"A man that could look no way but downwards, with a
muck-rake in his hand" and "did neither look up nor regard,
but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust
of the floor.... Then said Christiana, 'Oh, deliver me
from this muck-rake.'"--Bunyan.
Naturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle
that nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths
which every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as
self-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for
practical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical,
that is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and
because they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing
between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective
necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but
as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form
towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a
population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of
necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form
of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley
is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated
majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be
supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this
extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they
like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and
matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his
own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he
who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist
must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence
of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a
hearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people.
But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no
serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions
and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition,
imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure
reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate
it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive
to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to
offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and
sparkling with the show of wit and reason.
Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its
popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class
referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average
mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the
kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not
pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as
good specimens of a class which is historically rather than
philosophically interesting.
We have before us three of his most popular books: _Modern Science and
Modern Thought_ (nineteenth thousand), _Problems of the Future_
(thirteenth thousand), _Human Origins_ (twelfth thousand), to which we
shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the
responsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified.
Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental
confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste
and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed
levity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which
breaks,
At seasons, through the gilded pale,
and which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but
trample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read
such literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find
their imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute
sophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though
contemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the
philosophical value of such works.
Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1]
that he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and
ten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to
us incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after
so many years, find life without God, without immortality, without
definite meaning or assignable goal, "worth living," and that "to be
born in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for
which a man can never be sufficiently thankful." [2] [Thankful to whom?
one might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist,
and has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from
Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is
not an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which
materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition "of those digestive
organs upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly
depends." "It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive
nerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of
pessimism." [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects,
coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his
sanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in
despair: "Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live
again?" "I'm cock-sure of it," answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his
assurance is the healthiness of his liver.
Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great
genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly
collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren,
brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that
"he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three
square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed
materialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own
conclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much.
"For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably
as inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals
who enjoy the _mens sana in corpore sano_." [5] However, there are some
pessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose
intellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought
"behind the veil, behind the veil,"--to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite
line from his favourite poem. These are not only "social swells,
would-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of
light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison." "Religion, they say, is
becoming extinct.... Without a lively faith in such a personal,
ever-present deity who listens to our prayers, ... there can be, they
say, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only
support for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of
the Bible and the Divinity of Christ." "Destroy these and they think the
world will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest
sanction of morals, but ... the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &c.
[7] "To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and
categorical denial ... Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern
life." [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can
hold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the "result of
advancing civilization" and of the materialistic psychology is "a
clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every
human soul;" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or,
as he calls it, "Christian agnosticism"], shall retain the essential
spirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible
even the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may
appear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how
Mr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether
believing or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt
deeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's
soul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the
inevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and
materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a
materialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but
then it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without
thought, reflection, or aspiration, _i.e.,_ materialistically. Mr. Laing
no doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in
what he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself
everywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every
direction, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things,
so easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as
not to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to
have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual
labours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes,
eminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established
cause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone
before him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed,
he is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10]
he has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the
Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and
published the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him
with an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or
not depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He
admits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, "some
may find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own
fate." [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his
large-type platitudinous maxim, "Fear nothing, make the best of
everything." [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and
never can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are
told calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that
their misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier
posterity. This is the new gospel: _Pauperes evangelizantur_--"Good
news for the poor." [14] "Progress and not happiness" is the end we are
told to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is
never explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty
means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we
choose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or
talk to us of "oughts"?
And now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very
cheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no
God, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can
know nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our "religion,"
on a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be
able to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation,
in a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy
which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of
hereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all
authority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so
far as they seem to be of higher than human origin.
Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, "the
greatest living master of English prose" (though why his mastery of
prose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). "Such
ideas _evidently_ come from education, and are not the results either of
inherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift.... Given a being with
man's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how ...
rules of conduct ... must have been formed and fixed by successive
generations, according to the Darwinian laws." [16]
He tells us: "We may read the Athanasian Creed less, but we practise
Christian charity more in the present than in any former age." [17]
"Faith has diminished, charity increased." [18]
Of moral principles, he says: "Why do we say that ... they carry
conviction with them and prove themselves?... Still, there they are, and
being what they are ... it requires no train of reasoning or laboured
reflection to make us _feel_ that 'right is right,' and that it is
_better_ for ourselves and others to act on such precepts ... rather
than to reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings of animal
nature." [19] "It is _clearly_ our highest wisdom to follow right, not
from selfish calculation, ... but because 'right is right.' ... For
practical purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this standard got
there ... as an absolute imperative rule." [20] As to the apprehended
ill effect of agnosticism on morals, he says: "The foundations of
morals [21] are fortunately built on solid rock and not on shifting sand.
It may truly be said in a great many cases that, as individuals and
nations become more sceptical, they become more moral." [22] "_If there
is one thing more certain than another_ in the history of evolution, it
is that morals have been evolved by the same laws as regulate the
development of species." [23]
These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very
clearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here,
as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks
in any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries
to fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with "it is clear,"
"it is evident," "it is certain."
