The subject dealt with in this lecture will be the place of
Christianity in the evolution of religion; and I shall approach it by
considering the place of religion in the evolution of humanity. It
will be therefore advisable, indeed necessary, for me to consider what
is meant by evolution; and I wish to begin by explaining the point of
view from which I propose to approach the three ideas of evolution, of
the evolution of humanity and the evolution of religion.
The individual exists, and can only exist, in society. Society cannot
exist without individuals as members thereof; and the individual cannot
exist save in society. From this it follows that from one point of
view the individual may be regarded as a means--a means by which
society attains its end or purpose: every one of us has his place or
function in society; and society thrives according as each member
performs his function and discharges his duty. From another point of
view {240} the individual may be regarded as an end. If man is a
social animal, if men live in society, it is because so alone can a man
do what is best for himself: it is by means of society that he realises
his end. It is then from this proposition, viz. that the individual is
both a means and an end, that I wish to approach the idea of evolution.
I will begin by calling attention to the fact that that proposition is
true both statically, that is to say, is true of the individual's
position in a community, and is also true dynamically, that is to say,
is true of his place in the process of evolution. On the former point,
that the proposition is true statically, of the position of the
individual in the community, I need say but little. In moral
philosophy it is the utilitarian school which has particularly insisted
upon this truth. That school has steadily argued that, in the
distribution of happiness or of the good, every man is to count as one,
and nobody to count as more than one--that is to say, in the community
the individual is to be regarded as the end. The object to be aimed at
is not happiness in general and no one's happiness in particular, but
the happiness of each and every individual. It is the individual and
his happiness which is the {241} end, for the sake of which society
exists and to which it is the means; otherwise the individual might
derive no benefit from society. But if the truth that the individual
is an end as well as a means is recognised by moral philosophy, that
truth has also played at least an equally important part in political
philosophy. It is the very breath of the cry for liberty, equality,
and fraternity,--a cry wrung out from the heart of man by the system of
oppression which denied that the ordinary citizen had a right to be
anything but a means for procuring enjoyment to the members of the
ruling class. The truth that any one man--whatever his place in
society, whatever the colour of his skin--has as much right as any
other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the
enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for
the emancipation of slaves. It is still the magna charta for the
freedom of every member of the human race. No man is or can be a
chattel--a thing existing for no other purpose than to subserve the
interests of its owner and to be a means to his ends. But though from
the truth that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means,
it follows that all men have the right to {242} freedom, it does not
follow as a logical inference that all men are equal as means--as means
to the material happiness or to the moral improvement of society.
I need not further dwell upon the fact that statically as regards the
relations of men to one another in society at any moment, the truth is
fully recognised that the individual is not merely a means to the
happiness or well-being of others, but is also in himself an end. But
when we consider the proposition dynamically, when we wish to find out
the part it has played as one of the forces at work in evolution, we
find that its truth has been far from fully recognised--partly perhaps
because utilitarianism dates from a time when evolution, or the bearing
of it, was not understood. But the truth is at least of as great
importance dynamically as it is statically. And on one side, its truth
and the importance of its truth has been fully developed: that the
individual is a means to an end beyond him; and that, dynamically, he
has been and is a factor in evolution, and as a factor merely a means
and nothing else--all this has been worked out fully, if not to excess.
The other side of the truth, the fact that the individual is always an
end, has, however, {243} been as much neglected by the scientific
evolutionist as it was by the slave-driver: he has been liable to
regard men as chattels, as instruments by which the work of evolution
is carried on. The work has got to be done (by men amongst other
animals and things), things have to be evolved, evolution must go on.
