injures some part of the universe. It is akin to disease and
ugliness and misery.
* * * * *
CLAUSE V
“Development” means unfolding of latent possibilities; as a bud unfolds
into a flower, or as a chicken develops from an egg.
The idea controlling this answer is that growth and development are in
accordance with the law of the universe, and that destruction and decay
are features which are only good in so far as they may be on the way to
something better; as leaf-mould assists the growth of flowers, or as
discords in their proper place conduce to, or prepare for, harmony. In
the same way conditions and practices which once were good become in
process of time corrupt; yet out of them must grow the better future.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
The law of the Universe, and the will of God, are here regarded as in
some sort synonymous terms. It is impossible properly to define such a
term as “God,” but it is permissible reverently to use the term for a
mode of regarding the Soul of the Universe as invested with what in
human beings we call personality, consciousness, and other forms of
intelligence, emotion, and will. These attributes, undoubtedly possessed
by a part, are not to be denied to the whole; however little we may be
able as yet to form a clear conception of their larger meaning.
It is quite clear that the Universe was not made by man; it must owe its
existence to some higher Power of which man has but an infinitesimal
knowledge. Some primary conception of such a Power has been
independently formed by every fraction of the human race, and is what
under various symbols has been called God.
It is sometimes asserted that God does not possess powers and faculties
and attributes which we ourselves possess. But that is preposterous: for
though we may be able to form no conception as to the particular form
our powers would take, when possessed by a being even moderately higher
in the scale of existence than ourselves; and although vastly more must
be attributed to the Reality denoted by the term “God” than we can even
begin to conceive of; yet such a term, if it is to have any meaning at
all, must at least include everything we have so far been able to
discover as existent in the Universe. It must, in fact, be the most
comprehensive term that can be employed; though for practical purposes
it may be permissible to discriminate, and exclude from its connotation,
portions such as “self,” and “the world,” and sometimes, though with
less excuse, even an abstraction like “nature”; considering these
separately from the more purely personal aspect to which attention is
directed by our ordinary use of the term God. It is convenient to
differentiate the principle of evil also, and to reserve it for separate
study.
Sometimes the totality of existence is spoken of as the “Absolute,” and
the term God is limited to the conception of a Being of infinite
Goodness and Mercy, the ultimate Impersonation of Truth and Love and
Beauty; a Being of whose attributes the highest faculties and
perceptions of man are but a dim shadow or reflexion.
In man, goodness is the path toward higher development, and a radiant
beauty is the crown and perfection of life; so the trinity of Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty, often referred to in literature, may, without
undue stretching, be considered as also equivalent to what is
represented by the words, the Way, the Truth, and the Life; they are
three aspects of what after all is one essential unity. That which is
good, in the highest sense, cannot help being both true and beautiful.
Nevertheless, for many practical purposes, these ideas must be
discriminated; and the question is occasionally forced upon our
attention whether vitality or beauty can possibly be enlisted in the
service of evil; and if so, whether it is still in itself good.
We have to learn that most good things can be misapplied, and that
though they do not in themselves cease to be good, their desecration is
especially deadly. That the corruption of the best abets the cause of
the worst, is proverbial; the prostitution of high gifts to base ends is
the saddest of spectacles.
“Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
Oratory, the power of persuasion, can thus be debased, and the passions
of the multitude may be incited by the Divine fire of eloquence.
Rhetoric and sophistry have been on this ground condemned when they were
misused for the cultivation of the art of persuasion apart from
knowledge and virtue; but almost every good gift—personal affection,
medical science, artistic genius—has every now and then been abused; and
the higher and nobler the faculty, the more sorrowful and diabolical
must be its prostitution.
It has been an ancient puzzle to consider whether the principle of
goodness is the supreme entity in the universe—a principle to which God
as well as man is subject—or whether it represents only the arbitrary
will of the Creator. Many answers have been given, but the answer from
the side of science is clear:—
No existing universe can tend on the whole towards contraction and
decay; because that would foster annihilation, and so any incipient
attempt would not have survived; consequently an actually existing and
flowing universe must on the whole cherish development, expansion,
growth: and so tend towards infinity rather than towards zero. The
problem is therefore only a variant of the general problem of existence.
Given existence, of a non-stagnant kind, and ultimate development must
be its law. Good and evil can be defined in terms of development and
decay respectively. This may be regarded as part of a revelation of the
nature of God.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
MAN PART OF THE UNIVERSE
_Q. 6. How does man know good from evil?_
_A._ His own nature, when uncorrupted by greed, is
sufficiently in harmony with the rest of the universe to
enable him to be well aware in general of what is a help or
hindrance to the guiding Spirit, of which he himself is a
real and effective portion.
