THE SECOND BEST.
Respect for the Devil--Primitive atheism--Idealisation--Birth of
new gods--New gods diabolised--Compromise between new gods and
old--Foreign deities degraded--Their utilisation.
A lady residing in Hampshire, England, recently said to a friend of
the present writer, both being mothers, 'Do you make your children
bow their heads whenever they mention the Devil's name? I do,' she
added solemnly,--'I think it's safer.'
This instance of reverence for the Devil's name, occurring in a
respectable English family, may excite a smile; but if my reader has
perused the third and fourth chapters (Part I.) of this work, in which
it was necessary to state certain facts and principles which underlie
the phenomena of degradation in both Demonology and Devil-lore, he will
already know the high significance of nearly all the names which have
invested the personifications of evil; and he will not be surprised to
find their original sanctity, though lowered, sometimes, surviving in
such imaginary forms after the battles in which they were vanquished
have passed out of all contemporary interest. If, for example, instead
of the Devil, whose name is uttered with respect in the Hampshire
household, any theological bogey of our own time were there mentioned,
such as 'Atheist,' it might hardly receive such considerate treatment.
The two chapters just referred to anticipate much that should be
considered at this point of our inquiry. It is only necessary here
to supplement them with a brief statement, and to some extent a
recapitulation, of the processes by which degraded deities are
preserved to continue through a structural development and fulfil
a necessary part in every theological scheme which includes the
conception of an eternal difference between good and evil.
Every personification when it first appears expresses a higher
and larger view. When deities representing the physical needs of
mankind have failed, as they necessarily must, to meet those needs,
atheism follows, though it cannot for a long time find philosophical
expression. It is an atheism ad hoc, so to say, and works by
degrading particular gods instead of by constructing antitheistic
theories. Successive dynasties of deities arise and flourish in this
way, each representing a less arbitrary relation to nature,--peril
lying in that direction,--and a higher moral and spiritual ideal,
this being the stronghold of deities. It is obvious that it is far
easier to maintain the theory that prayers are heard and answered
by a deity if those prayers are limited to spiritual requests, than
when they are petitions for outward benefits. By giving over the
cruel and remorseless forces of nature to the Devil,--i.e., to this
or that personification of them who, as gods, had been appealed to
in vain to soften such forces,--the more spiritual god that follows
gains in security as well as beauty what he surrenders of empire and
omnipotence. This law, illustrated in our chapter on Fate, operates
with tremendous effect upon the conditions under which the old combat
is spiritualised.
An eloquent preacher has said:--'Hawthorne's fine fancy of the youth
who ascribed heroic qualities to the stone face on the brow of a
cliff, thus converting the rocky profile into a man, and, by dint of
meditating on it with admiring awe, actually transferred to himself
the moral elements he worshipped, has been made fact a thousand times,
is made fact every day, by earnest spirits who by faithful longing
turn their visions into verities, and obtain live answers to their
petitions to shadows.' [11]
However imaginary may be the benedictions so derived by the worshipper
from his image, they are most real as they redound to the glory
and power of the image. The crudest personification, gathering up
the sanctities of generations, associated with the holiest hopes,
the best emotions, the profoundest aspirations of human nature,
may be at length so identified with these sentiments that they all
seem absolutely dependent upon the image they invest. Every criticism
of such a personification then seems like a blow aimed at the moral
laws. If educated men are still found in Christendom discussing whether
morality can survive the overthrow of such personifications, and
whether life were worth living without them, we may readily understand
how in times when the social, ethical, and psychological sciences
did not exist at all, all that human beings valued seemed destined
to stand or fall with the Person supposed to be their only keystone.
But no Personage, however highly throned, can arrest the sun and
moon, or the mind and life of humanity. With every advance in
physical or social conditions moral elements must be influenced;
every new combination involves a recast of experiences, and presently
of convictions. Henceforth the deified image can only remain as a
tyrant over the heart and brain which have created it,--
Creatura a un tempo
E tiranno de l'uom, da cui soltanto
Ebbe nomi ed aspetti e regno e altari. [12]
This personification, thus 'at once man's creature and his tyrant,' is
objectively a name. But as it has been invested with all that has been
most sacred, it is inevitable that any name raised against it shall be
equally associated with all that has been considered basest. This also
must be personified, for the same reason that the good is personified;
and as names are chiefly hereditary, it pretty generally happens that
the title of some fallen and discredited deity is advanced to receive
the new anathema. But what else does he receive? The new ideas; the
growing ideals and the fresh enthusiasms are associated with some
fantastic shape with anathematised name evoked from the past, and
thus a portentous situation is reached. The worshippers of the new
image will not accept the bad name and its base associations; they
even grow strong enough to claim the name and altars of the existing
order, and give battle for the same. Then occurs the demoralisation,
literally speaking, of the older theology. The personification reduced
to struggle for its existence can no longer lay emphasis upon the
moral principles it had embodied, these being equally possessed by
their opponents; nay, its partisans manage to associate with their
holy Name so much bigotry and cruelty that the innovators are at length
willing to resign it. The personal loyalty, which is found to continue
after loyalty to principles has ceased, proceeds to degrade the virtues
once reverenced when they are found connected with a rival name. 'He
casteth out devils through Beelzebub' is a very ancient cry. It was
heard again when Tertullian said, 'Satan is God's ape.' St. Augustine
recognises the similarity between the observances of Christians and
pagans as proving the subtle imitativeness of the Devil; the phenomena
referred to are considered elsewhere, but, in the present connection,
it may be remarked that this readiness to regard the same sacrament
as supremely holy or supremely diabolical as it is celebrated in
honour of one name or another, accords closely with the reverence
or detestation of things more important than sacraments, as they
are, or are not, consecrated by what each theology deems official
sanction. When sects talk of 'mere morality' we may recognise in
the phrase the last faint war-cry of a god from whom the spiritual
ideal has passed away, and whose name even can survive only through
alliance with the new claimant of his altars. While the new gods were
being called devils the old ones were becoming such.
