{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22177/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22177","id":"gutenberg_22177","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22177","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life","Ethics","Religion and ethics"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMORALITY AS A RELIGION\n\n\nAN EXPOSITION OF SOME FIRST PRINCIPLES\n\n\nBY\n\nW. R. WASHINGTON SULLIVAN\n\n\n\n  \"Religion is Morality recognised as a Divine command.\"\n        --IMMANUEL KANT\n\n  \"The mind of this age has fallen away from theology to\n  morals.  I conceive it an advance.\"\n        --EMERSON\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nSWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.\n\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.\n\n1898\n\n[_All rights reserved_]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nA recent work by M. Guyau was originally announced under the title of\n_The Non-Religion of the Future_, and, doubtless, an impression is\ngenerally prevalent that, with the modification or disappearance of\ntraditional forms of Belief, the fate of Religion itself is involved.\n\nThe present volume is a plea for a reconsideration of the Religious\nquestion, and an inquiry as to the possibility of reconstructing\nReligion by shifting its basis from inscrutable dogmas to the\nunquestionable facts of man's moral nature.  It is now some fifty years\nsince Emerson wrote that \"the progress of Religion is steadily towards\nits identification with Morals,\" and foretold \"a new Church founded on\nMoral Science . . . the Church of men to come\".  It is more than a\ncentury since the immortal Immanuel Kant startled Europe by the\nbetrayal of the immensity of the emotion whereby the contemplation of\n\"man's sense of law\" filled his soul, shedding henceforth an unfading\nglory about the ideal of Duty and Virtue, and elevating it in the\nstrictest sense to the supreme height of Religion.  What these men--the\nprophet and philosopher of the New Idealism--thought and did has borne\nfruit in the foundation in America, Great Britain and Ireland, in\nFrance, Germany, Austria and Italy, of Centres or Societies of Ethical\nCulture which assume as axiomatic that there is, there can be, no\nReligion but that which makes us one with the Moral Progress of\nHumanity, by incessant co-operation with \"the Power that makes for\nRighteousness\".  If Religion be, what its name signifies, the unifying\nprinciple of mankind, in no other wise can we be possibly made One with\neach other and with the Universal Power than by so living as to secure\nthe ends for which worlds and men exist.  As the great Ethical prophet\nof the West expressed the truth: \"My Father worketh even until now, and\nI also work\".  In such co-operation by moral life we place the very\nessence of Religion.\n\nWith a view to propagating such a conception of Religion, wholly based\non Morality, a Society was founded in the autumn of the past year which\nassumed the title of \"The Ethical Religion Society,\" and described\nitself as a branch of \"The Ethical Church,\" \"the Church of men to\ncome,\" which is one day to emerge from the united efforts of all who\nbelieve in the everlasting \"Sovereignty of Ethics,\" the unconditioned\nSupremacy of the Moral Law.  The Ethical Movement is now beginning to\nspread in Europe and America.  It is represented very largely in the\nUnited States, where, indeed, it was inaugurated some twenty years ago\nby Dr. Felix Adler, of New York; in Germany, by a score or more of\nSocieties; in Italy, in Austria, in Hungary, and quite recently in\nFrance and Norway.  London, of course, is represented by numerous\nSocieties, and Ireland possesses one at Belfast.  So far, there has\nbeen nothing definite accomplished towards a federation of these\nrepresentative Bodies, though some preliminary steps have been taken in\nthe formation of an international committee.  The various Societies are\nquite independent, nor are their speculative opinions always in\nagreement.  One only principle is universally and unreservedly\nacknowledged, namely, _the absolute supremacy and independence of\nMorality_, whatever philosophical differences may exist as to\nspeculative matters connected therewith.  The Movement stands for\nfreedom.  _In certis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas._\n\nAs regards the Ethical Religion Society, which meets at Steinway Hall,\nPortman Square, and for which alone the present volume has any claim to\nspeak, it may be said that it expresses the Ethical interpretation with\nwhich the teaching of Kant and Emerson, and the Idealist school\ngenerally, have made us familiar.  During the year of its existence it\nmay be said to have met a certain need, and to have gained numerous\nadherents from amongst those who, finding it impossible to \"stand upon\nthe old ways,\" were yet in need of an Idealism and an inspiration of\nlife.  The teaching given weekly at its Sunday Services is summarised\nin the following chapters, which are published under the impression\nthat some information respecting a Body which is content to make the\nMoral life its ideal and reverence Conscience as \"the highest, holiest\"\nreality, may be welcome to religious idealists generally.  The volume\nis altogether of an introductory character, and merely aims at\nconveying the central truth of Ethical Religion expressed by Immanuel\nKant in the well-known words--_Religion is Morality recognised as a\nDivine command.  Morality is the foundation.  Religion only adds the\nnew and commanding point of view._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\n    I.  ETHICS AND RELIGION\n   II.  ETHICS AND SCIENCE\n  III.  ETHICS AND THEISM\n   IV.  IMMANUEL KANT, THE ETHICAL PHILOSOPHER\n    V.  THE ETHICAL DOCTRINE OF COMPENSATION\n   VI.  CONSCIENCE THE VOICE OF GOD AND THE VOICE OF MAN\n  VII.  PRIESTS AND PROPHETS\n VIII.  PRAYER IN THE ETHICAL CHURCH\n   IX.  THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF DEATH\n    X.  THE ETHICAL ASPECT OF WAR\n   XI.  THE ETHICS OF MARRIAGE\n  XII.  THE ETHICAL CHURCH AND POSITIVISM\n XIII.  THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW AS SEEN IN \"HELBECK OF BANNISDALE\"\n  XIV.  THE RELIGION OF TENNYSON\n   XV.  \"THE UNKNOWN GOD\"\n  XVI.  \"A CHAPEL IN THE INFINITE\"\n XVII.  \"THE OVER-SOUL\"\n\n\n\n\nMORALITY AS A RELIGION.\n\n\nI.\n\nETHICS AND RELIGION.\n\nSome fifteen years ago a discussion was carried on in the pages of one\nof our leading monthlies on the profoundly important question, \"The\nInfluence on Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief\".  Men of every\nshade of opinion, from Roman Catholicism to Agnosticism, contributed\ntheir views, and, as might well have been expected, they came to the\nmost contradictory conclusions.  The Roman Catholic and Anglican\nwriters appeared to think that the mere husk of morality would be left\nwith the disappearance of Christianity; that a sort of enlightened\nepicureanism, a prudent animalism, would sway the greater part of\nmankind; in a word, that we should be \"whited sepulchres,\" fair to look\non without, but \"inside full of dead men's bones, and all filthiness\".\nThe agnostic was no less certain that morality, which had outgrown the\ncumbrous garments manufactured by theology, would get on equally well\nin the handy raiment provided by science.  The Rev. Dr. Martineau,\nspeaking as a theistic philosopher, accurately delineated the\nboundaries of religion and morality, proceeded to show the\nuntenableness of these two extreme positions, and nobly vindicated the\ncomplete autonomy or independence of ethics, whether of theological or\nscientific doctrines.\n\nBefore stating the views which an ethical society advocates as to the\nrelations between religion and ethics, it would be very opportune to\nremark that in the symposium or discussion referred to, sufficient\nemphasis was not laid on an extremely important distinction which\nshould be borne in mind when we estimate the comparative importance of\nreligion and ethics.  It is this.  Religion, to ninety-nine out of\nevery hundred men who talk about it, does not mean religion in its\ngenuine character, but philosophy.  A man's religion is merely a\nsynonym for the reasoned explanation of the universe, of man, and their\ndestiny, which he has learnt from the particular ecclesiastical\norganisation to which he belongs.  Thus, the Christian religion means\nto the Anglican the Bible as interpreted by the Thirty-nine Articles;\nto the Dissenter, the same book, as interpreted by some confession,\nsuch as the Westminster, the Calvinistic, or the like.  To the Roman\nCatholic it is synonymous with what has been, and what in future may\nbe, the verdict of a central teaching corporation whose judgment is\nfinal and irrevocable.  Similarly, religion for the Mohammedan is the\nprecise form which his founder gave it, whilst the Buddhist is equally\npersistent in upholding the version of Sakya Mouni.  Now, it is plain\nthat religion itself is one definite thing, and cannot be made to cover\na multiplicity of contradictory statements.  What, then, are these\nCatholic, Protestant, Mohammedan and Buddhist religions?  They are not\nreligions at all: they are merely philosophies, or systematised\naccounts of God, the world, and of man, which have obtained large\nsupport in earlier stages of the world's history.  Religion itself is a\nthing apart from these ephemeral forms in which it has been made to\ntake shape.  It is the great sun of reality, whose pure and authentic\nradiance has been decomposed in the spectrum of the human brain, each\nman seizing on an individual ray of broken light and making that the\nsum and substance of his belief.\n\n  Our little systems have their day,\n    They have their day and cease to be;\n    They are but broken lights of Thee,\n  And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.\n\n\nIt is the aim of this movement, for the establishment of ethical\nreligion, to re-discover to man's wondering eyes the imperishable\nbeauty of a religion allied to no transitory elements, wrapped up in no\nindividual philosophy, bounded by no limitations of time, place or\nrace, but ever the self-same immutable reality, though manifesting\nitself in most diverse ways, the sense of the infinite in man, and the\ncommunion of his spirit with that alone.\n\n  Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet,\n  Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet.\n\n\nWhat has philosophy, creed or council to say to that high and ennobling\nconception?  Shall \"articles\" and \"confessions\" venture to intrude\nthere in the innermost sanctuary of man's spiritual being and dictate\nto him what he shall hold or not hold of a reality about which he alone\nis conscious?  What has the conflict about the Hebrew cosmogony, of\nGenesis, baptismal regeneration, or the validity of orders to do with\nthat serene peace in which religion alone can dwell?  It were profanity\nsurely to intrude such strife of words in a sanctuary so sacred as that.\n\nOne of our saddest thoughts as we reflect on the \"little systems,\" so\ncalled, of the day, must be that they have so inconceivably belittled\nreligion, tearing away that veil of reverence which should ever\nenshrine the Holy of Holies.  The only atmosphere in which religion can\nreally live is one of intense reverence, and when we hear of revivals,\npilgrimages, elaborate ritualism (I am afraid Emerson describes it as\n\"peacock ritual\"), we may safely doubt whether the soul of religion be\nthere.  It is an excitement, a large advertisement for one or other of\nthe many ecclesiastical corporations of the age, but where is the\nlonely communing with the Unseen, as revealed in the story of Jesus or\nthe Buddha?  The reason why Jesus is so fascinating a memory to his\nchurch disciples is that he is so wholly unlike them.  So little is\nthere really spiritual and suggestive of the higher life in what is\nexclusively ecclesiastical, that in their best moments men\ninstinctively turn away from it, and find inspiration and peace in\nquiet thoughts about the Master, who said, \"The Kingdom of God,\" that\nis the kingdom of righteousness, or the ethical church, \"cometh not\nwith observation,\" and \"The Kingdom of God is within you\".  The more\ninward religion is, the less formalism it employs, the more ethical it\nbecomes, the nearer it approaches the ideal of the great Master.  A\npure and saintly inspiration, an ennobling and yet subduing influence,\na solemn stillness and hushing of the senses that would contend for\nmastery, an odour blown from \"the everlasting hills,\" filling life with\nan indescribable fragrance; such is religion as professed and taught by\nJesus, and such is the ideal of the Church of Emerson, builded on the\npurified emotions of the human heart.\n\nPerhaps I have now indicated what I mean by religion, \"pure and\nundefiled,\" though I know too well what truth lies hid in those words\nof the \"Over-soul,\" \"Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act\nof the soul\".  The spoken word does but suggest, and that faintly, what\nthe inner word of the soul expresses on matters so sublime.  Still, so\nfar as the limitations of thought and speech permit, we have shown how\nreligion is the communion of man's spirit with the \"Over-soul,\" the\nbaring of his heart before the immensities and eternities which\nencompass him, the deep and beautiful soliloquy of the soul in the\nsilence of the Great Presence.\n\n  Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line\n  Severing rightly His from thine,\n  Which is human, which Divine.\n        --_Conduct of Life_.\n\n\nLet us now pass on to inquire what are the relations between religion\nso conceived and ethics or morality.  In the first place, it must be\nlaid down as clearly as words will permit that religion and morality\nshould always be conceived as separate realities.  Of course, there can\nbe no such thing as religion \"pure and undefiled\" without morality or\nright conduct; nevertheless, the two words connote totally distinct\nactivities of the soul of man.  We shall best explain our meaning by\npointing to the obvious fact that there have not been wanting men in\nall times who have exhibited an almost ideal devotion to duty without\nbetraying any sympathy whatsoever with religious emotion such as has\nbeen described.  They have no sense of the infinite, as others have no\nsense of colour, art or music, and in nowise feel the need of that\ntranscendent world wherein the object of religion is enshrined.  I\nshould say that the elder Mill was such a man, and his son, John Stuart\nMill, until the latter years of his life, when his views appear to have\nundergone a marked change.  Some of his disappointed friends ascribed\nthe change to the serious shock he suffered at his wife's death.  There\nmay possibly be truth in that opinion; \"the winnowing wings of death\"\noften bring about a searching change.  No one yet has ever been able to\nseriously live up to the Hedonistic rule, \"eat and drink for to-morrow\nwe die\".  If death were announced, the very last thing man would do\nwould be to eat and make merry.\n\nHowever, it is notoriously possible to \"bring forth fruits of\nrighteousness,\" or, to use modern language, to live the good life,\nwithout seeking any help from that world of the ideal in which religion\nlives.  This teaching, of course, is diametrically opposed to that of\nthe Churches, who lay it down almost as an axiom that without such\nextraneous assistance as \"grace,\" generally conveyed in answer to\ndirect supplication, or through the mystery of Sacramental agencies,\nsuch as Baptism or the Lord's Supper, it is fairly impossible to keep\nthe moral law.  To the credit of humanity, this dark theology has been\nfalsified by results in countless instances, and never more frequently\nthan to-day.  Men whose names are in the mouth of everybody have lived\nand died in the enjoyment not merely of the esteem, but of the reverent\nadmiration of their age, whose lives were wholly uninspired by\nreligious motives.  I need only mention Charles Darwin, and when we\nremember that not even sectarianism ventured to dispute his right to\nrest within the hallowed precincts of an abbey-cathedral, ecclesiastics\nthemselves must be fast forgetting the deplorable narrowness of old\nviews which made morality and dogmatism inter-dependent terms.\n\nNevertheless, it must be conceded, and such men as I have spoken of\nwere the first to admit it, that lives such as these are necessarily\nimperfect.  The stunting or the atrophy of the religious instinct, the\nhunger and thirst for something beyond the sphere of sense when left\ntotally unsatisfied, produces at length a restless, tormented feeling,\nwhich turns the very joy of existence to sadness, and dims the light of\nlife.  Such men may plunge into pleasure, absorb themselves in their\nbooks or research, wear and waste themselves in the making of wealth,\nand for a time they are satisfied.  But the imperious craving reasserts\nitself at length; there is the cry of the soul for some lost\ninspiration, some transfiguring influence to soften the hard way of\nlife, console a lonely hour, comfort a bereavement, inspire that\ntenderness and sympathy, without which we are scarcely even human.  One\nremembers Darwin's sorrowful admission, that the deadening of his\nspiritual instincts left him incapable of enjoying, or even tolerating,\nthe rhythm of the poet's verse.  The world has heard the note of\nweariness with which Mr. Spencer absolved himself from further effort\non behalf of science and man.  The late Prof. Romanes, in his volume\nentitled _A Candid Examination of Theism_, made the melancholy\ndeclaration that the admission of a philosophy of pure mechanism or\nmaterialism had, for him at least, \"robbed the universe of its soul of\nbeauty\".  In later years, as is well known, the same writer came to see\nthings with other eyes.  Mind took the place of force as the ultimate\nfact of creation, and with it the sun of loveliness returned once more.\n\nHave we ever sufficiently reflected that the purely negative philosophy\nhas done nothing for idealism in any shape or form?  It has inspired no\nart, music or poetry.  With nothing to draw upon but the blind whirl of\ninfinite atoms and infinite forces, of which man is himself the\nhaphazard and highest production, it has contented itself with the\nelementary work of destruction, without even attempting to dig the\nfoundations for anything which it is proposed to erect in the place of\nwhat has been destroyed.  \"Scepticism,\" says Carlyle, \"is, after all,\nonly half a magician.  She calls up more spectres than she can lay.\"\nScepticism was, nay is, sometimes, a necessary attitude of the human\nmind.  But man cannot live on doubt alone, and therefore, though we\nprofoundly believe the possibility of living the good life\nindependently of religious sanctions, we unhesitatingly affirm the deep\nneed man has of religious emotion to satisfy the ineradicable instinct\nof his nature towards communion with the unseen world.  Here are the\nwords of a man who had exhausted the possibilities of life before he\nwrote them, conveying in the simplest, though most penetrating way, a\nmost momentous truth: \"_Fecisti nos Domine ad Te, et irrequietum est\ncor nostrum donec requiescat in Te_\".  \"_Thou hast made us, O Lord, for\nThyself, and our heart is restless until it find rest in Thee_.\"  And\nif we would have a modern commentary upon this saying of the fourth\ncentury writer, Augustine of Hippo, here are a few words of Victor\nHugo, spoken in the French Parliament of the forties: \"_Dieu se\nretrouve a la fin de tout_\".\n\nBefore leaving this point, it would be well to complete the argument by\ndistinctly stating that, as morality is possible without religion,\nreligion--or rather we should call it religiosity--is possible without\nmorality.  This is a matter of very great importance, and what has been\nasserted will help us to understand the curious phenomena one meets\nwith in all periods of the world's history--men and women, apparently\nof undeniable religious instincts, exhibiting a most imperfect\nappreciation of the far more weighty matters concerned with moral\nconduct.  I am not speaking of downright hypocrites who make religion\nmerely a cloak for the realisation of rascally designs.  I speak rather\nof such individuals, who, while betraying a marked religious fervour,\nshowing itself in assiduous attention at church services,\nproselytising, and religious propaganda generally, manifest on the\nother hand little or no delicacy or sensitiveness of conscience on\npurely ethical matters.  Take for example such men as Torquemada and\nthe inquisitors, or Calvin amongst the Protestants; take the orgies of\nsensuality which were the necessary accompaniment of much religious\nworship in Pagan times, and, if we may believe travellers, are not\nwholly dissociated with popular religion in India and China to-day.\nOr, again, take such a case as that of the directors of the Liberator\nBuilding Society, men whose prospectuses, annual reports, and even\nannouncements of dividends, were saturated with the unction of\nreligious fervour.  Or, take the tradesman who may be a churchwarden or\ndeacon at his church or chapel, but exhibits no scruples whatever in\nemploying false weights, and, worst of all, in adulterating human food.\nAn incalculable amount of this sort of thing goes on, and, whether it\nbe accurate or not I cannot say, it is often ascribed to small dealers\nin small towns and villages, \"pillars of the church,\" as a rule, which\nthey may happen to attend.\n\nNow, in all these cases there is no need to suppose conscious\nhypocrisy.  Unconscious, possibly; but, though the heart of man be\ninscrutable, we need not necessarily believe that such phenomena are\nopen evidence of wilful self-deceit.  The far truer explanation is,\nthat religious emotion is one thing and moral emotion quite another.\nThe late chairman of the Liberator Building Company, I can well\nconceive, was a fervent and devoted adherent of his sect, and was not\nconsciously insincere, when, in paying dividends out of capital, he\nascribed his prosperity to the unique care of a heavenly providence\nwhich especially occupied itself about all he personally undertook.\nThe rascality of Saturday was entirely forgotten on Sunday, when, with\nbowed head, he recited his metaphysical creed or received the parting\nblessing.  The Sunday service, the surpliced choir, those melting\nhymns, the roll of the organ's mysterious tones throughout the holy\nedifice, the peculiar sense of spiritual well-being and prosperity\nwhich it all combined to produce was probably a joy of his life, and by\nno means the meanest.  The mischief was that he had no moral sense, and\nthe word honesty and duty connoted nothing real to his mis-shapen mind.\nHe was a morally deficient being.\n\nNow, the ethical Church has come for this great purpose, to make us see\nthe repulsiveness of a religion of that kind, to assure every man that\nno religious services, any more than the eager subscription of\nantiquated formularies, constitute the essence of religion.  That is\nbuilt on the moral law, and unless it come as the crown and glory of a\nlife of duty, then that religion is a shameful thing, the sacrilegious\ndegradation of the highest and holiest thing on earth.  It has come,\nthis ethical Church, to reinforce the wholly forgotten teaching of the\nHebrew prophets of the utter emptiness of all religion devoid of moral\nlife, the vanity of sacrifices, oblations and rites, the hollowness of\nformularies, creeds and confessions, the indispensable necessity of an\nethical basis for all religious belief and practice.  \"What more,\" asks\nMicah, \"doth the Lord require of thee than to do justice, love mercy,\nand to walk humbly with thy God?\"\n\nIt has come also to indicate the true relations between ethics and\nreligion.  Ethics are truly the basis on which religion is built, but\nwhen once the sacred edifice is fully raised, a beautiful reaction is\nset up (at least in the ideal good life), and religion becomes one of\nthe strongest incentives to a dutiful and virtuous life.  This is the\nexplanation of the truly ideal lives lived by men and women of deep\npersonal religion, in all sects and creeds, European and Asiatic.\nThis, too, is the justification of that oft-repeated and profoundly\ntrue saying, that all good men and women belong to the same religion.\nIt is to that one true, pure, and aboriginal religion we wish to get\nback, in which we discover the best ally of morality, the all-powerful\nincentive to a life wholly devoted to duty and the service of the human\nbrotherhood.  The allegory of the Last Judgment, as it is called, as\ndepicted by Jesus himself in the Gospel according to Matthew,\nemphasises this ethical truth in words of great solemnity.  The sheep\nand the goats are distinguished, not by the possession or\nnon-possession of miraculous spiritual powers, professions of belief or\nChurch membership, but by the humble devotion exhibited to suffering\nhumanity, and steadfast perseverance in the path of duty.  How was it\npossible, we ask again and again, for such a religion as that to be\ntransformed into the thing of shreds and patches of bad philosophy as\nset forth in the Nicene and Athanasian Creed?\n\nForget all that, we would fain exhort men, forget all but the words\nthat made music on the Galilean hills, the life \"lived in the\nloveliness of perfect deeds,\" the veritable exemplar of a religion\nfounded on the moral sentiment.  To be touched by the influence of\nreligious emotion is to approach in greater or less degree to the image\nand character of Christ.  To live a life of devotion to duty, however\nhumble our station may be, is to range ourselves, with that great\nMaster of ethics, on the side of an eternal order of righteousness\nwhich can never fail.  It is to work with that soul of reason\ndominating everything in the animate and inanimate world, to co-operate\nwith it towards the fulfilment of those high ends which are predestined\nfor humanity.  Every man must make his choice.  Either he will ally\nhimself with all that makes for moral advancement--his own, that of\nothers, and consequently of the world--or he will fight for the powers\nof retrogression and decay.  He will live for the hour and its\nmomentary pleasures, fight for his own hand alone, forget mercy and\npity, seldom think, never reflect, and at length, sated and yet\ndissatisfied with all he has experienced, sink impotently and ignobly\ninto the grave.  Immanuel Kant lays it down as an axiom that the moral\nlaw must inevitably be fulfilled one day in every individual human\nbeing.  It is the destiny of man to be one day perfect.  What a\nsearching change must sometime pass over those who have taken the wrong\nside in this earth-life, who have helped on the process of\ndisintegration, and contrived to leave the world worse than they found\nit!  They fight for a losing cause: they lose themselves in fighting\nfor it.\n\nIt has been said, I have heard it said myself, that \"ethics are cold\".\nPossibly to some they are; but at any rate they are grave and solemn\nwhen they hold language such as this to the pleasure-loving, the\nlight-hearted, and the indifferent.  To tell a man to do his duty in\nspite of all, to love the good life irrespectively of any reward here\nor hereafter, may sound cold after the dithyrambics of the Apocalypse\nor the Koran, but of one thing we are assured by the experience of\nthose who have made the trial of it themselves, that any man who \"will\ndo the doctrine,\" that is, live the life, shall know at once \"whether\nit be of God\"--that alone is the unspeakable peace, passing all\nunderstanding.\n\nBut ethics are not alone.  As I have endeavoured to point out,\nreligious emotion which grows out of the moral sentiment is the most\npowerful stimulus towards the realisation of the good life, and I\nconsequently urged the supreme value of true religion, as both\nsatisfying the emotional side of man's nature and stimulating him\ntowards that sacrifice of self--that taking up of a \"cross,\" as Jesus\nput it--which in some measure is indispensably necessary for the\nattainment of character.\n\nBut I in no wise concede that ethics are \"cold\"; I in no wise admit\nthey are uninspiring.  The consciousness that a man possesses of being\none with the great Power of the universe in making for righteousness is\nsurely an overwhelming thought.  If man would but think, he would come\nto feel with Emerson \"the sublimity of the moral laws,\" their awful\nmanifestation of the working of infinite mind and power, and of man's\nnearness to, or rather oneness with, that Power, when he obeys them.\nHe would come to thrill with an indescribable emotion with Kant, as he\nthinks of the infinite dignity to which fellowship with those\nmysterious laws elevates him.  He would realise the truth of the solemn\nwords:--\n\n  Two things fill me with ceaseless awe,\n  The starry heavens, and man's sense of law.\n\nEthics cold!  Then what else is left to inspire to us?  We are\nbankrupt.  What is there in all the Churches to help humanity if not\ntheir ethics--ethics which are not the perquisite of any sect, no mere\nprovincialism of any Church or nation, but the heirloom of mankind?\n\nWhat, we ask, is there to cheer the heart in the Thirty-nine Articles,\nthe Vatican decrees, or the Westminster Confession?  What mysterious\ninspiration lurks in the dogmas of the Oriental councils of 1600 years\nago, dogmas to be believed to-day under peril of perishing\neverlastingly?  We do not concede that the ethical Church has no\nmessage to the heart, no comfort for the emotions, no solace to the\ndeeply tried and afflicted.  A Church which preaches the\nimperishability of every good deed, the final and decisive victory of\nthe good; which reveals to us not only mind, but beneficence, as the\ncharacter of the supreme Power in the universe; which bids us remember\nthat as that Power is, so are we, moral beings to our heart's core,\nand, in consequence, to take the place which belongs to us at the side\nof the infinite righteousness for the furtherance of the good--such a\nChurch, such a religion is not destitute of enthusiasm and inspiration.\nA philosophy such as this, a religion such as this, will one day sweep\nthe English-speaking countries in a tempest of enthusiasm.  It will be\nwelcomed as the final settlement of the conflicting claims of mind and\nheart in man, the reconciliation of the feud too long existing between\nreligion and science.  Everything points to its immense future.  Within\nthe churches its principles are tacitly accepted as irrefutable.  We\nclaim such men as Stanley, Maurice and Jowett as preachers of the\nethical Church, and their numbers are increasing every year among the\ncultured members of the Anglican clergy.  Leading men of science are no\nlonger committed to a purely negative philosophy, while one and all\nwould be prepared to admit that if religion we are to have it must be\none in complete harmony with the moral sentiment in the best men; in\nother words, a Church founded on moral science, the ideal of the\nsaintly Jesus, and of all the prophets of the race.\n\n\n\nNOTE.--\"I can conceive the existence of a Church in which, week by\nweek, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract\npropositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an\nideal of true, just and pure living: a place in which those who are\nweary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the\ncontemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though\nattained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business\nshould have time to think how small after all are the rewards he covets\ncompared with peace and charity.  _Depend upon it, if such a Church\nexisted, no one would seek to disestablish it._\"--HUXLEY.  I know not\nwhat better words could be chosen wherewith to describe the ethical\nChurch.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nETHICS AND SCIENCE.\n\nSince the era of the re-birth of learning, each successive century has\nbeen generally distinguishable by some marked intellectual development,\nby some strong movement which has taken deep hold of the minds of men.\nThus the Renascimento period was followed by the century of the\nReformation, and that again by the inauguration of the era of modern\nphilosophy, while the eighteenth century has been claimed as the\n_Saeculum Rationalisticum_, the age of rationalism, in which the claims\nof reason were pushed to the forefront in the domains of religion and\npolitics.  Nothing remained after that but an age of physical science,\nand surely enough has been given us in the nineteenth century which may\nwith equal accuracy be termed the _Saeculum Scientificum_.\n\nIt cannot be doubted that a sort of mental intoxication has been set up\nas a result of the extraordinary successes which have rewarded the\nefforts of scientific investigators.  Everything now-a-days is\nexpressed in terms of science and its formulae.  Evolution is the\nkeynote to the learning of the age.  Thus Mr. Spencer's system of the\nSynthetic Philosophy is a bold and comprehensive attempt to take up the\nwhole knowable, and express it anew in the language of development.  It\nis emphatically, professedly, the philosophy of evolution, the rigid\napplication of a purely scientific formula to everything capable of\nphilosophical treatment.  Now, having discussed the question of ethics\nand religion, their distinction and their intimate relations; having\nshown how that religion comes as the crown and glory of the ethical\nlife, the transfiguration of the ethical ideal and the most powerful\nstimulus towards the realisation in practice of what is conceived as\ntheoretically desirable, it remains for us to complete our treatment of\nthis aspect of the ethical problem and determine the relations existing\nbetween morals and science.\n\nThis question we conceive to be of vital importance.  Just as we must\nbe inexorable in refusing to base our ethic on religion, and still less\non theology, so must we be equally determined in repudiating the claim\noften put forward, that morality is a department of physics, or in any\nway founded on physical science.  The scientific professor, feeling the\nground strong under his feet, and sure of the applause of his very\nnumerous public, has made a bold bid for the control of the moral\norder.  He has made a serious attempt to capture the ethical world, and\nto coerce morality into obedience to the inflexible formulae of\nphysics.  The evolutionist, in particular, is consumed with an\nirresistible desire to stretch the ethical ideal on his procrustean\ncouch and to show how, like everything else, it has been the subject of\npainfully slow growth and development, and that when the stages of that\ngrowth have been accurately ascertained by research into the records of\nthe past, the essence of morality is fully explained.  Originally\nnon-extant, it has become at length, after aeons of struggle, the chief\nconcern of man, the \"business of all men in common,\" as Locke puts it,\nall of which philosophy is tantamount to saying, that morality is\nmerely a flatter of history.  When you know its history, you know\neverything, very much as a photographer might claim to exhaustively\nknow an individual man, because he had photographed him every six\nmonths from his cradle to his grave.  A very inadequate philosophy of\nethic, this.\n\nBut, before coming to close quarters with this extremely interesting\nproblem, I would protest that we are sincere in our loyalty and\nenthusiasm for physical science, sincere in our deep admiration for its\nchief exponents.  We claim to be students of the students of nature,\nfor, after all, nature herself is the great scientist.  The secrets are\nall in her keeping.  The All-Mother is venerable indeed in the eyes of\nevery one of us.  \"The heated pulpiteer\" may denounce modern science as\nthe evil genius of our day, the arch-snare of Satan for the seduction\nof unwary souls and the overthrow of Biblical infallibility, but we are\nnot in that galley.  As true sons of our age, we are loyal to its\nspirit, and that spirit is scientific.  The late Professor Tyndall said\nof Emerson, the veritable prophet and inspiration of ethical religion:\n\"In him we have a poet and a profoundly religious man, who is really\nand entirely undaunted by the discoveries of science, past, present and\nprospective, and in his case poetry, with the joy of a bacchanal, takes\nher graver brother science by the hand, and cheers him with immortal\nlaughter.  By Emerson scientific conceptions are continually transmuted\ninto the finer forms and warmer lines of an ideal world.\"  It is in no\nspirit, therefore, of hostility to physical science or her methods that\nwe venture to point out that the term science is not synonymous with\nexperimental research.  The most brilliant work of Darwin, Kelvin or\nEdison in no wise alters the fact that there are more things in heaven\nand earth than are revealed by their microscopes or decomposed in their\ncrucibles.  Mental science, and above all moral or ethical science,\nhave a claim to be heard as well as physics.  Philosophy, strictly\nspeaking, working by the light, not of the senses, as does physical\nscience, but by the higher light of the intelligence alone, must be\nreckoned with by the thoughtful man.  Yet this is precisely what so\nmany of the lesser luminaries of science, the popularisers of the great\ndiscoveries made by other and greater men, appear to be wholly unable\nto see.  They have borrowed their foot-rule for the mensuration of the\nuniverse, and they apply it indiscriminately.  Everything, from the\ndead earth to the glowing inspiration of the prophet's soul, must be\nlabelled in terms of that infallible instrument.  If it cannot be\nreduced to their exiguous standard, so much the worse for it.  Science,\nor rather \"the heated pulpiteer\" of science (for these inflammatory\ngentlemen are found both in the pulpit and at the rostrum), can take no\naccount of it, and that settles the matter once for all.\n\nWe may proceed to offer a few illustrations of the attempt of the\nscientist to capture the domain of ethics.  The late Professor Huxley,\nof whom we would speak with all the respect due to his high position as\na scientific expositor, roundly asserts that \"the safety of morality is\nin the keeping of science,\" meaning, of course, physical science.  The\nsame authority considers science a far \"better guardian of morality\nthan the pair of old shrews, philosophy and theology,\" in whose keeping\nhe evidently thinks everybody, not a scientist, believes morality to\nrest.  The teaching of such men as Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bain, and Mr.\nLeslie Stephen, though they lack the vigour and picturesqueness of Mr.\nHuxley's unique style, comes to much the same thing.  Under the\nextraordinary delusion that all the world, excepting a few enlightened\nscientific men, believes morality to be under the tutelage of a \"pair\nof shrews,\" to wit, philosophy and theology, they at once proceed to\nfly to the opposite extreme error, and to proclaim that it is under the\nguardianship of physical science.  We have already satisfied ourselves\nthat morality is not based on religion, but contrariwise that religion\nis built on the sanctified emotions of the human heart, that is on the\nmoral ideal--\"a new church founded on moral science\"--and as to\ntheology, I should not waste my time in attempting to show that\nmorality is not based on that.  But it will be worth our while to show\nthat Mr. Huxley and his brethren are under a serious misapprehension\nwhen they suppose that having dispossessed theology of a property which\nno sane man believes it ever possessed, they are at once entitled to\nappropriate the same themselves in the name of physical science.  We\nshall see that there is a third claimant in the field of whom the\nextremists on either side appear to have lost sight, and that when the\ncase is fully set forth a verdict in its favour will be inevitable.\nMeanwhile, let us look at the scientific claim.  Is the criterion of\nconduct in the custody of the scientific experimenter?  If a man wanted\nto know whether a certain act was good, bad or indifferent, such a\ncourse of conduct permissible or not, is he to consult the biologist or\nthe chemist?\n\nI venture to affirm, in language of the most explicitness, that\nphysical science can know absolutely nothing about morality; that\nethics are a matter of profound indifference to it, that, as Diderot,\nthe encyclopaedist--certainly not suspect in such matters--says, \"To\nscience there can be no question of the unclean or the unchaste\".  You\nmight as well ask a physician for an opinion about law as to put a case\nof conscience before an astronomer.\n\nThere has been, as a matter of fact, an extraordinary amount of loose\nthinking concerning the precise relations between science, ethics and\nreligion.  The churches, having become irretrievably discredited in\ntheir doctrinal teaching (their very ministers, in the persons of\nStanley and Jowett, openly avowing disbelief in their articles and\ncreeds), religion has come to be looked upon as a sort of no man's\nland, and therefore the legitimate property of the first occupier.\nScience, as the enterprising agency _par excellence_ of the century,\nhas stepped in, and in claiming to exhaustively explain religion,\nvirtually claims to have simultaneously annexed morality, erroneously\nlooked upon as a department of religion.\n\nBut a little more careful thinking ought to convince the most eager of\nthe advance-agents of physical science that the discipline they serve\nso loyally is altogether unconcerned with the moral life, and wholly\nincompetent to deal with its problems.  Mr. Frederic Harrison once\nasked, and with extreme pertinence, what the mere dissector of frogs\ncould claim to know of the facts of morality and religion?  Positively\nnothing, _as such_, and in their more sober moments \"the beaters of the\ndrum\" scientific would appear to be well aware of the fact.  For\ninstance, Mr. Huxley himself, oblivious of all he had claimed in the\nname of physical science, asked with surprise, in what laboratory\nquestions of aesthetics and historical truth could be tested?  In what,\nindeed? we may well ask.  And yet the physical science which is\navowedly incapable of deciding the comparatively insignificant matters\nof taste and history is prepared to take over with the lightest of\nhearts the immense burden of morality and to become the\nconscience-keeper, I had almost said the Father Confessor, of humanity!\nI imagine Mr. Huxley himself would have shrunk before the assumption of\nsuch responsibility.\n\nBut let us approach the matter more closely.  To physical science, one\nact is precisely the same as another; a mere matter of molecular\nmovement or change.  You raise your arm, you think with the energy and\nprofundity of a Hegel; to the physicist it is all one and the same\nthing--a fresh distribution of matter and motion, muscular contraction,\nand rise and fall of the grey pulp called brain.  A burglar shoots a\npoliceman dead and the public headsman decapitates a criminal.  To\nphysical science, those two acts differ in no respect.  They are\nexercises of muscular energy, expenditure of nervous power, the\neffecting of molecular change, and there the matter ends.  But surely,\nyou would urge, the scientist would discriminate between those two\nacts.  Most assuredly.  The one he would reprobate as immoral, and the\nother he would approve as lawful.  But, be it carefully noted, he would\ndo this, not as a scientist, but as a citizen respecting law and order\nand upholding good government based on morality and justice.  As a\nmoralist, then, but not as a scientist does he pass judgment, for there\nis no experimental science which deals with such matters.  Physics\nconcerns itself solely with what it can see and handle--nothing else.\nThe actions, therefore, of right and wrong, justice and injustice,\nmorality and immorality are simply unintelligible to it, just as\nunintelligible as they are to the most highly developed animal.  It is\nthe fully developed mind or intelligence alone which apprehends the\nsublime conception of duty, and the indefeasible claims which it has\nupon the allegiance of the will, and, in consequence, the scientist who\ndenounces injustice and iniquity is no longer on the tripod of the\nprofessor, but in the rostrum of the ethical teacher.  If I may say so,\nit supplies us with an admirable illustration of a quick-change\nperformance.  The same man performs a double part, and so adroitly is\nthe change managed, that the performer himself is deceived into\nthinking that he is still the scientist, whereas he has become for the\nmoment the moral professor.  But he did not acquire that new teaching\nin the laboratory; he learnt it in the study.\n\nBut there is distinctly one point of close contact between science and\nmorality, which we must not omit to point out.  Physical science,\nparticularly physiology, from its intimate acquaintance with the human\norganism, is admirably adapted for the function of a danger-signal, so\nto speak, to warn the ignorant and indifferent that a life\nundisciplined and ill-regulated cannot but end in irretrievable\ndisaster.  It thus most powerfully subserves the ends of private and\nindividual morality, just as historical science, which, as Professor\nHuxley accurately noted, can in no wise be tested in a retort or a\ncrucible, can point the moral when the lawless actions of public bodies\nor nations threaten the foundations upon which society rests.  The\nphysiologist can preach a sermon of appalling severity to the drunkard;\nhe can describe internal and external horrors (as certain to ensue in\nthe victim's case, as night follows day), compared with which the\nimaginings of a Dante are comparatively tame.  He can likewise depict a\ndeplorable future of disease and decay as reserved for the vicious.  He\ncan point to a veritable Gehenna strewn with the corpses of unnumbered\nvictims.  He can prove to demonstration, if we listen to him, that no\norganisation such as ours can resist the awful strain put upon it by\nthe poison of alcohol, and the enervating results of an undisciplined\nexistence.  \"Reform,\" he can tell us, \"or go to perdition;\" and most\nvaluable his sermon will be.\n\nWould that men, so favourably endowed with this intimate knowledge of\nthe intricacy of the workings of our bodily frame, so utilised their\ngreat powers in the service of ethics, pointing out to the reckless\ntransgressor what a scourge nature has in store for him, what\nindescribable disasters he is preparing for himself by his audacity in\nventuring to break her holy laws.  