take an interest in yourself at any distance, but not in others if they
are outside the circle of your own personality. This doctrine, when
boldly expressed, seems to rest upon the very apotheosis of selfishness.
Theologians have sometimes said, in perfect consistency, that it would
be better for the whole race of man to perish in torture than that a
single sin should be committed. One would rather have thought that a man
had better be damned a thousand times over than allow of such a
catastrophe; but, however this may be, the doctrine now suggested
appears to be equally revolting, unless diluted so far as to be
meaningless. It amounts to asserting that our love of our own
infinitesimal individuality is so powerful that any matter in which we
are personally concerned has a weight altogether incommensurable with
that of any matter in which we have no concern. People who hold such a
doctrine would be bound in consistency to say that they would not cut
off their little finger to save a million of men from torture after
their own death. Every man must judge of his own state of mind; though
there is nothing on which people are more liable to make mistakes; and I
am charitable enough to hope that the actions of such men would be in
practice as different as possible from what they anticipate in theory.
But it is enough to say that experience, if it proves any thing, proves
this to be an inaccurate view of human nature. All the threats of
theologians with infinite stores of time and torture to draw upon,
failed to wean men from sins which gave them a passing gratification,
even when faith was incomparably stronger than it is now, or is likely
to be again. One reason, doubtless, is that the conscience is as much
blunted by the doctrines of repentance and absolution as it is
stimulated by the threats of hell-fire. But is it not contrary to all
common-sense to expect that the motive will retain any vital strength
when the very people who rely upon it admit that it rests on the most
shadowy of grounds? The other motive, which is supposed to be so
incomparably weaker that it cannot be used as a substitute, has yet
proved its strength in every age of the world. As our knowledge of
nature and the growth of our social development impress upon us more
strongly every day that we live the close connection in which we all
stand to each other, the intimate "solidarity" of all human interests,
it is not likely to grow weaker; a young man will break a blood-vessel
for the honor of a boat-club; a savage will allow himself to be tortured
to death for the credit of his tribe; why should it be called visionary
to believe that a civilized human being will make personal sacrifices
for the benefit of men whom he has perhaps not seen, but whose intimate
dependence upon himself he realizes at every moment of his life? May not
such a motive generate a predominant passion with men framed to act upon
it by a truly generous system of education? And is it not an insult to
our best feelings and a most audacious feat of logic, to declare on _à
priori_ grounds that such feelings must be a straw in the balance when
weighed against our own personal interest in the fate of a being whose
nature is inconceivable to us, whose existence is not certain, whose
dependence upon us is indeterminate, simply because it is said that, in
some way or other, it and we are continuous?
The real meaning, however, of this clinging to another life is doubtless
very different. It is simply an expression of the reluctance of the
human being to use the awful word "never." As the years take from us,
one by one, all that we have loved, we try to avert our gaze; we are
fain to believe that in some phantom world all will be given back to us,
and that our toys have only been laid by in the nursery upstairs. Who,
indeed, can deny that to give up these dreams involves a cruel pang?
But, then, who but the most determined optimist can deny that a cruel
pang is inevitable? Is not the promise too shadowy to give us real
satisfaction? The whole lesson of our lives is summed up in teaching us
to say "never" without needless flinching, or, in other words, in
submitting to the inevitable. The theologian bids us repent, and waste
our lives in vain regrets for the past, and in tremulous hopes that the
past may yet be the future. Science tells us--what, indeed, we scarcely
need to learn from science--that what is gone, is gone, and that the
best wisdom of life is the acceptance of accomplished facts.
"The moving Finger writes, and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wipe out a word of it."
Never repent, unless by repentance you mean drawing lessons from past
experience. Beating against the bars of fate you will only wound
yourself, and mar what yet remains to you. Grief for the past is useful
so far as it can be transmuted into renewed force for the future. The
love of those we have lost may enable us to love better those who
remain, and those who are to come. So used, it is an infinitely precious
possession, and to be cherished with all our hearts. As it leads to
vain regrets, it is at best an enervating enjoyment, and a needless
pain. The figments of theology are a consecration of our delusive
dreams; the teaching of the new faith should be the utilization of every
emotion to the bettering of the world of the future.
