FALLACIES IN POPULAR ARGUMENTS
§ 1. Preliminary Remarks. The Power of Christianity for Good.
Finally we have to consider some arguments that have often quite
as much weight with the believer as Bible apologetics or Theistic
proofs. They are: (1) The power of Christianity for good; (2) the
marvellous spread of Christianity; (3) the witness of the Christian
martyrs; and (4) the universality of the religious instinct. The
first of these--the power of Christianity for good--opens up a large
question, and I have thought it advisable, therefore, to select
for special investigation two popular beliefs springing from this
source--namely, the belief that woman owes her present position to
Christianity, and the belief that the overthrow of Christianity would
endanger society and the nation. The point now under consideration is
not whether Christianity ought to have been, but whether it has been,
a power for good. Although the apologist, when hard pressed as to
this or that evidence of failure, attributes it to the fault of man,
he nevertheless continues stoutly to maintain that Christianity has
indeed worked wonders for mankind. This we should certainly expect of
it, if it be a true belief, and it is a claim therefore which cannot
be too closely investigated.
It would be a comparatively easy, though lengthy, task to make out
an exceedingly strong case against Christianity by enlarging upon
the inhumanity and immorality of the Dark Ages, and comparing this
with the far more humane and moral conduct of men in pre-Christian
civilisations. One could point to the rock-graven edicts of King
Asoka (263-226 B.C.), and show that in the matter of discountenancing
slavery, of humanity to prisoners, of denouncing war, of founding
hospitals, of abolishing blood sacrifices, of inculcating religious
toleration, and of teaching purity of life, all that is now so
complacently claimed for Christianity was anticipated. Or again,
one might dwell on the dark side of Christendom, even in this year of
grace 1907, and draw some very odious comparisons, especially as we
have so recently been presented with the object-lesson of a heathen
race which excels many, and equals any, of the Christian races in
nearly all those virtues we prize and call Christian. But I have no
intention of embarking upon such a wide sea of controversy.
One controversial subject, however, I feel bound to notice, because
the disputed point is at the root of the whole matter. We are so
accustomed to hear every humane or unselfish deed, and every moral act,
described as Christian that "good" and "Christian" have almost become
synonymous terms. It never occurs to us to ask, or we never give a
second thought to the question, how much the humane principles now
accepted among civilised nations may be due to education, experience,
and evolution, and how much to Christian influence. The Rationalist
attributes the improvement chiefly to the former, and, in any case,
to the working of natural forces; the Christian chiefly to the latter,
and, in any case, to the working of supernatural forces.
All that is beneficial in civilisation, both on its material and on
what is called its spiritual side, is placed by the Christian to the
credit of Christianity, and the hand of God is traced with becoming
reverence in every discovery which ameliorates our lot. This, although
the promoters and discoverers are often non-Christians, and although
it is well known that it is the Church that has chiefly delayed the
advance of science. Whatever may be the case now, the education of
the masses never concerned her in olden times. Rather her concern was
then that the people should not be educated, much as it is in Russia at
the present time. Such education as she did encourage was of the type
imparted in the Mohammedan University at Cairo to-day--the three R's
and the Koran--and for similar reasons. As late as 1846 Cobden writes
to a friend on the subject of national education: "I took the repeal
of the Corn Laws as light amusement compared with the difficult task
of inducing the priests of all denominations to agree to suffer the
people to be educated." Again, Lord Macaulay, speaking of the Roman
Catholic Church, in the first chapter of his History of England,
says that "during the last three centuries to stunt the growth of
the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom,
whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth,
and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has
everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and
most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in
poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor."
So long as organisms are adapted to their environment, neither
progressive nor retrogressive development will occur. Because,
after the Dark Ages, Europe progressed while Asia stagnated and
Africa retrogressed, is modern civilisation to be placed to the
credit of the Christian religion? As rationally might any one of the
ancient civilisations be credited to the popular superstition of the
country then in the van of progress. To such absurd lengths are these
pretensions carried that we find persons ignorant enough and fanatical
enough to attribute the present predominance of Christian nations to
their religion. For a reply to such I cannot better that given by a
learned Buddhist monk to a missionary who had told him that nations
of the West had become powerful because of their Christianity. "The
fact is," retorted the monk, "that nations have become powerful in
the degree to which they have rejected the precepts of Christianity,
in the extent to which they have substituted for the Christian maxim
of 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' that other maxim which shoots 300
bullets a minute."
Returning to the only contention really worth considering, let us
assume that there has been moral progress in Christendom, and let
us assume also that this has nothing to do with the advance of
Humanitarianism in the present, or with pre-Christian (Buddhist,
for instance) teaching in the past. Are we to conclude that this is
a proof of the divine origin of Christianity? I must confess I fail
to see how any improvement which there may be in the matter of coarse
vice among the proletariat, of dishonesty among the commercial classes,
of corruptness among the professional, and of sensuality among the
leisured classes, can be any proof that Jesus, one of the world's
reformers, was God Incarnate. Christian teaching embodies precepts
of the greatest ethical value, borrowed, as we now know, from the
doctrines of ancient moralists and religious teachers. Would it not
indeed be strange if this teaching had done no good whatever--if the
leaven had had no elevating influences at all, whereas the teachings of
Confucius and Buddha have produced those admirable results which even
Christians are at last prepared to admit? Dr. Warschauer explains in
Anti-Nunquam, p. 72, that Agnostics are good men, "because, willingly
or unwillingly, they have taken in Christian ideas through every
pore." How, then, does he explain the virtues of the Japanese?
Let us now leave generalisation, and investigate in some detail an
important Christian argument which has the contention of Christianity's
power for good as its source. It forms a striking illustration of the
way fallacies may arise from a hard-and-fast adhesion to convictions
that are justified rather by the heart than by history.
§ 2. Christianity Woman's Best Friend. [242]
The majority of women still remain true believers. There appear
to be numerous reasons, psychological and educational, for their
attitude. Woman is more imaginative, more emotional, and more
sensitive to external suggestion than man. As to her education,
men, even those who have no religious belief whatever, prefer to
keep her in ignorance of their views, partly under a vague notion
that unbelief would undermine her virtue and lessen her amiability,
and partly because they deem her religious influence an essential
element in the upbringing of their children. In addition to all
this, woman is taught by the Church that Christianity is her best
friend. Prominent prelates of the Church proclaim that "the Gospel
has given woman the position she holds to-day." [243] Nothing could
very well be more contrary to fact. One can only suppose that these
expounders of the truth are speaking according to the dictates of
their hearts, and without having really studied the question, or else
that they believe their cause is served by deliberately closing their
eyes to inconvenient facts. The question is one of supreme importance,
as it is chiefly women who are now the mainstay of the Faith.