But, why? and for whom? with what purpose and for whose benefit? with
what end? are questions which science leaves to be answered by those
people who are foolish enough to ask them. Science is concerned simply
with the individual as a means, as one of the means, whereby evolution
is carried on; and doubtless science is justified--if only on the
principle of the division of labour--in confining itself to the
department of enquiry which it takes in hand and in refusing to travel
beyond it. Any theory of man, therefore, or of the evolution of
humanity, which professes to base itself strictly on scientific fact
and to exclude other considerations as unscientific and therefore as
unsafe material to build on, will naturally, and perhaps necessarily,
be dominated by the notion that the individual exists as a factor in
evolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the
end for which, evolution is carried on.
{244}
Such seems to be the case with the theory of humanitarianism. It bases
itself upon science, upon experience, and rules out communion with God
as not being a scientific fact or a fact of experience at all. Based
upon science, it is a theory which seeks amongst other things to assign
to religion its place in the evolution of humanity. According to the
theory, the day of religion is over, its part played out, its function
in the evolution of humanity discharged. According to this theory,
three stages may be discerned in the evolution of humanity when we
regard man as a moral being, as an ethical consciousness. Those three
stages may be characterised first as custom, next religion, and finally
humanitarianism.
By the theory, in the first stage--that of custom--the spirits to whom
cult is paid are vindictive. In the second stage--that of
religion--man, having attained to a higher morality, credits his gods
with that higher morality. In the third stage--that of
humanitarianism--he finds that the gods are but lay figures on which
the robes of righteousness have been displayed that man alone can
wear--when he is perfect. He is not yet perfect. If he were, the
evolution of humanity {245} would be attained--whereas at present it is
as yet in process. The end of evolution is not yet attained: it is to
establish, in some future generation, a perfect humanity. For that end
we must work; to it we may know that, as a matter of scientific
evolution, we are working. On it, we may be satisfied, man will not
enter in our generation.
Now this theory of the evolution of humanity, and of the place religion
takes in that evolution, is in essential harmony with the scientific
treatment of the evolution theory, inasmuch as it treats of the
individual solely as an instrument to something other than himself, as
a means of producing a state of humanity to which he will not belong.
But if the assumption that the individual is always a means and never
an end in himself be false, then a theory of the evolution of man (as
an ethical consciousness) which is based on that wrong assumption will
itself be wrong. If each individual is an end, as valuable and as
important as any other individual; if each counts for one and not less
than any one other,--then his end and his good cannot lie in the
perfection of some future generation. In that case, his end would be
one that _ex hypothesi_ he could never enjoy, a rest into which he
could never enter; {246} and consequently it would be an irrational
end, and could not serve as a basis for a rationalist theory of ethics.
Man's object (to be a rational object) must have reference to a society
of which he may be a member. The realisation of his object, therefore,
cannot be referred to a stage of society yet to come, on earth, after
he is dead,--a society of which he, whether dead or annihilated, could
not be a member. If, then, the individual's object is to be a rational
object, as the humanitarian or rationalist assumes, then that end must
be one in which he can share; and therefore cannot be in this world.
Nor can that end be attained by doing man's will--for man's will may be
evil, and regress as well as progress is a fact in the evolution of
humanity; its attainment, therefore, must be effected by doing God's
will.
The truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is, I
suggest, valuable in considering the dynamics as well as the statics of
society. At least, it saves one from the self-complacency of imagining
that one's ancestors existed with no other end and for no higher
purpose than to produce--me; and if the golden days anticipated by the
theory of humanitarianism ever arrive, it is to be supposed that the
{247} men of that time will find it just as intolerable and revolting
as we do now, to believe that past generations toiled and suffered for
no other reason, for no other end, and to no other purpose than that
their successors should enter into the fruits of their labour. In a
word, the theory that in the evolution of man as an ethical
consciousness, as a moral being, religion is to be superseded by
humanitarianism, is only possible so long as we deny or ignore the fact
that the individual is an end and not merely a means. We will
therefore now go on to consider the evolution of religion from the
point of view that the individual is in himself an end as well as a
means. If, of the world religions, we take that which is the greatest,
as measured by the number of its adherents, viz. Buddhism, we shall see
that, tried by this test, it is at once found wanting. The object at
which Buddhism proclaims that man should aim is not the development,
the perfection, and the realisation of the individual to the fullest
extent: it is, on the contrary, the utter and complete effacement of
the individual, so that he is not merely absorbed, but absolutely wiped
out, in _nirvana_. In the _atman_, with which it is the duty of man to
seek to identify himself, the individuality of man does not survive:
{248} it simply ceases to be. Now this obliteration of his existence
may seem to a man in a certain mood desirable; and that mood may be
cultivated, as indeed Buddhism seeks to cultivate it, systematically.
