good for them.
I could imagine the State, in its wisdom, seeking to discourage luxury
and the accumulation of wealth into the possession of the few, by
imposing a graduated income tax of far more drastic severity than
that which is now depleting the pockets of our millionaires--but not
therefore saying that all who incurred income tax above a certain scale
were guilty of moral obliquity.
We have seen a State which required an increase of its population
setting a premium on children so as to encourage parents to produce
them; and I can imagine a State which required a diminution in the
increase of its population setting a tax on children, but not therefore
joining in the cry of the Neo-Malthusians that every married couple
who produced more than four children were guilty of a kind of moral
depravity. And further, I can imagine a State which wished to encourage
pure and unadulterated monogamy putting a graduated tax, practically
prohibitive in price, on any other course of conduct productive of
second or third establishments. But I do not see why the State, as
State, should concern itself further, or why Society should concern
itself more deeply about sexual than it does about commercial and trade
relations, wherein it allows far more grievous defections from the
ideal of human charity to exist.