People with little or no knowledge of those portions of history that
specially bear upon the question are easily deceived. The average
woman's ideas concerning the pre-Christian civilisations are decidedly
vague. Her ideas may also be further confused by lurid accounts from
the pulpit of the licentiousness prevalent among the upper classes
during the earlier and also the last years of the Roman Empire;
while nothing is told her about the unrestrained licence of the
aristocracy during the Middle Ages, and the degraded condition of the
masses during, say, the eighteenth century, "when," says Sir Walter
Besant, "for drunkenness, brutality, and ignorance, the Englishman
of the baser kind reached the lowest depth ever reached by civilised
man." Clerics who unconsciously mislead their congregations with this
argument cannot be aware of those hard facts of history which render
it untenable. For their benefit, and for the benefit of their dupes,
let us glance at a few of these facts.
The status of women among the "barbarians" is vouched for by the
Romans, their enemies, and therefore unexceptionable witnesses. Nothing
impressed the Romans more than the equality of the sexes among the
northern nations, the man's reverence for womanhood, the woman's
sympathy with manhood, and the high code of morality that was the
natural outcome of this well-balanced state of society.
At a time when the men of the "Chosen People" were insulting and
unjust to their women, heathen women enjoyed a position which their
Christian, not to mention their Mohammedan, descendants might well
envy. "Polygamy only began to disappear among the Jews in the fifth
century B.C., and so curious was the influence of the Old Testament
on the early Christian Church that several of the Fathers could not
bring themselves to condemn it, and it was not officially suppressed
by the Church until A.D. 1060. Luther and the Reformers allowed it
even later. Yet polygamy was one of the surest signs of a contempt
of woman, and it had been rejected by Greeks, Romans, and barbarians
long before the Hebrews began to perceive its enormity." [244]
"The part women played in old Japan," writes the founder of the
first university for women in Japan, [245] "was very remarkable,
especially before the arrival of Buddhism and Confucianism. Men
and women were almost equal in their social position. There was
then no shadow of the barbarous idea that men were everything and
women nothing. Women's power even in politics was great, and history
tells us that there were nine women who ascended the throne in olden
times. Women in general were not inferior to men physically, mentally,
or morally. They were noted for their bravery, and distinguished
themselves on the field of battle. In the literary world they were
not less noted for their brilliant productions. Their moral conduct
was most blameless, and commanded universal respect. Their natural
temperament was cheerful and optimistic, and charmed the sterner
sex. Such being the attainments and characteristics of women in
olden times, we can fairly believe that they were as well educated
as men were, although there were not existing any institutions of
instruction for women. This was the springtime of Japanese womanhood,
when it blossomed undisturbed, and exerted a strong and beneficial
influence on the life of old Japan. The introduction of Buddhism and
Confucianism, however, began to create great changes in the position
of women. And yet so powerful were women in society when these two
religions came to Japan that their rapid spread in our country was
due to the earnest endeavours of women." Speaking of the feudal age,
he remarks: "The social environment of the age and the prevalence
of Buddhism and Confucianism worked hand in hand to bring about the
subjection of women." The analogy between the experiences of the
Japanese lady and her European sister is a striking one. (There is an
analogy, too, between the conduct of the Buddhist priests and that of
the Roman Catholic priests in the Middle Ages, or even in Southern
Italy to-day. "The sins of the present generation of priests," said
Count Okuma in the course of an interview, "are many, and the hells
about which they preach are prepared for the like of them." [246]
"The majority of the priests are utterly degenerate and hopelessly
ignorant." [247])
Look on these pictures, one of 2000 B.C. and the other of A.D. 1850:--
Picture I.--Two thousand years before the Christian era "woman was
more free and more honoured in Egypt than she is in any country of
the world to-day. She was the mistress of the house. [248]... She
inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her
property. She could go where she liked, or speak with whom she
liked. She was 'juridically the equal of man,' says M. Paturet,
'having the same rights and being treated in the same fashion'; and
the same authority observes that it was not as mother, but as woman,
as a being equal in dignity, that she was thus honoured. There was
polygamy in theory, but the first wife was generally able to exact
conditions in her marriage contract which effectually prevented it. The
inscriptions show, says Maspéro, that she remained to the end of her
life 'the beloved of her husband and the mistress of the house.'" [249]
Picture II.--In enlightened Boston, about 1850 (under the English
Common Law), woman could not hold any property, either inherited or
earned. A woman, either married or unmarried, could hold no office of
trust or power. She was not recognised as a citizen. The status of a
married woman was little better than that of a domestic servant. By
the English Common Law her husband was her lord and master. He had
the sole custody of her person, and of her children while minors. He
could punish her "with a stick no thicker than his thumb," and she
could not complain against him. He was the owner of all her real
estate and of her earnings. She had no personal rights, and could
hardly call her soul her own. Her husband could steal her children,
rob her of her clothing, neglect to support the family: she had no
legal redress. [250]
Not until near the middle of the nineteenth century did that movement
commence which has radically improved, and will continue to improve,
the position of women. And who took the chief, and, in the initial
stage, the only, part in this reform movement? Freethinkers. Who were
silent when they were not active opponents? The clergy. "It was just
those who most radically abandoned Christianity--Owen, Holyoake,
and Mill--that were the most logical and ungrudging in their plea
for woman. It was the Mary Wollstonecrafts, Harriet Martineaus,
Frances Wrights, George Eliots, Helen Taylors, and Annie Besants that
distinguished themselves by fearlessness and unselfishness... The
clergy never discovered any injustice to woman; and only one in
a thousand could see it when it was pointed out.... All honour
to the memory of those clergymen who, like Kingsley and Farrar,
protested against the injustice to the full extent of their idea
of womanhood.... On the Continent there has been the same story of
general clerical opposition and general heterodox support." [251]
"Mr. Pinchwife," [252] too, has undoubtedly had a hand in the
subjection of woman; but we are investigating the grounds for the
contention that Christianity has laid on woman a burden of gratitude,
and that, if Christianity were overthrown, women would sink into
unknown depths of degradation. Do the above-stated facts bear out
that contention?
The question arises: Why has Christianity stood in the way of woman's
cause? The answer is simple enough: Christianity, in adopting the
Old Testament, adopted with it the Hebrew conception of woman. Her
inferiority to man was established by her origin from his rib and the
leading part she took in his fall. The Vicar of Crantock tabulates
[253] the reasons why a Christian woman should cover her head in
church, as follows:--
(1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve.
(2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the
woman of the man.
(3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the woman,
but the woman for the man.
(4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the Glory of God,
but woman is the glory of man.
(5) Woman's priority in the Fall. Adam was not deceived; but the
woman, being deceived, was in the transgression.
(6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ,
so let the wives be to their husbands.
(7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is Christ,
but the head of the woman is man.
The Jews' idea of a woman was sanctioned by no less an authority than
Jehovah; nor did the Christ of the Gospels give one word of clear
guidance on this or any other social problem, or enter one word of
explicit protest against the injustice of the Judaic treatment of
women. Again, the teaching of St. Paul was based on the Old Testament,
and the teaching of the Fathers was based on the Old Testament and
St. Paul. A few quotations from the sayings of some of these Fathers,
whose contempt of marriage became one of the great errors of the
Church, may prove instructive:--
Fornication is a lapse from one marriage into many.--Clement
of Alexandria.
