which have overshadowed the world are essentially more one in virtue
of the "absolute religion," than they are different in virtue of
their principles, tendencies, practices, and forms; while in none
--if we except Judaism and Christianity--is there enough of the
"absolute religion" to keep them sweet.
These apologies, odious as they are, are necessary if the credit of
the "spiritual faculty" and the "absolute religion" is to be at
all preserved. But, unhappily, it is not a tone which can be
consistently preserved. Sometimes the religions of mankind are all
tolerable enough, from the presence of the all-consecrating element;
and sometimes, in spite of this great antiseptic, they are represented
as the rotten, putrid things they are! And then another answer, equally
empty with the former, is hinted to save the credit of the darling
oracle. Its due influence has been perverted, its just expansion
prevented, by the influence of national religions, by the
intervention of the "historical" and "traditional," by false and
pernicious education;--these things, it seems, have poisoned the
waters of spiritual life in their source, else they had gushed out
of the hidden fountains of the heart pure as crystal!
Yes, it is too plain; "Bibliolatry" and "Historical Religion," in
some shape,--Vedas, Koran, or Bible,--have been the world's bane.
Had it not been for these, I suppose, we should everywhere have
heard the invariable utterance of "spiritual religion" in the one
dialect of the heart.
It is too certain that the world has found its spiritual "Babel":
the one dialect of the heart is yet to be heard.
But I am not sure that the apologetic vein would not be wiser. For
what is this plea, but to acknowledge that man is so constituted
that the boasted "religious sentiment," the "spiritual faculty,"--if
it exist at all, and is any thing more than an ill-defined tendency,
--instead of being a glorious light which anticipates all external
revelation, and renders it superfluous, is, in fact, about the feeblest
in our nature; which everywhere and always is seduced and debauched
by the most trumpery pretensions of the "historical" and
"traditional"! It is not so with people's eyes; it is not so with
people's appetites; no parental influence or early instruction can
make men think that green is blue, or stones and chalk good for food.
Yet this glorious faculty uniformly yields,--goes into shivers in the
encounter! I, at least, will grant to Mr. Parker all he says of the
pernicious and detestable character of the infinite variety of "false
conceptions of God," and to Mr. Newman all he says of the "degraded
types" of religion; but then it was Man himself that framed all
those "false conceptions," and all those "degraded types." How came
he thus universally to triumph over that divinely implanted faculty
of spiritual discernment, which, if it exist, must be the most
admirable feature of humanity; which these writers tell us anticipates
all external truth, but which, it seems, greedily swallows all
external error? It almost universally submits to the most
contemptible pretensions of a revelation, and acknowledges that it
dares not to pronounce on that, even when false, of which, even
when true, it is to be the sole source! There never was an
"historical" religion, however contemptible, that did not make
its thousands of proselytes. Man has been easily led to embrace
the most absurd systems of mythology and superstition, and is
willing even to go to death for them.
So far from venturing to set up the claims of the internal oracle
in competition, man all but uniformly takes his religion from his
fathers (no matter what), just as he takes his property; only the
former, however worthless, he holds as infinitely the more precious.
Even when he surrenders it, he still surrenders it to some other
"historical" religion: it is to that he turns. Such men as Mr. Newman
and Mr. Parker--though every one can see that their system too has
been derived from without, that it is, in fact, nothing but a
distorted Christianity--may be numbered by units. The vast bulk of
mankind are unresisting victims of the "traditional" and
"historical"; nay, rather eagerly ask for it, and willingly submit
to it. What, then, can I infer, but either, 1st, that this vaunted
internal faculty which supersedes all necessity of an external
revelation is a delusion, and exists only as a vague and imperfect
tendency; or, 2dly, that, as Christians say, it lies in ruins, and
needs that external revelation, the possibility of which is denied;
or, 3dly, that God has somehow made a great mistake in mingling the
various elements of man's composition, and miscalculating the
overmastering power of the "historical" and "traditional "; or,
4thly, that man, having the original faculty still bright and strong,
and that brightness and strength sufficient for his guidance and
support, is more hopelessly, deliberately, and diabolically wicked,
in thus everywhere and always substituting error for truth, and
superstition for religion,--in thus giving the historical and
traditional the uniform ascendency over the moral and
spiritual,--than even the most desperate Calvinist ever ventured
to represent him! Surely he is the most detestable beast that ever
crawled on the face of the earth, and, in a new and more portentous
sense, "loves darkness rather than light." The fact is, that--so
far from having even a suspicion that an external revelation is
useless or impossible--he, as already said, greedily seeks for it,
and devours it.