In the Church which is to be, \"the\nChurch of men to come,\" the scientist will fill this very _role_.  As\nthe best interpreter of nature, he will be most fitly chosen to\ndiscourse to us of nature's laws.  The priests of humanity in days to\nbe will not be consecrated by a magical transmission of imaginary\npowers, but by their ascertained capacity to open a door in heaven and\nearth and reveal to us the secret workings of the Soul of the World.\nWe shall meet in united worship in the great cathedrals, but no more to\nrepeat the dead formulae of a past which is gone, but to hear the\nliving word of to-day, the last revelation the Supreme has made, be it\nthrough the mouth of poet, prophet, philosopher or scientist.  Then,\nand only then, shall the Catholic or Universal Church be born, \"coming\ndown out of heaven from God,\" visibly embracing all humanity, because\nexcluding none prepared to subscribe the aboriginal creed of the\nsupremacy of ethic, the everlasting sovereignty of the moral law.\n\nBut while we candidly acknowledge the priceless services which science\ncan render to morality in the way indicated, this in no way warrants\nour assenting to Mr. Huxley's dictum that science is the guardian of\nmorality.  As a matter of fact, science points at the deplorable\nresults of excess without any regard to morality whatsoever.  She\nannounces them as definite facts, as certain as to-morrow's sunrise,\nbecause she is intimately acquainted with the human organisation and\nthe laws which control it.  But she ventures on no opinion as to the\nmoral worth of the acts in question; she registers results and there\nher work ends.  If the scientist does happily go farther, and point out\nthat conduct conducing to such disastrous consequences must be\nirredeemably bad in itself, he is doing most praiseworthy work, but he\nis no longer the scientist.  He has slipped off his tripod, and is\nrepeating the lesson of the moralist.  Let us suppose the acts in\nquestion were not followed by unfortunate results.  Say, for example,\nthat by uttering a falsehood, by altering a figure in a will, or on a\ndraft, one could inherit a fortune, what physical science could prevent\nour doing so, or instruct us as to the honesty or dishonesty of the\ncontemplated action?  Put thus, we see at a glance that the matter is\noutside the province of science, and quite beyond its jurisdiction.\nMorality, therefore, so far from being in the custody of science, has\nnothing whatsoever to do with it, but belongs to an entirely different\norder, and is ascertained by totally different methods.\n\nIf one would know the origin of the theory we are at present freely\ncriticising, it can be indicated in a moment.  The most ordinary\ninduction has satisfied men that, in the long run, the Hebrew singer is\nright when he says, \"The way of transgressors is hard\".  Wrong-doing\nand calamity are inseparably connected.  Those laws, through which the\nvoice of the Supreme is ever heard, are so intertwined in their action,\nthat the infraction of one leads to the infliction of retributive\npunishment by the other.  We break a moral law, the physical law will\ntake up its cause, and we suffer.  We have come, I say, to see the\nuniversal validity of this rule, the absolute irresistibility of the\nlaws under which we live.  Hence, a shallow judgment has been hastily\nframed that you may always judge of the morality of an act by the\nconsequences it produces.  If the results are good, then the action is\ngood; if evil, then the action is adjudged bad.  This is, in substance,\nthe Benthamite or utilitarian ethic, Bentham roundly maintaining that\ncrime is nothing but a miscalculation, an error in arithmetic.  It is\nthe failure of a man to count the cost, to weigh the results of what he\nis about to do.  That being the case, the scientist being persuaded\nthat utility and pleasure make an action good, and uselessness and pain\nmake it bad, he was able to conclude at a stroke that one action\ndiffers only from another in the results it produces, and that since\nscience was admirably equipped to take stock of results through its\nstatistical bureau, she, and not the hideous old shrews, theology and\nphilosophy, was the rightful protectress of morality.\n\nBut we, who believe with Immanuel Kant, that the \"_All's well that ends\nwell theory_\" has no place in morality, refuse to recognise that the\ncharacter of an action is determined solely by the results it produces.\nWe believe that some actions are intrinsically good, and others\nintrinsically bad, totally irrespective of the good or evil they may\neffect.  We believe with the Stoics and with Jesus that evil may be\nconsummated in the heart without any evil results appearing at all.  We\nbelieve that thoughts of envy, hatred, malice, are in themselves bad,\nirrespective of results, that such a thing as slander is _ipso facto_\nstamped as irredeemably bad long before any of its evil consequences\nmay be manifest.  We look not so much to consequence, but to the\nintention of the doer, and the intrinsic nature of the action\nperformed.  Pleasure and pain considerations are the last things we\ntake into account when we weigh an action in the scales of justice.\nThe theory is therefore hopelessly inadequate to our needs; it breaks\nin our hands when we attempt to use it, and, consequently, we refuse\nour assent to the proposition that because science can _occasionally_\npredict results she is therefore entitled to patronise ethics.\n\nThe truth is, that ethics need no such patronage.  Neither the\ntheologian nor the scientist is essential to their well-being.  Ethics\nare beholden to neither of the two claimants who dispute the honour of\ntheir parentage and protection.  They rest on that alone on which\neverything in this miraculous universe, science itself included,\nultimately rests, the _reason_ which is at the heart of things.  The\nmoral law, the sanction of the eternal distinction between right and\nwrong, a distinction valid before the very whisperings of science, aye,\nand of the voice of men were heard upon this earth, is, to the stately\nand impressive system of Emerson and Kant, the first-born of the\neternal Reason itself, the very apprehensible nature of the Most High,\nwhich, the more men grow in the moral life, the more they recognise for\nhis inner-most character and nature.  Things are what they are, and\nactions are what they are, not because of the ephemeral judgments of a\ntribe or nation of men, but because they cannot be otherwise than they\nare, good or bad in themselves, judged solely by reference to that\neverlasting law of righteousness, the aboriginal enactment of the\nEternal.\n\nMen point to the growth and development of the moral sentiment in man,\nthey show how he has grown from savagery to civilisation, and think\ntherein that they have explained everything.  They are like the\nphotographer I spoke of above.  They have found out the history of\nethics, and they think there is nothing more to know.  Far from it.\nIdentically the same might be said of music and logic.  Man once beat a\ntom-tom, and now he writes operas and oratorios.  He once rambled, now\nhe reasons.  Will any sane man delude himself into believing that music\nand logic are nothing more in themselves but the history of the\nsuccessive stages through which they have naturally and inevitably\npassed?  Neither then is ethic and the moral law.  It is not man's\ncreation, it is not his handiwork.  It is no mere provincialism of this\ndwindling sphere of ours, but a fact and a law supreme, holding sway\nbeyond the uttermost star, valid in infinity and eternity, at this\nhour, the sovereign law of life for whatsoever or whomsoever lives and\nknows, the adamantine foundation upon which all law, civilisation,\nreligion and progress are built.\n\n\"This is,\" says Burke in his magnificent language, \"that great\nimmutable pre-existent law, prior to our devices, and prior to all our\nsensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we are knit and\nconnected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot\nstir.\"  And not only Burke, but centuries before him, the great Roman\norator, in language equally sublime, professed his enthusiastic belief\nin that same law, which \"no nation can overthrow or annul; neither a\nsenate nor a whole people can relieve us from its injunctions.  It is\nthe same in Athens and in Rome, the same yesterday, to-day, and for\never.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nETHICS AND THEISM.\n\nIn the present chapter we propose to discuss the gravest of all the\ngrave problems which gather round the central conception of ethic as\nthe basis of religion.  There are, it may be said, two great schools\nwhich hold respectively the doctrines which may be not unfitly\ndescribed as the significance and the insignificance, or rather,\nnon-significance of ethics.  The latter school, which is that of\nBentham, Mill and Spencer, is content to take ethic as a set of\nformulae of utility which man has, in the course of his varied\nexperience, discovered to be serviceable guides of life.  There is no\nbinding force in them; the idea of a conscience \"trembling like a\nguilty thing surprised\" because it has broken one of these laws, the\nhot flush of shame which seems to redden the very soul at the sense of\nguilt, the agony of remorse so powerful as sometimes to send the\ncriminal self-confessed and self-condemned to his doom, is all said to\nbe part of an obsolete form of speculation.  There is merely \"a\n_feeling_ of obligation,\" such as an animal may experience which is\nharnessed to a waggon or a load, but any real obligation,\nauthoritatively binding on the conscience of man, is repudiated in\nterms.\n\nNow this teaching I venture to describe as the insignificant ethic, the\nethic which connotes nothing beyond the \"feeling of obligation,\" and\nrefuses to recognise in morality anything but a series of hints\ncasually picked up, as to how mankind should behave in order to score\nin the game of life.\n\nThe significant ethic, on the other hand, discerns in the law of\nmorality the pathway into the transcendental world, the realm of reason\nbeyond the boundaries of the sense.  It sees in morality the basis of\nreligion; it discovers the fact of man's freedom to conform or not to\nconform to the eternal law; it unveils the reality of life beyond this\nearth-stage of existence, and last and chiefest of all, it discerns, in\nthe words of Immanuel Kant, \"a natural idea of pure theism\" in the\nunmistakable reality of the moral law, from the very obvious fact that\nlaws do not make themselves, but are enactments of reason or\nintelligence.\n\nWe propose, therefore, to address ourselves to the fundamental\nquestion--the question of questions--the being of a subsistent\nintelligence and a supreme moral will, responsible for man and all\nthings, whom we in our own tongue name God, though it were more\nreverent to think and speak of the awful truth with Emerson, as the\n\"Nameless Thought, the Super-personal Heart\".  We are to treat of\ntheism, the philosophical, _not the theological_, term to designate the\ntruth that the universe owes its existence to infinite Power and\ninfinite Mind, and that morality is a fact because that Power is moral\nalso.  To quote Whittier's well-known lines, which express the\nessential truth of theism in words of exceeding simplicity combined\nwith philosophic depth:--\n\n  By all that He requires of me\n  I know what He Himself must be;\n\nor, to quote the more vigorous, but equally common-sense statement of\nthe facts by Carlyle: \"It was flatly inconceivable to him (Frederick\nthe Great) that moral emotion could have been put into him by an entity\nwhich had none of its own\".  And finally, we propose to speak of\ntheism, thus defined, in its relations to ethics or moral science, the\ndiscipline which treats of human conduct and its conformity with a\nrecognised law of life, the systematising of those principles of life\nwhich man has learned by reason and experience during the course of his\nsojourn in this sphere of existence.\n\nLet us begin by some attempt at a definition of our terms.  Ethics, I\ntake it, we are agreed to consider as the science concerned with\nconduct; that is, with the actions of man in so far as they conform or\ndo not conform with a standard of right, whatever that standard may be.\nEthical, moral, morally good, right, we take to be synonymous terms.\nThe word metaphysical _male olet_, no doubt.  It is unpalatable, and is\nsuggestive of, if not synonymous with, the unreal.  However, I do not\nthink we need be concerned now with the repute or disrepute of\nmetaphysic generally, since we all are agreed that theism, or that\nreality for which theism stands, is in the super-sensible,\nsuper-experiential world, and therefore if theism is an implication of\nethics at all, it is, of course, a metaphysical one.  As to theism\nitself, things are not quite so clear, for the term covers, or may be\nmade to cover, a number of philosophic systems which are not in harmony\nwith one another.  Thus the theism of the Hebrew Scriptures would\npossibly be atheism to Hegel, while the great idealist's position might\nbe pantheism or worse to a High Church curate.  To us theism means that\nat the ground of being, at the heart of existence, there is a\nself-subsistent reality which we call by the highest name we know,\n_viz._, reason or mind.  \"Before the chaos that preceded the birth of\nthe heavens and the earth one only being existed, immense, silent,\nimmovable, yet incessantly active; that being is the mother of the\nuniverse.  I know not how this being is named, but I designate it by\nthe word 'reason'.\" [1]  Absolute, unconditioned intelligence is the\n_Theos_ we acknowledge.  This is the formulary of our philosophical\ncreed, and as Luther fastened his forty theses to the doors of the\nWuertemburg Cathedral, I affix my two humble propositions to the postern\nof the ethical church, namely, first, that \"In the beginning was Mind,\"\nand next, that the moral law is the highest expression of that Mind.\nAnd, moreover, that as the mind in man is so ordered as to naturally\nproceed from the more known to the less known, from the ascertained\nfact of the moral law, we ascend to the source of the moral law, which,\nlike all things, takes its rise in the _apeiron_, the Boundless of\nAnaximander, the Infinite of Mr. Spencer.  Theism, then, as thus\nexplained, one discerns as an implication of the indisputable fact of\nmorality, of the sovereignty of ethic, of the indestructible supremacy\nof conscience.\n\nAnd here one may be allowed to quote a singularly luminous passage from\nthe _Cours d'Histoire de la Philosophic Morale en 18eme Siecle_ of\nVictor Cousin, p. 318.  \"Kant remarks at this point,\" he says, \"that we\nhave no right to derive our moral ideas from the idea of God, because\nit is precisely from the moral ideas themselves that we are led to\nrecognise a Supreme Being, the personification of absolute\nrighteousness.  Consequently, no-one may look upon the laws of morality\nas arbitrary enactments of the will of God.  Virtue is not obligatory\nfrom the sole reason that it is a Divine ordinance; on the contrary, we\nonly know it to be a law of God because it already commands our inward\nassent.\"  This is essential Kantism, the gospel of the _Critique of the\nPractical Reason_, and the _Religion within the Boundaries of mere\nReason_.  Not ethics, then, from theism, but theism from ethics.  Not\nmorality from God, but God is known from and through morality.\n\nNow, here we may be justified in remarking, by way of a preliminary\nindication of the truth, rather than of an argument, that the\npreponderant weight of modern philosophical authority is emphatically\nin favour of some such interpretation of ethic as Cousin sketches from\nKant.  Whatever the cry of \"back to Kant\" may actually mean, an\nidealist ethic is in the air of the schools of this country and\nAmerica.  I am not oblivious of such names as Spencer and Stephen, nor\nof Hoeffding or Gizycki abroad, but I think it undeniable that what we\nmean by the metaphysical implications of ethic commands the assent, not\nmerely of the prophets of the church ethical, such as Emerson, Carlyle\nand Ruskin, but also of the rising men amongst us who are carrying on\nthe philosophical traditions of the country.  But passing by the\nargument from authority, let us approach the question from the\nstandpoint of reason.\n\nWe may appeal, in the first place, to the truth implied in the very\nexpression the _Moral Law_.  But it must be explained that by the term\nmoral law we do not mean a code of five, ten, or fifty commandments,\nbut simply the expression of the ethical \"ought,\" the announcement of\nthe supreme fact of moral obligation in general, that is, the duty of\nunconditionally obeying the right when the right is known to us.  It is\nno more the duty of the moral law to set about codifying laws than it\nis of the conscience to practise casuistry.  Conscience is not a\ntheoretical instructor, but a practical commander.  The intelligence,\nthe reason in man it is to which is allotted the function of\nformulating laws and of deciding what is and what is not in conformity\nwith right.  Once that is decided, according to its light, by the\nreason, then conscience steps in and authoritatively commands that the\nright is to be unconditionally obeyed.  And this, of course, solves\nthat venerable objection that conscience can be no guide because moral\ncodes have changed and are changing, and are not alike in various ages\nand countries.  Conscience has nothing to do with the excesses of\nTorquemada, or libidinous rites of Astarte.  Reason was at fault, not\nconscience, and that supreme judge, misguided by the reason, appeared\nto give a false judgment, whereas, true to itself for ever, it simply\npronounced in each and every instance, that the right must be obeyed.\nLike the needle in the compass, it undeviatingly points to the polar\nstar of duty.\n\nLet us proceed with our analysis of the conception of the moral law.\n\nThere are various schools of ethics, but they are all united in\nmaintaining _some_ obligatory force in morality, that whatever may be\nthe precise meaning of the solemn word right, the right is binding on\nthe allegiance of our will.  Hence Emerson, of the rational school, is\nphilosophically accurate when he deduces purity of heart, or\nuprightness of intention, and the law of gravitation from the same\nsource.  They are both laws, one valid in the spheres, the other valid\namong men, the one only difference being that whereas the spheres\ncompulsorily obey the law of their existence, man by the noble\nobeisance of his will--an obeisance which, as Kant points out, raises\nhim to an immeasurable dignity--voluntarily submits himself to his law,\nand thereby fulfils the purpose of his life.\n\nMoreover, we must reflect, as the law of gravitation, which as physical\nbeings we obey, is none of our making, but merely our discovery, so is\nthe moral law, the eternal distinction between right and wrong, no\ncreation of man's.  He is born into a world not his own, and he finds\nhimself surrounded by an order which is not within the sphere of his\ncontrol.  The law, for instance, of numbers, the law of thought, the\nfacts of the universe, organic and inorganic, the bases on which he has\nerected what is compendiously called civilisation--are all provided\notherwise than by his efforts.  He is born into an order of reason\nwhich, by obedience to the law and light of reason within him, he has\ndeveloped into the stately fabric of organised, social, political,\nintellectual, in a word, civilised life.  But, I would repeat, the\nbasic facts of this life are none of our creation; they are our\n_discovery_, and no more the _invention_ of man than America is the\ninvention of Columbus.  Hence, with the master-poet of Hellas, we must\nacknowledge those--\n\n  _agrapta kasphale theon_\n  _nomima_\n  _ou gar ti nun ge kachthes, all aei pote_\n  _ze tauta, koudeis oiden ex otou phane--_\n\nthe unwritten irresistible laws, ever-living, whose origin no one can\ntell.\n\nIt would be of no avail, I submit, to point out to Sophocles, as\nSpencer pointed out to Kant, that a knowledge of the early condition of\nman would have made short work of these sublimities, that the cosmical\nman was before the ethical man, in whom we discover very little\nevidence of these majestic laws of such universal and undeniable\nvalidity.  The reply would be that the growth of them is only evidence\nof what was potentially present from the first, that just as the\nbeating of brass was no obstacle to the ultimate evolution of the opera\nor the oratorio, or the first vague feelings of wonderment with which\nprimitive man surveyed himself and his surroundings to the creation of\nthe world of science and philosophy, so the undoubted fact that man was\nunmoral at the start is no obstacle to the belief that the moral law\nwas as existent then as now.  Nay, just as the cosmic process itself\nfrom the first contained the promise and potency of an organic form\nultimately to be called man and to become \"the crowning glory of the\nuniverse,\" so also, we hold, it contained the potentialities of that\nwhereby man was enabled to crown the splendid edifice of creation by\nthe imperishable deeds he has done, and that just as it would be futile\nto ask one to point out traces of man amongst \"the dragons of the\nprime,\" or some Bathybiotic slime, so it would be equally irrelevant to\ndemand indications of moral life in the tertiary man.  But, as in the\nsavage of to-day, as in the infant, it is there; and the fact that it\nultimately appears shows that it was there.  So surely as the laws of\nmusic, mathematics and thought, are of the Sophoclean category of\neternal facts, man's discoveries not his creations, so also are the\nmoral laws, and, therefore, when Mr. Spencer points out the aborigines\nwho are destitute, to all appearances, of what we understand by the\nterm morality and traces its growth through almost everlasting\ngenerations of men, he is but describing the history of ethic, the\ndevelopment of morality, just as one might write the history of music,\nor of the rifle, from the days of the blunderbuss to the Mauser or\nLee-Metford; but what ethic, what morality, is _in se_, he leaves\nuntouched.  The form differs from the content, _history_ differs from\nthe _reality_ of which it is the history, and morality is more than the\nstory of its vicissitudes, of its gradual, painful development from the\npre-historic times to our own.\n\nWhat, then, is morality _in se_ apart from its history?  It is, as\nasserted, that universal law, obligatory on all rational beings in\nvirtue of their rationality, binding them to live for the right.  The\n_instinct_ of humanity is with us, that instinct which commands a man\nto live for the right, and instinct does not err.  Just as we\ninstinctively recognise a righteous retribution in the downfall of the\nwrong-doer and feel outraged when he prospers, even temporarily, in his\nwickedness, so we equally apprehend by an immediate intuition that what\nis recognised as the good ought to be obeyed, and loyally obeyed, by a\nman.  _Fais ce que tu dois: Advienne que pourra_, is the expression of\nthis faith that is in humanity, and I cannot conceive how any ethical\nphilosopher can venture to contest its truth, no matter what his test\nof morality may speculatively be.\n\nAnd, now, we may point out what we conceive to be the significance, the\nimplication of the facts just set forth.  If we are to think about the\nmatter at all, if we are not to adopt a Positivist attitude and\nabsolutely bar metaphysic as a sterile and unprofitable investigation,\nit seems to me that the moral law, like all law, points unmistakably to\nreason as its source; and since, as already pointed out, man does not\ncreate the moral order in which he lives any more than he creates the\nmathematical or chemical laws which he uses, but simply discovers them\nby observation, the moral law must be the expression of a mind other\nthan man's.  When we say \"other than man's,\" we do not mean\nspecifically, but individually, for we hold the specific oneness of all\nmind in all intelligent creatures from first to last.  We mean, the\nmoral law is an expression of the \"Mind which is the Whole,\" the Mind\nwhich is the Infinite, so that, just as Mr. Spencer refers everything\nultimately--and in this he is \"not far from the kingdom of God\"--to an\n\"Infinite and Everlasting Power,\" we refer everything, the moral law\nabove all, which to us is the highest expression of the Divine known to\nthis earth, to an Infinite and Everlasting Mind, the Soul of the World,\nthe Soul of all souls, the inexhaustible Intelligence upon whose\ntreasury I am drawing now as I think and write, upon whose stores all\ncreatures are drawing in every intelligent action of their lives.\n\nLaw we define as an ordination of reason.  From first to last it is so.\nFrom the laws which we daily obey to the everlasting laws holding the\nspheres together--can we account of them as other than the expression\nof reason?  So do we account of the moral law, with this essential\ndifference, that while the rules of man, the laws of man, may be\narbitrary, the moral law is no arbitrary enactment, but essential\nrighteousness; it is the Supreme Mind and Will in actual\nmanifestation--the moral law _is_ God.  I mean thereby that it could\nnot be otherwise.  It is beyond the power of omnipotence to dispense\nwith it.  Right recognised as right could never be other than right, it\ncould never become wrong, any more than two and three could become\ninterchangeable ideas.  One may say now that this definite act is\nright, and a century later that it is wrong; but for all that, for all\nthe imperfection, the limitation, of our intelligence, as much in the\nmoral as in the mental spheres, one thing is certain, that the right\ndoes exist and is eternally dissevered from the wrong, and that this\n\"quite infinite distinction\" is the instant revelation of Supreme Mind.\n\nNow, if to bar this conclusion it were argued that so far from the\nmoral law being an expression of mind, supreme or otherwise, it was\nmerely the generalised experience of mankind which had discovered that\ncertain acts were attended by pleasurable or useful results, and\ncertain other acts by painful and mischievous consequences, which had\nled men to describe the first class as good and the second as evil, one\nmight reply that herein we have stated a truth but not the whole truth.\nTo us the fact that good living and well-being are so intimately\nassociated, and that \"the way of the transgressor is hard,\" is only one\nmore evidence of the main contention of our school.  Surely, if man\nawakes to the discovery that the laws, neither of nature, health, nor\nof private or public life, can be violated with impunity, more than\never is he convinced that the universe is, in Emerson's singularly\nexpressive phrase, \"so magically woven\" that man must come to ruin if\nhe sets himself to systematically disregard them.  The word \"woven\" is\nan illumination in itself, showing how the warp of constant nature and\nlife and the woof of man's conduct are meant to work and must work\nharmoniously together.  And if this be indeed so, if we adopt Bentham's\nlanguage and call \"pleasure and pain our sovereign masters,\" what have\nwe but a further indication that things are so ordained, that the\nuniverse is so constructed, so to speak, that you cannot get the good\nout of it unless you conform to moral law--in other words, that in the\nlong run wrong, virtue and happiness are reconciled?  Well, but the\nordering of things, the ordaining of a course of things, what is this\nbut the work of intelligence?  And therefore Bentham, no less than\nKant, contributes his quota to the universal conclusion that the moral\nlaw implies theism in the sense explained.  Wherefore, it may be added,\nthere is no reason whatsoever why a rational ethic such as has been\nsketched should not avail itself of the unquestionable services of\nexperience in determining what is and what is not in conformity with\nmorality.  If a man sees the world as one, and all intelligence as one,\nhe will be assured beforehand that things are so constituted that\nmischief cannot permanently or ultimately befall him if he lives what\nhe knows to be _the life_.  And, therefore, the considerations of pain\nand pleasure, utility and mischievousness, are extremely serviceable\ncriteria whereby we are assisted in that codification of morality, in\nthat determining of what is good and what is evil, only it must ever be\npointed out that they are not the ultimate explanation or basis of\nmorality, which is built, not on any hedonistic or utilitarian\nfoundation, but on the reason in us, in the universe, which commands us\nto live as offspring of that reason, or as Paul puts it from his point\nof view, as \"children of the light\".\n\nAnd, in explaining why pleasure and pain cannot be regarded as \"the\nsovereign masters\" of ethic, we may add to the evidence for our\nconclusion.  It appears that Bentham and his school do not observe the\nproprieties of language in identifying the moral good, the moral right,\nwith pleasure.  The ideas are really incommensurate, as is well pointed\nout in Schurman's monograph on the Kantian and the evolutionary ethics\nof Spencer.  The ethical \"ought,\" the word which gives the keynote to\nthe whole science, does not and cannot mean what is \"pleasurable,\"\n\"serviceable,\" or \"useful\".  The word essentially implies the \"ideal,\"\nthe conformity to a definite standard of right, the approximation\ntowards a goal or standard of conduct implicitly recognised as absolute\ngood.  But the ideas of \"pleasurable,\" \"useful,\" and the like concern\nthe moment only; they merely suggest that man should secure the\nadvantage offered or avoid the pain which may befall him here and now,\nor some time subsequently to his contemplated action.  Hence there is\nno obligatory force in this ethic.  Prudential motives, suggestions of\nexpediency, abundance of counsel, if you will; but we miss the note of\nauthority, the commanding voice, the categorical imperative, the solemn\ninjunction, \"Thou canst, therefore thou must\".  Indeed, it seems\ndifficult to see how one could convince a man on hedonistic or\nutilitarian grounds that a course of conduct on which he was bent, and\nto which he was allured by the overmastering impulse of a vehement\nnature, and which promised him sensible gratification, possibly even\nmaterial advancement, was not legitimate.  I do not press this, nor do\nI suggest that moral elevation of life is not discernible amongst\nprofessors of this interpretation of ethics equally with those who take\nan idealist view.  All I say is, that the recognised terminology of the\nethical life, the \"ought,\" the \"must,\" receive an ampler recognition, a\nfuller interpretation, in the rational schools than in those of Bentham\nand Spencer.\n\nAnd, finally, we may approach the question from the point of view of\nevolution.  Everybody knows the pitiless manner in which the late\nProfessor Huxley contrasted the ethical man with the cosmical process,\nhow he pointed out that the one hope of progress lay in man's ability\nto successfully combat by ethical idealism the rude realism of the\nmaterial order of which he is a part.  The facts need no exposition.\nEvery man has the evidence of it in himself, in the periodical\ninsurrection of the ape and tiger element in him against the authority\nof some mysterious power which in the course of his long sojourn here\nhas been acquired, and to which he recognises that the allegiance of\nhis life is due.  That tearful, regretful expression of the _Grand\nMonarque_, after one of Massillon's searching, scathing sermons on the\nsensual and spiritual in every man, \"_Ah, voila deux hommes que je\nconnais tres bien!_\" may be repeated with even greater truthfulness by\nevery one of us, now that Darwin has superseded St. Paul in the\nexplanation of the phenomenon.\n\nNow, here we have a surprising contradiction in Nature, the startling\napparition of an element in man so utterly opposed to all that is\nbeneath him, that a scientific chieftain tells us that his only hope is\nto kill out that ape and tiger, or at any rate keep it under unceasing\ncontrol.  Whence is this extraordinary human element, and what\nexplanation can be given of the contradiction unless there be some\nhigher synthesis into which the antinomy is taken up and resolved into\nunity?  If out of the primordial nebula both the cosmos and man, with\nall that he is, have been evolved, then it would appear, plain as the\nwriting on the wall, that some extraordinary transformation has come\nover the scene as soon as man appeared, and that an element utterly\nirreconcilable with all that has appeared previously manifests itself\nin him, not as an accident or a fortuitous occurrence, but as an\nessential, nay, as _the_ essential law of his being.\n\nHow can we explain this?  How can we account for this complete _volta\nface_ in Nature, which bids man turn his back on all that made the\nuniverse and him, and resolve to live by a law so irreconcilable with\nthe methods of the cosmos, that I take it we should be justified in\nsaying that had it been in operation before man Nature itself could not\nhave been evolved?\n\nWe believe the contradiction receives its explanation in the synthesis\nalready suggested, that above the two processes, the cosmical and\nethical, there is another, that of absolute intelligence or mind,\nenergising through them both from first to last, but in widely\ndifferent ways.  In the cosmos, by ways which we describe as non-moral;\nin us by law, which we recognise as moral.  In every grade of being, in\nevery stratum of Nature, the self-same ever-active Mind is manifest,\nnay, the very distinctions of Nature's life are fixed by the intenser\nor remisser energy wherewith the eternal Mind functions in them.  From\nfirst to last it is mind-power behind all and in all.  \"In the\nbeginning was Mind; in the beginning was the Reason.\"  Lao-tze is\nright; the Alexandrian mystic is right; _En arche ho Logos_, and the\nMind was the light of man, the light of reason, the holier light of\nconscience, leading him if he will but follow it, in the way which has\nbeen described in language of philosophic precision by the Hebrew poet\nas \"the way everlasting\".\n\nMan may sing a _Magnificat_, because mighty things have been done in\nhim, such as a cosmos or an infinity of worlds never knew or shall\nknow.  And thus the very contradictions manifested by evolution do but\ncontribute to the truth of the general conclusion, that there is a\nPower, not dead, dull, inert, but an ever-living, ever-energising Mind,\nwhence the mighty procession set forth, unto which it is ever\nreturning.  There is a Power above the water floods and cosmic\ndisasters which is bringing to fulfilment purposes known from\neverlasting, which we are compelled to acknowledge as beneficent.  We\nsee its workings in history, in the rise and fall of nations; we\nwitness the morally, no less than the physically, unfit fall out of the\nranks.  Progress here and there may seem to stop, but the course of\nthings is \"never wholly retrograde\".  Is not that hope strong in every\nman of us, going before us as an unquenchable light, encouraging us to\npersevere even to the end, because we shall not be deprived of the\nfruits of our toil, and no demon power shall come to dash the cup of\nhappiness which we have striven to fill?\n\nAnd what is this but to confess that the Power manifested in the cosmos\nis identical with the Power manifested in life, that physical and\npsychical are ultimately one, that virtue and well-being are\nindissolubly associated?  What is this but to confess the supreme\nsynthesis, embracing all apparent contradictions, the ultimate harmony\nin which all discords are ultimately merged and lost for ever?  What is\nit finally but to proclaim our faith one with that of the most eloquent\nvoice heard in this century, poet and philosopher in one, the sublime\nVictor Hugo: \"_La loi du monde materiel, c'est l'equilibre, la loi du\nmonde moral c'est la justice_\"?  Pindar's words again!  \"Justice is\nrightful sovereign of the world.\"  The Reason which is revealed as\nequilibrium in the spheres, reveals itself as justice among men.  Both\nspring from one indefectible source.  \"_Dieu se retrouve a la fin de\ntout._\"\n\n\n\n[1] Lao-tze, quoted in Huc's _China_, vol. ii., p. 177.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nIMMANUEL KANT, THE ETHICAL PHILOSOPHER.\n\nTo think of what Immanuel Kant has been to the many men and women of this\ncentury, who, having unlearnt the old traditions, had not yet found a new\ninspiration--the souls that were athirst for the waters of life which the\nancient wells could no longer supply--is to be reminded of the pious and\ngenerous tribute which the Jewish exiles, after their sad return from the\nBabylonian captivity, paid to Nehemiah and his brethren, the reorganisers\nof their race.  \"Let Nehemiah,\" they said, \"be a long time remembered\namongst us, who built up our walls that were cast down, who raised also\nthe bars of the gates!\"  Precious indeed is the man who can recreate the\nshattered fabric of the Commonwealth, re-enkindle the pure flame of\npatriotism, and restore the inspiration of religion.  A benefactor indeed\nis the thinker who can give us a glimpse of the Divine on rational terms,\nsatisfy the exigencies of the intelligence without denying the cravings\nof the heart, and provide an idealism for the inspiration and guidance of\nlife.\n\nPerhaps it is not too much to say that the temporal destitution of the\nrepatriated Jews was a symbol of the religious and ethical decay of the\nlast century.  Protestantism of the orthodox type, which essentially was\nand is nothing more than the substitution of a book for a Pope, the\npruning of the tree dogmatical, the lopping off of some of its more\nreprehensible excrescences, had visibly failed to meet the necessities of\n\"the irresistible maturing of the human mind,\" to quote an expression of\nEmerson's.  The older Church had prophesied accurately enough that\nLutheranism would turn out but a half-way house to infidelity, and sure\nenough it did.  Its thorough application of the principle of private\njudgment in matters of religion could no more justify the inspiration of\nLeviticus than the federal headship of Adam and the dogma of endless\nvindictive punishment.  Hence Lutheranism necessarily meant the gradual\ndisintegration of dogma, that is, of all super-rational truth, for every\nman \"outside the sacred circle of those bound over not to think\".\n\nWhen we remember, in addition to the decay of Protestantism, that Roman\nCatholic countries afforded more than sufficient evidence of the\ninability of their own religion to meet the increasing needs of the\nage--how France, Spain, and Portugal were devastated by the sceptical\ndisease; how they insisted on and carried the total suppression of the\nJesuit Order, beyond compare the ablest body of men their Church had ever\nproduced; how the French Revolution was in its inception profoundly\nanti-Christian, and in its progress even anti-religious--when, I say, we\ncall to mind these facts, we are able to appreciate the accuracy of the\nstatement that, through the maturing of the intelligence of man, the\nancient traditions had lost their hold, not only of Protestant, but of\nCatholic, lands.  Without leaving for a moment the eighteenth century, I\nthink we are warranted in stating that the close of the nineteenth\ncentury does not witness a rehabilitation of those traditions.  The truth\nis more obvious than ever that in the men of to-day,\n\n  The power is lost to self-deceive\n  With shallow forms of make-believe.\n\n\nNow, it would appear that Immanuel Kant was the man of destiny for the\nwork of the reorganisation of ethical and religious life.  I look upon\nhim as the morning star of the New Reformation.  He witnessed in his own\nday the very low-water mark of scepticism, reaching even to the gross\natheism of Holbach in the _Systeme de la Nature_.  He had the advantage\nof everything which David Hume, \"the Prince of Agnostics,\" as Mr. Huxley\nstyled him, found to say, and indeed Hume exercised a marked influence on\nhis German brother-savant, as we may, perhaps, later see.  The whole work\nof the _Encyclopaedia_ in France was done under his eyes; the galaxy of\nbrilliant writers who composed that school were contemporaries of\nImmanuel Kant.  He witnessed the crash which accompanied the downfall of\nthe old regime in France, the enthronement of anarchy in the place of\ngovernment, the complete eclipse of religion, and the worship of reason\nsymbolised on the altar of Notre Dame as my tongue refuses to describe.\nIt was the era of the deluge: the water-flood had burst upon Europe; and\nthere was nothing, no institution of State or Church, no philosophy, no\nreligion then extant that could stem the rush of the torrent.  Never was\nthe effeteness of ancient systems, the impotence of the old idealism,\nmore conspicuous.  In the midst of this wreckage the problem of\nreconstruction had to be faced.  Immanuel Kant did face it, and his\nobject was to provide against the recurrence of atheisms and anarchies,\nto make godlessness and revolutions impossible, to ensure religion's\nbeing a help instead of a gross and deplorable hindrance to progress, and\nto provide man with an idealism and an enthusiasm which would satisfy his\nutmost desire for knowledge, and yet stir the pulses of his moral being\nby the suggestion of an irresistible emotion.\n\nSuch I conceive to have been the work which Immanuel Kant undertook in\nthe system of the transcendental philosophy.\n\nThe name of this thinker is so famous, I had almost said so venerable, in\nthe ethical Church, that I may be allowed to put before my readers, who\nmay be unacquainted with the details, a few personal or biographical\nnotices concerning him.\n\nImmanuel Kant was born at Koenigsberg, in Prussia, on 22nd April, 1724, of\nhumble parentage.  He was apparently destined for the Church, since his\nfirst efforts were directed towards the study of theology in the\nuniversity of his native town.  But natural science and philosophy proved\nof far more powerful attraction, and, abandoning Divinity, he earned his\nlivelihood, first of all, by acting as a private tutor in the\nneighbourhood of Koenigsberg, and afterwards by assuming a similar office\nin his own university.  He subsequently, at the age of forty-six, became\na professor of the Philosophical Faculty, a post he retained till his\ndeath in 1804.  The deep reverence and religious emotion which betrays\nitself in Kant's ethical writings was probably due to the influence of\nhis parents.  His father was venerable in his eyes as a man of moral\nworth.  Honesty, truth and domestic peace characterised his home.  For\nhis mother the philosopher cherished the tenderest of recollections, and\nto her religious feeling, detached as it was completely from formula and\nsystem, he probably owes the fervour with which he speaks--as do Emerson\nand Carlyle--of the sublimity of the moral laws, and of the infinite\ndignity of a life lived in harmony with them.  When he lost his father at\nthe age of twenty-two, he wrote in the family Bible: \"On the 24th of\nMarch my dearest father was called away by a blessed death.  May God, who\nhas not vouchsafed him great pleasure in this life, grant him the joy\neternal!\"\n\nAfter a youth spent under the spell of such surroundings, we are not\nsurprised to learn that Kant was of a singularly grave, gentle and quiet\ndemeanour, which in old age tended to deepen into austerity and increased\nconscientiousness, were that possible, in the fulfilment of his duties.\nWith the simple words, \"It is the time,\" his servant Lampe called him\nevery morning at five minutes to five, and never to the end, according to\nthe testimony of his servant, was the summons disobeyed.  In the\nthirty-four years of his professorship he was reported to have been only\nonce absent from his chair, and that owing to indisposition.\n\nKant lived a solitary life; he never married.  Like more than one eminent\nman in the past and present, absolute want prevented his inviting the\nwoman he loved to share his lot.  The world has just learnt that Tennyson\nwas engaged to his wife for twenty years, from her seventeenth to her\nthirty-seventh year, owing again to stress of circumstances, and there is\nliving now one eminent man for whom, as for Immanuel Kant, comfort,\ncompetence, and fame have come too late to allow of any share in the\nblessing and joy of home.  Such things cannot but deepen the hold these\nelect spirits have and shall have upon men unto all time.\n\nOf religion Kant conceived a noble idea, but he did not find it realised\nin the Churches of his day.  Sacerdotalism, even in its mildest forms,\nwas abhorrent to him.  During his manhood he never entered a church door,\na fact which is a source of deep pain to many of his most enthusiastic\nbiographers.  Once only did Kant take his place in the procession which\nmade its way to the cathedral on an especial day in the year, and was\njoined by the rector and professors of the university, but on arriving at\nthe door he turned back and spent the hour of service in the retirement\nof his rooms.  To his free soul it was a performance, professional and\nsectarian, and in consequence, something of a profanation.  His disciple\nHegel must have been moved by similar feelings when he replied to the\nquestioning of his old housekeeper why he did not attend Divine service,\n\"Thinking is also a Divine service!\"\n\nNature had an irresistible fascination for him.  He learnt that also from\nhis revered mother, whose joy it was to take her child into the world of\nNature, where the Soul of the worlds is so conspicuously at work, and\ninstil into his young heart a deep and tender love for the beautiful life\naround him.  Thus he couples the impressive spectacle of the holy night,\nrevealed in the shining of the eternal stars, with the supreme object of\nemotion, the moral law within the heart, as the most awful of realities.\n\nBut not only for Nature in her sublimer aspects did he conceive so\nreverential a feeling, the humbler exhibitions of beauty and wisdom were\nequally moving to his awakened spirit.  Once he told his friends, whom he\nconstantly had with him at his dinner-table, he had held a swallow in his\nhands and gazed into its eyes; \"and as I gazed,\" he said, \"it was as if I\nhad seen heaven\".  