The victory of the new ideal turns the old one to an idol. But we are
considering a phase of the world when superstition must invest the
new as well as the old, though in a weaker degree. A new religious
system prevails chiefly through its moral superiority to that it
supersedes; but when it has succeeded to the temples and altars
consecrated to previous divinities, when the ardour of battle is
over and conciliation becomes a policy as well as a virtue, the old
idol is likely to be treated with respect, and may not impossibly be
brought into friendly relation with its victorious adversary. He may
take his place as 'the second best,' to borrow Goethe's phrase, and be
assigned some function in the new theologic régime. Thus, behind the
simplicity of the Hampshire lady instructing her children to bow at
mention of the Devil's name, stretch the centuries in which Christian
divines have as warmly defended the existence of Satan as that of God
himself. With sufficient reason: that infernal being, some time God's
'ape' and rival, was necessarily developed into his present position
and office of agent and executioner under the divine government. He
is the great Second Best; and it is a strange hallucination to fancy
that, in an age of peaceful inquiry, any divine personification can
be maintained without this patient Goat, who bears blame for all
the faults of nature, and who relieves divine Love from the odium
of supplying that fear which is the mother of devotion,--at least in
the many millions of illogical eyes into which priests can still look
without laughing.
Such, in brief outline, has been the interaction of moral and
intellectual forces operating within the limits of established systems,
and of the nations governed by them. But there are added factors,
intensifying the forces on each side, when alien are brought into
rivalry and collision with national deities. In such a contest, besides
the moral and spiritual sentiments and the household sanctities, which
have become intertwined with the internal deities, national pride is
also enlisted, and patriotism. But on the other side is enlisted the
charm of novelty, and the consciousness of fault and failure in the
home system. Every system imported to a foreign land leaves behind
its practical shortcomings, puts its best foot forward--namely, its
theoretical foot--and has the advantage of suggesting a way of escape
from the existing routine which has become oppressive. Napoleon I. said
that no people profoundly attached to the institutions of their country
can be conquered; but what people are attached to the priestly system
over them? That internal dissatisfaction which, in secular government,
gives welcome to a dashing Corsican or a Prince of Orange, has been
the means of introducing many an alien religion, and giving to many a
prophet the honour denied him in his own country. Buddha was a Hindu,
but the triumph of his religion is not in India; Zoroaster was a
Persian, but there are no Parsees in Persia; Christianity is hardly
a colonist even in the native land of Christ.
These combinations and changes were not effected without fierce
controversies, ferocious wars, or persecutions, and the formation
of many devils. Nothing is more normal in ancient systems than the
belief that the gods of other nations are devils. The slaughter of
the priests of Baal corresponds with the development of their god
into Beelzebub. In proportion to the success of Olaf in crushing
the worshippers of Odin, their deity is steadily transformed to a
diabolical Wild Huntsman. But here also the forces of partial recovery,
which we have seen operating in the outcome of internal reform,
manifest themselves; the vanquished, and for a time outlawed deity, is,
in many cases, subsequently conciliated and given an inferior, and,
though hateful, a useful office in the new order. Sometimes, indeed,
as in the case of the Hindu destroyer Siva, it is found necessary
to assign a god, anathematised beyond all power of whitewash, to an
equal rank with the most virtuous deity. Political forces and the
exigencies of propagandism work many marvels of this kind, which will
meet us in the further stages of our investigation.
Every superseded god who survives in subordination to another is pretty
sure to be developed into a Devil. Euphemism may tell pleasant fables
about him, priestcraft may find it useful to perpetuate belief in his
existence, but all the evils of the universe, which it is inconvenient
to explain, are gradually laid upon him, and sink him down, until
nothing is left of his former glory but a shining name.