Digamists (widowers who re-marry) are saved in the name of Christ,
but are by no means crowned by him.--Origen.
Second marriage is "a decent sort of adultery."--Athenagoras.
It was no part of God's primitive design that the race should
be continued by sexual union. Marriage is the outcome of
sin.--St. Gregory of Nyssa (a married bishop).
Blessed is the one who leads a celibate life, and soils not the
divine image within him with the filth of concupiscence.
Fierce is the dragon, and cunning the asp;
But woman has the malice of both.
--St. Gregory of Nazianzum.
Why was woman created at all?--St. Augustine.
Thou art the devil's gate, the betrayer of the tree, the first
deserter of the divine law!
Marriage is not far removed from fornication.--Tertullian.
She is more fitted for bodily work.... Remember that God took a
rib out of Adam's body, not a part of his soul, to make her.
She was not made to the image of God, like man.--St. Ambrose.
Woman is the root of all evil.--St. Jerome.
At the Council of Auxerre, in 578, the bishops forbade women,
on account of their "impurity," to take the sacrament in their
hands as men did.
If women only knew of these sayings, would they approve of the
"appeal to the first six centuries"?
Bad as the position of woman was under the influence of the early
Church teaching, it was, in many respects, still worse during the
Middle Ages. "Life-long seclusion in the inner apartments of the
house of a man she has not chosen, or internment in a nunnery--that
is, either degraded or unnatural--is the choice (within limits) of
the daughter of the wealthy. Life-long drudgery, with few and coarse
pleasures, with a long vista of sticks and whips, and scold's bridles,
and ducking stools--with, perhaps, the brutal 'ordeal' on the slightest
suspicion, or the ghastly death of the witch, is the prospect of the
daughter of the poor." [254] Even the Reformation altered more than
it improved the condition of woman. How could it be otherwise when
the Reformers were nothing if not Bibliolaters?
Of the movement for the betterment of woman's position that eventually
took place, not by the aid, but in spite, of the Church, I have
already spoken. All the evidence we possess regarding the history
of Heathendom and Christendom conclusively shows that Christianity
has done much to lower, and but little to elevate, the position of
women. Should I have succeeded in arousing the interest of my gentle
readers, or should they wish to verify my statements, I implore them
to read well-known works of competent authorities on this subject. The
astounding but apparently prevalent idea, that woman is only secured
by Christianity from the brutal assaults of man, will appear in the
next argument we are about to consider.
§ 3. The Overthrow of Christianity would Endanger Society and the
Nation.
I have elsewhere commented on the opinion prevalent in England (and
in some other, but not all other, Christian countries) that, to quote
Canon Henson, "the real elements of the Christian Faith are those that
have made European nations the most powerful in the world," [255] and
that the overthrow of Christianity would endanger the nation. Many go
still farther, and prophesy absolute chaos. People who have been imbued
with the Church's teaching, and who have spent their lives in Christian
surroundings, are naturally convinced that belief and morality are
indissoluble partners--that Christianity is a power for good in this
respect above all others. Therefore, when Professor Flint says, "It
[the Christian Faith] could not be displaced without shaking society
from top to bottom," [256] he expresses a very popular opinion among
believers and semi-believers. Even among Agnostics there are many who,
while recognising the fallacy so far as they themselves are concerned,
still seem to consider that society would be insufficiently protected
from criminals by its own instinct of self-preservation, and that,
to maintain order among the masses, the hand of the law must, for
the present, be strengthened by appeals to a supernatural sanction
of conduct. Both Herbert Spencer and Matthew Arnold, for example,
thought the world at large stood in peril of a moral collapse, while,
as the latter puts it, "the old (theologically-derived) sanction of
conduct is out of date, and the new is not yet born." "Few things can
happen more disastrous," writes Herbert Spencer, "than the decay and
death of a regulative system no longer fit, before another and fitter
regulative system has grown up to replace it" (see Preface, dated July,
1879, to The Data of Ethics). It is for reasons such as these that
so many Agnostics still lend their moral support to the Churches;
for men rightly uphold what they deem essential to the common weal,
whether it be Christ-worship in England or ancestor-worship in Japan.
This deeply-rooted conviction regarding belief and conduct has been
partially considered in the first section of this chapter, and, the
subject being one of the greatest importance, I am also devoting to
its consideration a portion of the concluding chapter of this book. I
shall confine myself here to the warning given to us by the Church and
the pious laity--that we must expect nothing less than chaos should
the Resurrection, and along with it, of course, the whole fabric of
Christianity, be ultimately disproved.
This view has been illustrated in Mr. Guy Thorne's book, When it was
Dark. The book may be seen on every bookstall, has had an extraordinary
sale, [257] and has been much appreciated by many pious-minded
persons (especially by those of the High Church persuasion, the
book being written by a partisan of that cult). The anti-Christian
propagandist is here represented as knowing that Christ is God; but,
for some unexplained and exceedingly mysterious reason, utilising
a huge fortune and a powerful intellect in unscrupulous endeavours
to spread disbelief. He is a deceiver of mankind, a genuine Satan
in human shape. He leads the life of an ascetic, so the usual
grounds given for disbelief are removed. With the assistance of
another man (a real villain, this time, of the lowest type), one of
the greatest savants of the day, a gigantic fraud is perpetrated,
and the Resurrection thereby definitely disproved. Immediately an
epidemic of crime breaks out among quondam Christians, which nothing
can quell. The restraints of order are paralysed, and the criminal
element is rampant. The violence and viciousness of men were, please
to note, specially directed against the weaker sex, who had to keep
at home and bar the door. Not only Agnostics, but any who happened
to differ in their views from this champion of Christianity, come in
for a share of Mr. Thorne's invective. The wonder is how an author of
his ability could be capable of penning such an effusion; and that
it can be read and appreciated, as it undoubtedly has been by many
excellent persons of his way of thinking, only shows how easily bias
may cloud the intellect. It requires an effort, too, to understand how
this book can appeal to one of the chief dignitaries of the Church;
but there, conspicuously printed on the cover, we are treated to an
extract from his sermon in praise of the book.
I submit that there is not a Rationalist in the world, however
militant, who would descend to forgery to promote his cause. He would
not hold the pious opinion that the end justifies the means. On the
contrary, the curtain has but now fallen upon a scene where a Christian
Church ranged herself on the side of forgers while freethinkers like
Zola and Clémenceau fought the battle of truth.