The great lesson of Mind in Nature he had learnt well\nat his mother's knee, and he never forgot it.  Children, so recently come\nout from one eternity, their souls so well attuned to the wonderment and\nmystery there lies hid in things, are peculiarly susceptible to such\nbeautiful influences.  Nature is the temple in which their tender souls\nshould learn their first lessons in worship and see the earliest glimpses\nof the Divine.\n\nKant lived into his eightieth year, surrounded by the homage of Europe,\nwhich made him, in a sense, the keeper of its conscience.  His ethical\ntreatises caused him to be consulted from the most distant lands on\nquestions of moral import.  It is on record that many of his\ncorrespondents paid insufficient postage upon their letters--a fact which\nmeant considerable loss for the philosopher.  Indeed, so habitual was the\nforgetfulness of these ethical sensitives that Kant at length refused to\ntake their letters in.  After some thirty years of professorship in his\nown university his marvellous powers began to fail; his memory served him\nno longer; his great mind could think no more the thoughts sublime.  The\nkeen senses grew dull, and the light of his \"glad blue eyes\" went out.\nHis bodily frame, which by assiduous care he had maintained as a worthy\norgan of his mind, sank into weakness.  His last years, his last hours\neven, are described by his well-beloved disciple and friend Wasianski\nwith a faithful and pathetic minuteness which, in the view of some of the\ngreat thinker's deepest admirers, might well have been less microscopic.\nThe spectacle of a great mind losing itself at length in the feebleness\nof age, almost the imbecility of second childhood, might well, they\nconsider, have been withdrawn from the vulgar gaze.  \"Yet,\" as the late\nProf. Wallace most truly remarks, \"for those who remember, amid the\ndecline of the flesh, the noble spirit which inhabited it, it is a sacred\nprivilege to watch the failing life and visit the sick chamber of\nImmanuel Kant.\" [1]\n\nOn the 12th of February, 1804, in his eightieth year, he passed away, the\nvictim of no special ailment or disease, but exhausted by the life of\ndeep and strenuous thought upon the most profound and sacred problems\nwhich can agitate the mind of man.  Simple and unostentatious to a degree\nduring his life, the great master left instructions that he was to be\nburied quietly in the early morning.  But for once his wish was\ndisregarded, and amid the mourning of his Alma Mater, his townsfolk and\nthe neighbourhood around, he was laid to rest in the choir of the\nUniversity Church, which during life he would never enter.  As with Kant\nso with Darwin, all men instinctively feel--even the most narrow of\nsectarians--that the lives of such men were--I will not say\nreligious--but religion, and so they lay them at last within the shadow\nof their altars as the worthiest and best of the race.  It shows us how\ndeeply seated is the ethical emotion in man; it shows us that the\nreligion of every man at his best moments is such as Immanuel Kant\ndescribed and realised in his calm and beautiful life--a religion based\non the sublime realities of the moral law.\n\nAnd now, perhaps, we may say something of the thoughts of our\nphilosopher, though at present it cannot be more than of a fragmentary\ncharacter.  If the ethical movement is to prove enduring, the name and\nteaching of Immanuel Kant must be frequently before us, and numberless\nopportunities afforded for an ampler account of his doctrine.  For the\nmoment my purpose was rather to put before my readers some idea of the\nman himself whose teaching is now exercising so deep an influence on the\nreligious tendencies of the hour.\n\nEvery time you read of the vicar of a parish changing pulpits with his\nNonconformist brother; every philanthropic meeting you hear of as\naddressed by clergymen of all denominations; every garden party given by\na bishop or a dean to a Dissenters' Conference; every advance you\ngratefully note towards a wise and patient tolerance of theological\ndissensions, the sinking of sectional differences in the interests of a\nhigher and purer life--ascribe it all to the beneficent influence of\nImmanuel Kant.  Before his day all these fraternisings would have been\nimpossible; the ancestors of these reconciled brethren were ready to\nscourge and burn each other, until Kant came and shamed them out of their\nnarrowness and bigotry.  Men talk no more of \"mere morality,\" as though\nit paled into positive insignificance by the side of the dogmatical\nmajesty of articles and creeds.  Kant has taught them \"a more excellent\nway,\" and in so far as they have learnt that one lesson, they and we are\nmembers of the one great Church--the Church of the ethically redeemed,\nthe Church of men to come--the idealism, the enthusiasm, of the ages to\nbe.  Never let it be forgotten.  We are not concerned to controvert or to\ndestroy.  The message of Kant to the Churches is that in all essentials\nwe are at one with them, and the trend of thought is now setting visibly\ntowards the substitution of an ethical for a doctrinal basis of religion.\nYou are powerless to resist the times, we would urge.  Whether the old\nnames and formulae survive or not, \"the irresistible maturing of the\ngeneral mind\" will make it impossible for men to acquiesce in any\nreligious belief not grounded on the conviction that the sole test of a\nman's status is not what he believes, but what he does.  This is Kant,\nthis is Christ, and this is the message of the ethical Church.\n\nBut to return to the teaching of the philosopher of ethics, I must remind\nmy readers again that I am unable to do more than sketch the outlines of\nthe great ethical system which he gave to the world.  More than that will\nnot be needed for the moment.  But before undertaking even a synoptical\naccount of the transcendental ethic, I think it advisable to remark that\nKant's title to philosophical immortality rests upon his constructive\nwork as an ethicist, and not on his critical work as a speculative\nthinker.  It is well known that the two philosophies of Kant are not\n_prima facie_ harmonious, that he finds himself compelled to deny as a\ncritic that of which he is most certain as a moralist.  Thus the great\nfacts of theism, immortality and the autonomy or freedom of the will, he\nprofesses himself unable to know save as revelations of the moral order.\nHis mind, or pure reason, can know nothing of them; it is his will or\npractical reason which discerns them as plain deductions from the\noverwhelming fact of the moral law.  This fact has led some critics to\ndescribe Kant as a sceptic.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  We\nmight almost quote of him what Browning wrote of Voltaire:--\n\n  Crowned by prose and verse, and wielding\n        with wit's bauble learning's rod,\n  He at least believes in soul and is very sure of God.\n\n\nNo one more so; yet as a thinker he professed himself unable to\n_demonstrate_ these high truths.  In that sense Kant's famous _Critique\nof the Pure Reason_ may be described as the forerunner of the systematic\nagnosticism which is set forth in the _First Principles_ of Mr. Spencer.\nBut there is this immense difference, that Kant was convinced of the\nreality of that which the mind of man could not demonstrate.  The great\nfacts were existent indeed, but he was powerless to reach them with the\ninstruments at his command.  In consequence, he laid it down as a\nprinciple that man must ever act as though it were actually demonstrated\nthat we were free, our innermost being imperishable, and a supreme judge\nand dispenser of justice to administer the moral laws which are the guide\nof life.  It would be out of place to state the arguments whereby Kant\njustified his belief in a controlling mind in the universe and in the\nspiritual nature of man, while avowing his inability to demonstrate those\ntruths.  It must suffice to state here that the truths which lie at the\nfoundation of religion were a matter of profound conviction with the sage\nof Koenigsberg, all the deeper perhaps because he would not claim to\nsubject them to an intellectual dissection or to be able to measure out\nheaven and earth in the exiguous terms of human thought.\n\nBut as soon as he leaves the plane of the pure or speculative reason and\nrises to the level of the practical reason or the will, then the full\ntruth bursts upon his astonished gaze, clearer than the meridian light.\nHe sees no more \"half shade, half shine,\" but the truth pours itself\n\"upon the new sense it now trusts with all its plenitude of power\".  It\nis the will, not the mind, which discloses the full revelation to\nImmanuel Kant, and makes him the deeply-reverent, religious man he ever\nwas, the convinced theist, the believer in his power to control his acts\nby the independence of his will, and in the possibility, or rather the\ncertainty, of his being one day morally perfect--not indeed within the\nlimits of the life which now is, but in a future life of unlimited\nduration.  That which to Wordsworth was an intimation was to Kant an\nintuition after the vision of the glory of the moral law had flooded his\ninnermost soul.\n\nAnd this we may, perhaps, briefly show before bringing the chapter to an\nend.\n\nThe fundamental principle of the Kantian system is the primacy of the\nwill.  The key to the mystery of man's being Kant finds, not in the\nmarvellous faculty of intelligence, but in that power of self-movement,\nthat capacity for self-originated energy which we call the will.  Reason\nis \"regulative,\" he said, but not \"creative\" and \"constitutive,\" like the\nwill.  It is the latter faculty which makes us what we are, determines\nour life, fixes our character, and decides our destiny.  As you act, so\nyou are.  This principle once conceded, the majestic system at once takes\nshape.  What is it that governs the world of phenomena outside us?\nPhysical laws, and supreme amongst these laws, that of equilibrium or\ngravitation.  What is it that governs the reason?  The laws of thought,\nthose aboriginal rules, none of man's creation, but the essentially\nnecessary guides which he was bound to discover and to follow if he is to\nthink accurately, that is, if his thoughts are to be in conformity with\nfact.  And what is it which governs the will of man?  \"Do you tell me,\"\nthe master would urge, \"that the inert masses of the spheres have each\ntheir own movements regulated for them, that nothing from a stone to a\nstar is shaped or moved without the intervention of eternal laws; that\nthe lispings of children no less than the meditations of a philosopher\nmust conform to law, and that the will of man, whereby he makes himself\nto be what he is, shapes his character, influences his surroundings, and\nfixes his destiny--do you venture to say that that is lawless in a world\nwhere all is law?  No,\" he proclaims in words which burn conviction into\nhis soul: \"it, too, has its laws, the highest, holiest thing in all this\nuniverse, the law of laws which confronts man wherever he goes, fills all\nhis sublimest thoughts, subdues his soul to the most reverent worship,\nand is the holiest inspiration of his religion.  It is the moral law, the\nsupreme concern of the will of man, a revelation to man alone of his own\nunspeakable dignity, the norm or standard whereby he is to regulate his\nlife--this it is which is the law of his will.  As gravitation rules the\nstars, so the moral law, the sanction of the eternal distinction between\nright and wrong, controls the will, not compulsorily, not arbitrarily, as\nthough it could by any possibility be otherwise, but freely.  So\nsovereign is its power, so authentic are its claims, that if it had might\nas it has right, it would rule the world.\"  It is, therefore, to use\nKant's own language, a _categorical imperative_, that is, an\nunconditional command.  \"Thou canst, and therefore thou must.\"  By the\nvery manhood you possess you are bound wholly to surrender yourself in\nsubmission to what you know to be the right for the right's sake alone.\nYou must make it your own law, and obey it as inflexibly as the stars\nkeep their courses in the everlasting way.\n\n  Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,\n  And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.\n\n\nWe may see now how Kant bases his whole system upon the indestructible\nfact of ethical law, the primeval intuition of the awakened spirit of man\ninto the eternal distinction between good and evil.  Standing on that\nfoundation, he is able to descry the world of transcendental\nrealities--\"the land which is very far off\"--which the pure and critical\nreason could never behold.  But though the eyes of the mind were holden,\nthe intuition of the will enables him to gaze direct into the unseen and\ndiscern freedom, soul, immortality and God as eternal facts.  For whence\nthis sublime law of life unless we conceive mind, not blind chance, as\nthe arbiter of things?  Whence this constraining power within me,\nexerting itself to the uttermost to win my allegiance to the right,\nunless I am free to obey or disobey?  How is not the very conception of\nmorality entirely obliterated in the false philosophy that would fain\npersuade man that because he is _in_ the world he must needs be _of_ it,\nand because the tides rise and fall with the phases of the moon, that his\nactions are fixed and controlled by influences utterly beyond his power?\nWe have no room for the \"man-machine\" in the beautiful school of Immanuel\nKant.\n\nAnd, finally, the awful question of the future Kant solves in the light\nof the same sublime principle.  \"That law,\" he urges, \"which is the\nessential law binding humanity must one day be fulfilled in every one of\nus.  There is a moral as well as a physical evolution which you try in\nvain to confine to the limits of the life which now is.  There is no\nargument known to science justifying such an attempt.\"  Kant believes in\nthe Eternities, because every man born of woman is destined to be at last\nin absolute conformity with that law of everlasting righteousness which\nis for us what the law of balance is to the infinite worlds.  All life,\nthat which now is and whatever is to be in the hereafter, is simply a\nnever-ending progress towards an ideal whose dignity is infinite.  Hence\nthe command of Jesus, \"Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is also\nperfect,\" would be endorsed by Kant as in strict harmony with the\nphilosophy which does not teach that the physical act of dissolution\ncalled death fixes the moral state of man for ever, but that all life,\nwhatsoever it may be and wheresoever it may be lived, is but an approach\ntowards a goal of infinite value, the will of man absolutely conformed to\njustice, or the moral law.\n\nAs Kepler described the philosopher and the scientist as \"thinking again\nthe thoughts of God,\" even so does the Kantian ethic aspire to absolute\nconformity of will with that Will which is supreme and eternal, the moral\norder itself personified.  This is immortality: this is everlasting life,\neven as the Christian disciple and philosopher describes it: \"This world\npasseth away and the desire thereof, but he that doeth the Divine will\nendureth for ever\".  The phenomenal world is a pageant, a scene.  Only\n\"the good will\" (Kant's constant expression) in absolute harmony with the\nSupreme Will is real and eternal.\n\n\n\n[1] _Philosophical Classics_, p. 85.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE ETHICAL DOCTRINE OF COMPENSATION.\n\nI suppose there is no teaching more frequently insisted upon in the Old\nand in the New Testament as the truth of a judgment, now, or in the\nfuture, upon the misdeeds or sins of men.  Let criticism prune and cut\nas it will, while it exhibits the deplorably low standard of morality\nonce prevalent among the Hebrew peoples, and therefore prevalent among\ntheir Gods, their Elohim, Adonai and Jahveh, one thing, at least, is\nundeniable--that that which is recognised as immoral is reprobated and\nforthwith visited with condign punishment.  Doubtless, acts which to us\nare wholly reprehensible are discussed without attaching any stigma to\nthem, and are even permitted, and sometimes suggested, by Jahveh\nhimself, as in the story of Judith and Holofernes.  Such ethical\ninsensibility is wholly natural, viewing the state of development at\nwhich the Hebrew people had arrived, and should cause no wonderment in\nthose who are familiar with the Deity of Christian Mediaevalism, and\nthe methods and practices he was supposed to favour.  But what should\nbe carefully noted is, that nothing is adjudged immoral but is\nforthwith sternly reprobated and condemned to a fitting retribution.\n\"The way of transgressors is hard\" was a conviction with the race.  In\nthe same way, the ethical note rings out in the New Testament, that\nright and wrong are eternally dissevered, sheep ever separated from\ngoats; that virtue must be rewarded and vice be condemned and punished.\n\nNow, this teaching of the judgment to come, the bare announcement of\nwhich by Paul filled Felix, the Roman governor, with such dire\nconsternation, is the subject of which we propose to set forth the\nphilosophical and ethical explanation.  In the Bible we have the\nmythical setting much as we have the mythical version of the agony of\nspirit undergone by Christ before he definitely committed himself to\nhis prophetical work.  It is for us to-day to disentangle the\nsubstantive truth from the maze of legend with which an imperfectly\ndeveloped age has surrounded it and discover the true _raison d'etre_\nof that doctrine which \"the Bible Christian\" confesses under the aspect\nof the \"Last Judgment\".\n\nNow, I take it that no educated man believes in the drama, or rather,\nthe panorama, of the \"last judgment\"; the vision of Jesus sitting in\nthe clouds, with every human being that ever was or shall be gathered\nbefore his throne to hear definite sentence pronounced upon them.  The\n_mise-en-scene_ demands of course the presence of bodies, and I suppose\nit is needless to point out the dogma of the resurrection of the body,\ninsisted upon by all the Christian Churches, is a blank impossibility.\nWe may acquire other bodies in that unknown state, should we stand in\nneed of such appurtenances--a fact which we may wholly disbelieve--but\nof one thing we may rest assured, that these identical bodies in which\nwe die can by no possibility conceivable to us be brought back.\n\nI once read a highly imaginative article in a religious magazine which\nattempted to solve the unsolvable by suggesting that after men's bodies\nhad been buried in sufficient numbers, the whole soil of our planet\nwould consist of nothing but the substance of the bodies of the dead,\nand that when that momentous epoch arrived, the Almighty would give the\norder for the sounding of the final trump, and the whole solid globe\nwould be forthwith transmuted, or rather re-transmuted, into human\nbodies--in what condition it was not stated--for the countless myriads\nof \"souls\" ready to take possession of them.  Probably, this pious\nromance was woven in the days before cremation, and as the next century\nwill not be very old before we shall be compelled to resort to that\nmethod of disposal of the dead, at all events in our larger cities, it\nbecomes increasingly difficult to comprehend how men of the future, to\nsay nothing of the past, are going to be provided with their own bodies\nso as to put in an appearance at the great assize.\n\nWe may rightly wonder how men and women of the nineteenth century can\nstill believe in the Churches and Chapels which teach such deplorable\nabsurdities as the revelation of God, and how it happens that when\nreligion appears upon the scene of their daily life, their common sense\ncan so totally desert them.  One need say nothing of the inadequacy of\nthe judgment pronounced, the summary classification of the myriads of\nhumanity as white sheep or black goats, or the character of the rewards\nand punishments allotted.  The one redeeming point in the narrative is\nthat whatever judgment is pronounced is decided, not on doctrinal\ngrounds, about which no two of Christ's followers can be got to agree,\nbut on ethical grounds, on character manifesting itself in public\nspirit and care for the unfortunate--the bruised reeds and smoking\nflax--of our communities.  It would seem impossible to maintain after\nthis final scene that creeds and faiths have any decisive influence on\nour status here or hereafter.\n\nBut though now seen to be no more than a variant upon the apocalyptic\ntradition and literature which represented that Jesus was to return\nspeedily to earth and rule among his saints for a thousand years--a\ndelusion which apparently possessed even the trained intellect of Paul,\nand subsequently led to the pseudo-Peter explaining that his\nfellow-Christians must not be in too great a hurry, because \"a thousand\nyears are as one day and one day as a thousand years in the sight of\nthe Lord\"--it has done an incalculable amount of harm in the past.  It\nhas shut men's eyes to the awful fact of retribution, administered here\nand now, and prevented their realising any punishment other than the\nsavage, barbarous and wholly vindictive punishment of torturing\neternally by fire.  It shuts men's minds to the operation of moral\nlaws, to the fact that judgment is executed instantaneously upon the\ncommission of wrong.  It has, and it does, to the serious detriment of\nmoral development, lead man to put off until late in life, sometimes to\nthe very hour of death itself, restorative work which should have been\nundertaken immediately on the recognition or conviction of misdeeds.\nThe notion that he is not to be called up for judgment until he is\nrendered incapable by death of doing any further mischief, has been a\nmoral obstacle in the path of man, and therefore of the race, wholly\nbeyond the power of calculation.  Foolish priests once thought that by\nthe invention of the dogma of hell they could terrorise men into\nmorality, and so they preached their Divinity, the magnified copy of a\nfiend, who would have cheerfully created humanity out of nothing and\ndamned them everlastingly, had not he himself, in the shape of his son,\nwho is one in being with him, decided to appear upon earth and atone to\nhimself for the mischief, which presumably he could have very well\nforeseen, perpetrated by man.\n\nAnd what has been the effect of such teaching on humanity?  It is\nimpossible to doubt that it has led to results deplorably,\nindescribably wicked.  Whence, for instance, arose the horrors of the\nmediaeval inquisition, the insensate tortures inflicted upon men like\nHuss and Bruno solely for theological errors, if not from belief in\nthis demon-deity whom the Church worshipped?  If their practices were\nbut a shadow of the horrors he was supposed to be everlastingly\ninflicting on mankind, who could raise a protest against them?  Shall\nman be juster than his God?  This perverse Christian morality is\nresponsible for the worst cruelties which have tormented the human race\nsince the days of ecclesiastical domination.  If the Deity is inhuman,\nwhy should man be otherwise?  Therefore, inhuman tortures will be\ninflicted on prisoners.  The rack and thumb-screw will be used to\nextract secrets.  Men will be immured alive within narrow walls and\nallowed to perish by inches.  The Austrian prisons in the northern\nItalian provinces will be so constructed that the miserable victim can\nneither sit nor lie down nor see the light of day.  Floggings and\nscourgings will be universal, _lettres de cachet_ an institution.  Why\nnot?  Where the god has no sense of justice, why should man?  Hundreds\nand hundreds of thousands of victims will perish at the stake and in\nthe flames in atrocious agony because they are wizards or witches or\nhave had dealings with imaginary devils.  Why not?  The god does worse\nthan all this.  He keeps his victims alive for the sole purpose of\nglutting his ire and satiating his insatiable vengeance.  Nay, things\nare so ordered that the very happiness of the elect is enhanced, not\nonly by the knowledge, but by the sight, of the appalling, unavailing\nanguish of the lost, and we have seen such a philosopher as Aquinas\nrepresenting the Deity as conducting the \"elect\" in troops and droves\nto the heavenly shores and giving them \"a glimpse of hell\" by way of\nstimulating their enjoyment of the celestial beatitude.  Why not?  I\nask again.  My only wonderment is how we ever got rid of it.  Picture\nthe world under the universal dominion of this foul superstition.  It\nreigns on the thrones of kings, in the cabinets of statesmen, it is\npreached in the pulpits, taught in the schools, it is the earliest\nlesson that trembles on the lips of innocent children.  The most\ningenious, subtly contrived, widespread and all-pervading influence is\nespecially created to propagate it everywhere in the shape of the\nChristian Church--a Divine institution, possessed of the keys of life\nand death, of heaven and hell--the sole representative of the Deity on\nearth.  How, we ask, in wondering gratitude, did the world ever escape\nthe tyranny of such superstition?  This fact alone--this\ndeliverance--is enough to make one believe that there is a \"Power, not\nourselves, which makes for righteousness,\" that the course of human\nevents is never wholly retrograde.\n\nAnd, now, what is the truth about the \"judgment to come\"?  What is the\nethical equivalent of \"hell fire\"?  In the first place, we refuse to\nbelieve in a \"last judgment\" because we know that judgment is not only\npronounced but executed instantaneously, automatically, I would say, on\nthe commission of wrong.  There is no need to wait for the day of\njudgment or even for the hour of death.  If a man has done wrong he\nsits condemned that self-same moment.  _Illo nocens se damnat quo\npeccat die_.  There is no need of God, angel or devil, to announce the\nfact or deliver judgment; the man has pronounced his own sentence,\nexecuted judgment on himself.  This is, in essence, the ethical\ndoctrine of compensation, that this universe is so woven, that the\nnature of things is such that \"things are what they are, that the\nconsequences of things will be what they will be,\" that we can no more\nhope to avert them by crying out for help to man, saint or God, than we\ncan hope to hurl back the waves that dash upon the strand at flood\ntide.  Our view is that moral laws are as irresistible as physical, and\nadmit of no more dispensation than the everlasting order of Nature.\nOne of our main reasons for repudiating the conception of the\nmiraculous is that it involves a violation of eternal order and\ntherefore of eternal reason, and if freely admitted in the physical,\nwould doubtless be speedily introduced into the moral order, to the\ndestruction of civilised society.  We believe that this universe is \"so\nmagically woven\" that it is absolutely impossible to escape the\nconsequences of our deeds, and if the Buddhist doctrine of Karma\nrepresents that teaching, then we are among its most enthusiastic\nadherents, because it is absolutely true to fact.\n\nBut let us look at the matter more closely.[1]\n\nHave we ever sufficiently reflected how that \"all things are double,\none against the other,\" in this mysteriously governed world, that\neverything has its counterpart? the world appears to be split into\nhalves, which yet cleave to each other, as a man is haunted by his\nshadow.  \"An inevitable dualism bisects Nature, so that each thing is\nhalf, and suggests another thing to make it whole.\"  Thus--spirit,\nmatter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper,\nunder; action, rest; yea, nay.  \"All things are double, one against the\nother.\"\n\nAll the woes of existence arise from our deliberate resistance to the\nlaw of oneness, to that integration which is so conspicuous in Nature.\nWe are incessantly seeking to take the one half and leave the other,\nand straightway Nemesis overtakes us.  We want to enjoy the pleasures\nof sense without attending to the inexorable requirements of mind, and\nsuch an appalling satiety sickens our souls, that we forget ourselves\nin the commission of deeds unspeakably wicked; we possibly degrade\nourselves in the eyes of all men by falling even into the clutches of\nthe law, or we border on the verge of self-destruction in our\nunspeakable _ennui_.  We would have the half, while Nature planned the\nwhole, and we pay the last farthing.  The results are naturally so\nappalling that it is not to be wondered that men sought to express them\nunder the image of a fire which will not be quenched, a worm of remorse\nwhich can never die--an immense despair for which there is no relief.\n\nLife is full of distressing illustrations of this ethical law.  A man\nwho owns but the clothes he wears one day, is a millionaire the next,\nand he attempts the impossible task of bisecting life, which has been\nmanifestly planned as a whole.  He appears to succeed for a time, but\none day men are startled to hear that he has owned up that he had\nchosen the wrong path, and has determined to quit it in suicide.  A few\nmonths after, the community is compelled to witness an almost\nunparalleled degradation, that of a young man born in the purple, with\nevery advantage that birth, position, education or matrimonial\nconnections could give him, sentenced as a felon for the meanest\ntreachery, because he would halve life which was planned a whole, and\nforgot the Fates, the dread Erynys, who administer the ethical law of\ncompensation.\n\nBut it is the same in lesser as in greater things.  Without hesitation,\nwe may ascribe our minor sorrows to the one self-same source, the\nattempt to dissever the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual\nbright, from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair.  We\nforget that purity of heart and the law of gravitation arise in the\nsame eternal spring, that the world is a whole, that moral and physical\nare grounded in one source, and we pay the penalty.  \"The soul says\neat; the body would feast.  The soul says the man and woman shall be\none flesh and one soul; the body would join the flesh only.  The soul\nsays, Have dominion over all things to the ends of virtue; the body\nwould have power over things to its own individual ends.\"\n\nNow, this conduct never yet met with any success.  You thrust your arm\ninto the stream to divide the water, but it re-unites behind your hand.\nYou attempt to live your life on one side only, to dissever that which\nwas made for unity, and calamity comes to crush you.  Men and women\nmarry for flesh or gold, they put half their whole into the contract,\nand their sacrilegious bargain smites them with a curse.  It is the law\nof compensation, the workings of that moral gravitation which causes\nall things to fit into their own places, and is to us the clearest\nindication of the workings of the Divine in all this tumultuous life.\n\nWonderful discernment of the ethical prophet!  We cease to see God\nomnipresent in all things, and our blindness ends in our destruction.\nWe see the sensual allurement, but not the sensual hurt; we see the\nmermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; we think we see our way to\ncut off that which we would have from that which we would not have.\n\"How secret art Thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence,\nthat bringest penal blindnesses on such as have unbridled desires,\"\nquotes Emerson from Augustine's confessions.\n\nNo \"last judgment,\" then, but a first judgment, a judgment here and\nnow, swift, sudden, irreversible upon every man and woman who dare to\ntake their lives by halves, to forget the seamless unity wherewith the\nuniverse is woven.  This is the ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps\nwatch in the universe and lets no offence go unchastised.  The Furies\nare the attendants on justice, and if the sun in the heavens should\ntransgress his path, they would punish him.\n\nThis is that awful yet sublime doctrine of retribution which is the\ngroundwork of the masterpieces of the ancient Greek tragedies, the\ninspiration without which the world would never have known the\nAgamemnon or the immortal trilogy of Sophocles.  It is the doctrine\nwhich made Plato describe punishment as going about with sin, \"their\nheads tied together,\" and Hegel define it as \"the other half of sin,\"\nwhile Emerson shows that \"crime and punishment grow out of one stem.\nPunishment is a fruit which, unsuspected, ripens with the flower of\npleasure which concealed it.\"  They are linked together inexorably, as\ncause and effect, and no god can dispense in this law, because the law\nitself is God.\n\nHence, there can be no such thing as \"forgiveness of sin\".  An act once\ndone is irreparable.  Its consequences must endure to all time.  Our\nmost agonising repentance cannot undo the past, it can only avail to\nsafeguard the future.  We cannot escape the law of compensation.  There\nis no magnified man in the skies, swayed by human passions, ready, at\nthe call and entreaty of prayer, to obstruct the operation of natural\nlaws.  Theories of atonement by blood shedding, sacrifices for the\nforgiveness of sins, arose in the days when man believed in such a\ndeity as that, but we know none such now, and wise are we if we\nrecognise--oh, how well it had been if in our youth we all could have\nknown--that the consequences of an act are absolutely inevitable, that\ndeeds once done, words once spoken, are traced ineffaceably on the\ntablets of universal nature and must reverberate throughout the\nuniverse to all time!\n\nSevere teaching, you say.  Yes, one pauses here when thoughts of hell\nand devils never once made man pause.  The truth is, no one really\nbelieves the insensate teaching of the Churches on punishment.  Even\ntheir adherents have outgrown them.  Nothing is clearer from history\nthan that fear of hell fire never yet made man moral.  It could not\nkeep the Church of mediaevalism, its priests and its bishops, aye, and\nits supreme pontiffs--numbers of them--even decent living men, to say\nnothing of morality or virtue.  It is worse than useless now;--an\ninsult to reason and an outrage on religion.  But what _will_ hold a\nman is the doctrine of compensation, of judgment pronounced _by\nhimself_ directly his iniquity is accomplished, of sentence\nself-executed, unpardonable and irremissible, now and for ever.\n\nAnd, added to this, the conviction that his crimes are committed, not\n\"against God,\" who can in no wise be personally influenced or injured\nby man's misdeeds, being wholly destitute of human passions and\nemotions, but against his fellow man, or against his sister woman.\n\nOne knows, alas! the beginning of the end to which the lost have come.\nIf only youth had been taught in the opening days of life, when\nimpressions are so vivid, that there is no such article as the creeds\nof the Churches falsely proclaim--\"the forgiveness of sin\"--that one\nonly wrong act may, rather must, be the starting point which will one\nday precipitate a catastrophe, how many would have been saved from the\nnameless depths, of which we must be silent, how many spared the\nanguish of an unavailing remorse!\n\nMust this false teaching indeed go on for ever?  Will it never dawn\nupon our priests and ministers, our masters and mistresses in schools,\nthat God bears none of the burden of humanity; his heart never breaks\nbecause a life is withering in despair?  He takes no hurt from the\nweltering sorrows by which so many are overwhelmed.  It is man, it is\nwoman, who bears the agony; the crushing burden of wrong-doing falls on\nthem.  Look no more then, we urge, to a phantom deity, to an idol-god\nin the skies, a figment of a disordered imagination, but think on your\nbrother man before you dare to set mischief in motion.  When you\napprehend the nearness of danger, think of the future, think of\nconsequences, think only of the irremissibleness of sin, which not all\nthe waters and baptisms, though it were of blood, through which the\nChurches can pass you, will ever be able to efface.\n\nHow much knavery in actual progress in this wilderness of men in London\nmight one not hope to stop if this doctrine of compensation could be\nbrought home?  How much company-promoting, fraud, mendacity,\nadulteration of food, could we not render impossible, if ethical and\nprophetical teaching took the place of the Church catechisms and the\ncreeds, if men could be persuaded that the success of their\nventures--quite legitimate in the eyes of the civil and criminal\nlaw--can only be purchased by the tears and ruin of human beings?  The\ndogma of endless future punishment was apparently impotent to restrain\nthe ultra-orthodox directors of the Liberator Company, but I take it\nthat no man who had been schooled in Emerson, could have sat at that\nboard and thanked an Almighty God for the exceptional favours he had\nbeen mercifully pleased to bestow on their conscious frauds.  The\nvindictiveness of a purposeless hell has, of course, failed\nignominiously as a deterrent from crime.  We cannot conceive infinite\nIntelligence inflicting an excruciating and endless punishment simply\nfor punishment's sake.  We are superior to such methods ourselves; we\nrefuse to associate them with God.  What we do believe in, what we are\nsure of, is that a man's sin must find him out, that he must reap as he\nsows, that the consequences of his misdeeds are eternal, that--\n\n  All on earth he has made his own\n  Floating in air or pent in stone,\n  Will rive the hills, the sea will swim,\n  And like his shadow follow him.\n\n\n\n[1] In what follows I have freely borrowed from the great \"Essay on\nCompensation\".\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nCONSCIENCE THE VOICE OF GOD AND THE VOICE OF MAN.\n\nWe have already learnt in the study of the doctrine of Compensation\nthat the misfortunes of life are due to man's attempt to bisect the\nworld and life, and seize greedily on one half to the partial or total\nneglect of the other.  Life having been planned a whole, inevitable\ndisaster overtakes the man who would behave as though it were a thing\nof shreds and fragments.  Now this law of what we may call the Divine\nunity is equally valid in the purely intellectual order.  That,\nlikewise, refuses to admit schisms and divisions to break in on the\nsolidity of its unbroken ranks.  An attempt to view life and its\nproblems exclusively from our own standpoint, is to fail to grasp\ntruth; our shadow gets projected over the surface, and the light is\npartially concealed, if not wholly confused.  No better illustration of\nthis fact, I believe, could be afforded than that supplied by\nconscience, the practical dictate of reason which controls the moral\nlife of man.\n\nIn days of old when man was nothing in his own or anybody else's eyes,\nin the ages when he thought to magnify the Deity by belittling himself,\nan interfering agency of the Divine was necessarily invoked on almost\nevery conceivable occasion; \"the hand of God\" was seen in every\noccurrence.  From the comparatively minor matters of bodily ailments up\nto the colossal disasters which nature is capable of inflicting--in all\nthe visible interference of the supra-mundane power was discerned.\nThose were naturally the days of the \"Divine right of kings,\" when all\ncivil power was held to have been centred in one individual by the\nexpress act of the Divinity; those were likewise the days when the\nconscience of man was exclusively interpreted as the articulate\nutterance of God.  But, inasmuch as man was too ignorant and wicked to\nrightly interpret that supreme oracle, he was bidden to leave it in the\ncustody of a sanctified corporation, the Church, and to keep his\nthoughts and his conduct in tune with the dominant ecclesiastical\nsentiment of the hour.\n\nNow, from that extraordinary position a reaction was of course\ninevitable.  Man could not go on for ever describing himself as \"a\nworm\" and an outcast, or avowing himself \"a miserable sinner\" and a\nlimb of Satan; and consequently, with an awakened sense of human\ndignity, inspiring him, not with vainglory, but with an ever-deepening\nself-reverence, the ascription of all agency to supernatural power\nbegan to be seriously curtailed.  \"The Divine right of kings\" went its\nway with other archaisms into the limbo of oblivion, from which the\nreigning monarch in Prussia would appear to be vainly endeavouring to\nrescue it, while man began to realise that the causes of natural and\nhuman phenomena were to be sought in nature and in man.  As a\nconsequence of this, a new theory of conscience began to take shape,\nwhich was ultimately described by one of the boldest of later English\nphilosophical writers, the late Professor Clifford, as \"the voice of\nman commanding us to live for the right\".[1]\n\nIn these definitions of conscience, as \"the voice of God\" and \"the\nvoice of man,\" we have an instance of propositions which in logic are\ncalled _contraries_.  Both, therefore, cannot be exclusively and\nsimultaneously true, but both may be simultaneously false.  Thus, \"all\nmen are white\" and \"no men are white\" are contraries, but they are both\nfalse.  And this, I submit, is the judgment to be pronounced on these\ntwo exclusive definitions of conscience.  Neither is, exclusively\nspeaking, true, but there is a measure of truth common to both, and\nthat measure it will be the purpose of the following remarks to\ndetermine.\n\nBut, before going any farther, we must get a clear idea of what we mean\nby conscience.  In a general way, of course, we all know what is meant\nby the word: an appeal to conscience would be intelligible by every\none.  We understand it to be a faculty which decides on a definite\ncourse of action when alternatives of good and evil are before us.  We\nlook upon it as an instinct, magnetic in its power, incessantly\nprompting us towards the fulfilment of duty, and gravely reproaching us\non its dereliction.  We recognise it as the sweetest and most\ntroublesome of visitants; sweetest when the peace unspeakable sinks\ninto our souls, most troublesome when we have been guilty of a great\nbetrayal.  So delicate is that voice that nothing is easier than to\nstifle it; so clear is it that no one by any possibility can mistake it.\n\nThus, in general terms, we may describe conscience.  Coming now more\nclosely to a philosophical analysis of the conception, we shall find\ntherein much enlightenment for the purposes of our present\ninvestigation.  In the first place, the word is of comparatively late\norigin.  It does not occur in the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament.\nIts earliest appearance is in the Book of Wisdom, the work of a\nHellenistic Jew extremely well acquainted with the trend of Greek\nthought in the third century B.C.  It does not occur in the Gospels,\nexcept in the story of the sinful woman whom Christ refused to\ncondemn--a history which, though profoundly in accord with the\nsympathetic genius of Jesus, is none the less an interpolation in the\neighth chapter of the Johannine Gospel, so much so that Tischendorff\nexcised it from his last edition of the text of the New Testament.  St.\nPaul certainly uses the word once in the Epistle to the Romans, and\nthough known in the latter days before the advent of Christianity, we\nmay assume that mainly through that religion the word was popularised\nthroughout the world.\n\nBut what is the faculty which corresponds to the word conscience?  We\nshall find etymology of great assistance in giving precision to our\nthoughts.  The word is, of course, a derivative from the Latin,\n_conscientia_, knowledge with, or together.  Now, _scientia_ is the\nsimple knowledge of things by the reason, while _conscientia_ is the\nknowledge which the reason has of itself; it is the realisation of\none's selfhood--the realisation of the _ichkeit des ego_, as the very\nexpressive German phrase has it, \"the selfhood of the I\".  In English\nphilosophical language we commonly denominate this self-realisation\nconsciousness, a word of precisely the same etymological origin as\nconscience.  If, in the next place, the reason is occupied, not with\nthe reflex action of self-contemplation, but with moral action or the\ndiscernment of right from wrong, then it is called, and is, no longer\nconsciousness, but _conscience_.  Putting it technically, consciousness\nis a psychological expression, while conscience is ethical.\n\nNevertheless, it must be most carefully remembered that the two\nfunctions are performed by one and the same reason--immaterial and\nindivisible in us.  Truly speaking, there is no real, but only a\nconceptual, distinction between the reason of a Darwin elaborating his\nfamous law, realising his selfhood, and acknowledging his obligations\nto the eminent man--only less so than himself--who had simultaneously\nlighted on the great discovery of the age--the law of organic\nevolution.  As Paul says of those manifold endowments of the earliest\nChristians, \"A diversity of gifts and a diversity of graces, but in\nthem all worketh the self-same spirit,\" so say we of the reason at the\nvery heart of our being, the sole, self-sufficing explanation of the\nmultitudinous phenomena of our mental life.  Hence we arrive at a\ndefinition of conscience as \"the practical dictate of the reason in us\nprescribing obedience to the good and avoidance of the evil\".  Two\nelements, therefore, are discernible in this definition:  first,\nreason, as such, pointing out what is good and evil; and, secondly,\nreason, as conscience, ordaining that the good is to be done and the\nevil left undone--a distinction to be carefully borne in mind when the\nproblem of conflicting consciences has to be faced; how it comes, for\ninstance, that morality appears to differ in different countries, and\neven in the same individual at different periods of his life.\n\nBut of that nothing further need be said now, but we may immediately\npass on to see in what sense conscience, thus explained, is, in the\nfirst place, to be accounted the voice of God.\n\nOutside a philosophy avowedly atheist it seems difficult to understand\nhow there can be any doubt that the eternal distinction between right\nand wrong betokens the presence in this world of men of a supreme power\nand a supreme mind.  \"How comes it,\" let us ask with Emerson, \"that the\nuniverse is so constituted,\" that that which we instinctively recognise\nas good makes for the individual and the general welfare, and that\nwhich we must perforce reprobate as evil works uniformly disaster?  