* * * * *
CLAUSE VI
We are not something separate from the Universe, but a part of it: a
part of it endowed with some power of control—power to guide ourselves
and others and assist in the scheme of development—power also to go
wrong, to set ourselves contrary to the tendency of things, to delay
progress, and break ourselves in conflict with overpowering forces.
When not thus warped or misled, we fit into the general scheme, and,
like all other portions of existence, can fulfil our function and take
our due share in the general progress. We are a part of the Universe,
and the Universe is a part of God. Even we also, therefore, have a
Divine Nature and may truly be called sons and co-workers with God. The
consciousness of this constitutes our highest privilege, and likewise
our gravest responsibility. Perception of this is dawning with
increasing brightness on the human race in the light of the doctrine of
evolution. The process of evolution has no end: progress is toward an
advancing goal. At one time
“... all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God.”
We are essential and active agents in the terrestrial order of things,
analogous to the white corpuscles in the human body. The body may be
regarded as a colony of cells, some of which are living and moving on
their own account; in complete ignorance of the feelings and perceptions
of the larger whole of which they are microscopic units, towards whose
health and comfort nevertheless they unconsciously but very really
contribute; it is in fact by their activity that the health of the body
is maintained against adverse influences. So it is with the health of
the body politic, to which our wise activity is necessary and essential;
we are to be a corporate portion of the whole, effective servants of the
guiding and controlling Spirit. But in our case it is not merely
unconscious service that is called for: we are privileged not only to be
servants, but friends; not only to work, but to sympathise; to give not
only dutiful but affectionate service. This is required of the humblest,
and no more is required of the noblest:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
THE NATURE OF EVIL
_Q. 7. How comes it that evil exists?_
_A._ Evil is not an absolute thing, but has reference to a
standard of attainment. The possibility of evil is the
necessary consequence of a rise in the scale of moral
existence; just as an organism whose normal temperature is
far above “absolute zero” is necessarily liable to damaging
and deadly cold. But cold is not in itself a positive or
created thing.
* * * * *
CLAUSE VII
The term “evil” is relative: dirt, for instance, is well known to be
only matter out of place; weeds are plants flourishing where they are
not wanted; there are no weeds in botany, there are weeds in gardening;
even disease is only one organism growing at the expense of another;
ugliness is non-existent save to creatures with a sense of beauty, and
is due to unsuitable grouping. Analysed into its elements, every
particle of matter must be a miracle of law and order, and, in that
sense, of beauty.
Recent discoveries in connexion with the internal structure of an atom,
whereby the constituent particles are found to move in intricate and
ascertainable orbits—leading to a new science of atomic
astronomy—emphasise this assertion to an extent barely credible ten
years ago.
Even what can be called filth—that is to say material which, to the
casual observer, or when encountered at unsuitable times, is
disgusting—may to an investigator, or under other circumstances, be of
the highest interest; and may even arouse a sense of admiration, by
reason of manifest subservience to function.
Many social evils are due to human folly and stupidity, and will cease
when the race has risen to a standard already attained by individuals.
Excessive hunger and starvation are manifestly evils of a negative
character: they are merely a deficiency of supply: they have no business
to exist in a civilised and organised community. Famine and pestilence
can be checked by applications of science.
Pain is an awful reality, when highly developed organisms are subjected
to wounds and poison and disease. Some kinds of pain have been wickedly
inflicted by human beings on each other in the past, and other kinds may
be removed or mitigated by the progress of discovery in the future.
Physiologically the nerve processes involved are well worthy of study
and control. Premature avoidance of pain would have been dangerous to
the race, and not really helpful to the individual: but great advances
in this direction are now foreshadowed. Already surgical operations can
be conducted painlessly; and a time is foreshadowed when, through
hypnosis, excessive and useless torture can be shut off from
consciousness, by intelligence and will; somewhat as the random leakage
of an electric supply can be checked. All this will come in due time:
“The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith a whole I planned,
Youth shows but half: trust God, see all, nor be afraid.”
The contrast between good and evil can be well illustrated by the
contrast between heat and cold. Cold is only the absence of heat, and is
made at once possible and necessary by the existence of degrees of heat.
The fact that we regard excessive cold as an evil is only because our
organisation demands a certain temperature for life; there is nothing
evil about cold in itself: it is only evil in its relation to organisms
sufficiently high to be damaged by it. The real _fact_ is their normally
high temperature, and their delicacy of response to stimuli. These
things are good; and the only evil is a defect or deficiency of these
good things.