According to Mr. Guy Thorne and the admirers of his book, the
Christian races are innately far worse than Jews, Turks, infidels,
and heretics--far worse, indeed, than savages and animals--for they
are only held in check from the commission of the vilest excesses by
their belief in the Resurrection. Chaos and crime are rife in certain
cities in Russia and Poland to-day. What is the cause? Unbelief? Is
it not rather the result of the cruel laws and despicable methods of a
Christian government, aided by Christian butchers, calling themselves
soldiers, and by a Christian hooligan element such as it would be
hard to find outside a Christian city? This chaos occurs, mind you,
under a powerful Christian theocratic government; and the head of
the Holy Synod, Pobiedonostseff, was, before his removal, one of the
prime movers. The terrible atrocities of which the unfortunate Jews
have been the victims were undoubtedly connived at by the authorities,
and inhuman crimes have been perpetrated by Christians that would be
impossible in humane Japan. The policy of keeping the masses steeped
in the grossest superstitions of the orthodox Church is now bearing
fruit, adding to the chaos and bloodshed and hindering the work of
reform. It is belief, not unbelief, that has played a leading part
in creating this chaos, and in stirring up man's cruellest passions.
As to the safety of women (in the event of the Resurrection being
discredited), where in civilised Christendom, may I ask, could a lady
be left for days and nights alone in a tent or open house? She can be,
in the Indian jungle or in the Australian bush. For such protection
as may there be necessary (and the open house testifies how little it
is required) she relies upon her heathen servants. Almost the only
danger in India is from religious fanatics, and in Australia from
Christian criminals. In what Christian country would it be safe to
have paper windows and walls, as in Japan? My wife and I slept in
strange, out-of-the-way native hotels in Japan in perfect security,
though a would-be criminal had only to tear through a thin piece
of paper! Belief in the Resurrection is rapidly decaying in France
to-day. Are cases of assault on women any the more prevalent on that
account? If belief in the Resurrection is so essential, how comes it
that we have allied ourselves to a heathen nation, and made friends
with another that is fast giving up this belief? How comes it that in
our own Government two of the most responsible posts are now occupied
by declared Agnostics?
§ 4. The Spread of Christianity a Proof of its Truth.
"What, then," asks the Rev. Prebendary W. A. Whitworth, [258]
"was the original gospel of power which overran the world with
such astonishing success?" The spread of Christianity is thought by
nearly all good Christians to have been marvellous. Was it? That is
the question we have next to consider. In the first place, let us see
what we are told on this point by recognised theologians. In his book,
The Bible in the Church, we are reminded by the learned Dr. Westcott,
the late Bishop of Durham, that the dispersion of the Jews exercised
a great influence upon the spread of Christianity. "The pagans got
the idea of monotheism, while the Jews themselves dropped the idea
of a 'kingdom' and substituted a 'faith.'" He also reminds us of the
broad unity of the Roman Empire, and of the dispersion of the Jews
being co-extensive with its limits, and concludes that "during the
lifetime of St. Paul every condition was realised for proclaiming
the Gospel to the world." "Without such preparation," he says, "the
spread of Christianity would be historically inconceivable, and it
is a remarkable example of Divine Providence." Here, then, we have
an admission of purely natural causes, and, although the believer
may be able to look upon them with reverence, as Providential, he
can hardly claim them to be at the same time a witness to the power
of the Gospel. Also, we shall see that there were many other natural
causes at work, and that among them were some which the pious would
be the last to connect with a Divine Providence.
Historians find that the rapidity of the spread has been much
exaggerated, and that it was not until the Emperor Constantine
convened the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 that the spread commenced
to emerge from insignificance. Even then the adhesion to the
new Faith was for a long period of a purely nominal character,
the unwilling converts remaining, to all intents, pagans after
they were baptised. The spread of Christianity was for a long time
confined to cosmopolitan trading towns only, the villagers remaining
pagans--hence the name. (Mutatis mutandis, it is the villagers who are
now the last to be touched by the spread of "paganism.") What were
the "Providential" methods of conversion? The prevailing ignorance
and superstition were taken advantage of by the propagators of the
Gospel and frauds freely perpetrated, while "edicts of toleration
removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the
progress of Christianity." [259] After the Emperor Constantine had
been converted, "the cities which signalised a forward zeal, by the
voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal
privileges, and rewarded with popular donations." [260] When these
measures failed, Church and State had recourse to persecution, quite
as cruel as, and on a scale that far exceeded, the persecution of the
early Christians by the heathen. For instance, the Emperor Theodosius,
at the suggestion of the ecclesiastics who governed his conscience,
promulgated, in the space of fifteen years (A.D. 380-394), "at least
fifteen severe edicts against the heretics, more especially against
those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity." [261] Buddhism, on
the contrary, unlike Christianity and Mohammedanism, was promulgated
without persecution or religious wars, and spread far more rapidly
than Christianity. In his apologetic work, Anti-Theistic Theories,
Dr. Flint refers to Buddhism thus: "The very marvellous system of
thought called Buddhism, which originated in India about 500 years
B.C., has spread over a greater area of the earth and gained more
adherents than even Christianity, and by peaceful means--by the power
of persuasion--not by the force of arms, not by persecution."
Why did the Emperor Constantine embrace Christianity? Was it not mainly
because he believed that it had a power to wipe away his own heinous
crimes? [262] Even his old age "was disgraced by the opposite, yet
reconcilable, vices of rapaciousness and prodigality." [263] Although
he acknowledged the Faith, he put off his baptism till he was on his
death-bed, in order that he might continue to lead a wicked life as
long as possible. [264] As an instrument for spreading God's word
he is even worse than that royal adulterer and murderer whom we are
asked to look upon as a prototype of Christ and His prime ancestor.