But here it is that the inner inconsistency, the self-contradictoriness
of Buddhism, becomes patent. The individual, to do anything, must
exist. If he is to desire nothing save to cease to exist, he must
exist to do that. But the teaching of Buddhism is that this world and
this life is illusion--and further, that the existence of the
individual self is precisely the most mischievous illusion, that
illusion above all others from which it is incumbent on us to free
ourselves. We are here for no other end than to free ourselves from
that illusion. Thus, then, by the teaching of Buddhism there is an
end, it may be said, for the individual to aim at. Yes! but by the
same teaching there is no individual to aim at it--individual existence
is the most pernicious of all illusions. And further, by the teaching,
the final end and object of religion is to get rid of an individual
existence, which does not exist to be got rid of, and which it is an
illusion to believe in. In fine, Buddhism denies that the individual
is either an end or a means, for it denies {249} the existence of the
individual, and contradicts itself in that denial. The individual is
not an end--the happiness or immortality, the continued existence, of
the individual is not to be aimed at. Neither is he a means, for his
very existence is an illusion, and as such is an obstacle or impediment
which has to be removed, in order that he who is not may cease to do
what he has never begun to do, viz. to exist.
In Buddhism we have a developed religion--a religion which has been
developed by a system of philosophy, but scarcely, as religion,
improved by it. If, now, we turn to other religions less highly
developed, even if we turn to religions the development of which has
been early arrested, which have never got beyond the stage of infantile
development, we shall find that all proceed on the assumption that
communion between man and God is possible and does occur. In all, the
existence of the individual as well as of the god is assumed, even
though time and development may be required to realise, even
inadequately, what is contained in the assumption. In all, and from
the beginning, religion has been a social fact: the god has been the
god of the community; and, as such, has {250} represented the interests
of the community. Those interests have been regarded not merely as
other, but as higher, than the interests of the individual, when the
two have been at variance, for the simple reason (when the time came
for a reason to be sought and given) that the interests of the
community were the will of the community's god. Hence at all times the
man who has postponed his own interests to those under the sanction of
the god and the community--the man who has respected and upheld the
custom of the community--has been regarded as the higher type of man,
as the better man from the religious as well as from the moral point of
view; while the man who has sacrificed the higher interests to the
lower, has been punished--whether by the automatic action of taboo, or
the deliberate sentence of outlawry--as one who, by breaking custom,
has offended against the god and so brought suffering on the community.
Now, if the interests, whether of the individual or the community, are
regarded as purely earthly, the divergence between them must be utter
and irreconcileable; and to expect the individual to forego his own
interests must be eventually discovered to be, as it fundamentally is,
unreasonable. {251} If, on the other hand, for the individual to
forego them is (as, in a cool moment, we all recognise it to be)
reasonable, then the interests under the sanction of the god and the
community--the higher interests--cannot be other than, they must be
identical with, the real interests of the individual. It is only in
and through society that the individual can attain his highest
interests, and only by doing the will of the god that he can so attain
them. Doubtless--despite of logic and feeling--in all communities all
individuals in a greater or less degree have deliberately preferred the
lower to the higher, and in so doing have been actuated neither by love
of God nor by love of their fellow-man. But, in so doing, they have at
all times, in the latest as well as the earliest stages of society,
been felt to be breaching the very basis of social solidarity, the
maintenance of which is the will of the God worshipped by society.