We\nrecognise that things are unalterably so ordered that by no possibility\ncould lying, slander, malice and hatred be other than intrinsically\nevil, and their opposites be other than essentially good.  But how is\nit that things are so ordered?  Whence these uniformities of\napprobation and disapprobation?  Is there any answer conceivable but\nthat the power responsible for the world is a moral power?  Whence is\nexistence itself but from the subsistent source of all being?  Whence\nis life but from one ever-lasting source?  Whence is intelligence but\nfrom the world's Soul, which is the soul of men?  And towering above\nbeing, above life and reason, is conscience, the supreme guide, the\nlight enlightening every man that cometh into this world.\n\n  Luce intellettual, piena d'amore,\n    Amor di vero ben pien di letizia,\n  Letizia die trascende ogni dolzore.\n\n\nWhat is this \"light intellectual,\" this \"love of the true,\" so\nunutterably blissful as to quiet all pain and sorrow, but the radiance\nof the eternal falling athwart the shadows of this lower life?  What is\nthis miraculous monitor--this \"man within the breast,\" as the Stoics\ncalled it--but the very articulate utterance of the supreme Reason\nbidding man to live for the right?  No great son of earth ever\ninterpreted it otherwise.  From the days when Socrates scattered \"the\nsophist clan\" in Athens, and forced men by the irresistible majesty of\nhis own moral elevation to believe in a morality which was more than a\nstring of rules sanctioned by convention; from the hour when he refused\nto escape from prison because his conscience bade him submit to\ndie;--from the days of the sublime martyrdom of Socrates and Jesus, the\nnoble school of the Stoics, down to the philosophic Titans of the\neighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Germany, with the glorious sage\nof Koenigsberg at their head, there has been but one answer to the\nquestion, What is conscience?  Conscience, they proclaimed, is the\nvoice of God.  So surely as the maternal instinct in woman is the voice\nof universal Nature, so surely is conscience the witness in us that we\nare indeed \"sons of God\".  If that teaching of the \"Over-soul\" be the\ntruth, then since the Divine is incarnate in every man, by what other\nvoice _can_ we be guided than by the Divine utterance commanding us to\nlive by a moral law?  We are Divine by nature, by what other law of\nlife should we live?\n\nOr, how are we to explain the appearance of so strange a visitant in a\nuniverse which is dominated by the \"struggle for existence\"?  The\nintellectual difficulty of atheism is so insuperable that we hear of it\nno more from men of science.  I think Mr. Spencer's speculations have\ngiven it the _coup de grace_.  But difficult as is the question of the\norigin of the cosmos, far more so is that of conscience.  On what\nprinciples are we to explain how a world, evolving itself mechanically,\ncycle after cycle, has eventually produced an element so utterly at\nvariance with itself, an element which puts right before might,\nself-surrender before the struggle for existence, and the law of pity\nin place of the survival of the fittest?  Is conscience a development\nof the cosmic process?  And, if so, how is such a _volta face_ in\nnature explicable on purely mechanical grounds, even if the process\nitself were so explicable?  And how striking a fact that the last words\nMr. Huxley[2] spoke in public should have been devoted to prove that so\nopposed were the cosmic and ethical processes--in other words, so\ncompletely at variance are the law of conscience and the law of\nevolution--that only by the triumph of the former over the latter is\nprogress possible in the world.  Again, I ask, since conscience is not\nthe voice of Nature, of what is conscience the voice and witness if not\nof one of whom it is written, \"In the beginning was Reason; in the\nbeginning was Mind\"?[3]\n\nBut there is another aspect of the question, and we must now pass on to\ninquire how far conscience is also \"the voice of man commanding us to\nlive for the right\".  Quite at the beginning of this ethical movement\nwe protested, as plainly as words would allow, our entire allegiance to\nthe teachings of physical science, and our readiness to abandon any\ndoctrine of ethical religion which is disproved by experimental\nresearch.  So convinced are we of the absolute unity of truth, because\nwith Plato we believe in the unity of its source in the Divine\nintelligence, that to us it is inconceivable that there should be any\nfundamental contradiction in the orders of the real and the ideal.\nThings seen and unseen, the passing and the eternal, both ultimately\ntake their origin in the same source, the Infinite.  No finite thing\ncan be the ultimate explanation of the universe, because it itself\nrequires explanation.  Hence, whatever science has to tell us about\nconscience will be enthusiastically acclaimed by us as true equally\nwith what we learn from the masters of the higher experience, the\nphilosophers who break unto us the bread of life.\n\nNow what has experimental science to say about the conscience?  It does\n_not_ say that it is the voice of God--a fact by no means calculated to\ndisturb those who remember that physical investigation is not concerned\nwith such speculations.  Half the mischief and misunderstandings which\noccur over these border questions, which are, so to speak, under two\njurisdictions, arise from our forgetting in what capacity and by what\nprinciples certain well-known scientific men have made pronouncements\non matters such as conscience, morality and religion.  There are two\nsides to them, the physical and the hyper-physical or metaphysical.\nAnd here it may not be amiss to offer a suggestion that one should\nmistrust that parrot cry so often heard from men who speak most\nconfidently about that which they know least, that metaphysic is\nsynonymous with unreality, or in plainer words, moonshine.  A very\nlittle reflection will be sufficient to satisfy us that without the aid\nof conceptions higher than those of sense-experience--and that is all\nthe word metaphysic means--it would be absolutely impossible to\nformulate a single scientific generalisation.  What is the very concept\nof law, or system, but a metaphysical idea?  To cease to be\nmetaphysical would be to cease to be rational, to have no higher or\nwider conceptions than those of a dog.  Hence, like M. Jourdain, who\nhad been talking prose all his life without knowing it, some of our\nmost daring anti-metaphysicians have been philosophising by the very\nmethod they had in their ignorance so contemptuously denounced.\n\nTherefore, when we hear from Mr. Spencer that conscience, so far from\nbeing the voice of God, is but \"the capitalised instinct of the tribe,\"\nan empirical fact established by heredity, just like fan-tails in\npigeons; when Mr. Clifford popularises this teaching in St. George's\nHall by announcing that conscience is the voice \"of man bidding us to\nlive for man,\" and Mr. Leslie Stephen tells us that the Socratic\nconception of conscience \"is part of an obsolete form of speculation,\"\nwe know precisely what judgment to pass upon their assertions.  They\nare speaking, one and all, of the historical growth or natural\nevolution of that rational faculty in man which they, equally with\ntheir opponents, describe as the conscience.  And keeping within those\nlimits they are strictly accurate in what they say.  Who is there that\ndoes not know that time was when the inhabitants of Europe were as\ndestitute of moral instincts, and therefore of a conscience, as the\nTonga islanders?  Who does not know that man, instead of beginning at\nthe top and tumbling headlong to the bottom, really began at the bottom\nand learnt everything by a very severe discipline in the hardest of all\nschools, that of experience?  Certainly, we are ignorant of none of\nthose things, and therefore readily assent to Mr. Spencer's teaching\nthat conscience is not a fixed criterion of morality, but a faculty in\na ceaseless state of transformation, \"in a perpetual state of\nbecoming,\" that its dicta are, in a certain sense, constantly changing\nand improving with the progress and development of the race.\nCertainly, as scientists and anthropologists, we should say precisely\nthe same thing.  We should recognise the developed conscience in man as\nobedient to the law of growth equally with his physical organisation,\nbecause we know of men now existent in whom the faculty is still in a\nvery rudimentary state.  Every advance in humanitarianism, in our\ntreatment of men and animals, is evidence to us of the illimitable\ncapacities of moral expansion in our nature, and therefore of the\ngrowth of conscience, or the moral sentiment.\n\nBut are we to conclude therefrom that conscience is nothing more than a\nproduct of organic evolution?  It is a shallow philosophy, a surface\nsystem, indeed, which is content with such an estimate, and is only\npossible in a school of bald empiricism which imprisons man within the\nboundaries of his sense-experience, and resolves him into a string of\nfeelings bound together, like a rope of sand, by nothing.  The truth\nis, that Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bain, Mr. Mill and the whole _corps_ of\nexperimental philosophers are confusing the reality with its outward\nmanifestation or history.  Indeed, by their principles they are\nconstrained to do so.  Once affirm that nothing beyond the reach of\nyour sensory organs is trustworthy, and conscience must be, like the\nnervous system, the development of a shock or a thrill.  But it has\nnever apparently dawned upon these thinkers that the very\ndistinguishing note of conscience, its compulsory power, its assumption\nof authority to command the obedience of the will and its capacity to\ntorment the soul with an overmastering remorse--to make a man say, \"my\nsin is greater than I can bear\"--is left wholly unexplained and\nunaccounted for in the historical analysis with which they favour us.\nWhat we want to know is: Whence has conscience the strange, mysterious\npower to influence us even in the sanctuary of our thoughts; why does\nthe wicked man flee when no one pursueth except that the sleepless eye\nof his own outraged conscience is upon him and he cannot tolerate its\nreproachful gaze?  Nowhere do we feel the inadequacy of the\nsense-philosophy more piercingly than in this matter of conscience.  It\nhas cut the world in twain and treated it as a piece of mechanism and\nreduced man to the position of an automaton.\n\nBut the facts are too strong; Nature is too strong.  Every time some\nsplendid heroism, some complete self-surrender is made; every time some\ndeed of moral enthusiasm thrills the pulses of the world, or some\nlonely man or woman succeeds in crushing some infamous desire; every\ntime for the sake of the good, for the sake of the right alone, we\nresist \"even unto blood,\" conscience is exalted and enthroned above the\nstars, lifted utterly out of the low and insignificant category of\nphysical experiences in which they would vainly endeavour to imprison\nit.\n\nThe commanding voice is heard throughout the ages, and men will, men\nmust, ask: Who is it--what is it that spoke?  They will not be put off\nwith the reply that _all_ they hear is an echo of the past,\nreverberating throughout the race as the successive generations arise.\nAh! but whence has it power to command me, even in the sanctuary of my\ndeepest solitude, in the loneliness of my silent thoughts?  No\nancestral traditions, no shouts of blessing or curse of multitudes can\ninfluence me there.  I am alone in the abysmal depths of my\npersonality, solitary as though in a desert world, and yet the\nmysterious voice is heard, the solemn sense of obligation and duty\nmakes itself felt.  It bids me respect myself, my moral dignity, though\nno one be nigh; it bids me chase the phantoms of evil from my mind.\n\nIn vain do you attempt to evade its jurisdiction by pointing to the\nacknowledged facts that men form different estimates of their duties in\ndifferent countries and in different ages.  Conscience is not concerned\nwith that.  Such subordinate tasks as the formation of moral codes, the\nascertainment of the conformity or nonconformity of certain precise\nacts with morality are the work of the reason.  Conscience is no\n_theoretical instructor_.  Far more than that, it is a _practical\ncommander_.  It speaks but one voice.  Obey what you know to be right,\nfor the right's sake alone.  And conscience has never wavered in the\ninculcation of that precept.  The reason of man has been constantly\nadvancing, discovering the content of the moral law just as it has been\ndiscovering the content of the geometrical, mathematical or musical\nlaw; but conscience, like the polar star, has been pointing steadily in\none direction, the direction of duty, without error, without failure.\n\"An erring conscience,\" says the ethical master, \"is a chimera.\"\n\nWe learn, thus, from the teaching of both schools that conscience is at\nonce the voice of man, the accumulated and concentrated moral\nexperience of the race, but still more the voice of the eternal Reason\nwhich is revealed to our wondering eyes in the true, the good and the\nbeautiful.  If \"this universe in its meanest province is in very deed\nthe star-domed city of God\"; if \"the glory of the One breaks through it\nall in every place,\" what are we to say of that which is higher than\nthe stars, more radiant than the sun, diviner than all worlds--the\nconscience of man nobly conformed to the great obedience of the\neverlasting laws?  What are we to say of lives such as those of Gotama,\nSocrates and Christ?  Nothing.  Like the psalmist of Israel, I am\nstruck dumb in the presence of a vision so majestical.  _Deveni in\naltitudinem maris et silui_: \"I came unto the great deeps and I held my\npeace\".\n\n\n\n[1] See his well-known essays, \"The Ethics of Belief\" and \"The Ethics\nof Religion\".\n\n[2] Prof. J. Seth, in his _Study of Ethical Principles_, concludes from\nMr. Huxley's Romanes lecture that \"agnosticism could scarcely have been\nthe final resting place for such a mind\".\n\n[3] I have ventured to repeat here a portion of the argument set forth\nin the chapter on \"Ethics and Theism\".\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nPRIESTS AND PROPHETS.\n\nOne of the most striking characteristics of the ecclesiastic, as\nopposed to the religious mind, is its tendency to concentrate its\nattention upon detail to the exclusion of fundamental principles.  We\nare assured that the same habit distinguishes the statesman from the\nparty man, or mere politician.  At any rate, we have had abundant\nevidence during the past fifty years--evidence which has been\nemphasised during the past year--that the love of detail, of all that\ncomes under that washing of cups and platters, of first places and\nsalutations in the market-place, resplendent raiment and broad\nphylacteries, which Jesus so summarily denounced in the official\nreligion of his own time, is still a mark of the ecclesiastic temper in\nthe England of to-day.  If a man--even though that man be a\npope--should question the validity of its \"orders,\" volleys of\nsacerdotal refutation are fired from the press, the whole atmosphere is\nelectric with the controversial charges such profanity provokes.  But\nlet a man proclaim that there is no such institution as \"orders\" at\nall, that true religion, that Christianity, as conceived by its\nfounder, is destitute of ritual, priest and sacrifice, and everything\nis still as a Quakers' meeting.  How is it that men will seriously\ndevote their energies to repelling such side attacks as those directed\nagainst them by rival churches, while they totally neglect to satisfy\nan enlightened age as to the validity of the fundamental assumption on\nwhich their entire system reposes?  The pope and the Eastern Churches\nmay be serious rivals in the camp ecclesiastic, but what are our native\npontiffs and priests to reply to men like Hatch, Jowett and Stanley, to\nsay nothing of Martineau, who roundly proclaim that \"orders,\" as\nunderstood by them, are nothing more nor less than a superstition?  For\ninstance, what would the patrons of the \"mass in masquerade\" answer to\nStanley's direct and emphatic pronouncement: \"In the beginning of\nChristianity there was no such institution as the clergy; it grew\nnaturally out of the increasing needs of the community . . . the\nintellectual element in religion requires some one to express it, and\nthis, in some form or other, will be the clergy\"?[1]  Surely if there\nwere no \"orders\" in the beginning, then a priesthood was no creation of\nJesus, his apostles were no priests, they created, therefore, no\npriests, and a priestly caste grew up as an intrusion in Christendom\njust as it arose in the religion of the holy Buddha in India, and\nattempted, though unsuccessfully, to invade the severely simple\nreligion of Mohammed.\n\nThe view which ethical religion takes of sacerdotalism is very well\nknown, but it is essential to do more than merely repudiate the notion\nof priesthood as an integral portion of religion; our duty is also to\npossess ourselves of the facts of history and criticism so as to\nsatisfy ourselves and others who may need such instruction, that\nsacerdotalism is not only not ethical, but is anti-Christian, and that\nthe greatest anomaly the world presents to-day is that of the clergymen\nof the Eastern and Western Churches arrogating to themselves the\npossession of powers which the founder of their religion and his\nearliest followers not only never exercised, but of which they had not\neven a remote conception.\n\nA singular interest has been added to this inquiry by the\nrecently-revived controversy between two of the many Churches into\nwhich Christendom is divided on the highly debatable matter of Anglican\norders.  The said controversy had been in a state of suspended\nanimation from the time of the Stuarts up to the Tractarian movement,\nwhen it was partially revived, and a fair crop of literature sprang up\naround it.  It has been reserved, however, for our own days to witness\nits complete vivification under the auspices of the High Church\nsocieties and certain _sagrestani_ among \"the nobility and gentry\" of\nour day.  To the credit of the female sex, we hear of no ladies being\n_prominently_ identified with the movement.  Even Oxford, once \"the\nhome of lost causes and impossible ideals,\" concerns itself with these\n_minutiae_ no more.  Like the later pantheon of imperial Rome, it\noffers its impartial hospitality to representatives of every form of\northodoxy and heterodoxy.  The shadowy warfare is now waged,\napparently, in the London press and magazines, in the bulls of popes\nand the responsions of archbishops.  Of course, the renewed inquiry set\non foot by the industry and temerity of Lords Halifax and\nNelson--_tanti nominis umbra_ surely, in this latter case, to engage\nitself in such a battle--could have but one ending, namely, the\nreiterated and emphasised condemnation of our national ecclesiastics as\nnothing better than mere laymen, and the renewed degradation of the\nofficiating curate to the level of his neighbouring Nonconformist\nminister who celebrates \"the Supper\" and preaches in his coat.\n\nThe papal representatives in this country have published a rejoinder to\nthe official reply of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, which, if\nI may shelter myself behind the authority of the _Times_[2] reviewer,\ndoes not err on the side of dignity, moderation and scholarship.  It is\nsaid to be jaunty, perky, off-hand, suggestive of \"the smart evening\njournalist\"--this last is very serious--and, worse than all, it is an\nappeal, not to theologians or scholars, nor even to thoughtful and\ninstructed men, but \"to the gallery\".\n\nWho the gallery in this particularly Divine comedy may be I really do\nnot know.  I strongly suspect that if the piece were put upon the\nboards--and everything is now dramatised, from the trials of Satan to\nthe Dreyfus case--the gallery would be the emptiest department of the\ntheatre.  And this opinion I am pleased to see confirmed by the closing\nremarks of the review above noticed, which warns the Christian bishops\nand pastors of the present day that the comparative merits of one set\nof \"orders\" as opposed to those of another set have \"little interest\nand not much meaning for nine Englishmen out of ten\".\n\nBut what, I think, the average man would be interested to know is\nwhether there be such things as \"holy orders\" at all.  Very many of\nthem are, in this matter, I believe, in the position of those\ninteresting Asiatics who \"knew not whether there be such a thing as a\nHoly Ghost,\" and I think it will be abundantly easy to show that the\nignorance of the ordinary man as to the precise nature of \"orders\" was\nshared in also by our Asiatic friends whose existence is noticed in an\nearly chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.  We shall therefore proceed\nto show the groundlessness of the entire controversy from evidence\nwhich satisfactorily establishes that the authentic form of\nChristianity, as fixed by its founder and his followers for two\ncenturies, admits of no such thing as a priesthood in the sense\ncontemplated by the disputants whose wordy warfare has now, we\nunderstand, been closed for ever.\n\nTo begin, then, whence arose the idea of a priest?  What is the meaning\nof the word?  Etymologically, we may take it to be identical with the\nSaxon word _preost_, which again is doubtless, though it is not\nadmitted on all hands, identical with the Greek _presbys_ or elder.  A\npriest, then, originally and literally, signified senior or elder,\nwhether in the family or the State.  How an elder came to be associated\nwith religion was in this wise.  Every philosopher and anthropologist\nhas been constrained to admit the presence in man of an instinct of\nunity, impelling him not merely to society or intercourse with his\nfellows, but to communion with a power unseen.  This instinct, as\nalready defined in a former chapter, is religion.  Now the initiatory\ndevelopment of this aboriginal instinct was very humble, and if we wish\nto know what our direct ancestors once were, we need only consult the\nrecord of anthropological research among such savages as the Fijians or\nTonga Islanders.  The shape assumed by religion amongst such people was\nmost probably ancestor or ghost worship.  The dead father or chieftain\nis still seen in the dreams of his children or people, and the\nmysteriousness of the new shape and presence he assumes excites the awe\nand reverence which is at the root of the religious habit.  The chief\nbecomes the tutelary deity or protector of his tribe, or locality over\nwhich he ruled.  Other chieftains are added to him in course of time,\nand soon we have a veritable pantheon of gods, good and evil, whom it\nis necessary to placate by certain offices and functions, very much as\nit is necessary to covet the favour of powerful men on earth.  Whose\nduty shall it be to perform such rites?  Naturally, it falls to the\nhead of the family and the head of the State.  They are the born\nofficers of religious functions, the father for his home circle, the\nchieftain for his clan or tribe.  Thus Livy tells us that Numa, the\nRoman king, was accustomed to offer sacrifice, but that the increasing\ncares of State caused him to relinquish the office in favour of\nspecially appointed individuals who were called Flamens, and Mr.\nMcDonald,[3] in his account of the Blantyre negroes, informs us that\nduring the temporary absence of a chief, it devolved upon his wife to\ntake his place at the sacrificial altar.  Numberless instances are\nsupplied in such works as Tylor's, Lubbock's, and Spencer's\n_Ecclesiastical Institutions_, which go to show this primatial or\npontifical authority resident in the chief of the State, and the\ntransference of its offices to subordinate people, who gradually and\nnaturally became an official body or caste called priests or elders, as\nrepresentatives of heads of families, or of the tribe or State.[4]  At\nany rate, however much interested people may be inclined to dispute the\nlowly origin of religion and worship, the indisputable fact remains\nthat such worship and sacrifice goes on among aboriginal peoples at\nthis very hour, and there is not one shred of evidence, beyond a\nmistaken prejudice, which goes to show that our religion had any other\norigin than that.\n\nWe may now enter on the further inquiry whether Christianity, meaning\nthereby the religion personally professed and practised by Jesus of\nNazara, was a sacerdotal or sacrificial system in the sense already\nexplained.  Such an inquiry necessarily resolves itself into this\nfurther one, namely, whether there is any reliable evidence that the\nfounder of the Christian religion was himself a priest, taught a\nsacerdotal doctrine, or exercised any sacerdotal functions.\n\nThough he died a comparatively young man, if we may believe the gospel\nnarrative, which makes him to have lived either to thirty-one or\nthirty-three years, though Irenaeus emphatically asserts that he lived\nto fifty years, we may most assuredly proclaim him a priest in the\nsense of elder, or leader of men.  One whom schools of thought,\nrepresented by men so opposed as Mill, Renan, Matthew Arnold, Spinoza,\nGoethe, Napoleon and Rousseau, conspired to honour must have been\nindeed a \"king of men\".  But this is not what is meant by the question.\nBy priest we mean here what the ecclesiastic means, namely, one who is\nset apart by the act of God, signified by some external rite or\nceremony, whereby power is conferred to perform certain definite\nfunctions impossible to the ordinary man.  He alone, in virtue of his\nconsecration, can mediate between man and the Deity, can propitiate him\nfor the sins of men, can forgive those sins, and mechanically\ncommunicate holiness by the adoption of a definite ceremony and the\npronouncement of a precise formula.  Nay, in virtue of his peculiar\nstatus, the priest is able to superinduce a physical sanctity in solid\nand liquid substances, like bread and wine, and quite independently of\nhis own belief, or the belief of the bystanders, or even the\nrecipients, cause those substances to be no longer what to every\nconceivable physical test they still continue to be, but the body and\nblood of a man who lived more than 1800 years ago.  In a word, a ritual\nmay be described as \"a system of consecrated charms or spells, and the\npriest is the great magician who dispenses them\".[5]\n\nWhat we ask, then, is precisely this: Was Jesus a priest in this sense?\nUnhesitatingly and most emphatically we reply--and without any fear of\nserious attempt at refutation--that he was not, and that, in\nconsequence, the whole scheme of sacerdotal religion as prevalent in\nthe Roman and Oriental Christian Churches, and to a moderate extent in\nthe Anglican Church, is entirely baseless, grounded, not on the\ninstitution of Jesus their reputed founder, but on an infantine\nsuperstition which the third century of Christianity took over from the\nJewish and Pagan traditions which had preceded it.  Hence the whole\nprotracted controversy, which has set no end of theological hair on\nend, about the validity of these orders and the invalidity of those, is\nso much beating the air, because Christianity, as understood and\ninstituted by Christ, knows no place, any more than Buddhism or\nMohammedanism, for priest, rite or sacrament.\n\nLet us proceed to offer some evidence for this statement.  In the first\nplace, the whole tenor of Christ's life was not that of the priest, but\nof something entirely different; Christ was a prophet.  What is a\nprophet?  We shall very imperfectly appreciate the character of the\nprophet if we look upon him as nothing more than an historian \"for whom\nGod has turned time round the other way,\" so that he reads the future\nas if it were the past.  Most extraordinary instances of clairvoyance\nare brought to our notice in which things, eventually realised, turn\nout to have been previously known, but the clairvoyant is not the\nprophet.  The prophet is the spirit representative of the Supreme\nSpirit before our own.  He is the image--perfected by intercourse with\nthe Unseen--of \"the Invisible Goodness\".  He uses no rites, sacraments\nor symbols, for he is all that in himself.  If his pure, lofty,\nennobling life cannot impress the eternal upon the souls of men, then\nassuredly no bread, wine or oil, can do it.[6]  Hence, we see, a\nprophet is born, not made.  No consecration can make one any more than\ninstalling a scene painter in the studio of a Raphael could ensure a\nreproduction of a Transfiguration, or the Madonna di Foligno.  And no\ndesecration, no excommunication from church, chapel or sanhedrin can\nunmake him.  The prophet is one of those royal beings who are kings by\nright Divine, aye and human too, for all fall down instinctively before\nhim.  It is the verdict of history that all that is most blessed we owe\nto the prophets--not to the priests--to Moses, Confucius, Chrishna,\nBuddha, Socrates, Zoroaster and Christ.\n\nNow, surely no one can seriously question that the life of Christ as\ndescribed in the gospel narrative is of a pronounced anti-sacerdotal\ntype.  He was not of the priestly family, no man laid hands upon him,\nhe never exercised priestly functions.  His teaching so directly tended\nto the disparagement of priesthood as such, that the official hierarchy\nof his country, quick to perceive it, compassed his death in the\ninterest of their self-preservation.  \"What do we, for lo! the whole\nworld has gone after him?\"  His first sermon was the announcement of a\nprophetic mission.  In the synagogue of his own town, among the humble\nfolk who had seen him grow from boyhood to youth and manhood, he made\nthe announcement: \"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord\nhath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor\".  If he entered the\nstately courts of the temple, it was to teach rather than to worship,\nand never to sacrifice.  At the close of a day's teaching, he retires\nto the hillside of Olivet, and feels the Great Presence in the night\nbreeze upon his brow and in the heaven above him as deeply as within\nthe walls of the \"Holy Place\".  It is not, \"Lo here, lo there!\" for\n\"the Kingdom of God is within you\".  A priest would have said the\nDivine Presence is upon the altar, but Christ discerns it always and\neverywhere.  His teaching was almost entirely delivered under the\ncanopy of heaven--on the mount of beatitudes, in a public street, in\nthe market-place, from a fishing boat to crowds upon the strand, in a\ncorn-field, or occasionally in some private dwelling-place.  The only\ninvective that broke the calm of his peaceful speech was directed\nagainst the ruling sacerdotal influence; he was emphatically a \"Prophet\nof the Most High\".\n\nThe word _hiereus_, or sacrificing priest, is never once applied to him\nin the Gospels, and only in one epistle, that to the Hebrews, and there\nits appearance is not unworthy of our notice.  Christ is declared to be\na _hiereus_, or priest, _only after_ his removal from earth.  It is\nstated that it is an office which did not, which could not have\nbelonged to him while on earth--precisely the point we contend.  But\nhow is it that in this epistle he comes to be designated as a priest at\nall?  It was probably due to the exigencies of controversy.  The\nepistle must be looked upon as a polemical pamphlet directed against\nthose Hebrews who refused to embrace the new reform and derided its\nabsence of priest, sacrifice and altar.  Conscious that Jesus left no\npriesthood behind him, that his teaching was anti-sacerdotal and\nnon-sacramental, there was nothing for the writer but to suggest that\nthe great prophet himself was the high priest, the _solitary member of\nthe caste_ in the new gospel, and that therewith men are to be\nsatisfied, because more than compensated thereby for the absence of the\naltar and hierarchy of old.  So we have here an unique instance of the\nexception which proves the rule.  Once and once only is the founder of\nChristianity affirmed to be a priest, and then by an anonymous writer,\nin a production which the whole Western Church for centuries refused to\nacknowledge as inspired, and on examination it turns out that by the\nvery nature of the priesthood ascribed to him, such an institution is\nno longer possible on earth; it is banished for ever into invisibility,\nand can have no longer any representatives amongst men.\n\nIn like manner we find no instance of any attempt on the part of Jesus\nto make his immediate followers priests.  He called them \"witnesses,\"\nbade them \"preach\" and \"teach\".  If he told them to baptise, or to\nbreak bread in memory of him, we shall soon see that, in the first\nthree centuries of Christian history, his words were emphatically not\ntaken to mean that no one but they, or such as they, could perform\nthese offices.  That which men call \"the apostolic succession,\" and to\nwhich some of them apparently attach supreme importance, is nothing but\na chimera, positively unknown to Jesus or his apostles, and absolutely\nunintelligible to the Christian Church for more than 200 years.  The\nmost profound silence on the whole subject prevails during this period,\nin vivid contrast with the language held on the subject by subsequent\nwriters.  In the face of available, and even readily accessible\nevidence, it is impossible to maintain that, before the age of Cyprian,\nthe Bishop of Carthage, who flourished about the middle of the third\ncentury, there was any such distinction between clergy and laity as the\napostolic succession theory maintains to-day.  The very names of the\nclergy, such as deacon, presbyter, and bishop, are lay terms, borrowed\nfrom civil not ecclesiastical life.  A deacon is a domestic servant; a\npresbyter, an elder; and a bishop an overseer or bailiff; and in\nconformity with these names there was no office or function of the\nChurch so exclusively proper to the clergy as not to be capable of\nperformance also by the laity.  And if this can be shown, what follows\nbut that the whole conception of \"holy orders\" is an absolute\ninnovation upon the original teaching of Jesus--a corruption fruitful\nin disorders, or rather disasters, of the most deplorable character,\nand at this very hour tending more than any other ascertainable cause\nto divide man from man, and perpetuate the mischief of religious\ndissension?\n\nTo begin with, then, preaching was indiscriminately permitted in the\napostolic times and subsequently.  This may be gathered freely from the\nActs and Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter xiv.\nMoreover, one of the most interesting monuments of the second century\nis a homily delivered by a layman at Rome, a fragment of which had long\nbeen known as the second epistle of Clement,[7] and the remainder of\nwhich came to light in 1875 in two forms, a Greek MS. and a Syriac\ntranslation.  Moreover, the _Apostolical Constitutions_, which are\nstill later--going well into the second century--expressly contemplate\npreaching by a layman.  Dr. Hatch does not hesitate to say that the\nearliest positive prohibitions of lay preaching were issued solely in\nthe interests of ecclesiastical order, not because there was any\ninherent right in the priest to teach as opposed to the layman.\n\nNext, in regard to baptism, there need be no hesitation in admitting\nthe capacity of the layman to baptise, because the Church of Rome\nadmits it to-day, nay, it admits that a Mohammedan, or even the heathen\nChinaman--if indeed he be such--could lawfully and validly perform that\nfunction.  This, I submit, is not to be construed as an act of\nliberality on the Church's part.  It is simply the result of the\nimpasse to which it would otherwise be brought by the grotesque\nteaching that the Deity would condemn everlastingly the soul of an\nunbaptised infant.  This, according to Augustine, being the Christian\nreligion, naturally some loophole had to be fabricated, because priests\nare not always at hand in moments of emergency, and consequently the\nvalidity of lay baptism had necessarily to be recognised.\n\nBut there is one office which the Anglican, no less than the Roman\nChurch, would reserve to the priest, and that is the celebration of the\nEucharistic Supper.[8]  It is abundantly clear to historians that the\nroot-source of the superstitious belief in orders is to be found in the\nEucharist and the theories which sprang up in the third century\nconcerning the elements.  It cannot be doubted that previously to the\nage of Cyprian, the communion was held to be what its name\ndesignates--an holy assembly, a pledge of unity symbolised by the\ncommon partaking of bread and wine after the example of Christ.  Now,\nit is clear from the Ignatian epistles, writings of the second century,\nwhoever may have been their author, that the Christians of those days\nwere accustomed to hold Eucharistic meetings other than those over\nwhich a presbyter or elder presided.  The practice is indeed reproved\nby the writer, but in exceeding gentle tones.  \"Break one bread,\" says\nthe writer; \"be careful to have only one Eucharist\"; \"let that be the\nvalid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop or by some one\ncommissioned by him\".\n\nIt is surely positively inconceivable that Ignatius of Antioch, or\nwhoever the author of these letters is, can have held the sacramental\ndoctrine subsequently introduced and have used language of such mild\nremonstrance to the Asiatic Christians he addresses.  What would the\npresent occupant of the See of Antioch, of Lincoln, or of Rome say to a\nnumber of Christians who assembled together to-day, took bread and\nwine, and after repeating the Lord's prayer--for they did no more in\nthe early centuries--proceeded to partake of it?  Their holy horror is\nscarcely conceivable.  And yet, these lay folk would be the true\nChristians, not their sacerdotal denunciators.  Let us repeat, there\nwas no office open to the priest which was not equally open to the\nlayman.  Merely considerations of order and procedure restricted\necclesiastical functions to a particular body or caste of men, and\nconsequently the theory of the essential distinction between priest and\nlayman is not a tenable one because it is none of Christ's making.[9]\n\nIt has been remarked that perverse conceptions of the Eucharist were\nresponsible for the equally corrupt teaching about orders.  This is the\ncase.  Previously to the third century, the Eucharist remained what it\nhad ever been, \"the breaking of bread,\" the commemorative meal.  Then\nthere came a change, and men began to read into it a sacrificial\nmeaning and to interpret it as a mystical repetition of the death of\nChrist.  From Cyprian this novel theology apparently passed to\nAugustine and Ambrose in the fourth century, and thenceforth it became\ndominant, though by no means universally so, until the eighth and ninth\ncenturies.  The rise of Athanasianism in the fourth century, and the\nabuse of the doctrine of incarnation by that bishop, reacted naturally\nin the matter of the Eucharist.  Christ, who was proclaimed to be the\nsolitary incarnation, the Deity hidden behind a veil of flesh,\nnaturally paved the way for the Eucharist as a sacrament wherein the\nDeity is hid behind the veil of bread.  The one incarnation is, as it\nwere, the complement of the other.  Hence, a rigidly literal meaning\nwas given to Christ's utterances about eating his flesh and drinking\nhis blood, and Christians were taught to believe that by the\nmanducation of his bodily frame his holy spirit could be incorporated,\nas though, for example, a man might hope to become a poet or a sculptor\nby feeding upon the flesh or bones of a Shakespeare or a Michael\nAngelo.  Only mind can know and receive mind, and it is really\ndifficult to comprehend the grossness of soul which suggests to man the\nidea that by feasting on the flesh and blood of his God he may hope to\nbecome like a God.\n\nIt would be just as easy to show that in the matter of church\ngovernment and discipline everything was, in the early days, on a\nthoroughly democratic, or representative basis.  Power, as in the\nEngland of to-day, is recognised to reside in the community, not\nexclusively in the presbyters.  St. Paul's first epistle to the\nCorinthians recognises this in the matter of the removal of officers.\nThe epistles of Clement and Polycarp recognise the same thing.  Bishops\nare always elected by the people, and the net conclusion therefore is\nthat no such thing as a hierarchy of ordained deacons, priests and\nbishops was known to Christ, to Paul, or the writers of the first two\nand a half centuries.  The teaching and belief of those days was\nnonsacerdotal and non-sacramental, and nothing but a superstitious\naccretion overlaying the original truth can account for the spectacle\nwhich vast portions of the Christian world now present, as indeed do\nvast portions of the Buddhist world.  The fate reserved for both these\ngreat prophets seems to be identical, the submergence of their pure and\nelevated ethical teaching beneath an accumulated mass of traditionary\nand ceremonial law; but here in the West, at all events, there appears\nto be a well-grounded hope that it is not altogether impossible to get\nback to Christ and his pure and wholesome teaching.  Prophets have\narisen in this past century who have far more influence than many\npriests, and there may be \"some standing here\" who will witness the\nclose of the reign of the priest and the restoration of the dominion of\nthe prophet.\n\nThe priests and scribes sat in the chair of Moses in the days of\nChrist, and that chair is overturned.  No one knows where to look for\nit.  Now we have another priest who sits in Peter's chair, a third who\nholds Augustine's seat, and a fourth and a fifth who can trace back\ntheir priestly ancestry in unbroken line to some era of superstition\nand decay.  The same thing goes on in India and Ceylon, and in Thibet\nyou have the Grand Lamas, to whom successively is united, by a sort of\nhypostatic union, the holy Spirit himself.  Always and everywhere the\nshadow of the priest, the mystical, magical dispenser of the favours of\nheaven!  We look to the days when religion shall be purified of such\nconceptions, when no one shall venture to stand between a man and his\nconscience, or claim to possess powers unattainable by other men, or\npretend that the favour of heaven can be purchased by any other means\nthan those indicated by the prophet of old and no less by the\nconscience of mankind--a life in accordance with righteousness, that\nis, a life in conformity with the moral law and the example of that\nsupreme among the prophets of the race--Jesus who was called the Christ.\n\n\n\n[1] _Christian Institutions_, p. 193.\n\n[2] See _Times_, 5th February, 1898.\n\n[3] Quoted in Spencer's _Ecclesiastical Institutions_.\n\n[4] The appointment of Aaron by Moses, the leader of the Hebrew people,\nis the exact counterpart of the institution of the Flamens by Numa.\n\n[5] Martineau, _Studies of Christianity_, p. 38.\n\n[6] And, therefore, we note the inconsistency of the sacramentarian\ntheory.  It insists on moral goodness in the recipients and ministers\nof sacraments.  But if the rite works of itself, its mechanical\nperformance should be sufficient.  But no; goodness is needed to secure\nany benefit therefrom; and this, of course, is the explanation of the\nalleged results of the sacraments.  The moral goodness of the recipient\nhas already secured the blessing before any rite has been administered.\n\n[7] So that what had been thought to be a papal letter turns out to be\na lay homily, showing that a layman could preach as well as a pope in\nthe second century of our era.  This suggests the notorious fact that\nunordained ministers are equally, if not more, successful in awakening\nethical and religious emotion than priests and bishops.  Nay, women\nlike Catherine of Siena could hold Europe, its kings, and popes\nspell-bound, when \"mere men\" were powerless.  Has any one in this\ngeneration read more powerful appeals to the religious sense than the\nfragments of the sermons of Dinah Morris in _Adam Bede_, more thrilling\ndescriptions of an unavailing remorse than in the sermon on the text,\n\"Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing which is right, for this\nshall bring a man peace at the last,\" which is preached by the agonised\nminister in _The Silence of Dean Maitland_?\n\n[8] The recent papal rescript on Anglican ordination makes it the test\nof the comparative value of the rival \"orders\".\n\n[9] Tertullian in the _De Corona_ distinctly declares that though \"it\nis only from the hands of our president we receive the Eucharist, if\nthere be an emergency, a layman may celebrate as well as a bishop\".  I\nam indebted to the late Dr. Edwin Hatch for the historical evidence\nabove adduced as to the church practice prevalent in the earliest\ncenturies of Christianity.  I would recommend interested readers to\nconsult his Bampton Lectures, delivered in 1882.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nPRAYER IN THE ETHICAL CHURCH.\n\nThe most important consequence of the new faith that religion is rooted\nand grounded not in doctrine but in morality, is the belief that the\nreligious instinct grows with the growth and advancement of the moral\nsense.  The old conception that everything religious was revealed once\nfor all 1900 years ago, that it is impious to add to, or modify, the\nheavenly communication then made, we find ourselves obliged to\nrepudiate in terms.  And, hence, we have no creed or articles.  We\nnever know when, owing to advancing knowledge, we may be compelled to\ndiscard them.  The desperate straits to which the Churches and their\nprofessional apologists are reduced in their endeavours to reconcile\nantiquarian statements in Scriptures and theologies with the\nauthenticated facts of mental and physical science, are not such as to\nencourage us to attempt a definition of the Indefinable, or the\ncomprehension of the Infinite within the exiguous limits of human\nthought and speech.  We are too young by some centuries to so much as\nthink about the formulation of a doctrinal code.\n\nThe moral sense, it is abundantly obvious, is growing from day to day.\nThe community herein is the counterpart of the individual.  And hence,\nthe moral and religious observances of to-day may become obsolete\nto-morrow.  \"The altar-cloths of one generation become the door-mats of\nthe next.