On all these matters of history the learned Bishop Westcott is
silent, although, as examples of Divine Providence, they would
appear sufficiently remarkable. Lest Gibbon's testimony be deemed
untrustworthy on account of his anti-Christian bias, the following
extract from a prize essay in Christian apologetics may be noted. Not
only does it bear out some of the historian's statements concerning
the causes of the spread of Christianity, but it discloses the
significant fact that the clergy increased their power and influence
by working upon the emotions of wealthy women, and that £.s.d. and its
female contributors were then, as now, a sine qua non. [265]--"Nine
years after the conversion of Constantine to the Christian faith he
promulgated that great edict which, more than any other enactment,
may be said to have lain at the foundation of clerical power during
the ensuing centuries, and relieved the Christian Church from that
restriction under which, in common with the Jews, they had so long
laboured--the incapacity of profiting by the testamentary liberality
of their wealthy proselytes. To convince us of the abundance in which
the stream of wealth flowed into the newly opened channel, and of the
influence obtained by the clergy, in those days as in the present,
over the piety and pliability of the weaker sex, more especially at
Rome, we possess not only the testimony of a Pagan historian, [266]
but the less suspicious evidence of an edict published by the Emperor
Valentinian [267] fifty years after that of Constantine, addressed to
Damasus, Bishop of that city, and imposing a limit to the extravagant
donations of females. The clergy, moreover, might look for an increase
of worldly substance not only from the prosperity of their friends,
but from the downfall of their enemies; for the Theodosian code
contains a series of stringent enactments by the Emperor Honorius,
[268] in terms of which not only the deserted temples of Paganism,
but even the meeting-houses and possessions of Donatists, Manichæan,
and other heretical corporations, were made over to the Catholic
Church." [269]
There was yet another, and possibly the chief, cause for the ultimate
spread of Christianity. In the chapter on comparative mythology I
have described and commented upon the various rationalistic theories
concerning the origins of Christian beliefs and ceremonies. As a matter
of fact, Mithraism spread just as much, or more, until Christianity
obtained the necessary political power to suppress it. Not only
from these anti-Christian theories, but also from the admissions of
apologists concerning them, it appears that Christianity gained ground,
not so much because there was something new either in its dogma or in
its promise, but rather because these were so closely paralleled in
many pagan cults. Let us take, for example, the spread of Christianity
in Egypt. "The Egyptians who embraced Christianity found that the
moral system of the old cult and that of the new religion were so
similar, and the promises of resurrection and immortality in each so
alike, that they transferred their allegiance from Osiris to Jesus
of Nazareth without difficulty. Moreover, Isis and the child Horus
were straightway identified with Mary the Virgin and her Son." [270]
"The knowledge of the ancient Egyptian religion which we now possess
fully justifies the assertion that the rapid growth and progress
of Christianity in Egypt were due mainly to the fact that the new
religion, which was preached there by St. Mark and his immediate
followers, in all its essentials so closely resembled that which was
the outcome of Osiris, Isis, and Horus that popular opposition was
entirely disarmed." [271] We have, then, here one of the main factors
in the growth of Christianity. I cannot find that Bishop Westcott
recognises this as a part of the preparation in which the hand of
God can be traced; but advanced apologists very largely do so now,
and hence the precious theory of progressive revelation.
We may now pass on to another very popular argument.
§ 5. The Noble Army of Martyrs.
My allusions to religious persecutions may remind some of my readers
of the experiences of the early Christians, and of the witness to the
truth of Christianity furnished by the "noble army of martyrs"; and
they may say: "Admitting that there be nothing extraordinary in the
mere fact of Christianity's spread, you must allow that its power over
men's minds is little, if at all, short of miraculous. Men could not
have given their lives for a falsehood." This argument will not bear
the slightest scrutiny. "Steadfastness under persecution says much for
the sincerity, and still more for the tenacity, of the believer, but
very little for the objective truth of that which he believes." [272]
Supposing the noble army were a historical fact, the argument based
upon it would be adequately met by pointing to the last Ghazi who ran
amok in the hope of a speedy delivery from a dirty and ugly spouse on
earth, and of reaping the reward of a clean and lovely houri in heaven.
But the noble army is not altogether a historical fact. The truth is
that martyr-making became an ecclesiastical industry. The historian
Gibbon estimates that at most about two thousand Christians fell in the
Diocletian persecution--which was the only general persecution--and
this estimate is now commonly accepted. "Since," says Gibbon,
"it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more numerous, and
their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian than they
had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and moderate
computation may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints
and martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose
of introducing Christianity into the world." [273] Compare these
figures with the numbers who have suffered death in modern times
for the sake of introducing a non-Christian faith. The Bab Abbas
Effendi suffered martyrdom for his zeal in 1850, and between that
date and now the most conservative opinion on the Babi martyrdoms
puts them at ten thousand. (N.B.--No hopes of wealth and honours,
no imperial edicts, have assisted the really remarkable spread of
Babism.) As a matter of fact, a considerable portion of the history
of man is a history of his martyrdom. "Our own prosperity is founded
on the agonies of the past." [274] If religious ladies could spare
the time (from the absorbing occupation of reading the very latest
works of fiction or the lives of the "grandes amoureuses") to read
Winwood Reade's Martyrdom of Man, a book none the less interesting
because it treats of historical facts, they would begin to realise
that martyrs are not a Christian monopoly.
§ 6. The Universality of the Religious Instinct.
THE HYPOTHESIS STATED.
The fact that a large proportion of the human race, including some
of the greatest [275] in thought and action, continue, or appear to
continue, to believe in God and immortality, is considered by many
to furnish the best proof for the truth of the belief. The Church
naturally encourages this opinion, and proceeds to strengthen it
further by asserting that the religious instinct is, and always has
been, universal. This assertion must now be examined, and, to avoid
any misconceptions, it will be advisable in the first place to have
some specimens of it before us.
Canon Liddon informs us that "man is ever feeling after God," and that
"the thought of God is always latent in the mind of man." "Cicero's
statement that there is no nation so barbarous and wild as not to
have believed in some divinity is still, notwithstanding certain
apparent exceptions, true. A nation of pure Atheists has yet to be
discovered." [276] Dr. Flint devotes the seventh of his Lectures on
Anti-Theistic theories to the discussion of the question, "Are there
tribes of Atheists?" and he comes to the conclusion that "an impartial
examination of the relevant facts shows that religion is virtually
universal." [277] The Bishop of London is of opinion that "man is a
praying animal. He always has prayed throughout his history. It is
a human instinct. This instinct of prayer points to the existence
of God." [278] Dr. Warschauer affirms that the spiritual faculty--a
consciousness of "the existence of spiritual realities, of a world
beyond the senses"--"constitutes a universal human endowment." [279]
Bishop Diggle bids us remember that "human nature is ineradicably
religious." [280]
THE RATIONALIST'S CONTENTION.
The Rationalist asks: What grounds have we for assuming that the
existence of religious belief points to the existence of a religious
instinct? Is not a man's religion determined by the geographical
accident of his birth? Has not his religion to be diligently instilled
into him from the cradle? How, then, can it be said that man is by
nature religious? How can it be said that the craving for a deity is
instinctive? To this the Christian apologist may reply that, however
much the precise form of the religious belief may be due to education,
no belief of any kind could be engendered without a predisposition
to accept it. Have we not seen, however, that primitive beliefs
were the natural offspring of fear and wonder? Inability to account
for phenomena, ignorance of the laws of nature, and those abnormal
psychical experiences concerning which science has but now commenced to
furnish natural explanations, all combined to turn primitive men into
staunch supernaturalists. For the same reasons, children in years as
well as children in knowledge have always been predisposed to belief
in the supernatural. This predisposition (it can hardly be called an
instinct) may be universal, but it does not lead necessarily to belief
in a deity. For that there must be education. If it be an instinct,
it is not a religious instinct, although a soil eminently suitable
for the sowing of supernatural dogmas.
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that the origin of religious
beliefs and the process by which ancestral beliefs have been
assimilated can be left out of consideration--in other words, that
the ethnologist's theories of the evolution of the idea of God and
the educational factor may be disregarded--the supposition that there
is a universal religious instinct must be relinquished if, as the
Rationalist contends, religious belief itself is not universal. Is
such a contention warranted by acknowledged facts? Into this we shall
now inquire.
THE APOLOGIST'S VIEWS CONCERNING SUPERSTITION AND THE RELIGIOUS
INSTINCT.