From that point of view the individual is regarded as a means. But he
is also in himself an end, intrinsically as valuable as any other
member of the community, and therefore an end which society exists to
further and promote. It is impossible, therefore, that the end, viewed
as that which society {252} as well as the individual aims at, and
which society must realise, as far as it can realise it, through the
individual, should be one which can only be attained by some future
state of society in which he does not exist. "The kingdom of Heaven is
within you" and not something to which you cannot attain. God is not
far from us at any time. That truth was implicit at all stages in the
evolution of religion--consciously recognised, perhaps more, perhaps
less, but whether more or less consciously recognised, it was there.
That is the conviction implied in the fact that man everywhere seeks
God. If he seeks Him in plants, in animals, in stocks or stones, that
only shows that man has tried in many wrong directions--not that there
is not a right direction. It is the general law of evolution: of a
thousand seeds thrown out, perhaps one alone falls into good soil. But
the failure of the 999 avails nothing against the fact that the one
bears fruit abundantly. What sanctifies the failures is that they were
attempts. We indeed may, if we are so selfish and blind, regard the
attempts as made in order that we might succeed. Certainly we profit
by the work of our ancestors,--or rather we may profit, if we will.
But our savage ancestors were themselves ends, and {253} not merely
means to our benefit. It is monstrous to imagine that our salvation is
bought at the cost of their condemnation. No man can do more than turn
to such light as there may be to guide him. "To him that hath, shall
be given," it is true--but every man at every time had something; never
was there one to whom nothing was given. To us at this day, in this
dispensation, much has been given. But ten talents as well as one may
be wrapped up: one as well as ten may be put to profit. It is
monstrous to say that one could not be, cannot have been, used
properly. It was for not using the one talent he had that the
unfaithful servant was condemned--not for not having ten to use.
Throughout the history of religion, then, two facts have been implied,
which, if implicit at the beginning, have been rendered explicit in the
course of its history or evolution. They are, first, the existence of
the individual as a member of society, in communion or seeking
communion with God; and, next, that while the individual is a means to
social ends, society is also a means of which the individual is the
end. Neither end--neither that of society nor that of the
individual--can be forwarded at {254} the cost of the other; the
realisation of each is to be attained only by the realisation of the
other. Two consequences then follow with regard to evolution: first,
it depends on us; evolution may have helped to make us, but we are
helping to make it. Next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside
any one of us, but in part is realised in us, or may be, if we so will.
That is to say, the true end may be realised by every one of us; for
each of us, as being himself an end, is an object of care to God--and
not merely those who are to live on earth at the final stage of
evolution. If the end is outside us, it is in love of neighbour; if
beyond us, it is in God's love. It is just because the end is (or may
be) both within us and without us that we are bound up with our
fellow-man and God. It is precisely because we are individuals that we
are not the be-all and the end-all--that the end is without us. And it
is because we are members of a community, that the end is not wholly
outside us.
In his _Problems of Philosophy_ (p. 163) Hoeffding says: "The test of
the perfection of a human society is: to what degree is every person so
placed and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at
the same time an end?" and he points {255} out that "this is Kant's
famous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him." But
if it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the
point of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society
regarded dynamically. If it is the proper test for ascertaining what
degree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is
also the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards
perfection has been made by society between any two periods of its
growth, any two stages in its evolution. But the moment we admit the
possibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of
discovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning
science and the scientific theory of evolution. Science formally
refuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of
evolution is working: "end" is a category which science declines to
apply to its subject-matter. In the interests of knowledge it declines
to be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by
evolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all. It
simply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some
extent what may be, the sequence of events--not their object or
purpose. And the {256} science of religion, being a science, restricts
itself in the same way. As therefore science declines to use the
category, "end," progress is an idea impossible for science--for
progress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and
object. And science declines to consider whether progress is so much
as possible. But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of
religion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact
of observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere
seeks God and communion with Him. What the science of religion
declines to do is to pronounce or even to consider whether that end is
possible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether
progress is made or not.