\"  Hence, I am full of confidence that though everything may\nbe against us now, one thing is on our side--that is, the future.  We\nsaw an illustration of this truth in the history of the relations\nbetween the priest and the prophet; we shall witness a further instance\nof its workings in the history of prayer.\n\nWhat is the attitude of a human and ethical religion towards that\ncharacteristic manifestation of piety which we call prayer?  Doubtless\nits views will be found to diverge notably from those which were\nprevalent in other days when scientific knowledge was imperfect, and\nconceptions of man and the Infinite even more inadequate than they\nadmittedly are at present.  The origin of prayer is, like the origin of\nall things terrestrial, extremely humble.  When primitive man found\nhimself face to face with the more terrible of the natural\nphenomena--terrors and portents which he was wholly unable to\nexplain--his only resource was to ascribe their appearance to the\nagency of beings like himself, though, of course, immeasurably more\npowerful.  These phenomena being often attended by the destruction of\nthe results of laborious industry, and even of human life itself, it\nbecame a matter of urgency to devise means whereby the anger of the\npreternatural powers might be appeased, and a cessation of the\nsuccessive scourges effected.  It was then that man began to offer up\nentreaty, supplication, petition and prayer to the dread divinities in\nwhose power it was to behave so malevolently towards man and his\npossessions.\n\nThat this account of the matter is not fanciful, the reports of\ntravellers and missionaries in savage lands make certain; and as the\ninhabitants thereof now are, we certainly once were in our ancestors\nwho dwelt in these northern islands, in the days after the cessation of\nthe glacial periods.  There is not one shred of scientific evidence\navailable which would help us to the comforting belief that, however it\nmay be with the Matabele or the Tonga Islanders, the ancestors of\nChristian England were anything different.  That, then, which is called\nthe instinct or habit of prayer, had its origin in the ignorance and\nsuperstition of an age which knew nothing of the inviolable reign of\nlaw throughout the infinities of the Divine creation, in an age whose\nreligious conceptions were as gross as their scientific ideas were\nabsurd.\n\nNow, the unscientific and unphilosophical taint, which marked the\nearliest heavenward cries of terrified man, has clung to the petitions\nwhich he offers up at this hour for material favours and blessings.  At\nthe close of a prolonged drought, the Archbishops of Canterbury and\nYork compose a prayer for rain, and as a drought cannot last for ever,\nrain does eventually come, and the same dignitaries then order a prayer\nto be offered up in thanksgiving.  But does any one really suppose that\nthe natural order of the phenomena has been altered at the request of\nthe clergy by an Almighty mind?  It were preposterous, grotesque and\nirreverent, in the highest degree to think so.  And the proof that it\nis preposterous is seen in the fact that prayers are no longer offered\nup for the advent or cessation of the effects of phenomena whose causes\nhave been scientifically determined.  Thus, in mediaeval days, man\nplaced bells high in the steeples of his churches to deafen the demons\nwho caused the storms of thunder and lightning which destroyed his\nproperty.  At this day one may read the inscriptions on the bells which\ntestify to the belief of the time.  But as soon as the lightning rod\nwas discovered by Franklin, and its absolute ability to conduct the\nelectric current to the soil, bells were no longer requisitioned as\nantidotes to storms, and prayers and litanies ceased to be sung to\npetition the Divine clemency against the effects of the weather.  In\nthe same way an outbreak of cholera or diphtheria once sent people in\ntheir thousands to the churches and chapels; now it sends them to the\ndrains, and while prayers proved but a poor prophylactic against\nepidemics, the most pious credulity now places unbounded faith in a\nsanitary system approved by a first-class surveyor.  Can there be any\npossible doubt that, when the laws of meteorology are as well known as\nthose which govern the tides or the thunderbolts, the archbishops will\ncease to order any more prayers for the purpose of controlling the\nelements?\n\nThen, there is another aspect of petitionary prayer which demands a\npassing notice.  It actually represents the Supreme Being as an\nindividual who will interfere with what are manifestly natural laws to\nsuit the convenience or even the whim of the votary; and worse than\nthat, that the course of events will be so ordered as to meet the\nrequirements of the individual supplicant, to the exclusion of the\nneeds, the convenience or circumstances, of numberless other human\nbeings who may be seriously incommoded, possibly even wronged, if the\nfirst votary's supplications are granted.  It is of little avail to\nhave recourse to the mechanical theory that infinite power is capable\nof so adjusting matters as to satisfy everybody.  These are words and\nphrases more sonorous than satisfactory.  When, for instance, war\nbreaks out between two Christian powers, the Almighty is at once\npetitioned to crown both combatants with victory, and that done,\nvictory is always assumed by the conqueror to mean that the Divine\nblessing has been with him to the exclusion of his adversary.  But the\nremarkable fact to the impartial observer uniformly is, that victory\nalways rests with those who have made the best preparations, conducted\nthe campaign in the most skilful manner, and fought with the greatest\ndetermination, or as Napoleon curtly put it, that as far as he could\nsee, Providence was always on the side of the strongest battalions.\n\nI recently heard read a lady's letter in which she poured forth her\nmost fervent gratitude to heaven because her husband had been elected\nto a certain influential position over the heads of seventy\ncompetitors.  Unless sixty-nine other equally desirable posts were\nmagically created by Divine power, it seems difficult to understand, on\nthe supposition that the election was the arbitrary act of God, how the\nclaims of all were satisfied in this individual instance.  The truth is\nthat the prayer of petition ought instantly to cease as infantine,\nirrational, and irreverent.  The serious man cannot bring himself to\noffer up vocal prayers for temporary or spiritual benefits, which are\nmanifestly attainable by the capacity of man's natural powers, or which\ncannot be heard without a selfish indifference to the equal rights and\nclaims of others.  And, therefore, no petitionary prayers find a place\nin the service of the ethical Church.  The God whom we recognise is the\n\"Mind who meditates in beauty and speaks only in law\"; the \"beneficent\nUnity,\" the \"beautiful Necessity\"; the law which is not intelligent,\nbut Intelligence.  It were as impious to pray for an infraction of the\nnatural laws of Divine ordaining as it were foolish to wish that the\nlaw of gravitation were suspended to gratify a passing need or whim.\nIn the Talmud there is a prophetic intimation of the religion which\nasks no favours, but prays by living the moral life.  It foretells the\nday when prayer shall cease in the Jewish Church, and thanksgiving only\nbe henceforth heard.  This exactly expresses what we feel should be the\nattitude of the reverent man in the silence of the Great Presence--his\nlife an attestation of his recognition of what he owes to the Being\nwhose nature he shares.\n\nBut, it will doubtless be urged, prayers are answered even when offered\nfor purely temporary blessings, or at any rate, numberless men and\nwomen contend that they have been so answered in their own experience.\nMembers of the more emotional forms of Nonconformity are especially\nemphatic in their testimony to the efficacy of prayer, though I doubt\nnot that their more educated ministers would hesitate to commit\nthemselves to the belief in its more extreme forms.  Mr. Armstrong\ncertainly disavows it for the Unitarian body, a Church always to be\nheld in reverence as having done more to rationalise religion in this\ncountry and America than any other agency we could indicate.  But what\nare we to say to such testimonies?  This, that the prayers have been\nanswered by the supplicants themselves, when even, indeed, we have not\nto deal with a matter of mere coincidence.  But, I would expressly\nguard against the inference being drawn, that I question the Divine\nPersonality.  I lay down no dogmatic statements as to the efficacy of\nvocal prayers.  What I do say is, that all I know of God as revealed in\nnature and law forbids me to entertain the notion that the order he has\nseen fit to establish is to be capriciously altered at the request of\nany of his creatures.  It is not irreverence, but a sense of reverence\nwhich prohibits me from believing that the Being whose presence and\npower are revealed in the least as in the greatest of the phenomena of\nnature, is open to arbitrarily interfere with the established course of\nthings because an individual or a score of individuals wish it.\n\nBut what of the alleged answers to prayers which are held to establish\nits efficacy?  I unhesitatingly ascribe the results to increased\nactivity, more resolute determination, on the part of the natural will\nof the votary.  Let a man, for example, become convinced that the\ncrisis of his life has arrived, that a certain policy must be at once\nadopted, a certain post secured, or an examination passed, and the\nnatural bending of the energies in a given direction redoubles his\nordinary powers.  If a post has to be obtained and influence is\nnecessary, he prosecutes a more resolute canvass; if an examination\nmust be passed, a degree secured, he reads with increased application,\nand, as a matter of course, he succeeds.  If, in the meantime, he has\nhad recourse to prayer, his womankind, or possibly he himself, will\nascribe the entire results to that agency, while the results are\naltogether due to his own persistent efforts.  _He has answered his own\nprayers_.  Does the most pious individual believe, if all efforts were\nremitted, or no exceptional energy put forth by the individual in\nquestion, but the whole matter left entirely \"in the hands of God,\" as\nthe phrase runs, that any successful results would have ensued?  Not\none.  And hence those axioms which the common-sense, even of the most\ncredulous, adopts as true, namely, that, \"Heaven only helps those who\nhelp themselves,\" or, as another pious recommendation goes, \"Pray as\nthough everything depended on God, _act as though everything depended\non yourself_\".  What wonder, when this advice is followed out to the\nletter, that we are overwhelmed with assurances that prayers have been\nanswered, when a man is appointed to a sinecure or has obtained a\nlife-pension?  What one would like to ask is this: Do these credulous\npeople suppose that the event would have been otherwise, had the young\ncandidate not prayed?  Do they suppose that the Deity would positively\nhave snatched away the prize at the last moment, and given it to\nanother, simply because he had not been consulted in the matter?  If\nthey do, then we must confess our ideals of the Divine are very\ndifferent from theirs.\n\nPowers are given to man for one purpose--that he may use them--and to\nus it is wholly irrational to suggest that what is given with one hand\nis to be taken away with the other, because the formality of\nsupplication is not employed when anything of moment is to be put into\nexecution.  The notion that intelligence was put in man only to be\nshattered, a will given him only to be forthwith distorted by passion\nor blinded by ignorance, and that \"there is no health in us\" unless we\nabase ourselves to the dust and proclaim our utter worthlessness, is to\nmen and women of this time wholly inconceivable.  That nothing\nethically valuable can be accomplished except after instant prayer, or\nafter copious outpourings of Divine grace, that the curse of absolute\nsterility is upon all our attempts to conform to the dictates of the\nmoral law, unless God be with us in prayer, is henceforth an impossible\ntheology.\n\nTell us that the man and the world are dependent at every instant of\ntime on the sustaining and prolonged creative act of the Infinite\nBeing, and we are one with you, nay, we probably go beyond you.  \"He is\nnot very far from any one of us\" means more to the scientific\nphilosopher than to the mediaeval theologian.  But spare us the\nrepetition of those stale legends that man was made and unmade in the\nspace of a few moments, and that ever since the manducation of the\nforbidden fruit his powers have withered, and that there is no remedy\navailable for their recovery but incessant prayer and sacramental\nordinances.  Our reading of history is exactly the reverse.  With the\nprogress of time we discern the advance of man, and with the diminution\nof sacerdotalism and a mechanical religion we think we note an\naccelerated progress; that in those countries in which men are nobly\nself-reliant, and look _within_ instead of _without_ for the source of\ntheir inspiration and power, the course of moral life takes a higher\nturn; that in proportion as men are true to themselves and the powers\nof their own being, they ascend in the scale of moral perfection.  We\nthink that to teach a man to look without him for assistance is to\ncripple half his powers, to make him unlearn the grand gospel of\nself-reliance, to loosen the fibres of his moral being, and thereby to\ncheck his individual progress.[1]\n\nIt must have been some such conviction as this which led the late\nMaster of Balliol to say that the longer he lived the less he prayed,\nbut the more he thought.  Precisely; it is not irreverence but a\ndeepening reverence for the Divine powers within us, which shames us\ninto trusting them when anything great is to be done.  What god are you\npraying to, we ask in dismay, when you lift up your hands and your\neyes, or turn to east or west, or kneel or lie?  Is there any god in\nthe wastes of infinity, in a sunstar, a swarm of worlds, who is not in\nthat miraculous soul of yours?  Is there aught anywhere greater than a\nson of God?  Is a stone, a star, a heaven studded with infinite\nglories, a greater place than your eternal soul?  Then look within you.\nSpeak with yourself, commune with your own heart, summon up the\nirresistible energies of your nature and nothing shall be impossible to\nyou.  This is \"the prayer of faith\" that never shall, that never can,\ngo unanswered, the concentration of the myriad energies of our souls to\nmeet an attack, to prosecute an enterprise, to overcome obstacles, aye,\nto make our lives sublime with a heroism that men shall call divine.\n\"The less I pray, but the more I think!\"  Aye, it is not prayer in the\nold sense, the cry of the soul that believes itself craven, weak and\nwanton, because it has always been told so by blind guides; it is not\nthis aimless outpouring of energy directed towards a Divinity in the\nskies, when the very Life and Mind Divine are the endowments of every\nrational creature, that has made man great; but thought, concentration,\nthe serious, resolute application of the powers that man does possess,\nthe bending of the iron energies to the accomplishment of the\nindividual task--this it is which has \"conquered kingdoms, wrought\nrighteousness, obtained the promises,\" riveted man's dominion over\nnature and made him what he was intended to be--the crown and glory of\nthe universe.\n\n\nAnd at this point we may make a further suggestion towards explaining\nthe genesis and the continued maintenance of vocal prayer as a part of\nreligious worship.  The practice would seem to be due not merely to\nignorance or disregard of the obvious law of cause and effect, by which\nmaterial phenomena are necessarily controlled, but to less worthy\nconceptions of the Divine Mind governing all things.  The Deity of the\nChristian and Mohammedan worlds is a Being eternally dissevered from a\nworld which he has by an omnipotent effort evoked from nothingness--a\nconception now regarded as impossible.  Consequently, while God is in\nhis high heaven, surrounded by his court, the world holds on its\ncourses, and is periodically corrected by special interferences,\ngenerally said to be due to the intervention of prayer.  Thus, the\ngrand historical evolution, which caused the Roman Empire to appear at\nthe close of the three great Eastern Empires, and that monument of\nhuman genius itself to ultimately collapse and make way for the nations\nwhich now constitute modern Europe, in no wise strikes Augustine, or\nany orthodox teacher, even of to-day, as the outcome of purely natural\nforces and influences--the action and reaction of powers wholly\nhuman--but as part of a Divine scheme, which was foreordained for the\npurpose of founding the Christian Church.  This, in briefest outline,\nis the famous argument of \"The City of God,\" the first Christian\nattempt at a philosophy of history.  Everything mapped out by Divine\nordinance, and men moved like puppets to accomplish the scheme.  Attila\nthe Hun appears at the gates of Rome, in the fifth century, and\nthreatens to sack it, and thereby delay the execution of the plan, and\nprayer averts the disaster.  In all moments of danger, threatened\ncatastrophe, public or private, the doctrine inculcated was recurrence\nby prayer to the external Deity, who would so modify things by his\nomnipotent power, as to reconcile the interests of all concerned.  I do\nnot think it can be said that such a frame of mind is distinctive of\nthe Protestant of to-day, certainly not of the instructed Protestant,\nwho may acquiesce in the vicarious repetition of certain formulas by\nhis clergyman on Sunday morning, but would certainly not in practice\nendorse the theory that Divine intervention might be called in at any\nmoment by prayer.  But it is the attitude of the Roman and Greek\nChurches, as it is of the Mohammedan religion, and doubtless of the\nless educated in the sects of Nonconformity.\n\nNow this conception of Divinity is Oriental, whence indeed our current\nreligion arose.  It represents the Supreme Being as an aged man clothed\nin flowing robes, his hair \"white as wool,\" seated on a golden throne\nand ceaselessly adored by myriads of voices who sing day and night,\nHoly, Holy, Holy, or Hallelujah.  It is the conception of a Divinity\nwho existed an eternity in the solitude of his own kingdom, amid\nsilences unbroken by any voice, who suddenly comes to the determination\nto create worlds and man out of nothing, and orders men to pray and to\npraise him.  He is angry if they do not; he is \"a jealous God,\" and\nwill punish those who offend him \"to the fourth generation\".  He is\nsorry he has made man and proceeds to destroy him, and then\nsubsequently regrets that decision.  In a word, the God of the Hebrew\ntradition, whom the Christian Church still popularly preaches, is in\nreality a magnified copy of an Oriental Sultan, whose tastes and\nproclivities are such as the _Arabian Nights_ has familiarised us\nwith--greedy of praise, adulation and homage, cruel and vindictive to\nthose who refuse their worship and adoration.\n\nNow this Orientalism is no longer tolerable in the eyes of thoughtful\npeople.  We cannot conceive that the Infinite Being should find\npleasure in hearing all day and night how wonderful he is, and how\nmiraculous his works.  It is not easily intelligible how services and\nlitanies of \"praise\" can be acceptable to the Creator when they would\ncertainly be nauseous to the best men on earth.  Jesus openly reproved\none who praised him as \"the good master\".  \"Call no man good,\" he said:\n\"God only, he is good.\"  Wellington's reply to the famous individual\nwho claimed to have \"saved the life of the saviour of Europe\" is too\nwell known to repeat.  The truth is, that these prayers and chants are\noffered up not for God's sake, but for _ours_.  They are a relief to\nthe heart surcharged with religious emotion, the outcome of the\nvehement impulse of the soul towards communion with the Life of its\nlife.  Speaking reverently, prayer and praise are like a lover's\nprotestations, which are not an act of adulation at the shrine of his\nmistress, but an irresistible unburdening of the greatness of the\nemotion that fills his heart.  But no lover could speak from his soul\nin a public place, in the sight or hearing of other men.  Solitude,\nsilence, \"the element in which everything truly great is made,\" is\nneeded above all else, that the soul may find adequate utterance for\nthoughts so sublime.\n\nAnd, therefore, Jesus warned man to pray in his own chamber, in secret,\nthe lonely soul bared in the presence of the Alone, \"to the Father\nwhich seeth in secret\".  Hence no sound of spoken prayer is heard at\nour services.  The deed is too solemn.  Nevertheless, the whole object\nof the series of acts which are done is to suggest, to create, first\nthought, and then emotion, after the manner of the Hebrew psalmist, who\nsang \"In the midst of my thoughts shall a fire flame forth\".  The\n_hymns_ are chosen with the idea, not of praising the Almighty, who\nneeds no such praises, but of filling our souls with a sense of the\nunearthly beauty of the moral life, of the life perseveringly devoted\nto high ideals of self-culture and human service, and thereby lifting\nour souls to thoughts of that fair world of the Ideal in which such\nconceptions are eternally realised.  Likewise the _readings_ set before\nus the burning words of first one and then another prophetical soul to\ndeepen in our own the conviction of the seriousness of life, its\nfar-reaching responsibilities, the realisation of the boundless\ncapacities for good or evil which man has within him, and the utter\nworthlessness of all things on this earth compared with character,\nintegrity, the perfection of the will by conformity with the moral law.\n\nIn the midst of such influences by which we are surrounded during the\nhour, all too brief, which we devote to the world of the Ideal on one\nday out of seven,[2] it is hoped that thoughts will sometimes burn in\nmany hearts, that reverence, awe, fear, regrets for the past, fervent\nresolutions for the future, hope, aspiration, and love; in a word, all\nthe sanctified emotions of the human heart, which together melt into\nthe supreme emotion of religion, will sometimes arise to sternly rebuke\nthe selfish life, shame us out of our moral lethargy, and comfort those\nwhose one solace is that their honour is intact, though misfortune has\nstricken them in mind or body, or robbed them of the goods of earth, or\nthe cheer and comfort of friendship and of love.  It is hoped that the\ninfluence of what is said and done then will endure beyond the hour of\nour meeting, and fill some other moments of our lives when we are, as\nwe should be, at seasons, alone--alone with ourselves, and _therefore_\nalone with God, in solemn communion with the Soul who is the soul in\nus, and who asks for no articulate voice of prayer, but only that our\nlife in every word and deed should be worthy of our exalted nature.\nLife is prayer.  Conduct is sacrifice.  Morality is religion.\n\n  When I am stretched beneath the pines,\n  When the evening star so holy shines,\n  I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,\n  At the sophist schools and the learned clan;\n  For what are they all in their high conceit,\n  When man in the bush with God may meet?\n          --EMERSON.\n\n\n\n[1] See the concluding words of Emerson's essay on \"Self-Reliance\".\n\n[2] The Ethical Religion Society meets weekly on Sunday mornings.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nTHE ETHICAL ASPECT OF DEATH.\n\nThere is a common but none the less erroneous impression amongst those\nwho walk and worship in the old ways, that the newer forms in which the\nreligious sentiment expresses itself are insensible to the more solemn\naspects of life, its sins and sorrows, its disappointments and\ndisillusionment, and most of all to the final catastrophe which men\ncall death.  Ours, they would impress upon us, is a fair weather creed,\ngood enough when all goes well, but painfully inadequate in the storm\nand stress which the inevitable trials of existence inflict upon us.\nSorrow, they impressively warn us, is ever the rock upon which all such\nsystems must split.\n\nNow, to say nothing of the obvious reflection that what we now call the\nold, that is, the orthodox ways, are in reality exceedingly new, and\nthat even the \"chosen people,\" or their immediate predecessors, were\nleft wholly destitute by the Deity of any such comforts as are held so\nindispensably necessary to a well-ordered existence--to say nothing of\nthis, the argument, if worth anything, would go to show that the\nreligion which offered most consolation was the true one; and since no\ntraveller ever returns from that bourne, so near and yet so far, to\nadvise us of the truth or falsity of these ultra-mundane comforts, we\nseem compelled to hesitate more than ever before we forsake that sturdy\nand plain-spoken guide called reason, whom we as confidently follow in\nthe region of religion as in the business of everyday life.  The\nSociety for Psychical Research has some remarkable evidence to offer,\napparently establishing to physical demonstration that _the_ man\n[Transcriber's note: the _man_?] in us does not die but lives, and\ncommunicates with his fellows after the final fact of this earth called\ndeath.  But, however this may be, and we are not called upon now to\noffer any opinion on these matters, the so-called revelations are\nwonderfully silent on those topics which sentimentarians apparently\nerect into the supreme test of a religion's truth or falsity.  As far\nas one may judge, the departed appear to be occupied with nothing more\nsublime than filled their thoughts during this present sphere; in fact,\nas is well known, they often appear to exhibit a painful declension in\nmoral life and to have lost immeasurably in character by their passage\nfrom this stage of being to the unknown land beyond the grave.\n\nReason, therefore, being in no position to settle the rival claims of\nthe physical delights of the Mohammedan paradise, the comparatively\ninsipid ideal of the Apocalypse, and \"the nameless quiet\" of the\nBuddhist Nirvana, feels compelled to pass them all by and to hold that\nof the invisible universe we are painfully ignorant, and that the only\ndeathless reality is the will of man conformed to the great obedience\nof the moral law.  It believes that the test of a system is not what it\npromises but what it performs, and we may take it as an absolutely\ncertain thing that if any of the \"systems\" of our day secured palpably\nhigher ethical results amongst its adherents, the world would flock to\nthat Church forthwith.  As Augustine says, \"no one loves the devil,\"\nwhich, being ethically interpreted, means no one wants to be bad, and\nif any ecclesiastical corporation, by an appeal to history or to\npresent and urgent visible facts, could justify its claims to\nsuccessfully strengthen man's oftentimes rebel will in the pursuit of\nthe great ideal, men would follow it to the world's end, such is the\npower of truth and goodness over the human heart.  But the truth is, no\nsuch agency has ever been discovered.  In the sixteenth century the\nCouncil of Trent was summoned \"to reform the Church in its head and\nmembers,\" a plain confession of ethical failure.  Do men suppose that\nLuther, or a whole synod of monks, could have torn Europe in pieces in\nabout a score of years, when Anglicans have been debating auricular\nconfession and the eastward position for the last fifty, unless the\nContinent had undergone a moral _debacle_?  Luther's paltry diatribes\nabout indulgences would have left men as cold as stone; it was the\nfervour of the ethical enthusiast thundering against immoralities in\nhigh places which rent the Christian Church in twain by the most\nviolent and widespread schism it had ever known.\n\nNo, the test of a thing is not what it promises but what it does.\n_Exitus acta probat_.  And if the enlightened men and women of our time\nare disposed less and less to rely upon creeds as a basis of religious\ncommunion, it is because they see that whatever the future life may\nhave in store for mankind, they cannot better prepare for it than by\nliving worthily in this.\n\nBut as evidence that they who follow the ethical obedience are in no\nwise insensible to the sterner aspects of life, we shall now pass on to\nsay what in our judgment should be the religious attitude of man face\nto face with the inevitable certainty of death.\n\nIf we pause one moment to reflect on the physical aspect of death, it\nwould only be to remark that it is as natural an occurrence as birth.\nIn fact, as is obvious to the most superficial mind, birth and death\nare inextricably interwoven.  The great life of the worlds is so one,\nso powerful, so omnipresent, that nothing can so utterly pass away as\nto give birth to nothing--no, not even the cremated remains which are\nblown to the four winds.  The theory that death is a non-natural\noccurrence arbitrarily inflicted by the Deity in his anger at Adam's\ndisobedience is no longer taught even in the nursery, because aeons\nupon aeons before man's advent hither death reigned supreme over\nsentient existence, and the bones of the doomed are in our museums to\nattest the fact.  Nay, we have recovered the ice-embedded body of the\nmammoth, its stomach filled with undigested food, food it ate as far\nback as the glacial period, by which it was overtaken and frozen in its\nice grave 200,000 years ago.  The Roman sentinel, overwhelmed where he\nstood by the lava of Vesuvius, defiant of disaster in his inflexible\ndevotion to duty, is not a surer proof of the natural fact of death\nthan the mammoth that died in Alaska before man's appearance on the\nearth.  The law of growth is the law of death.  Life begins, it\nincreases, it reaches its meridian, it begins to waver and then\nsteadily to decline, till at length the bodily frame dissolves, and\nthen--\n\n  That which drew from out the boundless deep\n    Turns again home.\n\n\nIt is so with all things, from a fungus to a giant of the forest, from\na stone to a cluster of stars whose light takes 4000 years to reach us.\nIt is only a question of time when our own sun shall set in impotence\nand rise again no more.  All things are passing away, everything is\nunstable, change is at the heart of all.  How solemn, how true the\nwords, whose melancholy haunts the more the memory dwells on them:\n\"this world passeth away and the desire thereof, but he that doeth the\nDivine will endureth for ever\"!  As we said, the one changeless thing,\nbeyond the doom of sun-stars and swarms of worlds, is the will of man\nnobly submissive to the Great Obedience of the Supreme Law--the Law of\nJustice and of Truth.  That alone can never die.\n\nLet us turn now to the ethical and religious aspect of that which we\nhave seen to be in itself so natural, so inevitable.\n\nIn the first place, we conceive that it in no wise interrupts the\nprogress of the individual life.  Certainly the conditions under which\nexistence maintains itself in that other state must be far other than\nthose which obtain here, for there man is destitute of his bodily\nenvironment.  The conditions of such a life are wholly unpicturable,\nwholly unimaginable, but not _inconceivable_.  These are high matters,\nlike the truths of sublimest philosophy, wherein it is impious to\nintrude with so inferior a faculty as imagination, and demand that an\nimage or representation of a bodiless existence be presented to it.\nWhat picture does man make for himself of the force of gravitation, nay\nof the force which drives the crocuses out of the soil in spring?  It\nis enough to _know_ that the force is there; it is enough to know that\na man's body is not his _self_.  Surely every one who reflects must be\nconscious that his body is _his_, just like his clothes; and therefore\nnot _he_, any more than the raiment wherewith he is covered.  Foolish,\nthen, is it to ask for pictures like children; let us be satisfied to\nknow with the reason, which we alone of all earth-born creatures\npossess, that the body is not _we_ but _ours_, and that we are not mere\nephemerals, but are \"going on and still to be\".\n\nNow these words of Tennyson exactly express our ethical teaching, that\nman is \"ever going on and still to be,\" and that death, so far from\nputting a stop to the eternal progress, is but a stage, an incident in\nthe journey, possibly--for we know so little of these matters--a very\ninsignificant one.  The theory commonly inculcated, certainly commonly\nheld, is that the fact of death ushers in a perfect transformation\nscene, more wonderful than anything thought of or devised by man, nor\nshould we be accounted irreverent did we describe the language of the\nbook of Revelation as pantomimic in the exuberance of its splendour.\nAll sorrow is supposed to cease as if by magic, the sun shines\nperpetually, it is eternal noon; the home of the blessed is a wondrous\ncity, built four-square, whose streets are of pure gold, whose rivers\nare of crystal, and whose foundations are laid in precious stones.\nSweetest songs of earth resound in the heavenly courts; yea, even\nmusical instruments are there, and life would appear to be one\nprolonged religious service.  Into this celestial blessedness departed\nsouls enter new-born, and take their allotted places once and for ever;\nthey never apparently move from them; they grow no better; there is no\nroom for further development, nor possibility of deterioration, but a\nfixed and immovable moral status is, to all appearances, arbitrarily\nimposed upon them for evermore.  The impression one gathers is,\ntherefore, of a large and glorified amphitheatre, tiers rising above\ntiers into infinity, seats along them, each of which is tenanted by an\nindividual elect spirit whose merits are precisely proportioned to its\nplace.\n\nNow that existence prolonged, I will not say into eternity, but into a\nweek is the very reverse of inspiring.  Of course, we are aware that\nDean Farrar has as effectually explained away the Orientalisms of the\nChristian heaven as the Paganisms of the orthodox hell; we are ready to\nbelieve that the Apocalypse--which is held now not to be a Christian\nbook at all, but a Jewish composition, edited and amended by a\nChristian hand--sets forth only figures and types of the great supernal\nblessedness.  This we know, but our difficulty is not with the form but\nwith the content, that is, with that which these hyperboles symbolise.\nIt is fairly inconceivable to us that a matter which, according to the\nChurches, merely concerns the body, soon to be resolved into its\ncomponent gases, should exercise so miraculous a transformation on the\nsoul, or the real man.  _He_ did not die; his body did, and yet they\nwould have us believe that that mere physical occurrence, that\ncatastrophe of flesh and blood, means the subsequent and eternal\nstagnation of all psychical life; that men either go forthwith into\nscenes with which ninety out of a hundred would be wholly unfamiliar,\nor are thrust headlong into a subterraneous locality called Sheol, or\nthe grave in Hebrew, the English equivalent of which is hell, the only\ndifference being that, whereas the good can grow no better, the wicked\ncan and do grow worse.\n\nDoubtless, I shall be reminded that these teachings do not occur\nexplicitly in the Thirty-nine Articles, any Church Confession, or a\nPapal Decree.  That may very well be so, as regards them all, but there\ncan be no doubt that the main assertion is accepted as dogmatically\ntrue by all Christian Churches--namely, that a wonderful and searching\nchange does occur at the moment of death, whereby \"the time of\nprobation,\" as it is called, comes to an end, and all possibility of\nfurther \"merit before God,\" or, as we should say, of ethical\nadvancement, relentlessly cut off.  To quote a letter of Cardinal\nNewman's, written in 1872 to the Rev. W. Probyn-Nevins, and published\nsubsequently by him--in the _Nineteenth Century_ of May, 1893--\"The\ngreat truth is that death ends our probation, and _settles our state\nfor ever_, that there is no passing over the great gulf\".  Amidst much\nthat is uncertain, for instance, as to whether real devils are in hell,\na real fire, and whether it be bright or dark, whether the appalling\ntorments are ever mitigated, say on certain feasts of the Christian\nChurch, such as Christmas Day and Easter, or whether eventually the\npains ultimately die completely away and thus usher in that \"happiness\nin hell\" in which Mr. Mivart is, or was, so deeply interested five\nyears ago--amidst all these highly debatable points, Newman pronounces\none thing certain, that \"death ends our probation,\" that \"there is no\npassing over the great gulf\".\n\nNow, whence did he learn this strange teaching?  How is he dogmatically\ncertain of that one thing, while all the rest is in a haze?  From stray\ntexts, such as, \"Whether the tree falleth to the north or the south, in\nwhatsoever place it shall fall, there shall it lie\"; or, from the\nparable of wise and foolish virgins, some of whom happened to be\nasleep, and awoke at the critical hour to find that during the long\nnight-watch for the bridegroom their store of oil had become exhausted?\nSurely tropes and parables are a highly insecure foundation whereon to\nbuild such a momentous teaching.  Certainly, it is gravely questionable\nwhether any direct statement in the Hebrew or Christian writings can be\nadduced to support the common notion that bodily dissolution is a\nspiritual reagent, and _ipso facto_ seals the destiny of a spiritual\nessence.  Vast numbers of even Anglicans repudiate the notion in the\nname of theology and religion.  We repudiate it in the name of reason,\nwhich was put into us for no other purpose, we know well, than to judge\nnot only the statements Churches put forth, but the sacred documents on\nwhich they build them.  We repudiate the notion in the name of that\nreason which shows us that the Infinite Mind, whose light and life we\nshare, was millions of years preparing this earth for man's habitation,\naeons of time so fashioning the course of things that a body might be\nprepared in which that mind which we call soul might energise; aeons of\ntime so ordering the course of events that man should emerge one day\nfrom the savagedom and animalism of the past to enter upon the path of\na progress which we believe to be endless.  I say the reason which\ndemonstrates this to us with a certitude which not the most intolerant\nbigotry dares to question to-day, tells us also that it is wholly\npreposterous that all that is left to man wherein to work out his own\nindividual moral progress is the brief span of threescore years and\nten, that after these days \"few and evil,\" the chapter is closed, the\nbook sealed for ever, and the status of man inexorably and unalterably\ndetermined.\n\nI frankly avow I would as soon believe the Buddhist _Jataka_ as such a\nwholly irrational account of the ways of God with man.  Just think of\nthe palaeolithic man, who had no glimmering of moral discernment; think\nof the cave-men whose skulls we possess in scores, that bear eloquent\ntestimony to their deplorable degradation--think of such creatures\ndying, and their mental and moral status stereotyped for ever.  \"Death\nends our probation!\"  A precious revelation this!  Where and what are\nthese men now?  When Newman visited Greece in the thirties what\nimpressed him, or rather oppressed him, as he stood above the glorious\nbay of Salamis, over which once rode the hundreds and thousands of\ngalleys and triremes which transported the unnumbered hosts of Xerxes\nto Greece, was the awful thought that all those million men, including\nthe proud monarch who reviewed them from the spot on which he then\nstood, were \"_still alive_\".  Alive!  And where were they, and what\nwere they doing?  I cannot conceive anything more appallingly\ndepressing, nay, maddening, than to believe that all that heavenly\norchestration is going on while Xerxes is possibly in an Apocalyptic\nhell, and his hosts either bearing him company or wandering aimlessly\nabout in the same stupid, stolid, unmoral, unspiritual condition in\nwhich they were the moment they were engulfed in those blue waters.\nWhy, Nero fiddling while Rome was burning is a pleasant memory compared\nwith it!\n\nBut we have not reached the end yet.  \"Deep calleth unto deep,\" and the\nextreme deductions from the perverse notion that the act of dying is\nthe signal for the infliction of an everlasting mental and moral\nsterility, finally convince us of the groundlessness of this feckless\ntheology.  According to these deductions of which I speak, one grievous\noffence against Divine or ecclesiastical law--such, for instance, as\ngrave scandal or the omission to attend at mass--is sufficient to\ncondemn a man to eternal reprobation.  If it be supposed that death\ncuts the offender off before he has the opportunity to make confession\nof his fault or otherwise express his sorrow, we are soberly asked to\nbelieve that the horrors of Tartarus are his eternal doom.  Surely the\nmediaeval authorities who formulated this precious teaching must have\nbeen bereft of the most elementary notions of ethical law.  One act, or\na dozen such acts, do not stamp the delinquent as habitually bad, still\nless as one irredeemably wicked.  Habits are only generated by a\nconstant repetition of corresponding acts, just as good habits are\nformed with difficulty, and only after persevering and resolute\nattention on the part of our wills.  So, also, an evil disposition is\nonly the outcome of a deliberate surrender of our moral nature to\nperverse inclinations.\n\nNow, the hell dogma implies that the so-called \"lost\" are so\nirredeemably depraved as to be incapable of as much as a good thought;\nthey are described in the graphic language of Aquinas and Suarez as\n\"obstinated in evil,\" \"confirmed immutably in malice\"; in fact,\nabsolutely diabolised.  And all this for missing attendance at mass on\none of the Church's festivals!  \"_Paris vaut bien une messe_,\" said\nHenri Quatre.  It would be well worth attending a mass to escape such a\ndestiny!  \"There must be something rotten in the state of Denmark,\"\nwhere such horrors go stalking about unreproved.  As though infinite\njustice could be conceivably associated with such a transaction as the\nbranding of a man as an eternal criminal, blasting every moral\nsentiment he ever possessed, arbitrarily reducing him to a condition\ninfinitely beneath the bestial--and all because he had broken a Church\nlaw in neglecting to attend Divine service.  Many of us incline to\nbelieve that our own punishments, inflicted in the name of law, often\ntend rather to degrade the prisoner than to improve him.  At any rate,\nnot a man in the land but believes that no punishment should be\nadministered except with a view of amending what is amiss in the\nculprit's character.  But contrast this moral attitude of ours with the\nmethod of procedure deliberately ascribed to Deity, and let us ask\nourselves whether the God of some men is not worse than their devil?\nNo such scruples, apparently, affect that supreme tribunal, but if\nbodily death by accident overtake the erring man, then, forthwith, and\nas if by magic, the spiritual in him is rendered fiendish, and\nhenceforth and for ever he is fit for nothing but that genial society\nand those edifying occupations which are described in the cheerful\nmanuals known as, _A Glimpse of Hell_, and _Hell open to Christians_.\n\nThose who witnessed the recent revival of _Hamlet_--a revival which it\nwould appear is destined to be historic--cannot have failed to notice\nhow the great master of song permits himself to express the perverse\nconception that death is synonymous with everlasting moral stagnation.\nHamlet steals into his murderous uncle's apartment, sword in hand, but\ndiscovering the criminal upon his knees, forbears to strike then, lest\nsomehow his devotions should save him from his doom.  No, he will wait\nuntil the miserable creature is off his guard, so that death may\novertake him at a moment when no prayer or cry for mercy is possible.\nAs though a momentary act could undo the mischief of years!  As though\na man is in himself any different after years, of crime because he\nutters a sudden cry for mercy!  And, as though by killing him at an\nopportune moment, Hamlet could damn his soul for ever!  And it will be\nnoted, moreover, that the ghost emphasises the treachery of which he\nhas been the victim, in that he was sent into eternity \"unhouseled,\nunaneled,\" as though momentary acts can make up for years wasted and\nmisspent.  As well might one scatter one's fortune in luxury and\nriotous living, and resolve to win it all back in a moment, as misuse\nthese glorious powers of mind and will we bear within us, turn them to\nevil, steep them in iniquity, and then think to suddenly turn and by a\nsingle act bend them successfully to the arduous service of the good.\nThis is stern teaching, but it is the truth; and a mercy would it be, a\nmercy would it have been for us all in the days of our youth, if\ninstead of the too frequent insistence on the doctrine of the\nforgiveness of sin, the doctrine of compensation and retribution, as\ntaught by Ralph Waldo Emerson, had been instilled into our hearts.  \"Ye\nshall not go forth until ye have paid the last farthing,\" is the\nteaching.  Dare to break those solemn laws, to pervert these mysterious\npowers we possess, Amen, Amen, we cannot escape retribution; we cannot\ngo forth until we pay the last farthing.\n\nAnd this last thought prepares for the statement of our view of the\nattitude a rational religion takes up in the solemn presence of death.\n\"Stoicism shall not be more exigent,\" said Emerson of the new Church.\nWe take no lax view of life and its responsibilities, but we refuse to\nmagnify death into the one thing worth living for or thinking about.\n_Homo liber de nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat_.  We do not set\nabout digging our graves, we do not carry our coffins about with us,\nstill less do we sleep in them--a gruesome practice which has attracted\nsome fanatical folk.  To us, death is a fact, not an effect, an\nincident as natural as birth, in no wise affecting the real, the\nspiritual, man.  We therefore utterly disavow all sympathy with the\ngroundless assumption that a magical change comes over the psychical\npowers of a man at that supreme moment, whereby he can do no more good,\nbut may harden into a more hopeless reprobate.  