The ennobling element of the belief in a future life is beyond the
attack, or rather is strengthened by the aid, of science. Science, like
theology, bids us look beyond our petty personal interests, and
cultivate faculties other than the digestive. Theology aims at
stimulating the same instincts, but provides them with an object in some
shifting cloud-land of the imagination instead of the definite _terra
firma_ of this tangible earth. The imagination, bound by no external
laws, may form what rules it pleases, and may therefore lend itself to a
refined selfishness, or to dreamy sentimentalism. When we rise beyond
ourselves we are most in need of some definite guidance, and in the
greatest danger of following some delusive phantom. The process
illustrated by this case is operative throughout the whole sphere of
religious thought. The essence of theology, as popularly understood, is
the division of the universe into two utterly disparate elements. God
is conceived as a ruler external to the ordinary series of phenomena,
but intervening at more or less frequent intervals; between the natural
and the supernatural, the human and the divine element, there can be no
proper comparison. Man must be vile that God may be exalted; reason must
be folly when put beside revelation; the force of man must be weakness
when it encounters Providence. Wherever, in short, we recognize the
Divine hand, we can but prostrate ourselves in humble adoration. In
franker times, when people meant what they said, this creed was followed
to its logical results. The dogmas of the literal inspiration of the
Scripture, or of the infallibility of the Church, recognized the
presence of a flawless perfection in the midst of utter weakness. The
corruption of human nature, the irresistible power of Divine grace, the
magical efficacy of the Sacraments are corollaries from the same theory.
In the phraseology popular with a modern school we are told that the
essence of Christianity is the belief in the fatherhood of God. That
doctrine is intelligible and may be beautiful so long as we retain a
sufficient degree of anthropomorphism. But as our conceptions of the
universe and, therefore, of its Ruler are elevated, we too often feel
that the use of the word "father" does not prevent the weight of His
hand from crushing us. If noble souls can convert even suffering into
useful discipline, it is but a flimsy optimism which covers all
suffering by the name of paternal chastisement. The universe partitioned
between infinite power and infinite weakness becomes a hopeless chaos;
and when we proceed farther, and try to identify the Divine and the
human elements amidst this intricate blending of good and evil we are in
danger of vital error at every step. What, in fact, can be more
disastrous, and yet more inevitable, than to mistake our corrupt
instincts for the voice of God, or, on the other hand, to condemn the
Divine intimations as sinful? How can we avoid at every instant
committing the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the ineffable
Holiness? And if, indeed, the distinction be groundless, are we not of
necessity dislocating our conceptions of the universe, and hopelessly
perplexing our sense of duty?
Take, for instance, one common topic which is typical of the general
process. Divines never tire of holding up to us the example of Christ.
If Christ were indeed a man like ourselves, his example may be fairly
quoted. We willingly place him in the very front rank of the heroes who
have died for the good of our race. But if Christ were in any true sense
God or inseparably united to God, the example disappears. We honor him
because he endured agonies and triumphed over doubts and weaknesses that
would have paralyzed a less noble soul. The agonies and the doubts and
the weakness are unintelligible on the hypothesis of an incarnate God.
Theologians escape by the old loophole of mystery, ordinary believers by
thinking of Christ as man and God alternately. We can doubtless deceive
ourselves by such juggling, but we cannot honestly escape from the
inevitable dilemma. In paying a blasphemous reverence to Christ,
theologians have either placed him beyond the reach of our sympathies,
or have lowered God to the standard of humanity. Let us, if possible,
dwell with an emotion of brotherly love on the sufferings of every
martyr in the cause of humanity, but you sever the very root of our
sympathy when you single out one as divine and raise him to the skies.
Why stand we gazing into heaven when we have but to look round to catch
the contagion of noble enthusiasm from men of our own race? The ideal
becomes meaningless when it is made supernatural.
The same perplexity meets us at every step; we are to follow Christ's
example. Be humble, it is said, as Christ was humble. Theology indeed
would prescribe annihilation rather than humiliation. Man in presence of
the Infinite is absolutely nothing. Science, according to a glib
commonplace of popular writers, agrees with theology in prescribing
humility. But that very ambiguous word has a totally different meaning
in the two cases. Science bids us recognize the inevitable limitation of
our powers, and the feebleness of any individual as compared with the
mass. We can do but little: and at every step we are dependent upon the
co-operation of countless millions of our race and an indefinite series
of past generations. We are like the coral insects, who can add but a
hair's breadth to the structure which has been raised by their
predecessors. Yet the little which we can do is something; and we will
neither degrade ourselves nor our race. As measured by an absolute
standard, man may be infinitesimal, but the absolute is beyond our
powers. Science tells us that our little individuality might be swept
out of existence without appreciable injury to the world; but it adds
that the world is built up of infinitesimal atoms, and that each must
co-operate in the general result. Theology crushes us into nothingness
by placing us in the presence of the infinite God; and then compensates
by making us divine ourselves. Man is a mere worm, but he can by
priestly magic bring God to earth; he is hopelessly ignorant, but set on
a throne and properly manipulated he becomes an infallible vice-God; he
is a helpless creature, and yet this creature can define with more than
scientific accuracy the precise nature of his inconceivable Creator; he
grovels on the ground as a miserable sinner and stands up to declare
that he is the channel of Divine inspiration; all his wisdom is
ignorance, but he has written one book of which every line is absolutely
perfect: and meanwhile that which one man singles out as the Divine
element is to another the diabolical, so strangely dim is our vision,
and so imperceptible is the difference between the Infinite and the
infinitesimal.