To say that "right is right," sounds very oracular; but it either means
that "right" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on
evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or
an illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future
pleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of
what men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles "carry
conviction with them, and prove themselves" _(i.e._, are self-evident),
unless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular
to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the
consequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which
is to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could
have spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we "feel" rightness,
or that "right is right"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of
certain actions--and with same breath, that "it is _better_ for
ourselves and others to act on these rules," where he jumps off to
utilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to "obey the selfish
impulses of our animal nature"--a strange prohibition for one who sees
in us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to
withstand its impulses. Then it is "clearly our highest wisdom to follow
right"--an appeal to prudential motives--"not from any selfish
calculations"--a repudiation of prudential motives--"but because 'right
is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition
to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it
matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was
there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men
that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that
they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than
divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the
"rightness of right"?
As long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the
masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these
new theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably
produce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with
open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the
majority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old
belief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the
Divine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either
never had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his
compass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of
religion and of everything else, making "right" rest on "right," he
assumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of
experience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of
the semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his
volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on
self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous
platitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all
that is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated
from its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and
punishes.[25] We are "to act strenuously in that direction which, after
_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious
men call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result," and
all this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is "to
leave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my
individual unit of existence." [26]
And here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr.
Laing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become
such an active propagandist of agnosticism. We are told[27] that the
enlightened should be "liberal and tolerant towards traditional opinions
and traditional practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution to
bring about _gradually_ changes of form," &c.; that the influence of the
clergy is "on the whole exerted for good," and it is frankly
acknowledged that Christianity has been a potent factor in the evolution
of modern civilization. It has, however, nearly run its course, and the
old order must give place to the new, _i.e._, to agnosticism. But even
allowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not ask, that the speculative
side of the new religion is fully defined and worked out, and ready to
displace the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is so vague
that he writes: "I think the time is come when the intellectual victory
of agnosticism is so far assured, that it behoves thinking men to _begin
to consider_ what practical results are likely to follow from it." [28]
In the face of this confession we find Mr. Laing industriously
addressing himself to "those who lack time and opportunity for
studying," [29] to the "minds of my younger readers, and of the working
classes who are striving after culture," [30] "to what may be called the
semi-scientific readers, ... who have already acquired some elementary
ideas about science," "to the millions;" [31] and endeavouring by all
means in his power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in that
religion which alone provides for them a definite code of morality
strengthened by apparent sanctions of the highest order, and venerable
at least by its antiquity and universality. [32] And while he is thus
busily pulling down the old scaffolding, he is calmly _beginning_ to
consider the practical results. This is his method of "leaving the world
a little better than he found it." He professes to understand and
appreciate "In Memoriam." Has he ever reflected on the lines: "O thou
that after toil and storm," [33] when the practical conclusion is--
Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse
A life that leads melodious days.
Her faith through form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good;
O sacred be the flesh and blood,
To which she links a truth divine.
On his own principles he is convicted of being a lover of mischief. No,
one is sorely tempted to think that these men are well aware that the
moral sense which sound philosophy and Christian faith have developed,
is still strong in the minds and deeper conscience of the
English-speaking races, and that were they to present materialism in all
its loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they would be hissed off the
stage. And so they dress it up in the clothes of the old religion just
for the present, with many a quiet wink between themselves at the
expense of the "semi-scientific" reader.
We have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter incapacity for anything
like philosophy, except so far as that term can be applied to a power of
raking together, selecting, and piling up into "a popular shape" the
scraps of information which favour the view whose correctness he was
convinced of ere he began. A few further remarks may justify this
somewhat severe estimate. After stating that in the solution of life and
soul problems, science stops short at germs and nucleated cells, he
proceeds with the usual tirade against metaphysics: "Take Descartes'
fundamental axiom: _Cogito ergo sum_.... Is it really an axiom?... If
the fact that I am conscious of thinking proves the fact that I exist,
is the converse true that whatever does not think does not exist?...
Does a child only begin to exist when it begins to think? If _Cogito
ergo sum_ is an institution to which we can trust, why is not _Non
cogito ergo non sum?_" [34] Here is a man posing before the gaping
millions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who thinks that the
proposition, "every cow is a quadruped," is disproved by the evident
falsehood of, "what is not a cow is not a quadruped," which he calls
"the converse." He sums up magnificently by saying: "These are questions
to which no metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can return the
semblance of an answer;" giving the impression of a life devoted to a
deep and exhaustive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing here
surely is addressing his "younger readers."
He tells us elsewhere [35] that, "when analyzed by science, spiritualism
leads straight to materialism;" free-will "can be annihilated by the
simple mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer stuck on a white
wall;" that if "Smith falls into a trance and believes himself to be
Jones, he really is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him while
the trance lasts.... I often ask myself the question, If he died during
one of these trances, which would he be, Smith or Jones? and I confess
it takes some one wiser than I am to answer it." Without pretending to
be wiser than Mr. Laing, we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us
to suggest that if Smith dies in a trance _believing_ himself to be
Jones, he is under a delusion, and that he really is Smith. Else it
would be very awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes himself to
be Smith. Mr. Laing would have to break it gently to Jones, that, "in
fact, my dear sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfortunately
died before returning it; and as to whether you are yourself or Smith,
as to whether you are alive or dead, 'I confess it takes some one wiser
than I am to decide.'" That a man's own name, own surroundings, own
antecedents, are all objects of his thought, and distinguished from the
_self, ego,_ or _subject_ which contemplates them, has never suggested
itself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith may mistake every one of these,
yet the term "I" necessarily and invariably means the same for him, the
one central, constant unity to which every _non-ego_ is opposed. And
this from a man who elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant.