But if we do not, as science does, merely constate the fact that in
religion an end is aimed at, viz. that communion with God which issues
in doing His will from love of Him and therefore of our fellow-man; if
we recognise that end as the end that ought to be aimed at,--then our
attitude towards the whole process of evolution is changed: it is now a
process with an end--and that end the same for the individual and for
society. But at the same time it is no longer a process determined by
mechanical {257} causes worked by the iron hand of necessity--and
therefore it is no longer evolution in the scientific sense; it is no
longer evolution as understood by science. It is now a process in
which there may or may not be progress made; and in which, therefore,
it is necessary to have a test of progress--a test which is to be found
in the fact that the individual is not merely a means, but an end.
Whether progress is made depends in part on whether there is the will
in man to move towards the end proposed; and that will is not uniformly
exercised, as is shown by the fact that deterioration as well as
advance takes place--regress occurs as well as progress; whole nations,
and those not small ones, may be arrested in their religious
development. If we look with the eye of the missionary over the globe,
everywhere we see arrested development, imperfect communion with God.
It may be that in such cases of imperfect communion there is an
unconscious or hardly conscious recognition that the form of religion
there and then prevalent does not suffice to afford the communion
desired. Or, worse still, and much more general, there is the belief
that such communion as does exist is all that can exist--that advance
and improvement are impossible. From {258} this state it has been the
work of the religious spirit to wake us, to reveal to us God's will, to
make us understand that it is within us, and that it may, if we will,
work within us. It is as such a revelation of the will of God and the
love of God, and as the manifestation of the personality of God, that
our Lord appeared on earth.
That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of
historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to
what followed and is yet to follow. In relation to what preceded,
Christianity claims "to be the fulfilment of all that is true in
previous religion" (Illingworth, _Personality: Human and Divine_, p.
75). The making of that claim assumes that there was some truth in
previous religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they
were true--a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the
missionary. The truth and the good inherent in all forms of religion
is that, in all, man seeks after God. The finality of Christianity
lies in the fact that it reveals the God for whom man seeks. What was
true in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion
with God, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the
individual man attain {259} to that communion. What is offered by
Christianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained
and a society in which the individual may attain it. Christianity
offers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be
realised. Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its
chronological relation to other religions. It is not final because, or
in the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous
religions, or that it fulfilled only their truth. Other religions
have, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow
it hereafter. But their chronological order is irrelevant to the
question: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all
its forms, aims? And it is the answer to that question which must
determine the finality of any form of religion. No one would consider
the fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof
of its superiority to Christianity. And the lapse of time, however
much greater, would constitute no greater proof.
That different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in
different degrees is a point on which there is general agreement.
Monotheism is pronounced higher than polytheism, ethical religions
{260} higher than non-ethical. What differentiates Christianity from
other ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in
them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties
and rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality. In them, at
their highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for
himself. Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true basis and
the only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the
end in which it seeks its realisation. Therein the Christian theory of
society differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that man
cannot make himself better without making society better, that
development of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding
development of society. But it holds that such moral development and
improvement of the individual and of society can find no rational basis
and has no rational end, save in the love of God.
In another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others.