Every rise involves the possibility of fall. Every advance seems to
entail a corresponding penalty.
The power of assimilating food leaves the organism open to the pangs of
hunger, that is, of insufficient nutriment,—manifestly only the absence
of a good.
In a world devoid of life there is no death; in a world without
conscious beings there is no sin. In a world without affection there
would be no grief; and to a larger vision much of our grief may be
needless:—
“My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves,
So dark that men cry out against the Heavens.
Who knows but that the darkness is in man?”
A mechanical universe might be perfectly good. Every atom of matter
perfectly obeys the forces acting upon it, and there is no error or
wickedness or fault or rebellion in lifeless nature. Evil only begins
when existence takes a higher turn. There is not even destruction or
death in the inorganic world—only transformation. The higher possibility
called life entails the correlative evils called death and disease. The
possibility of keen sensation, which permits pleasure, also involves
capacity for the corresponding penalty called pain: but the pain is in
ourselves, and is the result of our sensitiveness combined with
imperfection.
The still higher attribute of conscious striving after holiness, which
must be the prerogative of free agents capable of virtue or purposed
good, and marks so enormous a rise in the scale of creation,—involves
the possibility that beings so endowed may fall from their high level,
and, by definitely applying themselves to harm instead of good, may
abuse their high power and suffer the penalty called sin; but the evil
in all cases is a warped or distorted good, and has reference to the
higher beings which are now in existence.
“There shall never be one lost good! what was shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall _be_ good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.”
Some further idea of the necessity for evil can be conveyed as follows:—
Contrast is an inevitable attribute of reality. Sickness is the negative
and opposite of health: without sickness we should not be aware what
health was. There is no sickness in inorganic nature; yet, even there,
contrast is the essence of existence. Everything that _is_ must be
surrounded by regions where it is not. There is no stupid infinity, or
absence of boundaries, about existing things,—however infinite their
totality may be,—no absence of limitation, either of perfection or of
anything else. Existence involves limitation. A tree that is _here_ is
excluded from being everywhere else. Goodness would have no meaning if
badness were impossible or non-existent.
“No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son,
Are border-races, holding, each its own
By endless war.”
We are not machines or automata, but free and conscious and active
agents, and so must contend with evil as well as rejoice in good.
Conflict and difficulty are essential for our training and development:
even for our existence at this grade. With their aid we have become what
we are; without them we should vegetate and degenerate; whereas the will
of the Universe is that we arise and walk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
THE MEANING OF SIN
_Q. 8. What is sin?_
_A._ Sin is the deliberate and wilful act of a free
agent who sees the better and chooses the worse, and
thereby acts injuriously to himself and others. The
root sin is selfishness, whereby needless trouble and
pain are inflicted on others; when fully developed it
involves moral suicide.
* * * * *
CLAUSE VIII
The essence of sin is error against light and knowledge, and against our
own higher nature. Vice is error against natural law. Crime is error
against society. Sin against our own higher nature may be truly said to
be against God, because it is against that purpose or destiny which by
Divine arrangement is open to us, if only we will pursue and realise it.
Sin is a disease: the whole of existence is so bound together that
disease in one part means pain throughout; the innocent may suffer with
the guilty, and suffering may extend to the Highest. The healing
influences of forgiveness, felt by the broken and the contrite heart,
achieve spiritual reform though they remove no penalty. Every eddy of
conduct, for good or ill, must have its definite consequence.
We have high authority for the statement that hard circumstances and
disabilities, not of our own making, are mercifully taken into account;
while privileges and advantages weigh heavily in the scale against us,
if we prove unworthy:
“If ye were blind ye would have no sin;
but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth.”
A man’s or woman’s nature may be so weakened and warped by miserable
surroundings, that its strength is insufficient to cope with its
environment. Pity, and a wish to help, are the feelings which such a
state of things should arouse, together with an active determination to
improve or remove the conditions which lead to such an untoward result.
Most human failures are the result of bad social arrangements, and they
constitute an indictment against human inertness and selfishness. It is
a terrible responsibility to turn a human soul out of terrestrial life
worse than when it entered that phase of existence. In so far as it
accomplishes that, humanity is performing the function of a devil.
Deterioration of others is usually achieved under the influence of some
of the protean forms of social greed and selfishness.