The notion that a\njudgment of the soul takes place, as in the hall of Osiris, of Egyptian\nmythology, at the instant of dissolution, whereby the destiny of the\nindividual is sealed for ever, we repudiate in terms.  Man is judged,\nnot then, but at every moment of his life.  \"The moral laws vindicate\nthemselves\" without the intervention of any external tribunal.  And,\ntherefore, the eternal progress of the man in us is maintained\nuninterruptedly across the gloomy chasm of death, under other\ncircumstances, no doubt, but still it is the same ceaseless approach\ntowards the Infinite Ideal, the same untiring journey along \"the\neverlasting way\".  All are in that \"way,\" we may be sure, even those\nwhom we foolishly deem hopelessly reprobate.  Something can be made of\nthose failures of men, for\n\n  After last returns the first, though a wide compass\n      round be fetched;\n  What began best can't end worst, nor what God once\n      blest prove accurst.\n\n\nBut such men, the Neros, Caligulas, the Wainwrights and Palmers of all\nages and nations, are but a fractional, an infinitesimal, element in\nthe great human family.  _Sanabiles fecit nationes super terram_.  \"He\nhath made earth's peoples to be healed;\" they shall redeem _themselves_\none day.  The moment of awakening comes sooner or later to all; there\nis an unextinguished capacity for good under the sores and scars of the\nmost dissolute life, and we may believe that awakening comes when the\nspirit enters new-born, as it were, into a world where the illusions of\nthe flesh, the deceptions of the sense, obtain no more.\n\nThere are no final, irredeemable failures.  The Divine in man must\nemerge one day; its glory pierce through the gloom of his sin and\nshame, and transfigure him anew after the beautiful and pathetic image\nof the holy Christ in the legend,[1] whose closing days on earth, they\nsay, were illumined by one supreme wonder--his face calm and blissful,\nglowing radiant like the glory of a setting sun, his very raiment\nturned white like the driven snow.  A beauteous imagery!  But there was\nno external transfiguration.  It was but a type of the radiant purity\nwithin; a witness to the \"beauty of holiness\".  It was an emblem of\nwhat all may be in some far-off day, when the lowliest amongst us\nlearns to follow the Christs, the blessed company of all elect souls,\nin the way which begins and ends in the eternal righteousness.\n\n\n\n[1] In the same way the Buddha was \"transfigured\".  See Doane's _Bible\nMyths_.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nTHE ETHICAL ASPECT OF WAR.\n\nAn idealism such as that which substantially identifies religion with\nmorality, is suitably occupied, as occasion offers, in the discussion\nof those questions of public interest which have an immediate bearing\non the well-being of communities.  In this respect it departs markedly\nfrom the attitude taken up by those Churches, which afford little or no\nguidance on such matters, probably because it is felt by priests and\nprelates that their functions are rather of an ultra-mundane character,\nand that their most important duty is to prepare humanity for the\nenjoyment of another life after this unsatisfactory stage has passed.\nHence the sharp line of distinction they draw between the Church and\nthe world, the one the kingdom of saints, the other \"lying\" hopelessly\n\"in wickedness\".  Hence, again, their distinction of \"holy days\" and\nsecular days, Sunday being devoted to religious exercises, while the\nremaining six days are presumably to be occupied in wholly secular\nenterprise.  The distinction affects our very attire.  Religious rites\nbeing of a totally different character from the duties we accomplish\nduring the week, there is nothing for it but to don \"our blacks,\" to\nquote the language of a current popular play, and enact subsequently\nthe ceremonial described as the church parade.  It is the same feeling\nwhich causes the average Englishman to lapse into a sort of funereal\nsolemnity at the very mention of the word religion, or of anything\nallied to it.  The divorce of religion from ordinary life could not be\nmore plainly indicated than by such phenomena as we have noticed.\n\nIt is, of course, one of the main objects of our movement to show the\nfalsity of this distinction between the Church and the world, between\nreligion and morality.  We submit that it is not the institution of the\nfounder of Christianity, but of his later followers.  The Church of\nChrist meant the assemblage of men _as men, as citizens_.  The entry\nthereto was not by the magical washing away of an imaginary birth-sin,\nbut through the natural and beautiful sacrament of human birth.  The\nworld is the Church, and the Church is the world, and the \"living\nstones\" out of which \"the kingdom of heaven\" is built here on earth are\nprecisely the stones out of which the civil commonwealth arises.  There\nis nothing secular, nothing profane, but from first to last the life of\nevery man, from the miraculous moment of his conception to the closing\nof his eyes in bodily death, and beyond death, through the perfecting\nof him by an ever-increasing approximation to the standard of all moral\nperfection, everything is religious, sacred, divine.  The Church is\nnothing but an ethical society, co-extensive with the race, and it is\nfor the realisation of this ideal that the ethical movement is working,\nto show men that religion is morality, is life.\n\nThis preamble, then, may serve as a justification for introducing here\nsuch a subject as war.  The Christian Churches, with one single\nexception, that of the Quakers, vouchsafe no guidance whatsoever on the\nmoral aspects of this question.  On the contrary, they rather suggest\nthat it is a highly moral proceeding, for their ministers pray to their\nDeity for the success of their country's arms, and sing their _Te\nDeums_ over the mangled corpses of the vanquished.  An archbishop in\nSpain offered to guarantee the harmlessness of every American bullet,\nand unctuous prayers were reported in the newspapers of last spring as\nemanating from Transatlantic pulpits.  Indeed, it would be difficult,\nif not impossible, to imagine what the supreme court of their heaven\nmust be, the perplexities of patron saints and angels, and ultimately\nof their Deity himself, in face of the immoral mingling of bloodshed\nand religion which went on during the recent Spanish-American war.  But\nthe Churches, Catholic and Protestant alike, see none of the impiety\nwhich is so revolting to moral men and women, who to their lasting\nadvantage have emancipated themselves from ecclesiastical guidance.  On\nthe contrary, the public in America which looks for moral inspiration\nto clergymen, is fed upon this sort of doggerel:--\n\n  Strike for the Anglo-Saxon!\n    Strike for the newer day!\n  O strike for heart and strike for brain,\n    And sweep the _beast_ away.\n\n  And let no feeble pity\n    Your sacred arms restrain;\n  This is God's mighty moment\n    To make an end of Spain!\n\n\nIt is our purpose to endeavour to make an end of the immoral\ninspiration behind this profane piffle by speaking out our mind on the\nsubject of war as viewed from the standpoint of ethics.\n\nBy war we understand the appeal to _might_ to decide a question of\n_right_ between two or more civilised peoples, and of war thus defined\nI say that it is the great surviving infamy[1] of our unmoral past, the\npersistence in us of animal instincts, of the ape and tiger which\nshould long since have died out.  That man, in the childhood of the\nworld, should have decided questions of justice by an appeal to brute\nforce is only what we should expect.  The laws of life, which are laws\nof development, necessarily presuppose the imperfect before the\nperfect, the animal as a preparation for the human.  As Immanuel Kant\nputs it in a sentence which flashes the light over the whole panorama\nof existence, \"the _cosmic_ evolution of Nature is continued in the\n_historic_ development of humanity and completed in the _moral_\nperfection of the individual\".  This is the synthesis of the greatest\nof the masters of modern philosophy.  The non-moral cosmos makes way\nfor a process of moral human development, which is consummated in the\nperfection of each individual man.  Here is the _Alpha_ and _Omega_ of\nall existence.\n\nNow, warfare, or the invocation of might to settle right, was as\nnatural an accompaniment of earlier conditions as theft or cannibalism.\nBut is it not obvious that with the disappearance of other unmoral\nideals of the past, we have a right to expect, and to demand, that the\nlast and crowning infamy of wholesale and systematised manslaughter,\ncalled war, should cease also?  The humanity which has got rid of\nslavery in all civilised countries, which has now through England's\ninstrumentality succeeded in destroying its last strongholds on the\nUpper Nile, will also ultimately get rid of war.  The manhood of the\nrace, which in this country has long since put down the immorality of\nduelling as a means of settling private differences, will indubitably\nassert itself elsewhere to the final overthrow of warfare as a means of\ndeciding public disputes.  The great reform is in the air.  It is\neverywhere except in the pulpits of Christendom and the \"yellow\npress\"--the jingo journalism of the world.  We all experienced the\ngrowing sense of the unsuitability of war to our modern ideals during\nthe earlier months of this year while matters were reaching the acute\nstage between Spain and the United States.  The best Press in this\ncountry reflected the common sentiment, that the whole proceeding is\nsavage, barbarous, inhuman, and therefore utterly unworthy of rational\nmen.  I believe it is this growing horror of legalised carnage which\nprevented the late President of the United States' ill-judged message\nleading to any rupture between our two countries.  It was felt that\nEnglishmen and Americans deliberately setting about the destruction of\neach other's property and taking one another's lives would amount to a\nscandal positively unthinkable--a fratricidal horror to be prevented at\nall and any costs.  I am not sure that the same opinion was so\nuniversal on the other side, though undoubtedly it existed amongst the\nbest men of the country.\n\nAmerica has at present two difficulties to contend with.  First, she is\na _young_ nation, and young people are fond of trying experiments.\nAnd, next, they are burdened, perhaps I should say cursed, with the\nmost violent, anti-cosmopolitan Press anywhere existent.  A set of\nfire-eaters appear to control the New York section, of it, and in the\njudgment of many sober-minded Americans, with some of whom I have\nmyself spoken, the late war was wholly due to their ceaseless,\nincessant clamour, and that, given a few months' patience, the Cuban\npeople might have by plebiscite been able to settle their own destiny.\nThe starving peasants concentrated in the towns were the alleged object\nof the hurry.  Long months passed before any succour reached them.  If\nthey were veritably starving, surely every man of them must have died\nlong before an American army of liberation could have been effectually\nlanded for their relief.  The sympathies of this country were not with\nSpain, for it is by her misrule, her acknowledged misgovernment of her\ncolonists, that all the mischief has been brought about.  One regrets\nto have to say it, but Spain has been strangled in the coils of her own\nsuperstition, and progress for her ceased to be when she elected to\nlive by the light of ideals and principles which are henceforth\nimpossible.  It is the frantic endeavour of France and Italy to escape\nSpain's doom which explains their incessant strife between Church and\nState.  The enlightened Frenchman or Italian has a horror of\nsacerdotalism as the beginning of the end, always and everywhere, and\nas the only religion in those countries is sacerdotal, they are, alas,\nin their national capacity, bereft of any religious guidance or\ninspiration.  We are, therefore, unable to see anything in Spain's\npresent position, but the working of the inevitable law of\nCompensation, which is sovereign over States as over individuals,\nthough there are many of us who believe that the avowed humanitarian\nobjects of the American Government might have been attained by peaceful\nmethods, had not the country been goaded into a fever of restlessness\nand impatience by that deplorable phenomenon of democratic institutions\nknown as the \"yellow press\".\n\nAt all events, the feeling universal in this country in the early\nspring of this year, showed how far and fast we are travelling along\nthe road which will lead us to the final abandonment of warfare as\nunworthy of rational men.  Doubtless we are in advance of other nations\nin this respect.  But that is only what history leads us to expect.  We\nwere the first to free slaves, abandon duelling, reform prisons and\ncriminal law, and erect humanitarianism into a veritable religion.  And\nhave we not taught representative institutions to the world?  We are\nevidently destined, I believe, to lead the way towards the final\nsurrender of war.  We keep no standing army.  We shall never again\nenter on a war of conquest or aggression.  Our naval armaments and such\nmilitary power as we possess are notoriously created and maintained for\ndefensive purposes only.  Brigandage and pillage we have most certainly\nbeen guilty of in past times, but such a policy could not now survive\nthe day it was mooted.  We are in the last trenches, preparatory to\nfinally abandoning the field.\n\nBut here it will be urged that there are circumstances which render war\nabsolutely inevitable, such for instance as an unjust aggression upon\nthe territory we own, or even live upon; an attack on the national\nhonour, or a reckless disregard of rights sanctioned by treaty or\ninternational usage.  Were arbitration in such cases even admissible,\nwe may conceive the would-be aggressor unwilling to have recourse to\nit, or possibly to abide by its award.  What is a government to do then?\n\nNow, arguments and pleas such as these are valid enough against a\nproposal of universal disarmament to be compulsorily carried out in six\nmonths or a year's time, but they in no wise, I submit, constitute an\ninseparable bar to the realisation of \"that sweet dream,\" as Immanuel\nKant called it, of a \"perpetual peace\".  The ideal is none the less\nreal because it cannot be at once put into practice; and had we to wait\nanother whole century, it would still be the duty of our movement to\nstand by Kant and boldly set up the grand conception of an universal\npeace as the goal for which all that is best among men is inevitably\nmaking.  Still, I trust that in our enthusiasm for ethic and for the\nideal of its master, we have not lost our heads and betaken ourselves\nto Utopian impracticabilities.  No ethical man could think of fixing a\nlimit within which a national disarmament must take place, and the\nswords of the world beaten into ploughshares, any more than he could\nname the date at which the millennium is to be introduced.  But this\nimplies no insuperable, or rather, no serious, obstacle to our belief\nthat the ideal of universal arbitration, through the medium of a\ncongress of all nations, must in the future, near or distant, be\nrealised, because it is an ideal which is alone worthy of rational men.\nAnd, moreover, the essential rationality of the ideal gives us a right\nto demand that it should be recognised by all public men, by our\nlegislators who represent us, the Press which aims at reflecting the\nlife and thought of the age, the professors and masters who have the\ncare of our youth, and above all by fathers and mothers to whom tender\nchildren are confided, and those men who assume the responsibility of\nspeaking to their generation in the sacred name of religion.\n\nI say the ideal gives us the right to demand its recognition by men in\nsuch positions of responsibility, and implies a corresponding\nobligation on their part, no less than on our own, to labour seriously\nfor its speedy realisation.  We are, every one of us, agreed that war\nis essentially a cruel, barbarous, horribly vindictive and degrading\nmethod of serving the interests of the sublimest thing known to man,\nnamely, justice.  Wanton warfare, merely for the sake of fighting or\nkilling, or openly avowed oppression, can scarcely be acknowledged now\neven by the most cynical of statesmen.  The public conscience is become\ntoo sensitive for that, so that some question of justice, or the\nsemblance of it, must be invoked in order to justify its unspeakable\nbarbarities.  But what an outrage, the deliberate destruction of\nhundreds of thousands of innocent men--men who in their simplicity or\nignorance are positively unable to even dimly comprehend why they are\nbeing lashed into a blind fury and goaded to the madness of steeping\ntheir hands in each other's blood--what barbarity, what savagery to\ninvoke as the minister, as the vindicator of justice!  Let us keep our\neyes steadily fixed on this central, essential wickedness of the whole\nbusiness, that it dares to offer its polluted services in the interests\nof justice and thereby to profane the holiest thing we know.\n\nRemembering this, therefore, let us ask ourselves what help we get in\nour endeavours to effect its overthrow from the recognised ministers of\nreligion.  Why, it is notorious that what has long been clear to\nphilosophers like Immanuel Kant, and philanthropists among humble\nlaymen, has not yet dawned upon the imagination or touched the\nconsciences of bishops or priests.  Popes, themselves, have created\nmilitary orders, \"knights and commanders of Christ and the Cross,\"\nwhose profession it was to destroy life in the name of the most\nmerciful, pitiful man known to us Western people.  Popes have led\nmilitary expeditions, conducted campaigns and crossed swords with the\nmost daring, though the impetuous fisherman, founder of their line, was\nbidden by Christ to put up his sword into its scabbard, \"for all they\nthat take up the sword shall perish by it\".  Can any man point to one\nsingle condemnation of war as immoral, irrational, opposed to the law\nof their Deity or of Christ, in all the collection of councils, bulls\nand canonical legislation?  And can any man quote to us the charge of\nan archbishop or bishop in the Anglican Communion or the Greek\nCommunion wherein he has raised his voice against the barbaric survival\nof war and condemned it in the name of his Saviour Jesus, who spoke of\nthe meek, the mourners, the merciful, the pure in heart, the hungerers\nand thirsters after righteousness, or, as we say, the ethical\nenthusiasts, as his followers?\n\nWhy, religion, in the hands of bishops and priests, has allowed a trail\nof blood to be drawn across the path of the ages.  I say nothing of\nreligious persecution and the millions who have gone to torture and to\ndoom for erroneous beliefs.  I confine myself entirely, to field\nwarfare.  During a period of 674 years, from 1141-1815, it is an\nhistorical fact that this country and France were at war for no less\nthan 266 years, or considerably more than one-third, and we must\nremember that up to the Reformation both countries were under the\ndirect guidance, one might almost say the exclusive inspiration, of the\nCatholic Christianity of the day.  But where does history record the\nact of any religious leaders of those times denouncing war as contrary\nto the gospel of Christ and of reason alike?  We are able to quote\nnumbers of despised heretics who had grasped the truth and emphatically\ncondemned the brutal institution.  Thus Erasmus: \"They who defend war\nmust defend the dispositions which lead to war, and these dispositions\nare absolutely forbidden by the gospel\".  Wickliffe, \"the morning star\nof the Reformation in England,\" thought it \"utterly unlawful,\"\naccording to Priestley; and as Southey writes in his _History of\nBrazil_: \"There is but one community of Christians in the world, and\nthat unhappily of all communities one of the smallest, enlightened\nenough to understand the prohibition of war by the Divine Master in its\nplain literal and undeniable sense and conscientious enough to obey it,\nsubduing the very instinct of nature to obedience\".\n\nThese facts are noteworthy because they show that had the official\nchurches--the Roman, Greek and Anglican--been true to their charge and\ncommission from their founder; had they been unworldly enough to defy\nthe world and denounce its barbarous practices, we might have been far\nnearer Kant's \"sweet dream\" of universal peace.  But the churches, _as\nchurches_, have done very little for the cause of the \"Prince of\npeace,\" and now the world itself has outgrown their moral standard and\nlooks to them for guidance and inspiration no more.  By the light of\nreason alone, by the inspiration we gather from the _grands esprits_ of\nthe race, above all by the teaching of Immanuel Kant in his beautiful\ntreatise on \"Perpetual Peace,\" we intend to do what in us lies to put\ndown this surviving, crowning infamy of war, the very thought of which\nbrutalises the mind, outrages its humanitarian instincts, and degrades\nthe ideals whereby we desire to live.\n\nBut, surely, it will be urged, we cannot refuse to acknowledge\nundoubted benefits, both public and individual, which war has conferred\nin the past.  It has welded nomad peoples into nations, bred courage,\ndevotion, loyalty, unselfishness, self-sacrifice even to death in the\nhearts of those who have nobly borne their part therein.  Is not the\nsoldier hero, the military chieftain, the idol of all mankind?\n\nDoubtless he is, and unquestionably through the instrumentality of war\ngreat services have been rendered to the communities of peoples in the\npast and noble individual traits of character created.  It is an axiom\nwith us that the universe is so wondrously ordered that out of the\nworst things a soul of good may and does emerge, and so goodly is\ncreation that its very evils become a source wherefrom good may arise.\n\n  What was good shall be good with for evil so much good more.\n\n\nThus, for example, the young lieutenant ordered to sink a hulk across\nthe bay of Santiago, and his handful of companions have, by exposing\nthemselves to imminent risk of an awful death, deeply stirred the\nfeelings of their fellow-countrymen and filled us all with a sense of\nadmiration at the heroism which can contemn danger and death in the\nexecution of duty or the quest of glory.  But we must ask whether\nhumanity is in need of such exhibitions of bravery, whether there are\nnot other fields of danger which offer tasks equally arduous and\ndifficult of accomplishment?  We are not insensible to the claims of\nmilitary or naval heroism, but I confess I see much more to admire in\nFather Damien voluntarily surrendering himself to the slow and\nloathsome martyrdom of Molokai, more in the self-devotion of our \"white\nslaves,\" as they must, alas! be called, who toil all the day and a deal\nof the night in a heavy, noisome, almost disease-laden atmosphere in\nthe disgracefully crowded slums of our great cities, and all to earn a\nfew pence wherewith to buy just enough bread to keep body and soul\ntogether in themselves and their children.  Think of the\nmatchbox-makers, who turn out a gross for a few halfpence, out of which\nthey must supply some of their own materials.  Think of the\nseamstresses, the shirt-makers and tailors' assistants in the veritable\ndens of East London, who by slaving for fifteen hours out of\ntwenty-four can earn eighteenpence a day, out of which four or five\nshillings must be paid weekly for rent.  Think of these mean, squalid\nsurroundings in which a life of positively ceaseless toil must be\nlived, the patience and long-suffering with which it is endured, the\nsilent martyrdom of monotonous, unrelieved existence prolonged over\nlong years.  Think of it, I say, and compare it with the intoxication\nof the battle-field, the cavalry charge, the roar of cannon and\nmusketry, the rapid movements and counter-movements, the exultation\nwhich the sight of numberless men produces, grim, deadly determination\non their faces, the thought of glory, the hope of renown, the dash of a\nfew minutes, the stroke perhaps of a few seconds, the wild burst of\nuntamed, savage human nature temporarily released from the restraint of\nreason!  What cannot, what shall not man under such circumstances\naccomplish?  Yes, we are not insensible to deeds of immortal daring, of\ncourage, that must live for ever; nor to the memory of Leonidas and his\nSpartans, of the deathless glories of Thermopylae, of the unbroken\nchain of chivalric deeds from the days of ancient Greece to \"the thin\nred line\" that broke the fiercest charge, and the handful of Englishmen\nthat shot away their last cartridge and then stood to die with their\ncountry's anthem on their lips--we are not insensible to all this, but\nwe say the day for it is past and gone, and the heroism of the\nbattle-field must be consecrated anew to the service of peace and the\npoor.  The millions on millions we are spending on those majestic\nengines of destruction, those ships of ours that bastion the brine for\nEngland, what could they not do for the moralisation of the poor and\noutcast at our very doors in this city!  Why, in three years that\ninferno of the East End, that foul, reeking, pestilential nest of\ntenements, unfit for even animal habitation, could be swept clean away\nand human homes erected which, to put it on the lowest grounds, would\npositively pay a dividend on the capital outlay, as has been\nconvincingly proved over and over again.\n\n\"How long, O Lord, how long,\" we exclaim with the prophet of old, shall\nmen be consumed with this ignoble fever, this war-madness which\ndegrades the combatants far more than it exalts them, which senselessly\ndestroys valuable property, scatters ruin broadcast, paralyses\nindustry, robs the poor of all the bread of life, fills the land with\nmourning and desolation, with widows and orphans?--war, which we learnt\nfrom wild beasts, our ancestors, which cannot therefore determine a\nquestion of justice, which makes the wrong triumph as often as the\nright, which degrades all that touch it by isolating them for months,\nfor years perhaps, from civilised life, which demoralises the victors,\nembitters the vanquished, and, by creating strife, perpetuates the\npossibilities of renewed strife--war, which at this moment keeps Europe\nin the condition of an armed camp, millions of men leading\ncomparatively idle lives, with long hours on their hands which they\ncannot fill, with the inevitable results, the nauseating record of\nfilth, disease and abominations too utterly loathsome even to think\nabout--war, which is the curse of the poor and unfortunate, consuming\nthe energies of men and the material means whereby their unhappy lot\nmight be alleviated--war, the hard, cruel, relentless, inexorable\nmonster of unregenerate man's creation--we, since no pope, bishop or\npriest will do it--we execrate it in the name of all we hold holiest,\nin the name of reason, morality and religion, and we pledge ourselves\nso to act, privately and politically, as to promote such measures--a\nfederation of all English-speaking nations of the earth, if that will\nserve the purpose, or any other method equally or more serviceable--as\nwill finally exorcise this last of the besetting demons of humanity,\nand fulfil thereby the \"sweet dream\" of our master and inspirer,\nImmanuel Kant.\n\n  Ring out the old, ring in the new;\n    *      *      *      *      *\n  Ring out the false, ring in the true;\n  Ring out old shapes of foul disease;\n    Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;\n    Ring out the thousand wars of old;\n  Ring in the thousand years of peace.\n\n\n\n[1] Since these words were written the _Daily Chronicle_ of 10th\nSeptember, 1898, quotes them as having been used by a distinguished\nliving English general.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nTHE ETHICS OF MARRIAGE.\n\nThere is probably no department of morality in which a metaphysic of\nethic is more conspicuously needed than in that which concerns\nmarriage.  The insurrection of woman against the disabilities to which\nher sex was in the past unjustly subjected, due perhaps more to custom\nand tradition than to the statute law of the land, has developed in\nmore recent times into a serious attack on the central institution of\ncivilised life, on that fundamental fact of Nature on which posterity\nand society repose.  We have had an outbreak in literature culminating\nin the giddy glory of the \"hill-top novel,\" with its heroine \"who did,\"\nand in America what is tautologically described as the \"Free-Love\nSociety\" was founded to propagate the truth of what Rousseau\neuphemistically describes as _mariage apres la nature_.  For all that,\nhowever, one seems to hear less of the \"hill-top\" species, and\npossibly--with the problem play, without which no theatre was complete\na couple of years ago--it may be fading into the mist of the past.  It\nis with communities, we may take it, as with individuals.  There are\nmoments when, as it has been said, \"every one is an atheist, from\narchbishops downwards,\" when a sense of the purposelessness and\nfutility of perpetual combat seizes the most ardent.  These are the\ndark hours when attacks are planned and delivered against the most\nsacred institutions, when people are not at their best, but are\nrestless, rebellious and impatient of restraint; for nations like\nindividuals can go mad.  Then it is that the wide-awake novelist and\nplaywright see their opportunity, and the temporary success of the\nsex-play or the breezy romance is the reflection of the thoughts--none\nof the best--that are for the moment flitting through men's feverish\nminds.  But we soon return to saner moments; our moral sense resumes\nits normal sway, and sex-plays and romances fade away into oblivion.\n\nNow, it need not be said that the contention on behalf of the rights of\nwoman is heartily espoused by a movement which bases itself on the\nconception of reason and justice as the root facts of existence.  There\nwas no justice in the \"subjection of woman,\" and we hold that those\nopportunities of learning which a cultured age opens up to man should\nlikewise be at the disposal of his sister; that that freedom, which is\nthe birthright of the man, to expand the energies, mental and moral, of\nhis being to their fullest extent and in whatever calling, should also\nbe acknowledged to be the right of woman.  The constitutional agitation\nfor the recognition of her rights has met with notable success, and it\nhas the fullest support of the ethical Church; but we believe that that\nagitation has been pushed too far by a very small and insignificant\nminority, and made to cover an attack on the institution of matrimony,\nwhich her wisest friends see could only end in the ultimate downfall of\nwoman herself.  Such an agitation, such an attack, must encounter the\nmost resolute opposition from a body which derives all its idealism and\ninspiration from a life motived, not by the sense, but by reason.  Its\nleaders in America have pronounced decisively against any tampering\nwith the natural sacrament of marriage, and where they detect\ntendencies--as unfortunately they do in many of the States of their\nUnion--to further loosen its bonds, they, with all the influence at\ntheir command, endeavour to strengthen them.\n\nLet me now proceed to justify this attitude of the ethical communion.\n\nWe do not base our action on considerations of authority such as move\nthe Churches of Christendom.  It is not because Jesus assisted at a\nwedding breakfast and performed an alleged wonder; not because the\nApostle Paul calls marriage \"a great mystery in Christ and the Church,\"\nbut because both Jesus and Paul and the Churches express a truth of\nnature itself, that the union of man and woman is not, and cannot be,\nthe herding of animals; that the bestowal of the body cannot but be the\noutward symbol of an invisible bond which is the very soul and life of\nthe contract.  We thus go behind all Churches and apostles and ascend\nto the very roots of Nature herself, and discern in the golden glory\nwherewith she surrounds the ideal marriage the significance of her\nintentions in its regard--that it is her true and real Sacrament, that\nher sons and daughters are themselves its ministers, for they alone are\nkindled with the heavenly fire; that not the Church, not the priest nor\nritual celebrates it, but these twain made one by that same\n\n  Love which moves the earth and heavens and all the stars.\n\n\nThat man has so regarded marriage as a sacred and sacramental fact is\nauthenticated by history in an abundantly available form.  No doubt,\nages must have passed before he emerged from his animalesque condition\nand abandoned polygynous and polygamous manners, the marriage by\ncapture and purchase, which were the stages which mark the historical\nevolution of the contract.  But ultimately these barbaric stages passed\naway, and we discover in the Teutonic ancestors of Britain that\nmonogamy which was Nature's ideal from the first.  Just as man was\npotential in the primordial slime, so was the marriage of Robert\nBrowning a possibility in the earliest union of scarce-emancipated man\nand woman.  What the institution _could_ become, what it _has_ become,\nshows what was the intent of Nature from the beginning.  In the nobler\ndays of Rome, under the republic and early empire, the same lofty\nconception animated her best sons.  It was the decay of reverence for\nthe sacred bond, the era when a woman's years were told by the number\nof her divorces, which called forth the solemn warnings of her moralist\npoets and philosophers, and ultimately brought about the emasculation\nof the nation's manhood and the downfall of the empire.  We have not\nthe remotest doubt but that a similar contempt in modern Europe for\nNature's ordinance would involve us in the same catastrophe.  A low\nestimate of marriage means contempt of woman; the contempt of woman\nmeans her degradation from her position at the side of man as his\ncounsellor and his friend to that of his plaything, the instrument of\nhis pleasure; that again means the enthronement of licence and\nlicentiousness; that, the softening of the brain power of the manhood\nof the race, leading to degeneracy, imbecility, and ultimate\nextinction.  We need no ecclesiastical organisation to tell us these\nthings, nor threaten us with direst penalties here or hereafter.  These\nare the penalties of nature's own aboriginal enactment.  As it was in\nthe beginning, so it is now, and so it shall be unto all time.  No\nwonder St. Paul called marriage \"a great mystery\"!\n\nNow, though it be true that Nature's ideal is that which we call\nmonogamy, it may be perfectly true that we have not yet reached that\nlevel of morality which makes that condition universally practicable.\nThat wisest of teachers, Jesus of Nazara, expressly recognised this\ndistinction when he told the Jews of his own day that their lack of\nethical enthusiasm, \"their hardness of heart,\" as he accurately\nexpressed it, the emptiness of their souls of everything save narrow\nnationalism and religious formalism--an emptiness by no means peculiar\nto them--was the sole reason which justified a departure from Nature's\ngreat ideal.  \"In the beginning it was not so,\" he declared, but \"Moses\ngave ye permission to write out a bill of divorce\".  That one exception\nmay be necessary still, but, let it be understood, it is not the ideal,\nand every one knows it, faithful and faithless alike, they whose honour\nis intact and they whose souls are smirched.  It is an instinct in the\nhuman heart--no one can deny it--that love is for evermore.\nShakespeare is right, \"Marriage is a world-without-end bargain,\" for\nlove is felt to be eternal.  The old Roman digest interprets nature\nwith philosophic accuracy when it describes marriage as \"_Conjunctio\nmaris et feminae et consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani juris\ncommunicatio_\".  \"The union of man and woman and the companionship of\nall life, the sharing of right, human and divine.\"  That is the\nmajestic conception of matrimony as it took shape in the brain of those\nRoman masters of jurisprudence to whom we owe the law which is the\nnerve of civilisation.  They learnt it from that ethical religion which\nwe, too, reverently follow, from that morality which they found _in\nthings, in themselves_, in Nature's plain teaching that the union of\nman and his wife was a sacramental fact and therefore indelible.\n\nAre we asked for further evidence of this position?  We see it as a law\nof our rational being, which refuses to believe that Nature makes no\nother provision for us than she does for the animals; that their\ninstinctive and impulsive association should be the norm of man's\nintercourse with woman.  Nay, we see Nature herself as she advances to\nthe higher stages of animal existence anticipating, in a sense, that\nideal which was only to be fully realised in man.  The lion, the king\nof beasts, as he is called, tends towards that ideal, and the elephant\nis believed to be even more strictly monogamous.  The loves of birds,\nof doves and pigeons, are too well known to need more than a passing\nmention, and the grief they experience on the death of their partner\nnot unfrequently ends in a broken heart.  But how much better is man\nthan many animals, and what is merely instinctive in them shall not he\nconsciously obey as his acknowledged law of life?\n\nWe may see the truth also in Nature's ordinance, that man's offspring\nmust be educated in order to reach maturity; that training of a serious\ncharacter is indispensably necessary to the development of the powers\nlatent in them.  But how is such training possible, except through the\nunceasing watchfulness of the parents'?  People here and there darken\ncounsel with the suggestion that the State should assume such\nresponsibilities.  Was there ever such a suggestion?  As a matter of\nmere finance, we are told by the Vice-President of the Council, that\nthe assumption of the quite partial responsibility for the education of\nthe children now taught in the elementary schools of the denominational\nbodies of the country, would mean an addition of some millions yearly\nto the rates.  The education rate is high enough in all conscience, but\nwhere the \"hill-top\" theory would land us one can scarcely conjecture.\nSo urgent is this consideration of the claim which offspring has upon\nparent, so imperative the need that children should be fittingly\ninstructed so as to be worthy citizens of a great community, that we\nfind writers like Karl Pearson, in his _Ethic of Free Thought_,[1]\nconsistently excepting from the operation of the free-love gospel those\nunions which have resulted in the procreation of children.  Mr. Pearson\nbeing of the school of those who deride marriage as \"the tomb of love,\"\n\"the source of the stupidity and ugliness of the human race,\" his\nadmissions as to the necessity of maintaining some element of\npermanence in the contract, if only for the sake of children, is well\nworthy of our attention.  It shows how grounded in nature is that\nconception of the marriage tie which the Roman digest has put before us.\n\nWe may see the truth, once again, in the acknowledged instability of\nthe passional element in human nature--particularly in man.  It is\nnothing short of amazing to see this very instability urged as a reason\nwhy the marriage tie should be still further weakened, as though man\nshould deliberately subject himself to the vagaries of sense, instead\nof the guidance of reason.  We hear much to-day about the \"return to\nnature,\" and, soundly interpreted, that gospel sounds like a breath of\npure mountain air after the stifling atmosphere of modern convention\nand unreality.  Would to heaven, I say from my heart, that we were more\nnatural, that a greater frankness and directness marked our intercourse\nwith one another, that the shams and pretences of so much of our social\nlife were made away with, that our lives were more open and free!  The\ngrand old Stoic maxim had it thus: _Live in accordance with nature_.\nYes, but with what nature?  No thinker, from Socrates to Kant, from\nBuddha to Hegel, ever had a doubt but that man's nature was twofold,\nand that the law of reason must be supreme in him.  Let an animal live\nfor sense; it is its nature; but for man another law is ordained, which\nbids him think last of enjoyment, and to partake only of that in\nobedience to the law of the mind.  The modern evangel of the apotheosis\nof the unstable we understand to convey the teaching, \"Live in\naccordance with sense, or the feeling of the moment\".  Be like the\n_dame du monde_ whom Mrs. Ward has so accurately drawn in _Madame de\nNetteville_, who did not hold herself responsible to our petty codes,\nand judged that feeling was guidance enough for her.  That may be all\nvery well for Madame de Netteville, but how does such teaching look in\nthe light of Kant's solemn injunction: \"Act so that thy conduct may\nbecome a law unto all men\"?  Could any one seriously propose to erect\nfeeling into a supreme criterion whereby to judge of the conduct of\nlife?\n\nAnd, to show that the line of argument here adopted is no mere false\nasceticism surviving from an undisciplined and pre-scientific age, as\nthe solemn verbiage of so much second-rate talking expresses it to-day,\nwe may quote some words of David Hume, Huxley's \"prince of agnostics,\"\nfrom the _Essay on Polygamy and Divorce_.  The least emotional of\nphilosophers--a hard-headed Scotsman--he makes short work of the\nsentimentality which is invoked now-a-days against the natural law of\nmarriage:--\n\n\"We need not be afraid of drawing the marriage knot . . . the closest\npossible.  The unity between the persons, where it is solid and\nsincere, will rather gain by it; and where it is wavering and uncertain\nthat is the best method for fixing it.  How many frivolous quarrels and\ndisgusts are there, which people of common prudence endeavour to\nforget, when they lie under the necessity of passing their lives\ntogether; but which would soon be inflamed into the most deadly hatred,\nwere they pursued to the utmost under the prospect of an easy\nseparation!  We must consider that nothing is more dangerous than to\nunite two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns, as\nman and wife, without rendering the union entire and total.  The least\npossibility of a separate interest must be the source of endless\nquarrels and suspicions.  The wife, not secure of her establishment,\nwill still be driving some separate end or project; and the husband's\nselfishness, being accompanied by no power, may be still more\ndangerous.\"  Thus our conception of marriage as a nature sacrament, a\npermanent contract in Nature's original intention, is abundantly\nconfirmed by the sceptical philosopher of the eighteenth century.\nWhatever man may make of the contract, there stands the fact that that\nNature meant it to be enduring which whispered into the lover's heart\nthat \"love should be for evermore\".\n\nIt is a far cry from the abstractions of philosophy to the realisms of\nFrench fiction, but we could not better conclude this portion of our\nsubject than by citing one single sentence from Balzac, in the judgment\nof many the first romancer of this century, and one of the greatest\nmasters of the social sciences.  \"Nothing,\" he declares, \"more\nconclusively proves the necessity of indissoluble marriage than the\ninstability of passion.\"\n\nBut here our difficulties begin.  Though it may be abundantly clear\nthat Nature's ideal is Hume's and Balzac's, is it not a fact that this\n\"high has proved too high, this heroic for earth too hard\"?  Is it not\ntrue that there are murmurs and mutterings of revolt both amongst men\nand women against a burden too grievous to be borne?  Does not the\nfiction of the day represent a tendency to allow an increased laxity in\nthe interpretation of the matrimonial contract?  And where there is\nsmoke there is fire.  What novelists write other people are thinking.\nHas the time come to reconsider our position with regard to marriage\nand the permanent obligations hitherto associated with it?\n\nWe answer decisively, No.  It is not the institution which is at fault,\nbut the individuals who embrace it.  We spoke of marriage as Nature's\ngreat sacrament, and so it is.  And as with \"the Lord's Supper\" the\nunworthy participant is said to \"eat and drink only condemnation to\nhimself,\" so is it with they who draw near to Nature's banquet and\nattempt, unprepared, to partake of the deepest joys of life.  Their\nprofanity smites them with a curse.  We hold up our hands in no\nPharisaic spirit of holy horror, but we ask the men and women of this\ngeneration and of those classes from which these mutterings and\nthreatenings of revolt mainly emanate--we ask them, whether marriage,\nas they understand the term, can be other than a bloodless martyrdom?\nIf that individual who gave her name to a novel two or three seasons\nago, if the young woman known as _Dodo_ be a type--and it was noted by\nthe critics of the time that such was the character of the fashionable\nyoung _mondaine_ of the day, greedy for nothing but excitement and\nsensuous existence, incapable of serious thought, rebellious against, I\nwill not say the restraints, but even the _convenances_ of civilised\nlife, with no pretension to anything remotely resembling character or\nmoral earnestness, a wild, gay, frittering, helpless creature, whom it\nwere blasphemy to think of in the same day with noble womanhood as we\nall have known it--if _that_, I say, is the type of the young\n_mondaine_ of the hour, then I have no doubt they will give the\nnovelists and playwrights plenty of employment in describing their\nself-imposed torments, the insufferable bondage to which they are\nsubjected.  But does any one propose to alter the moral law for them?\nIf mothers in modern Babylon are ready to labour day and night in\nattempting to catch as husbands for their daughters men in whom one and\none only qualification is asked, namely, that of wealth, then their\nperdition be upon their own heads and on those of the luckless pair who\nare literally speaking \"crucified on a cross of gold\".  