Nay, so far from its being authenticated by the history, or vouched
by the consciousness of the race, this very proposition--that man
stands in no need of an external revelation--first comes to him,
and rather late too, by an external revelation; even the revelation
of such writers as Mr. Parker and Mr. Newman. The last has been a
student of theology for twenty years, and has only just arrived at
this conviction, that he needed no light, inasmuch as he had plenty
of light "within." Brilliant, surely, it must have been! I can only
say for myself, that I do not, even with such aid, find myself in any
superfluous illumination, and would gladly accept, with Plato, some
divine communication, of which, heathen as he was, he acknowledged the
necessity.
The mode of accounting for man's universal aberrations, from the
tyranny of "Bibliolatry" and superstitious and pernicious "education,"
--seeing that it is a tyranny of man's own imposing,--is exactly
like that by which some theologians seek to elude the argument
of man's depravity; it is owing, they say, to the influence of
a universally depraved education! But whence that universally
depraved education they forget to tell us. Meantime, the inquirer
is apt to put that universal proclivity in the matter of education
to that very depravity for which it is to account.
Similarly, one is apt to infer, from man's tendency to deviate into
any path of religious superstition and folly, that the spiritual
lantern he carries within casts but a feeble light upon hit path.
This plea, therefore, is utterly worthless; for if it were true,
that the influence of tradition and historic association, when
once set up, could thus darken and debauch the natural faculty,
whose specific office it was to convey, like the eye, specific
intelligence, it would not account for the first tendencies of man
to disown its authority in favor of an absurd and uniform submission
to the usurpations of tradition and priestcraft. The faculty is
universally feeble against this influence; it staggers; whether
from weakness or drunkenness little matters, except that the last
is the viler infirmity of the two. If we find a river turbid, it
is of no consequence whether it was so as it issued from its
fountain, or from pollutions which have been infused into its
current lower down,--it is a turbid river still.
On the whole, so far from admitting the principle of Mr. Newman,
that a "book-revelation" of moral and spiritual truth is unnecessary,
I should rather be disposed to infer the very contrary, from the
uncertainty, vacillation, and feebleness of man's spiritual nature.
I should be disposed to infer it, whether I look at the lessons
which experience and history teach, or those taught by my own anxious
and sincere scrutiny of my own consciousness. If it be, on the other
hand, as he says, "impossible," mankind are in a very hopeless
predicament, since it only proves that, the "spiritual insight" of
man having unhappily failed the great majority of our race, it cannot
be supplied by any external aid; that the malady, which is but too
apparent, is also as apparently without a remedy.
For myself, I must say that I find myself hopelessly at issue with
him in virtue of the above axiom, whether I receive or reject his
theory of religious truth; for, if that axiom be true, I must
reject his theory of religion,--since it is nothing but a
book-revelation to me,--issued by Mr. Newman, instead of the Bible
or the Koran. On the other hand, if that theory be true, and I accept
it, his maxim must be false, for the very same reason; since he
himself will have given me a double book-revelation,--a revelation
at once of the theory and of the genesis of religion, both of which
are in many respects absolute novelties to my consciousness.
But further; if we take the genesis of religion as described by
either of these writers, and consider the infinite corruptions to
which they both acknowledge a perverted, imperfect "development" of
the "religious sentiment" and the "spiritual faculty" has led, one
would imagine that an external communication from Heaven might be
both very possible and very useful; useful, if only by cautioning
men against those "false conceptions" which have so uniformly swamped
the "idea," and those "degraded types," into which all the various
principles of our nature have wheedled the "spiritual faculty."
Only listen to a brief specimen of the "by-path meadows" which
entice the poor soul from the direct course of its development,
and judge whether a communication from Heaven, if it were only to
the extent of a sign-post by the way-side, might not be of use!
First comes "awe." "But even in this early stage," says Mr. Newman,
"numberless deviations take place, and mark especially the rudest
Paganism. We may embrace them under the general name of Fetichism,
which here claims attention ...... But even in the midst of
enlightened science, and highly literate ages, errors fundamentally
identical with those of Fetichism may and do exist, and with the
very same results." (Soul, pp. 7, 10.) Then comes wonder: "But of
this likewise we find numerous degraded types in which the rising
religion is marred ...... Of this we have eminent instances in
the gods of Greece, and in the fairies of the German and Persian
tribes ...... Under the same head will be included the grotesque
devil-stories and other legends of the Middle Ages ...... Yet the
dreadful alternative of gross superstition is this, that the graver
view tends to cruel and horrible rites, while the fanciful and
sportive sucks out the life-blood of devout feeling." (Ibid. pp. 14-16.)