At the outset of the inquiry we at once experience a difficulty. It
is not at all clear what the apologist includes under the category
of religious beliefs. If it be taken as an axiom that the grossest
superstition, the mere belief in the supernatural, is the germ of a
religious belief, and therefore that all ignorant or superstitious
persons have the religious instinct, then the proposition will be
true for practically the whole of mankind in the remote past, and
for a very large proportion in the present. Whether it be primeval
man who frequently believed only in magic, usually in devils, and
rarely in divinities, or whether it be the twentieth-century lady
of fashion who wears a white elephant amulet to bring her luck at
"Bridge," both are imbued with the religious instinct. The absurdity
of the supposition is fully apparent if we only carry it far enough.
It is by no means easy to understand where the apologist draws the
line. He may not say so, but his contention really does seem to point
to the absurdity that almost any crude superstition springs from a
divine spark. The neo-apologist, however, will do well to reflect that
the establishment of any connection between superstition and religion
only plays into the hands of the Rationalist, who maintains that there
is certainly the closest connection between the two. I am compelled
to enter into these details, for, among the facts which I am about to
bring forward in contradiction of the assertion of universality, some
relate to instances of pure superstitions which might nevertheless
be construed into signs of the religious instinct. If the apologist
does not go quite so far as this, my task will be rendered much
easier. Perhaps, as Dr. Flint is recognised as one of the most eminent
of the Christian apologists, the conclusions to which he comes will
represent the unspoken opinion of others. He says that, "if savage
tribes have some sort of superstitious belief, it would only be in
accord with modern theories regarding the evolution of the idea of
God.... The presence of false religion is as good evidence of the
existence of religion as the presence of true religion.... Perhaps, if
we may say that religion is man's belief in a being or beings mightier
than himself and inaccessible to his senses, but not indifferent to
his sentiment and actions, with the feelings and practices which
flow from such belief, we have a definition of the kind required,
one excluding nothing which can be called religion, and including
nothing which is only partially present in religion." [281] This
definition would not, one may presume, include mere belief in magic,
but might be taken to include a man's belief in devils. As there are
many who would not agree that devil-worship and the like can have any
connection with god-worship, I shall follow the ethnologist in citing
examples of the absence of god-worship as evidence of the absence
of the religious instinct; but I shall also give examples in which
there is no appearance of worship either of god or devil. These will
chiefly be drawn from present-day beliefs and customs, because now,
if ever, the contention of the religionist should hold good, and also
because it has been incidentally examined with reference to ancient
beliefs in a previous chapter.
BELIEFS OF SAVAGE MAN.
Among the concluding remarks of Darwin's Descent of Man we read:
"The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest,
but the most complete, of all the distinctions between man and
the lower animals. It is, however, impossible, as we have seen,
to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On
the other hand, a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems
to be universal, and apparently follows from a considerable advance
in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance in
his faculties of imagination, curiosity, and wonder. I am aware that
the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons
as an argument for His existence; but this is a rash argument, as we
should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel
and malignant spirits, possessing only a little more power than man;
for the belief in them is far more general than the belief in a
beneficent Deity." [282]
Again, in Huxley's essay on "The Evolution of Theology" we read: "In
its simplest condition, such as may be met with among the Australian
savages, theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and
disposition (usually malignant) of ghost-like entities who may be
propitiated or scared away; but no cult can properly be said to
exist. And in this stage theology is wholly independent of ethics."
Sir John Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, states the argument against the
universality of religion in his Prehistoric Times. He asks: "How can
a people who are unable to count their own fingers possibly raise
their minds so far as to admit even the rudiments of religion?" And
he sums up his observations on various tribes by saying: "Indeed,
the first idea of God is almost always an evil spirit." [283]
"The idea that the northern tribes [of America] venerated one
supreme and all-powerful 'great spirit,' by whom man and the world
were created, is based on erroneous interpretation; Wakanda of the
Dakotas, and Manito of the Algonquins, in no wise coming under such
a designation." [284] "These terms," writes Mr. W. J. McGee, "cannot
justly be rendered into Spirit, much less into Great Spirit." [285]
"Their religion," writes another well-known ethnologist, Mr. G. Mooney,
"is zootheism, or animal-worship, with the survival of a still earlier
stage, which included the worship of all tangible objects, combined
with the beginnings of a higher system in which the elements and the
great powers of nature are deified." [286] Zootheism, the religion
that has survived, does not embrace a belief in a Mightier Being, nor
does this deterioration in "religion" suit the theory of a progressive
revelation. We may also note that the belief of the North American in
witchcraft has led to terrible slaughter, human life being sacrificed
on an enormous and frightful scale.
Andrew Lang (in the third chapter of his book, Magic and Religion)
instances Australian tribes, and says: "Nobody dreams of propitiating
gods or spirits by prayer [compare Bishop Ingram's statement that man
is a praying animal!] while magic is universally practised." There
is, as Mr. Lang observes, "no room for a God, nor for an idea of
a future life, except the life of successive re-incarnations." "I
do not think," writes [287] Professor Baldwin Spencer, "that there
is really any direct evidence of any Australian native belief in a
'Supreme Being' in our sense of the term."
Similarly among the Fuegians (another of the lowest races of mankind)
"almost every old man is a magician, who is supposed to have the power
of life and death, and to be able to control the weather. But the
members of the French scientific expedition to Cape Horn could detect
nothing worthy of the name of religion among these savages." [288]
Here, then, even if we adopt Dr. Flint's broad definition, we surely
have examples of the absence of the religious instinct. There is a
fundamental distinction, and even opposition of principle, between
magic and religion, as we shall see by a study of the opinions of
those best qualified to offer them.
MAGIC AND RELIGION.
"Wherever sympathetic magic occurs," says Dr. Frazer, "in its pure
unadulterated form, it assumes that in nature one event follows
another necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any
spiritual or personal agency" [289] (the italics are mine). "The
magician supplicates no higher power; he sues the favour of no fickle
and wayward being; he abases himself before no awful deity." [290]
"I have," says Dr. Frazer, [291] "come to agree with Sir A. C. Lyall
and Mr. F. B. Jevons in recognising a fundamental distinction, and even
opposition, of principle between magic and religion." This opinion
must be shared by every unbiassed mind, and it is curious, and not
without importance, to observe, with Dr. Frazer, that the "fundamental
conception" of sympathetic magic "is identical with that of modern
science." [292] "Underlying the whole system is a faith--implicit,
but real and firm--in the order and uniformity of nature." [293]
The belief in the efficacy of magic, it should be remembered,
is exceedingly widespread, even at the present time. According
to Mr. Haddon [294] (citing Dr. Jevons), "four-fifths of mankind,
probably, believe in sympathetic magic." Dr. Frazer, too, reminds us
that among the ignorant and superstitious classes of modern Europe it
is very much what it was thousands of years ago in Egypt and India,
and what it now is among the lowest savages surviving in the remotest
corners of the world. "If the test of truth," exclaims Dr. Frazer,
"lay in a show of hands or a counting of heads, the system of magic
might appeal, with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to the
proud motto, 'Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' as the sure
and certain credential of its own infallibility." [295]
Not only is there an opposition of principle between magic and
religion, not only is belief in the former a universal faith, a truly
catholic creed, but it is now generally recognised by ethnologists
that "in the evolution of thought, magic, as representing a lower
intellectual stratum, has [as 'has been plainly suggested, if not
definitely formulated, by Professor H. Oldenberg in his able book,
Die Religion des Veda'] probably everywhere preceded religion." [296]
The popular notion that the religious instinct is universal is perhaps
natural enough, but it is not borne out by these significant facts
and conclusions. Indeed, it would be far more correct to say that
an instinct, the very antithesis of what the Church would mean by
the religious instinct, was at one time, and even now is, well-nigh
universal.