If girls\ncontinue to be brought up with the preposterous notion that marriage is\nthe one profession open to them, and that therefore they are by no\nmeans to risk the loss of an \"engagement,\" no matter who the employer\nmay be, and that the wealthier he is the more suitable he is to be\nadjudged, then let us abandon all attempts at reaching our ideal.  But\nlet us at the same time prepare for the overthrow of the home and the\nfamily; for the destruction of \"pure religion breathing household\nlaws,\" and of the stately, dignified, domestic life, which has been the\nglory of every land where Nature's true ideal has been worthily upheld.\n\nIf boys are brought up at school, or taught by the social atmosphere\nthey breathe on first entering into early manhood, to conceive of\nmarriage as in no wise nobler or loftier in essence than any of those\n_mariages apres la nature_, those ephemeral associations, terminable at\nwill; that the only difference between them is, that the one is legal\nand permanent, the other voluntary and dissoluble, then so long will\nthe scandals of divorce and the revolt against marriage continue to be\nheard.  What one complains of is the utter lack of reverence in the\nview which is taken of this most solemn of all acts.  There is no\nidealism in the contract.  The thoughtless youth who has grown up in\nwhat one may call the \"wild oats\" theory is, we suggest, utterly\nincapable of appreciating the absolutely inestimable blessings which\nwedded love might have brought him.  How can he?  He has \"wasted his\nsubstance, living riotously,\" and the most precious of all the\ntreasures he has squandered is that of his idealism.  _His wife can\nscarcely be to him what she might have been had he come to her as he\nexpected her to come to him_.  \"The golden gates are closed,\" \"a glory\nhas passed from the earth\".  This is pain enough to make hearts weep,\nbut it is the operation of that inflexible law of Compensation, that\nnot all the tears of sorrow, not all the absolutions and sacrificial\natonements of Churches, can undo that past, can make that young man to\nbe as in the days of his youth, before the experimental \"knowledge of\ngood and evil\" touched him.\n\nOur remedy is, therefore, not to destroy the institution of Nature, but\nto reform the candidates who undertake to embrace it.  An ethical\nreligion would reprobate the sacrilegious bargains in which bodies are\nexchanged for gold, and refuse to accord them the honorific title of\nmarriage, which is first and foremost a union of souls.  Time and again\nhave we seen that the springs of all things are in the invisible world,\nfrom the breath of a flower to the energy that pulsates in the great\nbosom of the ocean, or governs the movements of the uttermost star.  It\nis so here.  Not the transference of bodies, of titles, of wealth or\nstation, are the sacrament.  They are merely the accessories, the\noutward form, the symbol of something higher and Diviner far, of the\ninvisible love, which is everywhere, yet manifests itself in especial\nmanner in these two souls, speaking even in their very countenances of\nan emotion supreme and irresistible.  An ethical religion, wholly based\nupon and identified with morality, would refuse to sanction any\nmarriage but that we have described, a union based upon a supreme\naffection between two who had worthily prepared themselves for its\nconsummation, and believed in the permanence of their tie.\n\nWith regard to the modern maiden--the _Dodos_ and their kindred\nswains--it would be infinitely preferable that they did not degrade the\nsanctity of a natural sacrament by profanely prostituting it to their\ntemporal and social convenience.  Far better that they betook\nthemselves to \"the marriage after the truth of nature\" than to the\ngreat human institution of which Milton sang:--\n\n  Hail, wedded love, mysterious law,\n  True source of human offspring!\n\nThey do but defile it by their patronage, and having manifestly spoiled\nthemselves by their reckless lives for the entertainment of any emotion\ndeeper than mere sensuousness, they are bound at length to bring a\nnoble institution into contempt, and drag it down in their own fall.\nYou do not believe, we would say to them, in the eternity of soul and\nlove, and therefore the nature sacrament is not for you.  But having\npresented yourselves at its sacred table, and partaken of its rites, do\nnot, if only for motives of mere decency, betake yourselves to the\ndenunciation of that of which, indeed, you were never worthy.\n\nWeek by week, at the services of the ethical Church, we see numbers of\nyoung men who doubtless aspire one day to share in the benediction\nwhich a true marriage alone can bring them.  Their presence is welcome\nas a testimony to the virility and inspiration of the ethic creed which\nis strong enough to prevail over other inducements which would take\nthem far afield.  It shows that spirit overcomes the flesh, and that\nthe culture of the mind is not postponed to the relaxation and\nenjoyment of the body.\n\nWhat the ethical religion says to all such as they is this: Live so as\nto be worthy of that which you one day hope to receive at Nature's\nhands--a pure, good and true wife.  Somewhere, in some corner of this\nearth, unknown to you, unknown to her, she is being made ready for the\nhour of your espousals.  You will know her when you see her.  Wait\nuntil you do.  Remember the requisite preparation of the body, and now\nforget not the preparation of the mind.\n\nMarriage is based on friendship, that true kinsman of love, which made\na poet call his friend \"O thou half of my own soul!\" [2]  Your wife\nmust be your friend.  True love, the love of which true marriages are\nmade, is friendship transfigured--the halo, the glory, of a supreme\nemotion coming to crown that which is most enduring on this earth.\nJust as we say that our religion is morality, is duty, only\netherealised by viewing it as the expressed mind and will of the Soul\nof all souls, the World-intelligence, so do we think of marriage as\nbased on a union of souls by friendship, inspired by a deep mutual\nrespect, not for what the partners have, but for what they are, and\nfinally made glorious in the light of an unfading love.  Live, we would\ncounsel you, so as to be worthy one day of the reverence of a woman's\npure and untried soul.\n\nAnd our message to womanhood is not dissimilar.  Live, we would say, so\nthat you be worthy of the respect, of the homage of all men.  Your\nnature is such that virtue in you has a double charm, wherefore you are\nvisibly marked out as the treasury wherein the ideal is enshrined and\nhanded down through all the generations of men.\n\nA nation is, ethically speaking, worth just what its women are worth,\nand we must therefore rejoice, and greatly rejoice, to know that the\ncontention which is being increasingly put forth by women, that the men\nwho demand their sisters' hands should themselves be arrayed in\nsuitable wedding garment, is convincing evidence of a strong ethical\nenthusiasm which is beginning to pervade the sex, and a determination\nto ennoble more and more that one great sacramental ordinance of\nNature, marriage.\n\n  All things transitory\n  But as symbols are sent;\n  Earth's insufficiency grows to event;\n  The indescribable,\n  Here it is done,\n  _The ever-womanly leadeth us_\n  _Upward and on._\n        --GOETHE.\n\n\n\n[1] Pp. 431-443.\n\n[2] \"Dimidium animae meae\" (Horace).\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nTHE ETHICAL CHURCH AND POSITIVISM.\n\nThe appearance within the last hundred years of different philosophical\nattempts to produce a synthesis which should combine at once a system\nof thought for the guidance of the mind, and a source of enthusiasm for\nthe inspiration of the heart, is significant of many things, but\nchiefly of two.  In the first place it is evidence that the present has\noutgrown the past; that the religion of medievalism is inadequate to\nmodern needs; that\n\n  Still the new transcends the old,\n  In signs and tokens manifold.\n\nAnd, next, it would appear to indicate the serious disposition of the\nnew Age.  If we find the thinkers of humanity uniformly tending towards\na given direction, we may be sure there is an undefined, perhaps\nunconscious, though none the less real, desire on the part of the age\nto be led thither.  Thus, at the close of the last century, Immanuel\nKant, while undermining the ground on which the faith of old rested,\nattempted that new presentation of religion, as essential and sovereign\nmorality, with which we are so familiar.  And, within half a century of\nthe foundation of the new Church, we meet with another bold and\ncomprehensive effort to revivify religion, which had grown cold in the\nheart of his country, by showing that its chief expression is to be\nfound in that \"love of the brotherhood\" whereby Jesus Christ declared\nhis own truest followers would ever be known.  \"We tire of thinking and\neven of acting,\" this foremost of the thinkers of his age declared, but\n\"we never tire of loving\".  I need not say that these are the words of\nAuguste Comte, one of the two men in this nineteenth century who had\nlearning enough to grasp the universal knowable, and genius enough to\nexpress it in a clearly defined philosophic system.  His fellow and\ncompeer, of course, is our own Herbert Spencer.\n\nNow, no one will be able to even dimly appreciate the significance of\nthe work of Immanuel Kant and Auguste Comte unless he realises that the\ninspiration which moved them both was that which we call religion.  As\nthe rivers flow into the sea, so the streams of knowledge converge at a\npoint which marks the limits of the finite, the boundaries of the\nInfinite.  There never was a system of thought yet which did not\nculminate in the sublimity of religion.  From the first system of all,\nthe immortal Aristotle's, down to Kant's, Comte's and Spencer's in our\nown times, the issue is always the same: philosophy leads the way to\nthe Boundless; it lifts the veils of the Eternal.  And therefore Kant\nand Comte, each in his own way, while setting forth their exposition of\nintellectual truth, endeavoured to provide a stimulus to move the heart\nof man to put its plain teachings into execution.\n\nThough at first sight there appears to be nothing but irreconcilable\nopposition between the critical and positivist systems, there is,\nnevertheless, a fundamental unity which Comte was quick enough to\ndetect, for he pronounced Kant \"the most positive of all\nmetaphysicians\".  What led him to this conviction was the fact that the\nGerman philosopher had, like himself, based his whole idealism on the\nsure ground of morality which cannot be overthrown.  As Spinoza was\ncalled by Novalis \"a God-intoxicated man,\" so Comte was described by\nMill as \"morality-intoxicated,\" for in the purity and elevation of his\nethical conceptions he comes nearest of all to the austere standard set\nup by Kant and Emerson.\n\nNor do the points of resemblance stop here.  In the course of this\nchapter it will become ever more evident that there is no\nirreconcilable opposition between the ethical religion of Kant and the\nReligion of Humanity of Comte, nay, that there appears to be a\nwell-grounded hope that the Church of the Future, which we salute from\nafar, and towards the building of which we are each contributing our\nshare, will in the main embrace as its essential features the teaching\nof these two great men.  For that Church will aspire to guide men in\ntheir private and in their public capacities, in their individual and\nin their social life.  The ethic of Kant, the categorical imperative of\nduty, will be the inspiration of the individual; the _Politique\nPositive_ of Comte will govern him in his social and political\nrelations, while in the supreme concern of worship, I venture to\nforetell a widening of the Comtist ideal so as to admit of such\nconceptions as underlie the philosophical belief of Mr. Spencer, that\nthe world and man are but \"the fugitive product of a Power without\nbeginning or end,\" whose essence is ineffable.  Thus the agnosticism of\nto-day will contribute to the reverence of the future, while I firmly\nbelieve that the religion of Humanity will come to be so interpreted as\nnot to wholly exclude belief in an Existence anterior to man and to all\nthings, from whom he and all he knows aboriginally sprang, unto whom he\nand all things ultimately return.  Nothing shall be lost of these words\nof life which have fallen from Wisdom's lips; they are treasured now in\nmany hearts, and some day, near or distant, they will be one and all\nincorporated in some diviner gospel than any which has yet been heard,\nand preached in some church, vast enough, catholic enough, for the\ninspiration of the race.  _Reposita est haec spes in sinu meo_.\n\nIn the meantime, we must attempt something of a succinct statement of\nthe ethical, social and religious system with which the name of Auguste\nComte is associated.\n\nIt is clear that he was early impelled to a study of the principles on\nwhich society rests by the disorganisation into which his country had\nfallen, after the upheaval of the Revolution and the disasters of the\nNapoleonic era which succeeded it.  It may even be the truth that his\nbold and subversive teaching in religious matters was due to a profound\nconviction that the virtue of the old ideals had been completely\nexhausted, and that if society was to be regenerated, it must be by a\nradical reformation of the theoretic conceptions on which it had been\nheld to repose.  Certainly there was a vast deal in the contemporary\nhistory of France to confirm Comte in his belief that Catholicism had\nspent its force.  At a period of crisis in a nation's history, thinking\nmen naturally look about them for some strong influence, for some\ncommanding ideal which can serve as a rallying point in times of social\ndispersion, and help to keep the severing elements of the body politic\ntogether.  But what had religion done for France in the hour of her\ntrial?  So little, that the country had to wade through blood in order\nto reach a measure of political emancipation which England had long\nenjoyed.  In fact, it was the corruption of religion in the person of\nits official representatives, its intellectual degradation in the eyes\nof the thinkers, which helped to provoke the catastrophe.  What wonder,\nthen, that a mind so penetrating and alert as Comte's early arrived at\nthe conclusion that the _ancien regime_ in religion, no less than in\npolitics, must be abolished if progress was to be possible among men?\n\nComte, then, was essentially a social philosopher.  His work, indeed,\nis encyclopaedic--not one whit less so than Spencer's--but the aim he\npersistently kept in view was the service of man by the reconstruction,\nthrough philosophy and religion, of the foundations on which\ncivilisation rests.  It is impossible not to be impressed by the\ngrandeur of his conception, and the consuming energy with which he\naddressed himself to its realisation.  He seems to recall to us\nBrowning's Paracelsus, whose \"vast longings\" urged him forward to some\nsurpassing achievement, to some heroic attempt\n\n          To save mankind,\n  To make some unexampled sacrifice\n  In their behalf, to wring some wonderous good\n  From heaven or earth for them.\n\nWhen a young man of only twenty-four years, he had already published\nhis first work, entitled _A Plan of Scientific Works necessary to\nreorganise Society_, thus striking the keynote of his career.  We can\nfeel nothing but the strongest admiration for the man who from the\nfirst determines to subordinate knowledge, life and love, to the\nservice of the human race.  It was Comte's incessant teaching that the\nsciences were to be cultivated, not as ends in themselves, but as means\nwhereby to further human welfare.  He would have the astronomer and\nphysiologist pursue their tasks, not merely for the sake of acquiring\nknowledge, for the gratification of the curiosity to know, but for the\nbetterment of man's lot.  And for the same reason he insisted on the\npre-eminence of the sympathetic affections over the intellect.  The\nreason, he declared, must ever be the servant, _though not the slave_,\nof the emotions.  Altruism, or the service of others (a word of his own\ncoining), must be made to prevail over egoism or selfishness.  There\ncould not be a nobler conception of human duty.\n\n\nWhat was the source of the miseries which had driven the people of\nFrance to rebellion but the selfishness of absolute monarchs, of\ndissolute nobles who ground their dependants to the dust of\ndestitution, and of a corrupt hierarchy of clergymen contemptuous of\nthe people, hypocritical in their conduct, and slaves of the crown?  An\nastounding revelation that elementary religion should be preached again\nin France by a layman who had turned his back in disappointment on all\nthat priests and the past represented!\n\nAnd what is the source of the degradation of our own cities but this\nsame curse of selfishness which is ready to march to opulence and\nluxury over the bodies of the starved and poisoned toilers of our towns\nand factories, and thinks it can justify its barbarity by an off-hand\nreference to Political Economy and its irrefragable laws?  \"Supply and\ndemand\"--sacrosanct enactments of man's brains--how shall they prevail\nover the clear dictates of the conscience that thunder in our ears that\nit is murderous to grind the life out of the poor in the name of an\neconomical fetish?  Is not the man more than the meat, and the body\nmore than the raiment?  How shall not man, then, be better than many\neconomical laws?  If the laws outrage our sense of justice, then are\nthey false laws, because false to reason, and they must be abolished.\nThe unrestricted domination of the competition theory which urges men\nto buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, and pay the very\nlowest wages that poor outcasts are forced in their destitution to\naccept--is that to be the permanent condition of large masses of\ntoilers in the towns of the richest country in the world?  Is the\nmatchbox-maker to go on for ever turning out a gross for 2 1/4d.,\nproviding her own paste and string?  Are wretched women to toil from\nmorning till night folding sheets--sheets of cheap bibles at 10s. a\nweek and pay lodging and keep a family out of it?  Are men and women to\nbe decimated by consumption in the poisoned atmosphere of some of our\nfactories?  No commonwealth can exist on such a basis, and if\neconomical laws are invoked in its support, those laws are an infamy.\nNo wonder Carlyle fiercely denounced it all as \"a wretched,\nunsympathetic, scraggy atheism and egoism\".\n\nWell, Auguste Comte had witnessed all this and possibly worse than this\nin Prance.  He knew the institutions of his country and of his age, and\nhe came to the deliberate conclusion that if any progress was to be\nmade, if this degrading egoism was to be put down, this callous\ninsensibility on the part of employers towards the labourers, whose\nslow martyrdom produces the wealth they enjoy, the whole scheme of\nsocial philosophy would have to be reconsidered and a new foundation\nprovided whereon to build the commonwealth.  \"You want altruism in\nplace of egoism; sympathy instead of selfishness,\" he preached.  \"How\nare you going to obtain it?  For eighteen centuries now you have been\nwalking in one beaten path, following one and the same light, listening\nto the same spiritual guides.  What have they taught you?  Whither have\nthey led you?  To the impasse which you have now reached.  Has not the\ntime come to begin anew; to reconstruct, to reorganise society?  And\nthis time it must be _sans dieu, sans roi, par le culte systematique de\nl'Humanite_.\"\n\n\nSuch is the remedy proposed by Auguste Comte for the malady of the\nmodern world; this is his revolutionary scheme for the establishment of\nsociety on such a basis as would conduce to progress.  It involves, as\nmay be seen, the disavowal of the belief in God and king; the\nsubstitution of a republic for a monarchy, and of humanity for God.\nComte conceived religion as the concentration of the three great\naltruistic affections, namely, of _reverence_ towards that which is\nabove us; of _love_ towards that which helps and sustains us, and\n_benevolence_ towards that which needs our co-operation.  Religion\nbeing in his judgment a supreme concern of life, though always\nsubordinated to the larger interest of social welfare, he was anxious\nto provide the new commonwealth with an idealism which should set\nbefore man a Being able to evoke these three great emotions.  Formerly\nman had bestowed them on God; Comte thought he had found a more\nexcellent way in suggesting that they might far more appropriately and\nprofitably be exercised on mankind.  The service of God, therefore,\nbeing changed into the service of man, he contended that the course of\nthings would set steadily in a higher direction, because all the\nimmense energy and enthusiasm which the worship of God had been able to\nprovoke in the past would be available in the cause of suffering,\ndown-trodden and persecuted humanity.  He wished to dam the stream of\ndevotion flowing towards the churches and God, and divert it into\nchannels that had far greater need of it--the unsatisfied and\nunprovided needs of all mankind.\n\nIs it urged that religion apart from a belief in God is an\nimpossibility?  Doubtless such is the conviction of great numbers of\npeople, and, it must be confessed, such usage of the word is not\nconsonant with prevalent custom.  Still the emotion which Comte\nexperienced for Humanity was such as no other word would adequately\nexpress.  As Mr. Mill remarks in his chapters on the Positivist System\n(p. 133)--\n\n\nIt has been said that whoever believes in the infinite nature of duty,\neven if he believe in nothing else, is religious.  Comte believes in\nwhat is meant by the infinite nature of duty, but he refers the\nobligations of duty, as well as all sentiments of devotion, to a\nconcrete object, at once ideal and real; the human race, conceived as a\ncontinuous whole, including the past, the present and the future. . . .\nCandid persons of all creeds may be willing to admit that if a person\nhas an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards which are\nable to control and discipline all his other sentiments and\npropensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that person has a\nreligion. . . .  The power which may be acquired over the mind by the\nidea of the general interest of the human race, both as a source of\nemotion and as a motive to conduct, many have perceived; but we know\nnot if any one before Comte realised so fully as he has done all the\nmajesty of which that idea is susceptible.  It ascends into the unknown\nrecesses of the past, embraces the manifold present, and descends into\nthe indefinite and unforeseeable future.  Forming a collective\nexistence without assignable beginning or end, it appeals to that\nfeeling of the infinite which is deeply rooted in human nature, and\nwhich seems necessary to the imposingness of all our highest\nconceptions.\n\n\nHowever, we must now endeavour to briefly trace the steps whereby Comte\narrived at what certainly must be acknowledged a most startling\nconclusion.\n\nA study of universal history, of which he must be acknowledged an\nabsolute master, had convinced him that all human institutions, be they\nbeliefs, forms of society or government, scientific conceptions, or\nmodes of thought in general, have passed through three distinct stages.\nThese three stages he called the theological, metaphysical and\npositive.  In the first stage history shows that man explained the\norigin of everything by explicit reference to wills like his own,\nthough, of course, invisible; and ultimately, by an appeal to one\nsupreme Will.  Thus, a thunderstorm, the rise and setting of the sun,\nthe ebb and flow of tides, the succession of seasons and crops are all\nexplained by the agency of unseen wills, powers, or divinities.  As\ntime advances, progress is so far made that all minor deities are\nmerged in the belief in one supreme Being who created the universe and\nis ever responsible for its continuance in existence.\n\nBut man at length awakens to the need of a more proximate explanation\nof phenomena, and, by such experiment as he is capable of, endeavours\nto ascertain, through their intrinsic properties or their outward\nmanifestations, the cause or causes of their being.  He leaves the\nskies and comes to earth, and seeks to read the secret of things by\nexamining the things in themselves.  This, Comte denominates the\n\"metaphysical\" stage, mainly, because the solutions given were bound up\nwith abstractions of physical realities.  Thus, if you asked Aristotle\nwhy a vegetable grew, he would reply that it had a \"nutritive soul,\" or\nprinciple, which enabled it to assimilate food.  If one asked why heavy\nbodies fall, or why flame and smoke ascend, the answer would be because\neverything tends to go to its _natural_ place, implying, thereby, that\nthere was some occult power or tendency in bodies to behave in certain\ndefinite ways.  Those were the days of the time-honoured legends about\nNature \"abhorring a vacuum,\" tolerating no \"breaks,\" and the wonders of\nher \"curative force\".  These phrases about abstractions were held to be\nadequate explanations of any of the facts about nature or man.\n\nAt length, there came the period when men demanded a straightforward\nanswer to plain questions, and refused to acquiesce in the reply that\nopium puts us to sleep because there is a _dormitive virtue_ resident\nin it.  The powers of observation and experiment having increased, it\nbecame possible by scientific test and analysis to satisfy the desire\nfor a more immediate knowledge, and thus to discover, for example, that\nwater is water, not because it possesses the form of _aquosity_, as the\nScholastics would have said, but because it is chemically composed of\noxygen and hydrogen.  This last stage Comte called the \"positive,\" and\nhence we perceive what he means when he calls his entire system by that\nname.  It marks his conviction that those methods which are so\nsuccessful in the discovery of truth in scientific matters should be\napplied to the solution of the problems of sociology and religion.  In\nother words, \"positive\" and scientific are practically synonymous\nterms, the system pledging its followers to hold nothing which is not\nits own evidence, to abandon all attempts to know anything which is not\nphenomenal, that is, an object of sense-experience, and consequently to\ndisavow metaphysics as practically equivalent to the unreal.  Thus, for\nComte, sociology, of which he may truthfully be described as the\nfounder, is as much a science as chemistry or astronomy.  It deals with\nits subject-matter, man, in precisely the same way as the astronomer\nwith the stars.  And the same is also true of religion.\n\nSuch is the famous _Law of the three States_, which has always been\ntreated by friend and foe as the key to the Comtean philosophy.  It\nonly concerns us now to describe the use he made of it in abolishing\nthe belief in God, and thus attempting to revolutionise the conception\nof religion.\n\nClosely associated with his Law of the three States is another which he\ncalls the _Law of the Wills and Causes_.  In fact, there is practically\nno difference between that law and the first or theological stage\nthrough which human knowledge goes.  It may be enunciated thus:\nWhenever the human mind is in ignorance of the proximate causes of a\ngiven phenomenon, it tends to ascribe it to the agency of superior and\ninvisible powers.  Hence, ignorance of nature, which modern science has\nlargely remedied, led men to ascribe to \"the act of God\" innumerable\nevents, even the appearance of Halley's comet, which we now\nunhesitatingly refer to subordinate agencies.  Why, then, urged Comte,\nshould we continue to believe in even one supreme Cause, when we may\nhope, with the advance of science, to give an explanation of every\nnatural occurrence or fact?  Convinced on social grounds that belief in\nthe Deity had been of no service to mankind, he sought for\nphilosophical reasons to justify his surrendering the tenet, and thus\nformulated the famous law which has just been enunciated.  If that law\nis valid and universal in its application, we should have to surrender\nall hope of Comte's co-operation with what we hold to be rational\nreligion.  But it is because I am so convinced that it is that very\nlaw, so finely framed and stated by Comte, which makes it impossible to\ndispense with belief in a supra-mundane Power, that I adhere to the\nideal which I sketched in the beginning, that Kant and Comte will be\nfound to be, after Christ, the master builders of the second temple\nwhich is to be the religious home of the ages to come.\n\nFor what does his famous law amount to?  To nothing beyond this, that\nwe are warranted in believing that no single fact, no individual\nphenomenon, of nature exists, but will be one day explained by the\nall-conquering advance of physical science.  But surely his most\nenthusiastic adherent will admit that when every phenomenon has been\nsingly explained, only half the work, and that by far the less\nsignificant part, has been done.  If the human mind is eager, and\nlegitimately eager, to explore the scene of nature's manifestations,\nmuch more will it be necessary to attempt some solution of the vaster\nfact of their concatenation, of their miraculous combination into that\nwhole which we call the universe.  It is not so much the isolated\nphenomena which strike the mind with such overpowering bewilderment, as\nthe manifest fact that in their infinite diversity and innumerable\nvarieties, they are all subordinated to one vast end--the constitution\nand the good of the whole.  Explain every sun that lines the eternal\npath into the Infinities, where no telescope can penetrate--what is\nthat to the mind that knows that the numberless series is bound\ntogether by laws which they as unhesitatingly obey as an animal when it\nwalks?  Hence, by the very terms of his own law, Comte is compelled to\nrestore to the human mind its belief in a Power other than the world,\nfor if our only justification for discarding that belief is that\nscience will explain one day the _individual_ phenomena of the\nuniverse, it is plain that man's science can never hope to explain the\norigin of the worlds themselves and the infinite complexities of their\nmutual relations.  And if science cannot hope to do that, the mind of\nman must, under penalty of going to disruption, assent to the belief\nthat there is a World-Power who is responsible for the conscious\nproduction of the universe, and therefore of ourselves.\n\nAnd I am glad to be able to say that Comte never expressly excluded\nthis belief.  On the contrary, he asserts that if a cosmic hypothesis\nis to be held at all, that of an intelligent Mind is far more probable\nthan atheism.  Indeed of atheism he has written as caustically as the\nmost orthodox could wish.  He expressly contends that the theory of\ndesign is far more probable than blind mechanism, and if he excludes\ntheism, it is not so much for philosophical as for social reasons.\nConsumed with a passion for human betterment, seeing that the \"love of\nGod\" had deplorably failed as an incentive to morality, he made the\ntremendous effort of endeavouring to substitute the love of man as a\nstimulus towards the accomplishment of duty.  If Comte denied God, let\nthe Churches and ecclesiastics of France and of Europe bear the\nresponsibility.  It was the disastrous condition into which Europe had\nfallen under their guidance which led him to despair of \"God\" as a\nrallying point for humanity.\n\nBut there is, I submit, no inherent necessity in the Positivist system\nto insist on the dogmatic exclusion of such theism as we profess under\nthe guidance of Emerson and Kant, and it is gratifying to be able to\nquote so sympathetic a supporter as J. S. Mill in favour of this\ninterpretation.  \"Whoever regards all events as parts of a constant\norder, each one being the invariable consequent of some antecedent\ncondition, or combination of conditions, accepts fully the positivist\nmode of thought: whether he acknowledges or not an universal antecedent\non which the whole system of nature was originally consequent, and\nwhether that universal antecedent is conceived as an intelligence or\nnot.\" [1]\n\nI need not say that to us who believe in Mind as the necessary\nantecedent to all things, the positivist spirit, so defined, is\nessential truth.  We believe in the Great Being revealed in the eternal\norder of the physical worlds and in the eternal order of the moral law.\nOur worship of God is therefore a worship of goodness or morality, an\nideal of justice, as seen in the lives of only the elect spirits of the\nrace, and thus \"the worship of Humanity\" is also the worship of God.\nFor where is God revealed as _worshipful_ except in the lives of the\ngreat and good?  And if religion be defined to be morality as taught in\nthe lives of the holiest servants of mankind, in what do we differ\nessentially from the ennobling conceptions of Auguste Comte?  The\nservice of man is seen to be the service of God, for we know nothing of\nGod until we have learnt to serve goodness and minister to our brother\nman.  The day will come when Comte will be honoured in the universal\nChurch as an apostle of true religion, because, like Kant, he showed\nmen that there is nothing holier or diviner on this earth than a life\nconsciously conformed to the obedience of august laws.  Comte, no less\nthan his brother philosopher, is a servant of humanity, and therefore a\nservant of God, and we conceive that both thinkers have laid mankind\nunder an immeasurable debt by showing us that that emotion of reverence\nwhich all men instinctively feel towards a Power greater than man,\ncannot be worthily satisfied except by a conscious endeavour to live as\nbefits our rational nature, and to serve \"the brethren\" out of love.\n\n\n\n[1] _Auguste Comte and Positivism_, p. 15.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\nTHE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW\n\nAS SEEN IN _HELBECK OF BANNISDALE_.\n\nCynical observers of the tendencies of the age tell us that, like the\nAthenians of Paul's days, we are \"lovers of new things\".  Doubtless we\nare, for this century, this \"wonderful century,\" as it has recently\nbeen described, is a new age or there never was one.  Hence, just as\nSpinoza saw everything _sub specie aeternitatis_, we may very well have\na tendency to see many things _sub specie novi_.  New things,\nastonishingly new things, in every imaginable department of life have\nbeen witnessed by men who saw the opening years of the century, and\n_fin-de-siecle_ as we are, the capacities of man are apparently as\ninexhaustible as ever.\n\nIt would indeed be passing strange were religion an exception to the\nuniform progress everywhere in operation.  Doubtless the aspect of that\nsupreme concern of life does change less rapidly, but change it does\nand must: _eppur si muove_.  And it is significant, as one of the most\nstriking results of the beneficent movements of our time, that, in the\nEnglish-speaking countries at least, one of the most powerful, because\nthe most far-reaching, stimuli to religious progress has been supplied\nby the hand of a woman.\n\nIt has always seemed to me that Mrs. Humphry Ward's _Robert Elsmere_\nwas the making of an epoch, and when so shrewd an observer of the\ntimes, so enthusiastic an admirer of \"the old ways\" as Mr. Gladstone,\nthought the book worth criticising and censuring, he bore eloquent\ntestimony to the effect it was evidently destined to produce.  Its\ninfluence has unquestionably been great.  There are many people who owe\nto it their first acquaintance with modern religious thought.  Numbers\nof the younger clergymen of the Establishment must have been profoundly\nmoved by it, because the faith of an Anglican is a comparatively\nelastic thing compared with the rigidity of supernatural conceptions\nwhich distinguishes the Roman Catholic communion.  It may even be true\nthat these sporadic outbreaks of Ritualism, which are so seriously\nthreatening to \"trouble Israel's peace,\" owe no little of their force\nto the far-reaching effects of the new religious controversy.  The\nNewcomes of to-day, like their prototype in the novel, may very well\nhave come to the belief that there is no salvation from that besetting\ndemon of reason and \"intellectual pride,\" but in a religion of\nsensuousness and externalism which Sydney Smith, himself, of course, a\nclergyman, once contemptuously designated as \"painted jackets and\nsanctified watering-pots\".  _Panem et Circenses_!  Bread and games!\nGive them fumes of incense, blare and blaze of sounds and lights, and\nthey may learn to forget that there ever was such a thing as a school\nof biblical criticism which has turned orthodoxy into a heresy against\nreason by telling the truth about the Bible.\n\nBiblical inspiration being attenuated to almost vanishing point, there\nis nothing left but to appeal to the Church--not, indeed, to the Church\nof to-day, lost amid the mazes and intricacies of sects and schisms,\nbut to that venerable fiction, \"the undivided Church\" of the first few\ncenturies of our era, and thus brand religion with the stigma of\nretrogression by proclaiming it the only thing which is incapable of\nprogress.\n\nNot infrequently is a progressive movement attended at first by a\npartial reaction, and it is not at all unlikely that Ritualistic\nclergymen have been terrified into an increased reliance upon forms and\nrites by the disastrous effects produced upon many of their followers\nor fellow-churchmen by the new controversial methods of Mrs. Humphry\nWard.\n\nNow, what is this new controversy?  It consists in the adoption of the\nhandiest implement available to literary genius, namely, the novel, or\nfictional history, and by consummate critical and constructive skill,\nshowing the disintegration of the old faiths and the building up of the\nnew in the life of some representative man or woman.  There is much\nmore in such a novel than appears.  First, there is the work of the\nscholar, of the man of research.  He is like the miner who works\nunderground and digs out of the hard earth that \"gem of purest ray\nserene,\" the truth.  Then comes the artist, just as cultured as the\nscholar, and only less learned, who polishes the gem and gives it its\nsetting in pages of brilliant writing, and what is more important\nstill, weaves it subtly into the daily life of some human being to whom\nit has been slowly and always painfully introduced.  Or, to vary the\nmetaphor, this new controversy is an inoculation performed by one who\npossesses a masterly acquaintance with the circulatory system of the\nspiritual anatomy, and is enabled thereby to describe with unerring\naccuracy the precise effects of the new ideal at every stage of its\nprogress through the soul.  You see before you the experiment of a new\nideal, at first only suggested, then partially welcomed and even loved.\nThen the awful struggle in which no quarter can be given on either\nside, and the final victory of the truth.  Such is the new controversy,\nthe world of truth brought down to the world of life, the fertilising\nstreams of knowledge turned by some strong, wise hand, into the narrow\nchannel of an individual existence for the purification and recreation\nof life.\n\nNaturally, the distinguished authoress turned her attention first to\nthe Anglican Church, the most cultured and liberal of the Christian\ncommunities.  Evangelical dissent cannot at present be said to be\ninteresting, at any rate from the point of view we are considering\nto-day.  It is destitute of the historic associations of Anglicanism,\nand has been, until very recently, identified with ideals little\nsuggestive of the intellectual or the beautiful.  It can scarcely be\nsaid to lend itself to effective dramatic or artistic treatment.  I am\nby no means forgetful of George Eliot, but every one will see at a\nglance that the handling of the religious question by that incomparable\ngenius is entirely different from that of Mrs. Ward in the books we are\nnoticing.  _Robert Elsmere_ stands for a system of theology and faith.\n_Dinah Morris_ speaks for herself; out of the abundance of a pure and\nbeautiful heart her mouth speaks words of wondrous grace and truth.\n\nHence, having held up the mirror to the face of Anglicanism, our\nauthoress has turned her attention to that older Church, so rich in\nmemories of the past, with so unequalled a record in the service of\nhumanity, and able even to-day to command the allegiance, the nominal\nallegiance at all events, of more than two hundred million beings.  In\n_Helbeck of Bannisdale_ we have the world and life of Roman Catholicism\ndisplayed with a minuteness and a precision which I should have thought\nscarcely possible to one not \"of the household of the faith\".  It is,\nindeed, an ideal world, a world that belongs to the past, for the\nHelbecks have all but passed away.  The _Time-Spirit_ has been too much\nfor them, and that beautiful old-world courtesy, that silent, shrinking\npiety which was nurtured on memories of martyr-ancestors who were\nbroken on the rack for the ancient faith, and long years of isolation\nand the proud contempt of the world, is now, as some Catholics\nregretfully deplore, a thing of the past.\n\nNo one knows this better than Mrs. Ward, and she has, I conceive it,\npurposely chosen a type such as Helbeck, almost an impossible survival\nin our time, because she could not otherwise have made Catholicism\ninteresting.[1]  Nor could she have succeeded in pressing home her own\nrooted conviction of the hopelessness of any attempt at compromise\nbetween the new spirit of reason and life and that of the faith of\nsaints and martyrs.  The modern Catholic, who stultifies himself and\nvilifies his faith by apologetic articles in this or that secular\nreview, in which he attempts to show that the Church which taught the\ninspiration of Genesis and condemned Galileo was all the time not\nuntrue to the scientific conceptions of Copernicus and Darwin, is a\nvery poor person in the eyes of many of us; and one thing is abundantly\ncertain, that by no possibility could even Mrs. Ward have made him the\nhero of a novel.  For a Helbeck, who has reckoned up the chances of\nlife, and deliberately made his choice, casting in his lot wholly with\nan idealism for which the modern world has absolutely no sympathy, we\ncan and do feel a deep respect.  But for your ambidextrous apologist or\ntheologian, the fellow who can make words bear double meanings, and\neven infallible oracles tell contradictory stories, we have nothing but\ncontempt, because he is a trifler with truth.\n\nAnd, now, we may turn to the book.\n\nMrs. Humphry Ward has long taught us to expect excellence, and in\n_Helbeck of Bannisdale_ we are not disappointed.  She does not work,\nindeed, on so large a canvas as in _Robert Elsmere_, nor do her\nmaterials allow her to be quite so interesting as in that masterpiece.\nAt all events, that is my individual opinion.  The atmosphere is very\nclose throughout the book, and one has a feeling that the windows of\nthat old, old house of Bannisdale have not been opened for centuries.\nOne breathes a stifling air.  Light and freedom come alone through that\ndelightful creation, Laura Fountain, a creature you do not easily\nforget, with an instinct, rather than a reasoned conviction, of\nrational truth and liberty, a being of almost wild impulse, clever,\nthough partially educated, but good to the heart's core.  Altogether, a\nwinsome, lovable girl, and tragic as was her end, one scarcely knows\nwhether she was not happier in her fate, hurried hence on the swift\nwaters of the river she had grown to love, than she ever could have\nbeen in her projected marriage with one to whom religion meant almost\nunmixed gloom.  Doubtless Helbeck found consolation in it, but it was\nsuch as he was unable to allow others to share.  Noble as we\ninstinctively feel the man to be, tender as is the passion wherewith he\nenvelops the object of his love, the shadow of the Cross is ever there.\nForgotten in the first sweet hours of their mutual avowal, it soon\nreveals its sorrowful presence, and gradually deepens into such\nunutterable gloom that the broken-hearted girl is forced to surrender\nfirst love and then life to the inexorable exigencies of his old-world\ncreed.\n\nThis, then, is the issue of the dramatic interest of the story, that\nthe attempt to unite the living with the dead ends in the destruction\nof the living, in the breaking of hearts, in one case, even unto death.\nFor the lives and loves of Helbeck and Laura must be regarded as\nallegories of the eternal truths which encompass us.  It may seem a\nharsh, a needless thing to cloud the closing page with such sudden and\nunutterable woe.  Why should not these two pass out of each other's\nlives, as do numberless others who realise the mistake of their\nprojected union?  There is no reason whatsoever save this, that all\nthings whatsoever are written in _Helbeck of Bannisdale_ are, like the\nhistory of Isaac and Ishmael, told as in an allegory.  They are symbols\nof the gulf which separates the new life from the old, and they serve\nto convey the reasoned conviction of the distinguished authoress that\nthe inspiration of the \"Ages of Faith\" is inadequate to the complex\nneeds of the larger life of to-day.\n\nThese two unhappy beings illustrate that law of growth and progress\nwhich forbids the youth to indulge in the pleasures of the child, or\nthe man to find his recreation in the pastimes of youth.  And as with\nman, so with the race.  There was a time when the world was full of\nHelbecks, an age when the religion of the Cross was the highest,\nholiest, known.  But man, in his maturer years, has outgrown that, just\nas the Cross supplanted an idealism more imperfect than itself: and the\nproof of its inadequacy is seen to-day in the blaze of evidence\nsupplied by the slow and inevitable decay of those peoples who were\nonce its steadiest champions.  Spain and Portugal are being numbered\namong the dead.  Italy and France are making violent endeavours to\nescape their doom, by restricting the liberties of the official\nrepresentatives of their legally established Church, because they\ninstinctively feel that their dogmatics mean death to the peoples who\nlive by them.  Hence, the cry, _le clericalisme, voila l'enemi!_ in\nFrance, and the _libera chiesa in libero stato!_ in Italy.  The modern\nstate, the modern man cannot live by the old ideals: the dead would\nstrangle the living.  