Then comes the sense of beauty: "This was strikingly illustrated in
Greek sculpture. A statue of exquisite beauty, representing some hero,
or an Apollo, because of its beauty, seemed to the Greeks a fit object
of worship ...... An opposite danger is often remarked to accompany
the use of all the fine arts as handmaids to religion; namely, that
the would-be worshipper is so absorbed in mere beauty as never to
rise into devotion." (Ibid. pp. 21, 23.) Then comes the sense of
order; but, alas! Atheism and Pantheism, and other "degrading types,"
may be begotten of it!
As I look at men thus tumbling into error along this wretched
causeway to heaven, I seem to be viewing Addison's bridge of human
life, with its broken arches, at each of which thousands are falling
through. This way to the "celestial city" ought to be called the
"Northwest Passage"; it has one, and only one, trait of your
Christian path: "there will be few that find it."
If, then, by the confession of these writers, the "false conceptions"
and the "degraded types"--the result of what are as truly "principles"
of man's nature as the supposed "spiritual faculty," only that this
last always has the worst in the conflict--have universally, and
for unknown ages, involved man in the darkest abysses of superstition,
crime, and misery, surely external revelation is any thing but
superfluous; and if impossible, so much the worse.
The same truth is even formally evinced by the self-destructive
course which both writers employ; for as the conditions of the
development of our "spiritual nature," when not complied with,
lead to all the deplorable consequences which they acknowledge,
how do they propose to rectify them? Why, by "external"
culture, proper discipline and training, judicious instruction,
by enlightening mankind,--as we may suppose they are doing by these
hopeful books of theirs! If man can do so much by his books, is
it impossible that a book from God might do something more? But
on this I will say nothing, since you tell me that you have heard
attentively the conversation I had with my friend Fellowes the other
day. I will therefore omit what I had written on this point ......
But I proceed to another, maintained by these writers, on which I
confess I am equally sceptical. If they concede (as how can they
help it?) that the "religious sentiment" and the "spiritual faculty"
have somehow left humanity involved in the most deplorable
perplexities and the most humiliating errors, they yet assure us
that there is "a good time coming,"--an auspicious "progress" in
virtue and religion, very gradual indeed, but sure and illimitable
for the race collectively! Yes, "progress," that is 'the word;
and a "progress" for the world at large, of which they speak
as certainly as if they had received, at least on that point,
that external revelation, the possibility of which they deny. A
matter of spiritual "insight" I presume none will declare it to
be, and the data are certainly far too meagre and unsatisfactory
to make it calculation. Is Saul among the prophets? Yes; but, as
usual, the truth (if it be a truth) for which they contend is, as
with other parts of their system, a plagiarism from the abjured
Bible. Now, if I must believe prophecy, I prefer the magnificent
strains of Isaiah to the sentimental prose either of Mr. Parker
or of Mr. Newman.
I must modestly doubt whether, apart from the representations of
the "books" they abjure as special "revelations," there is any
thing in the history of the world which will justly a sober-minded
man in coming to any positive conclusion as to this promised
"progress" this infidel millennium, either the one way or the
other. The chief facts, apart from such special information,
would certainly point the other way. Look at the condition of the
immense majority of the race in every age,--so far as we can gather
any thing from history,--compare it with that of the immense
majority at the present moment;--what does it tell us? Why, surely,
that, if there be a destiny of indefinite "progress" in religion
and virtue for the race collectively, the hand of the great clock
moves so immeasurably slow that it is impossible to note it. The
experience of the individual, nay, of recorded history,--if we
can say there is any such thing,--fails to trace the movement of
the index on the huge dial. If there be this progress for the race
collectively, it must be accomplished in a cycle vast as those of
the geological eras;--a deposit of a millionth of an inch of
knowledge and virtue over the whole race in fifty million years
or so! Mr. Newman is pleased to say, "Some nations sink, while others
rise; but the lower and higher levels are both generally ascending."
Has this level for the whole race been raised perceptibly within the
memory of so-called history?
Observe; I am not denying that the notion may be true: I am
literally the sceptic I profess to be: I know not--apart from special
information from a superhuman source--whether it be true or false. I
am only venturing to laugh at men, who, denying any such information,
affect to speak with any confidence on the solution of this prodigious
problem, the data for solving which I contend we have not: while those
we have, apart from the direct assurance of supposed inspiration,
more plausibly point to an opposite conclusion. The conclusion
which would more naturally suggest itself from the history of the
past would be that of perpetual advance and perpetual retrogression,
contemporaneously going on in different portions of the race,--
perpetual flux and reflux of the waves of knowledge and science
an different shores; though, alas! as to "religion and virtue;" I
fear that these, like the Mediterranean, are almost without their
tides. For a "progress" in the former,--in the race collectively.--far
more plausible arguments can be adduced than for a progress in the
latter; yet how much might be said that appears to militate even
against that. Think of the frequent and signal checks to
civilization; its transference from seat to seat; the decay of races
once celebrated for knowledge and art; the inundations of barbarism
from time to time;--these things alone might make a sober mind
pause before he predicted for the entire race a certain progress
even in art and science. Experience would at most justify a
philosopher in saying. "Perhaps, yes; perhaps no." But the argument
becomes incomparably more doubtful when we come to "religion," and
especially that particular form of it which such writers as Messrs.