Another reason why selfishness is spoken of as specially deadly, and
even suicidal, depends upon certain regions of scientific inquiry not
yet incorporated into orthodox science and therefore still to be
regarded as speculative; it may be outlined as follows:—
Our present familiar methods of communicating with each other are such
as speech, writing, and other conventional codes of signs more or less
developed. It appears possible that a germ or nucleus of another,
apparently immediate or directly psychical, method of communication may
also exist; which has nothing to do with our known bodily organs,
although its impressions are apprehended or interpreted by the receiver
as if they were due to customary modes or forms of sensation. Whether
that be so or not, it is certain that bodily neighbourhood and blood
relationship confer opportunities for making friends which should be
utilised to the utmost, and that friendship and affection are the most
important things in life.
The intercourse with, and active assistance of, others enlarges our own
nature; and hereafter, when we have lost our bodily organs, it is
probable that we shall be able to communicate only with those with whom
we are connected by links of sympathy and affection.
A person who cuts himself off from all human intercourse and lives a
miserly self-centred life, will ultimately, therefore, find himself
alone in the universe; and, unless taken pity on and helped in a spirit
of self-sacrifice, may as well be out of existence altogether. (A book
called _Cecilia de Noel_ emphasises this truth under the guise of a
story.) That is why developed selfishness is spoken of as moral suicide:
it is one of those evil things which truly assault and hurt the soul. It
is a disintegrating and repelling agency. Love is the linking and
uniting force in the spiritual universe, enabling it to cohere into a
unity, in analogy with attractive forces in the material cosmos.
It has been necessary to dwell on the sin and pain and sorrow in the
world, but the amount of good must be emphatically recognised too.
Our highest aspirations, and longings for something better, are a sign
that better things exist. It is not given to the creature to exceed the
Creator in imagination or in goodness; and the best and highest we can
imagine shall be more than fulfilled by reality—in due time:—
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist:
Not its semblance, but itself; ...
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE
_Q. 9. Are there beings lower in the scale of existence
than man?_
_A._ Yes, multitudes. In every part of the earth where life
is possible, there we find it developed. Life exists in
every variety of animal, in earth and air and sea, and in
every species of plant.
* * * * *
CLAUSE IX
One of the facts of nature which we must weld into our conception of the
scheme of the universe, is the strenuous effort made by all live things
to persist in multifarious ways,—spreading out into quite unlikely
regions, in the struggle for existence, and establishing themselves
wherever life is possible. The fish slowly developing into a land
animal, the reptile beginning to raise itself in the air and ultimately
becoming a bird, the mammal returning under stress of circumstances to
the water, as a seal or whale, or betaking itself to the air in search
of food, in the form of a bat,—all these are instances of a universal
tendency throughout animate nature.
Sometimes this determined effort at persistence breeds forms that appear
to us ugly and deleterious. For the struggle results not only in
beneficent organisms, but also in parasites and pests and blights, and
may be held to account for the numerous cases of the interference of one
form of life with another: one form utilising another for its own
growth, and sometimes destroying that other in the process. It accounts
also for the ravages of disease, which for the most part is an outcome
of the establishment of a foreign and alien growth in a living body of
higher grade,—a growth whose vital secretions are poisonous to its
temporary host. On the other hand, the theory of manuring, the
purification of rivers, the treatment of sewage, the use of opsonins and
of serum-injections,—all illustrate the ministration of one form of life
to another; they exhibit the contribution of beneficent organisms,—that
is, of forms of life which promote higher development and conduce to
well-being.
Many of the microbes and bacteria and low forms of cell life are
beneficent in this way; and it is our function,—as ourselves one of the
forms of life,—now consciously to intervene and take control of these
vital processes. By investigation and study we can gradually understand
the condition and life-history of each organism, and then can take such
measures as will encourage the beneficent forms whether plant or animal,
and destroy or eliminate those which from the human point of view are
deadly and destructive,—attacking them at their weakest and most
vulnerable stage. Widely regarded or interpreted, this function covers
an immense range of possible activity—from every kind of scientific
agriculture and the extirpating of tropical diseases, to the reformation
of slum dwellings and the encouragement of physical training and school
hygiene. As part of our work in regulating this planet and utilising its
possibilities to the utmost for higher purposes, the regulation of vital
conditions is probably our most pressing, and also at present our most
neglected, corporate duty. Stupidity and a mistaken parsimony are among
the serious obstacles with which the progressive portions of humanity
have to contend.
Another aspect of the universal struggle for self-manifestation and
corporeal realisation, which plays so large a part in all activity and
is especially marked in the domain of life, is illustrated on a higher
level by that overpowering instinct or impulse towards production and
self-realisation, which is characteristic of genius. It may be said that
throughout nature, from the lowest to the highest, a tendency to
self-realisation, and a manifestation of joy in existence, are
conspicuous.