RELIGION IN MODERN CHINA.
So far we have seen that the opponents of the "Universal" theory
presume in their argument that devil-worship has no relation to
true god-worship, and we may note that it never even entered the
heads of such men as Darwin and Lubbock that it would ever be held
that these are essentially identical. Nor is this peculiar opinion
held by clerics who have studied devil-worship on the spot. Thus the
Rev. Arthur H. Smith, D.D., twenty-two years a missionary in China,
describes [297] the fear of goblins and devils which figures so largely
in Taoism; but, far from suggesting the presence of the religious
instinct, he laments its total absence. Among his many pertinent
observations I commend the following to the serious consideration
of those who believe in a universal religious instinct and in a
progressive revelation: "If the Chinese ever did recognise the true
God, that knowledge has certainly been most effectually lost, like
an inscription on an ancient coin now covered with the accumulated
rust of millenniums. [298]... Sir Thomas Wade, whose long familiarity
with China and the Chinese might be supposed to entitle him to speak
with authority on so plain a question as whether the Chinese have or
have not a religion, has recently published his opinion as follows:
'If religion is held to mean more than mere ethics, I deny that the
Chinese have a religion.'" [299]
Speaking of Chinese nature-worship, Dr. Smith says: "No prayer is
uttered.... What is it that at such times the people worship? Sometimes
they affirm that the object of worship is heaven and earth. Sometimes
they say that it is heaven, and again they call it 'the old man of the
sky.' The latter term often leads to an impression that the Chinese do
have a real perception of a personal Deity. But when it is ascertained
that this supposed person is frequently matched by another called
'grandmother earth,' the value of the inference is open to serious
question." [300]
As to there being no such thing as an atheistic people, are we to take
no account of the cultured classes? Mark the following: "The polytheism
and pantheism of the lower classes of Chinese are matched in the upper
classes by what appears to be pure atheism.... There never was on this
earth a body of educated and cultured men so thoroughly agnostic and
atheistic as the mass of Confucian scholars. [301]... Its absolute
indifference to the profoundest spiritual truths in the nature of man
is the most melancholy characteristic of the Chinese mind--its ready
acceptance of a body without a soul, of a soul without a spirit,
of a spirit without life, of a cosmos without a cause, a universe
without a God." [302]
Alluding to the mixture of Confucianism with Taoism and Buddhism,
he remarks: "Any kind of a divinity which seems adapted to exert a
favourable influence in any given direction will be patronised, just
as a man who happens to need a new umbrella goes to some shop where
they keep such goods for sale. To inquire into the antecedents of
the divinity who is thus worshipped no more occurs to a Chinese than
it would occur to an Englishman who wanted the umbrella to satisfy
himself as to the origin of umbrellas, and when they first came into
general use.... The Chinaman has carried 'intellectual hospitality'
to the point of logical suicide, but he does not know it, and cannot
be made to understand it when he is told." [303]
Three questions suggest themselves. If the pious lady who contributes
towards mission work in China only knew of this, would she be
pleased? [304] Are there not many English people strangely like the
Chinese in an umbrella-patronage of Christianity? Finally, does not
the modern apologist (with his theory of Progressive Revelation and
his idea that Christianity has yet much to learn from, and will be
improved by contact with, the faiths of the East) carry "intellectual
hospitality" to the point of logical suicide?
The advice of Confucius was to reverence the gods as if they existed,
[305] but in any case to keep them at a distance, and have as little to
do with them as possible; and his advice has been followed. Dr. Smith
tells us that the popular instinct has taken at its true value the
uncertainty conveyed in the words "as if," and has embodied them in
current sayings which accurately express the state of mind of the
mass of the people. Thus:--
Call on the gods as if they came;
But, if you don't, it's all the same.
And again:--
Worship the gods as if the gods were there;
But, if you worship not, the gods don't care. [306]
The absence of the instinct of reverence may be judged by the following
episode related by Dr. Smith: "A District Magistrate tried a case
which involved a priest, and, by implication, the Buddha which was
the occupant of the temple. This god was summoned to appear before
the magistrate and told to kneel, which he failed to do, whereupon the
magistrate ordered him to be given five hundred blows, by which time
the god was reduced to a heap of dust, and judgment was pronounced
against him by default." [307] (Of their manner of treating devils
I had, not long ago, a personal experience. Standing on the quay at
Shanghai, I was deafened by the bang, bang, bang of ear-splitting
bombs exploded by a crowd of Chinamen. However crude their method,
their intentions were excellent. They wished to scare away the devils
who might have elected to accompany their friends on the voyage
to England.)
Finally, as a commentary on the oft-repeated assertion that the great
difference between the sacred books of the East and of the Bible is
the low plane of morality in the former, the following words quoted by
Dr. Smith are of considerable interest: "No people," says Mr. Meadows,
"whether of ancient or modern times, has possessed a sacred literature
so completely exempt as the Chinese from licentious descriptions,
and from every offensive expression. There is not a single sentence
in the whole of the Sacred Books and their annotations that may not
be read aloud in any family circle in England." [308] Can this be
said of our Bible?
APOSTATES IN CHRISTENDOM.
If I have given the religious attitude of the modern Chinese the
largest share of attention, it must be remembered that they far
outnumber any other nation in the world. Also I think the fallacies
regarding the religious instinct will perhaps stand out more clearly
if we consider the present twentieth century, instead of millenniums
B.C. I have said nothing as yet of the apostates in Christendom--the
Darwins, the Huxleys, and the Spencers--who declare that they are
without the religious instinct. We must consider them ruled out of
court, for are we not told [309] that "there are men with faculties
of insight amounting to genius in other regions of mental activity
who have never developed the spiritual faculty, and are thus debarred
the privileges of spiritual geniuses--geniuses in the region in which
man holds communion with God"?