Parker and Newman believe will be preeminent and universal; towards
which consummation it does not appear at present that the smallest
conceivable advance has been made; since, with the exception of that
infinitesimal party, of which they are among the chief, the immense
majority of mankind persist in rejecting the sufficiency of the
"internal" oracle, and are still found as strongly convinced as ever
both of the possibility and necessity of an "external" revelation,
and that, in some shape or other, it has been given! Nay, the facts,
so far as we have any, seem all the other way; for no sooner had men
been put approximately in possession of the pure "spiritual truth,"
which both Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker suppose to be characteristic
in larger measure of Judaism and Christianity than of any other
religion, than they busily began the work, not of improvement, but
of corruption. The Jews corrupted their pure monotheistic truths
into what these writers believe the fables, legends, miracles, and
absurd dogmas of the Old Testament: and, as if that were not enough,
proceeded to bury them in the huge absurdities of the Rabbinical
traditions; the Christians, in like manner, corrupted the yet purer
truths, which these writers affirm Christianity teaches, with what
they also affirm to be the load of myth, fiction, false history,
and monstrous doctrine, which make up nine tenths of the New
Testament: and, as if that were not enough, proceeded, just as did
the Jews, to "expand" the New Testament itself into the worse than
Rabbinical traditions of the Papacy! From approximate "spiritual
truth" to the supposed legends and false dogmas of the Pentateuch,
from the supposed legends and dogmas of the Pentateuch to the
absurdities of the Talmud;--again, from the approximate "spiritual
truth" of Christianity to the supposed legends and fanciful doctrines
of the New Testament, and from the legends and doctrines of the New
Testament to the corruptions the Papacy;--surely these are queer
proofs of a tendency to progress! A tendency to retrogradation is
rather indicated. No sooner, it appears, does man proceed to obtain
"spiritual truth" tolerably pure, as tested by such writers, than
he proceeds incontinently to adulterate it! This unhappy and uniform
tendency is also a curious comment on the impotence of the internal
spiritual oracle, as against the ascendency of the "historical"
and "traditional."
Similar arguments of doubt may be derived from other facts.
Over how many countries did primitive Christianity soon degenerate
into such odious idolatry, that even the delusions of the "false
prophet" have been considered (like the doom to "labor") as a sort
of beneficent curse in comparison! What, again, for ages, was the
history of those "Shemitic races," in which, of all "races," was
found, according to Mr. Parker, the happiest "religious organization,"
by which they discovered, earlier than other "races," the great truths
of Monotheism? One incessant bulimia for idolatry was their
master-passion for ages; while for many ages past, as has been remarked
by a countryman of Mr. Parker, their "happy religious organization" has
been in deplorable ruins.
I humbly venture, then, once again, to doubt whether any sober-minded
man, apart from "special inspiration," can affirm that he has any
grounds to utter a word about a "progress" in religion or virtue for
the race collectively. But it is easy to see where these writers
obtained the notion; they have stolen it from that Bible which as a
special revelation they have abjured.
I cannot help remarking here, that it is a most suspicious
circumstance, if there be, indeed, any universal and sufficient
"internal revelation," that these writers find every memorable advance
of what they deem religious truth in unaccountable connection either
with the happy "religious organization of one race," according to
Mr. Parker, or in equally strange connection with the records of
"two books" originating among that race; according to Mr. Newman.
"The Bible," says the latter, "is pervaded by a sentiment which is
implied everywhere, namely, the intimate sympathy of the Pure and
Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper. This is that
which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German
Pantheists, and all formalists. This is that which so often edifies
me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve
the letter of their sentences." (Phases, p. 188.)
It is unaccountably odd that the universal spiritual faculty should
act thus capriciously, and equally odd that Mr. Newman does not
perceive, that, if it were not for the "Bible," his religion would
no more have assumed the peculiar task it has, than that of Aristotle
or Cicero. Sentiments due to the still active influences of his
Christian education he imputes to the direct intuitions of spiritual
vision, just as we are apt to confound the original and acquired
perceptions of our eyesight. He is in the condition of one who
mistakes a reflected image for the object itself, or a forgotten
suggestion of another for an original idea. In the camera obscura of
his mind, he flatters himself that the colored forms there traced are
the original inscriptions on the walls, forgetful of the little
aperture which has let in the light; and not even disturbed by the
untoward phenomenon, that the ideas thus contemplated are all upside
down.