Or, again, we are to deny ourselves as Christ denied himself. But what
are the limits and the purpose of this self-denial? Am I to carry on an
indefinite warfare against the body, which you say that God has given
me, and to crush the physical for the sake of the spiritual element?
What is the line between the spirit which is of God, and the body which
is hopelessly corrupt? All sound reasoning prescribes a training with
the given purpose of bringing the instincts of the individual into
harmony with the interests of the whole social organism. Theology trying
to lay down an absolute law sometimes encourages the extremes of
asceticism, sometimes it inclines to antinomianism; and sometimes
sanctions the condonation of sin in consideration of acts of
humiliation.
We are to resign ourselves to God's will, say theologians, but what is
God's will? If it is the inevitable, then theology falls in with free
reason. But if God's will be, as theologians maintain, something which
we are at liberty to resist or to obey, then resignation implies our
ignoble yielding to evils which might be extirpated. Theology deifies
the force of circumstances, when our life should be a victory over
circumstances, and encourages us to repine over misfortunes, where all
repining is useless.
Christ, you say, died for us; and Butler, in the book which still
receives more praise than any other attempt at reconciling philosophy
and theology, tries to show that here, at least, the two doctrines are
in harmony. He has probably produced, in men of powerful intellects,
more atheism than he has cured; for he tries to demonstrate explicitly
what is tacitly assumed by most theologians--the injustice of God. The
doctrine may be horrible, but he says that facts prove it to be true.
His whole logic consists in simply begging the question by calling
suffering punishment. That the potter should be angry with his pots is
certainly inconceivable; but when you once attempt to trace the
supernatural in life, it undoubtedly follows that God is not only weak
with the creatures he has made, but punishes the innocent for the
guilty. Theologians may rest complacently in such a conclusion; to
unprejudiced persons, it appears to be the clearest illustration of the
futility of their theories. Free thought declines to call suffering a
punishment; but it admits and turns to account the undoubted fact, that
men are so closely connected, that every injury inflicted upon one is
inevitably propagated to others. If morality be the science of
minimizing human misery, to say that sin brings suffering, is merely to
express an identical proposition. The lesson, however, remains for us
that we should look beyond our petty, personal interests, because no
act can be merely personal. The stone which we throw spreads widening
circles to all eternity, and to realize that fact is to intensify the
sense of responsibility; but the same doctrine translated into the
theological dialect becomes shocking or "mysterious."
Finally, we are to love our brothers as Christ loved us. That, truly, is
an excellent doctrine, but translated into the theological, does it not
lose half its efficacy? Love them that are of the household is the more
natural corollary from the Christian tenets than love all mankind.
People sometimes express surprise that the mild doctrines of
Christianity should be pressed into the service of persecution. What
more natural? "We love you," says the theologian to the heathen, "but
still you are children of the devil. We love men, but the human heart is
desperately wicked. We love your souls, but we hate your bodies. We love
you as brothers; but then God, who so loved the world as to give His Son
to die for it, has left the vast majority to follow their own road to
perdition, and given to us a monopoly of truth and grace. We can only
follow His example, and adore the mysterious dispensations of
Providence."
"Ah!" replies a different school, "that is indeed a blasphemous and
hideous doctrine. We will not presume to divide the human from the
divine. God is the father of all men; His grace is confined to no sect
or creed. His revelation is made to the universal human heart as well as
to a select number of prophets and apostles. He is known in the order of
nature as well as by miracles. The body has been created by Him as well
as the soul, and all instincts are of heavenly origin and require
cultivation not extirpation."
Whether this doctrine is reconcilable with Christianity is a question
not to be discussed here. It certainly does not imply those flat
contradictions of the lessons of experience which emerge from the other
method of thought. It asks us to believe no miracles. It involves no
supernaturalism. Whatever is, is natural, and is at the same time
divine. Stated, indeed, as a bare logical formula, the doctrine seems to
elude our grasp. It is intelligible to say that Christ was divine and
Mahomet human, for the statement implies a comparison between two
different terms; but if you say that Christ and Mahomet are both of the
same class, what does it matter whether you call them both divine or
both human? Every logical statement implies an exclusion as well as
inclusion. To say that A is B is meaningless if you add that every other
conceivable letter is also B. You attempt to make everybody rich by
reckoning their property in pence instead of pounds, and the process,
though at first sight attractive, is unsatisfactory. In fact, this phase
of opinion generally slips back into the preceding. We find that
exceptions are insensibly made, and that after pronouncing nature to be
divine, it is tacitly assumed there is an indefinite region which is
somehow outside nature. Few people have the reasoning tendency
sufficiently developed to follow out this view to its logical result in
Pantheism. Yet short of that, there is no really stable resting-place.