Lately much capital has been made out of the following statement
appearing in Darwin's Autobiography: "Up to the age of thirty or
beyond it, poetry such as Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, etc., gave
me great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read
a line of poetry. I have lost my taste for pictures and music. My
mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general
laws out of large collections of facts." This loss of certain tastes
indicated--so the pulpit would have the pew suppose--that that portion
of Darwin's mind which was competent to understand spiritual things
had atrophied. Does God reveal Himself, then, only or especially to the
æsthetic? The artist--and here I include the poet, painter, sculptor,
musician, artistic novelist, and also the man who has created nothing,
but who has the artistic temperament--will, if he has a religion,
have one of a sort harmonising with his artist soul. It must be a
religion which allows scope for the cultivation of the beautiful,
without being necessarily too closely associated with a rigid code
of ethics. Is the æsthetic mind always perfectly balanced? How does
it compare on an average with that of the moral philosopher guiding
his life by the light of reason and living up to the standard of
his professions? Darwin has assisted in establishing a great truth
concerning the development of the world. He has been, according to the
Christian evolutionist, the chosen instrument for a fresh revelation of
God's majesty. Yet, in spiritual endowments, every pious Christian,
however ignorant and unintellectual, ranks before him! Strange,
passing strange. The very qualifications necessary for accomplishing
God's purpose debarred Darwin from fellowship with Him! For such an
argument to be worth a moment's consideration it should at least
apply generally. This it most distinctly does not. Preachers, who
find Darwin's candid remark about himself a convenient one upon which
to base a homily, have neglected to acquaint themselves with the
statements of other agnostic scientists--of Huxley, for instance. "I
have yet," he declared, "to meet with any form of art in which it has
not been possible for me to take as acute a pleasure as, I believe,
it is possible for men to take." [310]
RELIGION IN MODERN JAPAN.
At the risk of increasing the citation of examples ad nauseam, I cannot
omit a passing reference to the Japanese. I shall reserve for the last
chapter my remarks on the "phenomenon" of their non-theological moral
training, and confine myself to the present condition of their faith as
given by a clergyman, the Rev. Herbert Moore, who was for some years
a missionary in Japan. Mr. Moore tells us: "We are all Shintoists
to a certain extent, for Shinto is the non-Christian version of the
Communion of Saints. And we recognise the truth that Buddhism contains
when we read Ecclesiastes in church.... But these old faiths are fast
perishing from the hearts of the Japanese, leaving behind them blank
godlessness, indifference, and materialism.... Out of 942 students in
Tokyo who recently gave an account of their religious position, 555
declared themselves unbelievers in any religion, 68 were Christians,
18 Shintoists, and most of the remaining 319 Buddhists." [311]
Mr. Moore, in chapter xiv. of his book, quotes a summary of the
situation by the Japan Times, which all who are interested in the
question whether Japan is likely to adopt Christianity would do well
to read. As bearing on the particular point we are now discussing,
the following may be noted: "We cannot believe that it [Christianity]
will ever succeed in getting a firm hold upon the minds of the educated
classes. Men of these classes have for centuries lived and died under
a system of morality which inculcates virtue for virtue's sake, and
entirely dispenses with supernatural sanctions of any sort.... We
cannot agree with those who, like Mr. Toyama and Mr. Fukuzawa,
recommend it to their countrymen, while they themselves refuse to
believe in it, except as a collection of useful superstitions." [312]
How many Toyamas and Fukuzawas are there not in modern Christendom?
CLASSICAL HISTORY.
It matters not where you direct your searchlight, you cannot fail to
discover instance upon instance confuting the pious assertion of a
universal religious instinct. Take the case of the great Roman poet
and philosopher, Lucretius, whose unique poem, De Rerum Natura, has
acquired a new interest in the present day. He set before himself
the task of finally crushing that fear of the gods, and that fear
of death resulting from it, which he regarded as the source of all
human ills. He denied the two bases of all religion (as we understand
it)--the doctrines of a supernatural Governor of the world, and of
a future life.
I will not continue to multiply examples. It is surely clear that
the religious instinct is not universal.
NOTE ON HUMAN SENTIMENT AS TO A FUTURE LIFE.
What is the Rationalistic explanation of that essence of the
"religious instinct," belief in an after life? It may, I think, be
summed up briefly in some such words as these: "The conception of
non-existence is an effort beyond the power of human intellect. As
long as man thinks, his ego is fully conscious of its existence,
and not able to grasp the idea of non-existence. Thus religion is a
functional weakness." [313] The instinct of self-preservation does
the rest; it transforms the speculation into an ardent desire. "The
theory of a continued existence after death is nothing more than a
certain manifestation of the impulse for self-preservation, as the
instinct for self-preservation itself is nothing more than the form
under which our vital energies, that have their seat in every cell of
our organism, manifest themselves to our consciousness." [314] Is not
this a perfectly natural explanation of the craving for immortality?
This craving, as we have seen, is not universal; while, in Buddhism, it
is assumed that man ought to strive for extinction. Even among Western
nations the craving is not so common as it is generally supposed to be,
and as the Church confidently takes for granted. In support of this
conclusion, I should mention that my readers will find a startling
confirmation in an article on "Human Sentiment with regard to a Future
Life," which appears in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research for October, 1904. The article is written by a well-known
psychologist, Mr. F. C. S. Schiller, Fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, and author of various well-known works on the mind
(Riddles of the Sphinx, 1891; Humanism, 1903, etc.). He reviews the
results of a laborious inquiry by the American branch of the S. P. R.,
and comes to the conclusion that "the returns show a hitherto hardly
suspected weakness of the desire for knowledge of a future life,"
[315] and that, "amid all the various phenomena of human psychology,
distress due to uncertainty about one's fate after death seems to
be one of the rarest." [316] Mr. Schiller, the apostle of Professor
W. James in this country, shows that he himself possesses the craving
for an after life in no ordinary degree, and this adds all the more
force to his statement that the instinct is in nowise universal. I,
too, once had a craving so intense that hell itself seemed less awful
than total annihilation. To those who have built up high hopes their
destruction must come as a terrible shock--a shock eventually relieved
by a feeling of resignation to the inevitable.
What we, as anxious parents, have to ask ourselves is: Do we not
agree with St. Paul when he says, "If Christ be not risen, then is
our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain"; and are we not
aware that, with the advance of knowledge, the present widespread
disbelief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ will become more and
more general? Even now how many disbelieve or preserve an agnosticism
regarding the chief dogmas of the Christian creed? How many are
sceptical concerning the continuance of consciousness after death? Does
either science or common sense support a belief in the survival of
personality? Are we right, then, in permitting our children's minds
to be imbued with a "sure and certain hope of the resurrection to
eternal life"? Is it a kind act to expose our children to the pain
of a rude awakening by instilling hopes that are destined to be
ultimately shattered? Is it a wise act to allow their morality to be
based upon foundations that are doomed to destruction? It is not as
if we were forced into telling fairy stories because we shrink from
negative teaching. It is not as if there were no natural incentives
to right conduct, no positive teaching possible, without an admixture
of theological speculations. Non-theological moral instruction is
not only possible, but is urgently wanted and will be extremely
beneficial. This will appear more fully in the following chapter.