"Again what can be said of love and hate if under given circumstances
they can be transformed into one another by a magnet?" What indeed? And
how is it that the gold-fish make no difference in the weight of the
globe of water?
His conclusion to these inquiries is: "When Shakespeare said, 'We are
such stuff as dreams are made of,' he enumerates what has become a
scientific fact. The 'stuff' is in all cases the same--vibratory motions
of nerve particles." [36] Thus knowledge, self-consciousness,
free-choice, is as much a function of matter as fermentation, or
crystallisation--a mode of motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps
transformable therewith.
Recapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. 188, he adds a new
difficulty which ought to make him pause in his wild career. "What is
the value of the evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us see
the hat, but not the man who wears it; or dance half the night with an
imaginary partner? Am I 'I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing
'God save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal fashion, but
the 'Marseillaise' if some cunning hand has altered them without my
knowledge? These are questions which I cannot answer." He cannot answer
a question on which the value of his whole system of physical philosophy
depends; uncertain about his own identity, about the evidence of his
senses, he would make the latter the sole rule and measure of certitude,
and deny to man any higher faculty by which alone he can justify his
trust in his cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute
ignorance of common philosophic terminology is when he asserts that
according to theology we know the dogmas of religion by "intuition." [37]
This doctrine rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the
"Illative Sense." Surely a moment's reflection on the meaning of words,
not to speak of a slight acquaintance with the book referred to, would
have saved him from confounding two notions so sharply distinguished as
"intuition" and "inference." Again, "There can be no doubt there are men
often of great piety and excellence who have, or fancy they have, a sort
of sixth sense, or, as Cardinal Newman calls it, an 'illative sense,' by
which they see by intuition ... things unprovable or disprovable by
ordinary reason." [38] Can a man who makes such reckless travesties of a
view which he manifestly has never studied, be credited with
intellectual honesty?
Doubtless, the semi-scientific millions will be much impressed by the
wideness of Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all that he
has read, when they are told casually that "space and time are, ... to
use the phraseology of Kant, 'imperative categories;'" [39] but perhaps
to other readers it may convey nothing more than that he has heard a dim
something somewhere about Kant, about the categories, about space and
time being schemata of sense, and about the _categorical imperative._
It is only one instance of the unscrupulous recklessness which shows
itself everywhere. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension of the
Christian religion which he labours to refute. He never for a moment
questions his perfect understanding of it, and of all it has got to say
for itself. Brought up apparently among Protestants, who hold to a
verbal inspiration [40] and literal interpretation of the Scriptures,
who have no traditional or authoritative interpretation of it, he
concludes at once that his own crude, boyish conception of Christianity
is the genuine one, and that every deviation therefrom is a "climbing
down," or a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the wider views of
interpretation are as old as Christianity itself, and have always
co-existed with the narrower.
He regards the Christian idea of God as essentially anthropomorphic.
Indeed, whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he brings
forward the old difficulties which have been answered _ad nauseam_ with
an air of freshness, as though unearthed for the first time, and
therefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of straits. So, at all
events, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the
working classes.
Let us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather
denunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. "The
discoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to
retain the faith," &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are
insincere. "It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are
not true; and those, important portions." [42] This is based on two
premisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's
conclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his
baldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his
early "infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New
Testament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the
faintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt
with over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset
the antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on
a dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of
positive testimony. Here again there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has
read any elementary text-book on the authenticity of the Gospels. He is
"perfectly clear" as to the fourth Gospel being a forgery; again for
reasons which he alone has discovered. [46] Paul is the first inventor
of Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation. But the undoubted
results of modern science ... shatter to pieces the whole fabric. _It is
as certain as that_ 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not created in the
manner described in Genesis."
As regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old and New Testaments, he
assumes the same confident tone of bold assertion without feeling any
obligation to notice the solutions that have been suggested. It makes
for his purpose to represent the orthodox as suddenly struck dumb and
confounded by these amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies
everywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.: [47]
"Judas' death is _differently_ described." "Herod is introduced by
Luke and not mentioned by the others." "Jesus carried His own Cross in
one account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another. Jesus gave no
answer to Pilate, says Matthew; He explains that His Kingdom was not
of the world, says John. Mary His Mother sat _(sic)_ at the foot of
the Cross, according to St. John; it was not His Mother, but Mary the
mother of Salome _(sic)_ 'who beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark
and Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the tomb, says Matthew;
there is no mention of one by the others."
At first we thought Mr. Laing must have meant _differences_ and not
discrepancies; but the following paragraph forbade so lenient an
interpretation. "The only other mention of Mary by St. John, who
describes her as sitting _(sic)_ by the foot of the Cross, is
apocryphal, being directly contradicted by the very precise statement [48]
in the three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present on that
occasion was a different woman, the mother of Salome." Even his youngest
readers ought to open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the
omission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells strongly against its
authenticity. [49]