Let us glance, however, for a moment at the ordinary application of the
doctrine. The theologian agrees with the man of science in admitting
that we are governed by unalterable laws, or, as the man of science
prefers to say, that the world shows nothing but a series of invariable
sequences and co-existences. The difference is, in other words, that the
theologian puts a legislator behind the laws, whilst the man of science
sees nothing behind them but impenetrable mystery. The difference, so
far as any practical conclusions are concerned, is obviously nothing.
The laws of Nature, you tell us, are the work of infinite goodness and
wisdom. But we are utterly unable to say what infinite goodness and
wisdom would do, except by showing what it has done. Therefore, the
ultimate appeal of the theologian, is as unequivocally to the laws as
the primary appeal of the man of science. He has made a show of going to
a higher court only to be referred back again to the original tribunal.
History, for example, shows that mankind blunders by degrees into an
improved condition and calls the process progress. Theology can give no
additional guaranty for progress, for a state of things once compatible
may, for any thing we can say, always remain compatible with infinite
wisdom and goodness. As a matter of historical fact, theology only
suggested the dogma of man's utter vileness, and all genuine theologians
are marked by their readiness to believe in deterioration instead of
progress. They look forward to a future world instead of this. But what
reason have they to believe in this future of blessedness? God's love
for His creatures? But the most prominent fact written on the whole
surface of the world is what we cannot help calling the reckless and
profuse waste of life. If every thing we see teaches us that millions of
individuals are crushed at every step by the progress of the race, and
if that process is, as it must be, compatible with infinite goodness,
why suppose that infinite goodness will act differently in future? It is
an ever-recurring but utterly fruitless sophistry which first infers God
from nature, and then pronounces God to be different from nature.
The only meaning, indeed, which can be given to the theological
statement when thus interpreted is that we should accustom ourselves to
look with reverence and love upon the universe. That love and reverence
are emotions which deserve our most strenuous efforts at cultivation;
that we should be profoundly impressed by the vast system of which we
form an infinitesimal part; that we should habitually think of ourselves
in relation to the long perspective of events which stretches far away
from us to the dim distance and toward the invisible future, are indeed
lessons which all sound reasoning tends to confirm. But when we are
invited to love and wonder at the world, as the work of God, we must
guard against the old trick of substitution which is constantly played
upon us. Once more, the God of nature is turned into the God of a part
of nature. Theology of the old stamp, so far from encouraging us to love
nature, teaches us that it is under a curse. It teaches us to look upon
the animal creation with shuddering disgust; upon the whole race of man,
outside our narrow sect, as delivered over to the devil; and upon the
laws of nature at large as a temporary mechanism, in which we have been
caught, but from which we are to anticipate a joyful deliverance. It is
science, not theology, which has changed all this; it is the atheists,
infidels, and rationalists, as they are kindly called, who have taught
us to take fresh interest in our poor fellow denizens of the world, and
not to despise them because Almighty benevolence could not be expected
to admit them to heaven; to the same teaching we owe the recognition of
the noble aspirations embodied in every form of religion, and the
destruction of the ancient monopoly of Divine influences; and it is
science again that has taught us to accommodate ourselves to the laws in
which we are placed, instead of fruitlessly struggling against them and
invoking miraculous interference to conquer them. The theology of which
I am now speaking differs, indeed, radically from the old, so radically
that one is at times surprised that the agreement, to use a common word,
should reconcile vital differences in faith. But it often tends to the
same end by a different path. It attempts to deny the existence of
evils, instead of proclaiming their ultimate destruction. Every thing
comes from a paternal hand; why struggle against it? Disease and
starvation and nakedness are, somehow or other, parts of a divine system
which is somehow or other deserving of our sincerest adoration. If
anybody who is in fact naked or sick or starving takes that phrase in
the sense that he had better submit cheerfully to evils which he cannot
help, there is little to be said against it. If the doctrine of the
Divine origin of all things is compatible with the belief that a vast
number of things are utterly hateful, that we ought to spend our whole
energy in eradicating them, and to protest against them with our latest
breath, then the doctrine is certainly innocuous. But whether there is
much use in language thus employed seems a little questionable; and, in
any case, it is clear that it really adds nothing, except words, to the
teaching of science.