Like all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is
found in worship. Unlike others it recognises that the individual is
restricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a
common worship. The {261} adequate realisation of the potentialities
of the individual postulates the realisation of a perfect society, just
as a perfect society is possible only provided that the potentialities
of the individual are realised to the full. Such perfection, to which
both society and the individual are means, is neither attained nor
possible on earth, even where communion with God is recognised to be
both the true end of society and the individual, and the only means by
which that end can be attained. Still less is such perfection a
possible end, if morality is set above religion, and the love of man be
substituted for the love of God. In that case the life of the
individual upon earth is pronounced to be the only life of which he is,
or can be, conscious; and the end to which he is a means is the good of
humanity as a whole. Now human society, from the beginning of its
evolution to its end, may be regarded as a whole, just as the society
existing at any given moment of its evolution may be regarded as a
whole. But if we are to consider human society from the former point
of view and to see in it, so regarded, the end to which the individual
is a means, then it is clear that, until perfection is attained in some
remote and very improbable future, the individual members of the {262}
human race will have laboured and not earned their reward, will have
worked for an end which they have not attained, and for an end which
when, if ever, it is attained, society as a whole will not enjoy. Such
an end is an irrational and impossible object of pursuit. Perfection,
if it is to be attained by the individual or by society, is not to be
attained on earth, nor in man's communion with man. Religion from its
outset has been the quest of man for God. It has been the quest of
man, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of society. But
if that quest is to be realised, it is not to be realised either by
society or the individual, regarded as having a mere earthly existence.
A new conception of the real nature of both is requisite. Not only
must the individual be regarded as continuing to exist after death, but
the society of which he is truly a member must be regarded as one
which, if it manifests or begins to manifest itself on this earth,
requires for its realisation--that is, for perfect communion with
God--the postulate that though it manifests itself in this world, it is
realised in the next. This new conception of the real nature of
society and the individual, involving belief in the communion of the
saints, and in the kingdom of Heaven as that {263} which may be in each
individual, and therefore must extend beyond each and include all
whether in this world or the next--this conception is one which
Christianity alone, of all religions, offers to the world.
Religion is the quest of man for God. Man everywhere has been in
search of God, peradventure he might find Him; and the history of
religion is the history of his search. But the moment we regard the
history--the evolution--of religion as a search, we abandon the
mechanical idea of evolution: the cause at work is not material or
mechanical, but final. The cause is no longer a necessary cause which
can only have one result and which, when it operates, must produce that
result. Progress is no longer something which must take place, which
is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. It is something which
may or may not take place and which cannot take place unless effort is
made. In a word, it is dependent in part upon man's will--without the
action of which neither search can be made nor progress in the search.
But though in part dependent upon man's will, progress can only be made
so far as man's will is to do God's will. And that is not always, and
has not been always, {264} man's will. Hence evolution has not always
been progress. Nor is it so now. There have been lapses in
civilisation, dark ages, periods when man's love for man has waned
_pari passu_ with the waning of his love for God. Such lapses there
may be yet again. The fall of man may be greater, in the spiritual
sense, than it ever yet has been, for man's will is free. But God's
love is great, and our faith is in it. If Christianity should cease to
grow where it now grows, and cease to spread where it as yet is not,
there would be the greater fall. And on us would rest some, at least,
of the responsibility. Christianity cannot be stationary: if it
stands, let it beware; it is in danger of falling. Between religions,
as well as other organisations, there is a struggle for existence. In
that struggle we have to fight--for a religion to decline to fight is
for that religion to die. The missionary is not engaged in a work of
supererogation, something with which we at home have no concern. We
speak of him as in the forefront of the battle. We do not usually or
constantly realise that it is our battle he is fighting--that his
defeat, if he were defeated, would be the beginning of the end for us;
that on his success our fate depends. The metaphor of the missionary
as an {265} outpost sounds rather picturesque when heard in a
sermon,--or did so sound the first time it was used, I suppose,--but it
is not a mere picture; it is the barest truth. The extent to which we
push our outposts forward is the measure of our vitality, of how much
we have in us to do for the world. Six out of seven of Christendom's
missionaries come from the United States of America. Until I heard
that from the pulpit of Durham Cathedral, I had rather a horror of big
things and a certain apprehension about going to a land where bigness,
rather than the golden mean, seemed to be taken as the standard of
merit. But from that sermon I learnt something, viz. not only that
there are big things to be done in the world, but that America does
them, and that America does more of them than she talks about.
{267}