And, therefore, Laura Fountain, the modern\nmaiden, must die.\n\nFor, look at Alan Helbeck.  He is a man who felt, who knew, himself to\nbe an anachronism, a man who had realised so fully the genius of his\nreligion, that he was thoroughly uncomfortable in the society of any\nwho were alien to it.  He saw none of his neighbours; once only he had\nbeen induced to attend a hunt ball.  The doctrine, _Extra Ecclesiam\nnulla salus_, he adopted in all its rigidity.  He fulfilled Newman's\nideal to the very letter: he was \"anxious about his soul\".  He never\ngave anything else a serious thought.  To escape hell--that nameless\nterror which stirs the soul of man to its very depths, as Mrs. Ward\nvery aptly quotes from Virgil on her title page--this was the purpose\nfor which Helbeck of Bannisdale conceived he had been placed here by a\nbeneficent God.  And on the supposition that \"Acheron\" is a reality,\nHelbeck was absolutely right.  If hell is indeed \"open to Christians,\"\nand if the path to life be exceeding strait and narrow, our bounden\nduty, as men of common sense, would be to \"go sell all we had and give\nto\" orphanages, like the Squire of Bannisdale, and appease this gloomy\nGod by a life of austerity and utter renunciation.\n\nWhy, then, do not all Christians turn Helbecks?  Simply because for the\nvery life of them they cannot believe in their own inspired\neschatology.  Verbally, of course, they assent to the whole code of\nimmoralities connected with future retribution, but \"a certain\nobstinate rationality\" in them prevents their translating their faith\ninto practice.  Hence, the Catholics we meet are no more Helbecks than\nourselves.  They do not believe in emptying their houses for the sake\nof orphanages, fasting rigorously in Lent, abstaining from intercourse\nwith their fellow-beings, or going about chanting, \"Outside the Church\nno salvation\".  Quite the contrary.  But the truth remains that Helbeck\nwas true to the ideal, and because he was, it is possible to see a\nromance and a dignity in his life, not always observable in his modern\nco-religionists.  Nobody has anything to say against _their_ \"version\"\nof Christianity, because it is, to all intents and purposes, identical\nwith the sane ideals supplied by modern thought.  No French or Italian\nstatesman would have one word to say against them, but they have a\nmorbid dread of Helbecks.  If the Helbeck ideal were multiplied\nindefinitely, it requires very little foresight to pronounce the\ngradual extinction of the commonwealth.  A nation of men who were\nsimply and seriously living so as to escape Hades would make a speedy\nend of the most prosperous community.\n\nAnd yet this man had once lived, aye and loved.  But his love was\nlawless, and when all was over, he is taken by a church dignitary in\nBelgium to witness the death of a bishop.  The prelate, weak in body,\nbut strong in faith, is vested in his pontifical robes, and makes an\nextraordinary impression upon the young layman by the fervour with\nwhich he makes his final profession of faith.  While in the exaltation\nof spirit produced by this solemn scene, he is induced to attend a\n\"retreat,\" or series of spiritual exercises, to be conducted by a\nJesuit in a house of their Order.  \"Grace\" had apparently not finally\ntriumphed, because he was within measurable distance of expulsion owing\nto the indifference of his behaviour.  However, the preacher took him\nseriously in hand, and after one more stirring appeal to absolute\nself-surrender to the Cross, or, in plain language, to turn his back on\nthe common human life of men, Helbeck's conversion is finally effected,\nand from that day to the close of his life at Bannisdale, his one\nthought was the Cross and the safety of his soul.\n\nHe had been living this melancholy existence for a number of years,\nwhen Laura Fountain, the daughter of a Cambridge professor, and a\nmember of the Ethical Society there (so we are told), broke in upon his\nlife.  Her father, as much for pity as for love, had married as his\nsecond wife the sister of Alan Helbeck, and during his life had\napparently succeeded in teaching her something of the gospel of reason,\nbecause Augustina practically abandoned her creed.  But on the death of\nher husband, it revived, and she experienced a longing to return to her\nold home.  Of course, there was joy before the angels and her brother\nAlan at the penitent's return.  Being absolutely dependent for her\ncreature comforts on her step-daughter, there was nothing for it but\nfor Laura to accompany the invalid, and prepare to spend some of her\ntime in the house of a rigid professor of a religion which her father\nhad taught her to despise.\n\nThe utmost skill is shown in the gradual transformation of their\nfeeling, from one of pitiful condescension on the one side and\nundisguised revolt on the other, to sentiments of growing esteem and\nrespect which ripen at length into a love which is tender and deep.\nThe love scene which ensues on that early summer morning when Helbeck\ndiscovers the \"wild pagan\" girl, as he thought her, in a state\nbordering on exhaustion, after her long walk across country through\nhalf the night, is a very beautiful and touching one, and reveals all\nthe mastery which the authoress commands of the language and mystery of\nthe emotions.  The image of the infidel child had stolen into the\nstrong, stern man's heart, and, next to the master passion of his life,\nhis sombre religion, completely dominated him.  They become engaged, to\nthe almost inexpressible scandal of the household, from the sour old\nhousekeeper up to Father Bowles, with his \"purring inanities\"--a\nwonderful creation--and the courtly Father Leadham, a Jesuit and a\nCambridge \"convert\".  But Helbeck holds out, trusts bravely to \"the\nintercession of saints\" and the attractiveness of Catholic worship, and\nthus some days of unclouded sunshine enter into his dark and troublous\nlife.  Like the gentleman he is, he makes no attempt at proselytism,\nand gives his word that by no speech or act of others shall his future\nwife be molested.\n\nThey spend a few weeks at the sea, where Bannisdale and all it\nrepresents is forgotten.  Laura has grown to love and lean upon this\nstrong, resolute man.  She enjoys an almost unique experience in\ntriumphing over a life which had been believed to be inaccessible to\nwoman's influence.  But the sunshine is soon overcast.  They are back\nagain in that atmosphere of depression which Bannisdale exhales, and\nthe agony begins.  The poor girl sees the life from the inside, so to\nspeak, and the hopelessness of it all dawns upon her like a desolation.\nNever could she bring herself to say and do the things she sees and\nhears about her; a voice she cannot still seems to rise from the depths\nof her being, defying her to go back on her past and forget the life\nand example of her father.  \"You dare not, you dare not,\" it kept\nsaying to her.  No, the system would hang like a pall of death between\nher and her love: she could never possess his heart.  Half of it, more\nthan half, would be given to that ideal of gloom he worshipped as the\nCross, which he correctly interpreted as the essence of the Catholic\nteaching.  When, finally, Helbeck stands by the account given of the\nlife of the Jesuit saint, Francis Borgia, who cheerfully surrenders his\nwife, disposes of his eight little children and then goes off to Rome\n\"to save his soul\" by becoming a Jesuit, the cup is full.  Her lover\ntells her the story of his own life, how he had been brought to his\npresent ideals--a story of exceeding great pathos, which utterly\novercomes the sensitive, shrinking girl by his side--but it was the\nend.  Half-hysterically she falls into his arms, and Helbeck almost\nbelieves the great renunciation is to follow.  \"His heart beat with a\nhappiness he had never known before.\"  But he was never farther from\nthe truth.  \"It would be a crime--a _crime_ to marry him,\" the\nheart-broken girl sobbed, when she reached the privacy of her own room.\n\nAnd so she turns her back on Bannisdale.  But fate compels her to\nreturn.  Her step-mother is dying, and Laura's presence is\nindispensable.  Once again the old battle is renewed 'twixt love and\ncreed, and in her anguish this child of the modern world resolves to\nforce herself to submit that she may save her love.  Father Leadham\ncan, he _must_, convince her.  Has he not convinced Protestant\nclergymen and other learned people?  Why not a poor, untutored girl\nsuch as her?  But it was never to be.  She was afraid to lose her love,\nbut there was something in her which conquered fear, and it reasserted\nitself at the last.  \"I told you to make me afraid,\" she had once said\nto Helbeck in one of their sweet moments of reconciliation, \"but you\ncan't!  There is something in me that fears nothing, not even the\nbreaking of both our hearts.\"\n\nAnd so, with the awful inevitableness of a Greek tragedy, the action\nmoves towards the closing doom.  It is sad beyond words, and we are\ngrateful for Mrs. Ward's noble reticence.  \"The tyrant river that she\nloved had received her, had taken life, and then had borne her on its\nswirl of waters, straight for that little creek where, once before, it\nhad tossed a human prey upon the beach.  There, beating against the\ngravelly bank, in a soft helplessness, her bright hair tangled among\nthe drift of branch and leaf brought down by the storm, Helbeck found\nher.\"\n\nHe carried her home upon his breast, and at the last they laid her\namongst the Westmoreland rocks and trees, in sight of the Bannisdale\nwoods, in a sweet graveyard, high in the hills.  The country folk came\nin great numbers, and Helbeck, more estranged than ever now, watched\nthe mournful scene from afar.\n\nSuch is the tragedy of faith and love, which bequeathed to the already\nlonely and sorrowful man memories so unspeakably sad, and led this new\nAntigone to immolate herself in so awful a manner--\"a blind witness to\naugust things\".\n\nFor us there remains but one question.  Helbeck, it is plain, can never\nwin Laura, but can Laura ever hope to win Helbeck?\n\nOne would have to answer with many distinctions.  In the first place,\nmuch has been done already.  The true Helbeck type is fast\ndisappearing, buried or lost in inaccessible places like the fells of\nWestmoreland, or Breton castles, far from the highway of humanity's\ndaily life.  Had not Mrs. Ward reminded us of him, we should have\nalmost forgotten his existence.  The modern spirit, of which Laura is\nthe type, has steadily eliminated the species.\n\nNext, though Roman Catholicism occupies a far different position from\nthat it held in the days when Yorkshire and Lancashire were plentifully\nstudded with houses and homes such as Bannisdale, it must be remembered\nthat the successors of the sixteenth century Helbecks are only _magni\nnomines umbra_.  To the modern Catholic, religion is less than ever a\nlife to be lived, a distinct type to be created; it is increasingly\nrecognised merely as a creed to be believed.  Helbeck of Bannisdale you\ncould pick out of a crowd, but a congregation at the Oratory or Farm\nStreet differs in nothing from one at St. Peter's, Eaton Square, or the\nsmartest Congregational chapel.  They all mingle indistinguishably in\nthe \"church parade\" and are lost.\n\nIt is the victory of the \"world\" overcoming \"faith\".\n\nThe modern Catholic believes with the Church as against the world, in\nthe importance of \"orders\" or the truth of transubstantiation and\ninfallibility, but his life is with the world.  Emphatically, his\n_conversation_ is not in heaven.  He is one of us.  He is like\nNicodemus, a disciple in secret, for various reasons, of which he is\nprobably utterly unconscious.  His Catholicism no more alienates him\nfrom modern life than Wallace's profound belief in phrenology puts him\nbeyond the pale of science.  His differences with the modern world are\npurely speculative, having little or no bearing on practical life, and\ntherefore the world is content to take Catholicism at its own\nvaluation.  How far this is from Helbeck one can easily divine, but\nLaura has brought them leagues from that Westmoreland home of\nimpossible ideals and all it symbolises.\n\nAt the same time, no one need look for the disappearance of that\nspeculative system known as modern Catholicism.  The type, the life\nindeed has gone, and gone for ever; but there will always be a \"crowd\nwhich no man can number,\" who prefer to sit and submit to being up and\ndoing for themselves.  Reason and authority must ever continue to be\nthe watchwords of the two great sections into which humanity is divided\non the religious question.  They must ever be contrasted as habits of\nmind, as sources whence faith arises.  But it needs no exceptional\ndiscernment to see that the religion of the strenuous and progressive,\nthe peoples who move the world and make its history, cannot by any\npossibility known to us be a religion of undiluted authority.  As a man\nis, so are the gods he worships, for the gods are the ideal.  Therefore\nthe progressive nations who find it impossible to stand still, not to\nspeak of looking back, will more and more recede from even the remnant\nof the Helbeck ideal which remains to us to-day, and find their\ninspiration in a religion which is advancing like themselves.  What!\nscience grow, knowledge increase, freedom advance, and religion only\nstagnate!  Perish the thought!  Our religion, like our knowledge, grows\nfrom day to day, because it is only through the deepening knowledge of\nthe universe and of himself that man is enabled to rise to a\nproportionate knowledge of That of which all things are but transitory\nsymbols.  Creeds and systems, prisons of the infinite spirit of man,\nnever can they befit the age in which the ideal of progress has\nentered, like an intoxication, into the soul.  \"The snare is broken and\nwe are delivered.\"  Woe to the man, woe to the people, who are content\nto sit or stand!  Woe to them whose hope is in the dead past, and not\nin their living selves!  Woe to the faith that has no better message\nfor the eager, palpitating generations of to-day, than a bundle of\nparchments from the third or fourth century, or the impossible\npractices of an age when the life of the world stood still!  They shall\nnever inherit the earth.  The new heaven, the better land, is reserved\nfor the strenuous and the progressive alone, for \"the kingdom of heaven\nsuffereth violence, and the violent bear it away\".\n\n\n\n[1] The Rev. Father Clarke, of the Jesuit Society, in the _Nineteenth\nCentury_ of September, 1898, refuses to recognise Helbeck as true to\nthe Catholic type.  Certainly, he is not a modern Roman Catholic, and\nprobably Mrs. Ward knows this as well as her critic.  The question is,\nwhich conforms to type, the old or the modern English Catholic?  Mr.\nMivart's \"liberal catholic\" criticisms of Father Clarke in the October\nnumber of the same review are good, very good, reading.\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\nTHE RELIGION OF TENNYSON.\n\nProphecy and poetry are the embodiment in artistic form of the abstract\nconceptions of the philosopher.  As the philosopher thinks, so the\nprophet preaches, so the poet sings.  Thinking, speaking, singing, are\nthe three acts in the ascending scale of the soul's self-manifestation.\nGenerally speaking, these high functions are not found in their\nperfection in one and the same soul; rarely do you meet with the spirit\nof the philosopher, prophet and poet incarnate in one mortal frame.\nSuch enterprise is too great for all but the greatest, and amongst\nthese may possibly be classed the poet-prophet of Israel, Isaiah, the\nwriters of some of the Vedic hymns and Hebrew psalms, and Jesus of\nNazara, whose soul was full of music, and whose thinking and preaching\nwill probably fill the thoughts of man throughout all time.\n\nThe significance of philosophical and prophetic teaching in religion is\na frequent subject of thought in our circles, and now the recent\npublication of Tennyson's life enables us to say something of the\n_Religio Poetae_--the idealism which inspired the soul of a nineteenth\ncentury poet.\n\nThe poet's name is not without significance and interest.  It is a\nGreek word signifying \"maker\" or \"creator\"--_Poietes_.  There is a\nphilosophy in language however much we continue to ask, \"What's in a\nname?\"  When those wonderful Greeks wished to express the thinker's\nart, they spoke of _Sophia_ or wisdom; when they heard the first\npreacher who told them of their innermost selves, they called him the\n_Prophetes_ or prophet, the man that speaketh forth as from an\nillimitable deep; and when they listened to the soul of music coming\nfrom the lips of a Homer or a Sappho, they called it by the most\nexpressive name of all, \"making\" or \"creation\".  The poet was a\ncreator.  And so he is if we come to think of it.  Out of the materials\nsupplied to him by the thinking of other intelligences, he weaves his\nsong of joy and beauty which holds our senses as in a spell, and steeps\nour souls in ecstasy.  He is a \"reed,\" to use an expression of Tennyson\nhimself, \"through which all things blow to music\".  He is the creator\nof the ideal world _par excellence_; the keys of the Unseen are in his\nkeeping.\n\nWe say that he transfigures the thoughts of other intelligences, that\nhe turns his genius to the rhythmic expression of the towering\nfantasies of the philosopher.  And he does.  Poetry without thought\nwould be a jingle--a word which, if we may trust the reviews, is a\nsatisfactory account of much of the \"minor\" poetry of the day.  If a\nman does not see somewhat deeper into himself and things than the\naverage human being, never among the sacred band of lyric souls can he\nfind a lasting place.  Philosophy is the propaedeutic of poetry.  But\nsurely, it may be urged, the book of nature is open to every one, and a\npoet's soul may sing of that without any need of the philosopher's\ninterpretation.  Has not some of the sublimest verse been Nature\npoetry?  True, but this undoubted fact only confirms our statement.\nWhen Wordsworth interprets nature in song, he is borrowing from a\nphilosopher; he is reading the thoughts of an intelligence other than\nhis own.  He is revealing to you the innermost thoughts of that supreme\nMind, who conceived the beautiful whole, and made it to be a thought of\nhimself.  The deepest thinker is he who thinks his thoughts into deeds.\nThere is a First Philosopher as there is a First Poet or Maker, and\nbecause we are in our innermost selves of his kindred, we have the\npower to think his thoughts again, and create an ideal world which\nshall be the counterpart of his own.  Men may be philosophers and poets\nbecause the First Poet and First Thinker is their Parent.\n\nThis is not mysticism, still less imagination, but the soberest of\nrealities.  In it you read the interpretation of the indisputable fact\nthat the world's greatest poets were men of intensely religious\nfeeling.  They come so near to the Supreme Poet that their sense of the\nInfinite is extraordinarily developed.  It is gravely questionable\nwhether a man can be a great poet unless the influence of his great\nprototype be a power in his life; unless his religious instincts be\nreverently cultivated.  A religious sense is needful to the highest\nflights.  Go over the greatest names of the past and present and you\nwill see how \"the Over-soul\" has been the truest source of inspiration.\nThe unknown singers of the Vedic hymns, Homer, Sophocles, Virgil,\nDante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, and in our days,\nTennyson and Browning--in them all the religious sense, the instinct of\ncommunion with the unseen world, is a distinguishing mark and\ncharacteristic.  A name here and there may be quoted on the other side,\nbut as far as my memory serves me for the moment, it would appear on\ncloser examination that such were exceptions only in appearance.  An\nexcess, not a defect, of reverential feeling is often the explanation\nof such non-manifestation of religious emotion as we may notice.  With\nGoethe, they would appear to feel the presumption of individualising,\nthe great Soul of the worlds by even so much as naming him.\n\n  Who dare name him, and who confess I believe him!\n\n\nThere is a reverent as well as an irreverent impatience of forms\nassociated with the Formless and the Infinite; and because of it one\nnever yet heard or read of a man truly great who had not the\nprofoundest reverence for religion.  But, however that may be, it is\nplain that we are justified in speaking of a poet's religion, and in\ndiscussing the religious conceptions which took shape in the soul of\none of the two great poets of the Victorian era.\n\nFive years ago Tennyson passed hence, \"crossing the bar\" on that\ntideless sea, still as the silent life which left its worn-out frame to\n\"turn again home\".  So much as the great poet desired that the world\nshould know of his own aspirations, his hopes and fears of the great\nHereafter, has been given to us in his own sweet singing, and a memoir\nwritten by his son.  It turns out that Tennyson was no exception to his\nnoble order.  Like all the great singers he was a man of faith--a man\npenetrated to his heart's core with the sense of the indestructible\ncharacter of the religious instinct, and of man's deep need of\ncommunion with the Great Life which is within and beyond him--the Soul\nof souls whom men call God.\n\nThe significance of this fact is not to be lost upon reflective minds.\nIn an age when positive science has made a progress which borders\nalmost on the miraculous; when discoveries of the innermost secrets of\nnature, coupled with astounding combinations of her elements and\nforces, which supply us with the chemical contrivances and implements\nfor further research surpassing the wildest dreams of astrologers and\nalchemists of old, there has been an unmistakable tendency to push the\nDivine agency farther and farther back in the chain of phenomenal\ncausation, until it would appear that it had been finally thrust out of\nthe world altogether.  \"I have swept the heavens with my telescope,\"\nsaid Lalande, \"and I have not found your God.\"  \"The heavens are\ntelling no more the glory of God,\" said Auguste Comte, \"but that of\nHerschel and Laplace.\"  Is it indeed so?  The past has done all in its\npower to make it so, and Lalande and Comte represent the inevitable and\nnatural reaction against the incredible puerilities, the stupid,\nobstinate opposition to all science not in conformity with the Nicene\nand Athanasian Creeds, or the fables incorporated in the Hebrew\nCosmogony.  But that past is past indeed, and never can come back\nagain.  The world returns no more to discarded ideals; the conception\nof theology as \"queen of the sciences\" is as hopelessly impossible in\nthe civilised world as the Divine right of kings.\n\nThe result is that prophets and poets are \"men of God\" still, and\nnotwithstanding Lalande and Comte, the heavens are not so dazzling as\nto quench for them the glory of a Diviner revelation which they scarce\nconceal.  I frankly say that I had rather believe all the fables of the\nTalmud and the Koran than that the empty shadows of a vulgar\nsuperstition are all that lie beneath the stately verse of \"In\nMemoriam,\" or the \"Rabbi Ben Ezra\" of Browning.\n\nThe religion of Tennyson is a perfume which fills much that he writes.\nIt is a \"spirit\" which broods over many a song, but is incarnate, so to\nspeak, in the elegy which immortalises the tomb of his lost friend.\nFor Tennyson, the spirit of poetry is the spirit of religion--a blowing\nto music of the deepest thoughts of the philosopher.  In \"Merlin and\nthe Gleam\" we may read this as in an allegory:--\n\n  Great the Master\n  And sweet the magic,\n  When o'er the valley\n  In early summers,\n  O'er the mountain,\n  On human faces,\n  And all around me\n  Moving to melody\n  Floated the gleam.\n\nThe spirit of poetry, which bade him follow on in spite of\ndiscouragement, touched all on which it hovered with a mystic light,\n\"moving him to melody\".  It was the soul of religion, binding the\nspirit of man to nature and to \"human faces\" in themselves, and to the\nSupreme, in whom all is One.\n\nBut what is an allegory in the spirit of the gleam is a reality in the\nsong of love, \"passing the love of women,\" which he laid as the noblest\noffering ever yet made at the bier of a departed friend.  The religion\nof Tennyson is there, but the poem must be carefully studied if its\ntrue inwardness is to be grasped.  Isolating a few stanzas wherein the\npoet, alarmed and perplexed at the cruelties and terrors of Nature, her\ndark and circuitous ways, her astounding prodigality and wastefulness,\nlifts up in his helplessness \"lame hands of faith,\" and falters where\nonce he firmly trod, many writers have professed to see in Tennyson the\nexpression of a reverent agnosticism.  Such agnosticism we may all\nrespect, for it is very different from the noisy, clamorous thing\nwhich, aping in name the humility of greater men, insists that the\nsense limitations imposed upon its own intelligence shall forthwith be\nerected into a dogma to be accepted as infallible by everybody else's\nintelligence.  Be as reverent as Darwin in your agnosticism, as\ntolerant as Comte, we would say to such men, and there is much to\ncommend in your teaching; but spare us the ridiculous spectacle of a\nhandful of pamphleteers and minor essayists arraigning the sublimest\nphilosophy ever known to the world, and consecrated by the homage of\nninety out of every hundred thinkers who have ever approached its\nstudy, as a system erected upon a mirage--the image of a man's own\npersonality distorted by its projection into the infinite.  Tennyson\nhimself once said that \"the average Englishman's god was an\nimmeasurable clergyman, and that not a few of them mistook their devil\nfor their god\", That may very well be, but the philosophers of the\nworld who have built the house of wisdom are not \"average Englishmen,\"\nand to describe their theism as the imagination of an immeasurable\nman--surpliced clergyman or otherwise--is a criticism, not of the\nphilosophers, but of their would-be critics.  _Non ragionian di lor, ma\nguarda e passa!_\n\nBut Tennyson was a passionately convinced theist.  With that scrupulous\nvoraciousness which, according to those who knew him most intimately,\nwas his leading characteristic, he surveys nature not only with the\nreverent eye of a mystic, but with the exact vision of science, and\nfaithfully reports what he sees--so faithfully, indeed, that he was\nhailed by Tyndall in, the sixties as \"the poet of science\".  Loving\ntruth, \"by which no man yet was ever harmed,\" he does not hesitate to\nportray nature \"red in tooth and claw with ravine shrieking against the\ncreed\" of a moral and beneficent power.  And when no reconciliation is\nobvious he can but \"faintly trust the larger hope\" and point hence\nwhere possibly the discords of life will be resolved into a final\nharmony.\n\n  What hope of answer or redress?\n  Behind the veil, behind the veil!\n\n\nBut these facts, however unmistakable, are powerless to alter the main\ninevitable conclusion that beneficent power does rule the cosmos,\nthough they may modify it provisionally, until a better insight into\nthe workings of nature supplies us with a clue to the mystery's\nsolution.  He is a sorry philosopher indeed who will insist that\nnothing whatever can be known because everything cannot be known, that\nan established fact must be no fact because no explanation of it is\nforthcoming.  Tennyson is not one of these thriftless people, and the\n\"In Memoriam,\" read aright, leads one upward \"upon the great world's\naltar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God\".\n\nThe poem is a drama of life.  It was not written at one time or one\nplace, but over a path of some years.  Those years and places are a\nsymbol of the ever-changeful thoughts and moods of man who communes\nmuch with the world concealed behind the veil of sense.  It is the\nvivid portraiture of the soul, its sorrows, doubts, anxieties, and\naspirations; it tells of the eclipse as well as of the dawn and\nmeridian of faith.  In fact, it is Tennyson's own religious life which\nis the life of uncounted numbers in these latter times.  Before the\nsupreme sad experience, the sudden, and to him incomprehensible, death\nof Arthur Hallam, the poet had agnostic leanings.  He did then\nveritably fail and \"falter\" before the questions of life and death\nwhich beset him.  His long years of comparative poverty, \"the eternal\nwant of pence,\" his failure to attract any measure of attention, his\nlong-delayed marriage as far off as ever, the _res angusta domi_ which\nmade his family dependent upon him, all conspired to shut out the\nvision of anything but an iron necessity controlling him and\neverything.  Such lives are infinitely pathetic, and perhaps one had\nrather devote oneself to ministering to minds distressed like these\nthan to any other form of charitable enterprise.  Such souls have been\nwounded inexpressibly; they are sore to the most delicate touch, and\ngentle indeed must be the hand, and soft the voice, which would comfort\nstricken creatures like these.  To think of such afflicted spirits is\nto recall the picture of the ideal servant of Jahveh, of whom Isaiah\nsings in words of unearthly beauty: \"A bruised reed he shall not break\nand a smoking flax he shall not quench,\" for only by ministrations such\nas these can they be healed.\n\nStrangely enough, as it would seem, it was the last and saddest\nexperience of all, the blow which almost crushed his life, which\nbrought the young soul back to health and strength.  It was the hand of\ndeath, inopportunely touching the fairest and noblest thing he ever\nhoped to know, which helped him to see that--\n\n  My own dim life should teach me this,\n  That life shall live for evermore,\n  Else earth is darkness at the core,\n  And dust and ashes all that is.\n\n\nThe conception of such a life as that of his lost friend, annihilated\nwith the vanishing of the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice,\nwas plainly an impossible one, and if one remembers all the bright\nhopes, the extraordinarily brilliant future which, in the judgment of\nall who knew him, were buried with that young life, it is impossible to\nmarvel at the change his death produced in the heart of his poet friend.\n\nNow this temporary eclipse of faith is truthfully set forth in the\npoem, together with the manifold reasons which weigh at times so\npowerfully, even with the most devout minds, suggesting that the\nuniverse is not \"righteous at heart\".  We all know them well, for we\nhave felt them, and it is a comfort for us to be assured that minds\nmore penetrating, consciences more sensitive, and emotions far deeper,\nhave been enabled to withstand the shock which nature so rudely deals\nat our moral instincts, and to believe with a fervour and enthusiasm\nconquering all obstacles, that--\n\n          Good\n  Will be the final goal of ill,\n  To pangs of nature, sins of will,\n  Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;\n  That nothing walks with aimless feet;\n  That not one life shall be destroyed,\n  Or cast as rubbish to the void,\n  When God hath made the pile complete.\n\nIt is \"the heart-piercing, mind-bewildering\" mystery of evil and pain\nwhich has quenched the light in many a sincere and fervent heart.  But\nit is not for ever.  Two things we may remember for our guidance amid\nall this weltering sea of sorrow and distress.  First, it is not all\nnature.  It is only a side of it; and if it is the most obvious, it is\nonly because it is a breach of the order and beneficence so uniformly\nobtaining.  And next, the holiest hearts, the spirits of the just made\nperfect on earth were not adversely influenced by it.  In spite of it\nall, an elect spirit, such as Jesus of Nazara, could patiently endure a\nlife of austerity, and meet a death of unspeakable anguish with a\ncalmness and resignation seldom equalled and never surpassed.  \"Father,\ninto thy hands I commend my spirit,\" is a serious rebuke to those who\nsuffer so little and complain so loudly that the times are out of\njoint, the world as probably as not the work of malignity or\nindifference, and that he is no God who does not stretch forth an\nomnipotent hand to slay the accursed thing of evil where it stands.\nThis is in very deed \"the crying of an infant in the night\".  We forget\nwhen we utter these foolish things that we ourselves should be among\nthe first to fall beneath that avenging hand.\n\nAnd so with Tennyson.  It was the visitation of evil in its most\nmournful shape--the cold hand of death that fell upon the brow of his\nbeloved friend--which opened his eyes.  His faith in goodness, in\nbeneficent purpose, was restored.  The cloud was lifted for evermore.\nHe married.  Wedded love, mystic symbol, sacramental image of a union\nhigher still, came at length as an added blessing, after years of\nexpectancy and disappointment.  \"When I wedded her the peace of God\nentered into my heart,\" he wrote.  His cup was full; \"out of the\nabundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,\" and therefore he sang that\nstately invocation, that sublime _Magnificat_ which, we may well\nbelieve with his own most intimate friends, will endure while the lips\nof men frame the sounds of our English speech.\n\n  Strong Son of God, immortal Love,\n  Whom we, that have not seen Thy face,\n  By faith, and faith alone, embrace,\n  Believing where we cannot prove.\n\n  Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:\n  Thou madest man, he knows not why;\n  He thinks he was not made to die;\n  And Thou hast made him: Thou art just.\n\n\nThus were \"the wild and wandering cries, confusions of a wasted youth\"\nforgotten in the song of adoration, which is in reality the epilogue of\nthe elegiac drama.  We can almost imagine its coming after the closing\nglory of the bridal hymn which sings to its last note of God:--\n\n  That God which ever lives and loves,\n  One God, one law, one element,\n  And one far-off Divine event,\n  To which the whole creation moves.\n\nA wedding on earth--that of his sister--is thus for him the symbol of\nthat love eternal which moves all things: _Amor che tutto muove_, of\nDante's peerless song.  That light of love once seen anew he never\nlost.  As life declined it grew in intensity: brighter and more\nreassuring than ever did it glow as the darkness of earth began to\nclose round him.  It was borne in upon him with a depth of conviction\ntoo deep for utterance that death was but a fact, like any other in our\nmany-sided life, that it was but a momentary occurrence, in no wise\nimpeding that progress of the individual spirit in that path which has\nbeen with philosophic accuracy described by the Hebrew psalmist as \"the\nway everlasting\".  The most perfect prayer is that: \"Lead me in the\never-lasting way,\" for it is the destiny of man to one day reach that\njourney's end; to be one day perfect; to be absolutely conformed in\nmind and will to that most sacred of realities--the moral law.\n\nIt was this new vision which dawned on his soul, when the face and form\nof his much-loved friend was taken away, and filled him with a profound\ncalm as the inevitable hour drew near.\n\n  I can no longer\n  But die rejoicing,\n  For through the magic\n  Of Him, the Mighty,\n  Who taught me in childhood\n  There on the borders\n  Of boundless ocean,\n  And all but in Heaven,\n  Hovers the gleam.\n\nIn the old days long past, when, tormented with doubts, embittered by\ndisappointment, he would fain be rid of his burden, the voice of the\nMaster kept ever repeating:--\n\n  \"Follow the gleam\".\n\nAnd so he followed--followed it through life, over the wide earth,\nuntil the land's end was reached.  But even then the Spirit did not\nforsake him.  The \"gleam\" still shone like a star in the deepening sky,\ntill it stood at length over the waters at the gates of the great bar\nthat led out into the Infinite.  And last of all, the \"call,\" clear and\nunmistakable; and there sure enough, waiting beyond the bar, was the\n\"Pilot,\" the Master of the gleam, \"ready to receive the soul\".[1]\n\n\n\n[1] Jean Valjean's death in _Les Miserables_.\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\n\"THE UNKNOWN GOD.\"\n\n  The God on whom I ever gaze,\n  The God I never once behold;\n  Above the cloud, beneath the clod,\n  The Unknown God, the Unknown God.\"\n        --WILLIAM WATSON.\n\nOne great function of poetry is to keep open the road which leads from\nthe seen to the unseen world, and as the last echoes of this noble poem\ndie away, it would seem as though a door had been opened in heaven and\nan unearthly vision had been revealed to our wondering eyes.  It is as\nthough some strange inspiration had fallen upon one suddenly, like that\nwhich the seer in the Apocalypse felt when he said, \"And immediately I\nwas in the spirit\".  The truth is we have been led into the invisible\nworld, we have gained with the poet \"a sense of God\".  The strange,\nundefinable attraction of the infinite is upon us.\n\nPerhaps we have not yet learnt how strong that fascination is; how that\nit is not only the source of that inner light which we see reflected in\nthe countenance of the philosopher and saint, but that it is powerful\nto arrest the attention of men who are for ever saying that no such\nreality exists, or, that even if it does, man need no more concern\nhimself about it.  Has he not the solid earth and the realm of sense?\nWhy should he seek what is beyond it?  _O caecas hominum mentes_!  Man\ncannot help himself.  Well does the ethic master say, \"What is the use\nof affecting indifference towards that about which the mind of man\nnever can be indifferent?\"  And why not?  Because man came thence?\nThere is that in us \"which drew from out the boundless deep\".  In some\nincomprehensible way the infinite is in us, and we are therefore\nrestless, dissatisfied ultimately with all that is not it.  \"The eye is\nnot filled with sight nor the ear with hearing,\" for in us there is the\ncapacity, and therefore, in our best moments, the yearning to see and\nhear something which sense can never give.  Greater than all that is\nhere, in silent moments, when the senses are tired and disappointment\nsteals over us, the truth of the insignificance of things bursts upon\nus.  \"Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature,\" says Pascal in\nthe _Pensees_, \"but he is a thinking reed.  The universe need not mass\nits forces to accomplish his destruction.  A breath, a drop of water\nmay destroy him.  But even though the world should fall and crush him\nhe would still be more noble than his destroyer because he knows that\nhe dies, but the advantage which the world possesses over him--of that\nthe world knows nothing.\"  And, therefore, the universe is nothing to\nhim who is conscious that there is that in man which made all worlds\nand shall unmake them--the eternal Mind, one and identical throughout\nthe realm of intelligence.\n\nThis is no dreaming, but an interpretation of man and nature\nnecessitated by the undeniable facts of life.  The finite does not\nexhaust man's capacities, it cannot even satisfy them.  He was made for\nsomething vaster.  He is ever seeking the boundless, the infinite.\nHence the most positive, the most scientific of philosophers, Mr.\nHerbert Spencer, believes that there is one supreme emotion in man,\nutterly indestructible, the emotion of religion; and what is religion\nbut the yearning I have described for communion, not with the world,\nvast and entrancing as it is; not with humanity, admirable, even\nworshipful in its highest estate; but with that which transcends them\nand all things, the enduring reality which men call Divine?  Spencer\nand Emerson are at one.  Nothing but the Infinite will ultimately\nsatisfy man.\n\nSuch are the thoughts awakened by the music of this poet's song, which\nhaunts one with a sense of the mystery of the illimitable.  I do not\nread it as a confession of agnosticism, save in the sense in which all\nphilosophers are ready to admit that our knowledge of the ultimate\nreality of existence is as mere ignorance compared with what we do not,\nand cannot, know of it.  I read it rather as a profession of the higher\ntheism, or, if you will, of the higher pantheism, for it is immaterial\nhow far we go in maintaining the Divine immanence, provided we\nsafeguard the sovereign fact of individuality and abstain from all\nconfusion of the human personality and the Divine.\n\nThere is prevalent a most erroneous impression that the Divine\nimmanence and personality are two irreconcilable conceptions, and that\nto assert that the All is a person or an individual is at once to limit\nits universality.  Such is not the case, as an analysis of the\nconception of personality will show.  The philosophic term \"person\" is\nutterly indifferent to the ideas of limitation or illimitation.  Its\nessential significance, its distinguishing note, is that of\nself-sufficiency or self-subsistence, prescinding entirely from all\nconsiderations of limits or their absence.  Thus a stone, a plant, a\nbrick is an individual, because each is self-contained and is\nsufficient for the constitution of itself in being, and were they\nendowed with intelligence they would be further distinguished by the\nhonorific title of _person_.  Man is a _person_, because a subsistent,\nself-sufficing individual, furthermore endowed with reason.  _A\nfortiori_ is the All a person, because if the Supreme is not\nself-sufficing, then nothing or nobody is.  Hence we have to point out\nin reply to the strictures of the opposite philosophic school that so\nfar from infinitude being an obstacle to individuality or personality,\nthe Infinite alone, in the strict sense of the word, can be called a\nperson, because in the Infinite or the All alone is absolute\nself-sufficiency realised.  From the very fact, then, of the\nomnipresence of the Divine, because--\n\n  In my flesh his spirit doth flow\n  Too near, too far for me to know;\n\nbecause, to use Emerson's language, \"God appears with all his parts in\nevery moss and every cobweb,\" or Mr. Spencer's, which comes to\nidentically the same thing, \"All the forces operative in the universe\nare modes or manifestations of one Supreme and Infinite\nEnergy\"--because of these momentous facts we ascribe personality to the\nInfinite, with no detriment to its immanence, since of no other being\ncould they by any possibility be true.  Theist or pantheist, it matters\nvery little by what name men call themselves so long as they do not\nimprison themselves within the walls of the false version of the\nphilosophy of relativity, which binds them over to acknowledge nothing\nbeyond their five external senses, to identify the unseen with the\nunknown, and thereby to stunt and ultimately to atrophy the sublime\npowers, transcending the insignificant senses we share with the animal\nworld, as the sky towers above earth, whereby this noble poem of the\n\"Unknown God\" was given us by William Watson.\n\nAnd here we may turn our attention to the poem itself, to see, if I do\nnot misinterpret it, the evidences of that ethic creed, the doctrine of\nthe sovereignty of the moral law, which we acknowledge as the only\nrightful basis of religious idealism.\n\nIn the first place, it is only amid the silence of the soul, when the\nvoice of the senses is still, that we \"gain a sense of God\" at all.  It\nis a vision of the mind--of mind knowing Mind, of soul transcending all\ndistinctions and recognising itself.  It is the sublime region of the\nhigher unity into which subject and object are taken up and their\ndistinction forgotten or lost.  It is at night-fall, in sight of the\nawful pathway of the stars which, one would think, should fill man with\na sense of his immeasurable littleness, it is then that he realises\nthat this boundless splendour is nothing compared to him, for something\nmore than a million worlds is with him, in the eternal Mind whence all\nthis majestic vision rose.\n\n  When, overarched by gorgeous night,\n  I wave my trivial self away;\n  When all I was to all men's sight\n  Shares the erasure of the day;\n  Then do I cast my cumbering load,\n  Then do I gain a sense of God.\n\n\nBut of what God? for there are gods many and lords many.  There is the\nknown God, of whom the Western world has heard so much now these two\nthousand years, the God of the most ancient Hebrew Scriptures,\nthemselves acclaimed as his unique and authentic revelation, the\nembodiment of absolute truth.  That God has not been forgotten yet.\nJust now his temple is thronged with worshippers.[1]  Ministers of\nreligions in America, archbishops in Spain, are eager in their\ninvocations, and if we may believe our newspapers, the Cardinal of\nMadrid guaranteed the harmlessness of American cannon and rifles to\nthose who will implore his assistance through the intercession of\nsaints.  It is the war-cry of old: \"_The Lord is a Man of War!_\"\n\nBut the moral sense, the Divinity within, as contrasted with the\nDivinity in the skies, tells the poet that this old-world god is an\nidol, a glorified image of man in his \"violent youth,\" a \"giant shadow\nhailed Divine\".\n\n  Not him that with fantastic boasts\n    A sombre people dreamed they knew;\n  The mere barbaric God of Hosts\n    That edged their sword and braced their thew:\n  A God they pitted 'gainst a swarm\n  Of neighbour gods less vast of arm.\n\n\nHe is well known, this \"God of Hosts\".  Doubtless once he was the\nDivinity of the worlds that stream across our sky, subsequently\ntransformed into the god of battles, who ranged himself on the side of\nhis favourites, baffled their foes by super-human strategy or even\nknavery, the god of carnage and bloodshed, progenitor, in direct line,\nof him who afterwards was preached as the god of devil and hell.  What\nhas taught the poet, what has taught man to disavow such a Divinity?--\n\n  A God like some imperious King,\n    Wroth, were his realm not duly awed;\n  A God for ever hearkening\n    Unto his self-commanded laud;\n  A God for ever jealous grown\n  Of carven wood and graven stone.\n\n\nNo church, no official religion, no cleric or synod of ministers\nappears to have raised a hand to inaugurate the emancipation of the\nWestern world from its degrading belief in a \"God of Hosts\".  It is\nonly now, during the last thirty or forty years, that stragglers here\nand there are coming into camp and making their submission to the\n\"sovereignty of ethics,\" the supremacy of the moral law, which dooms to\neternal death divinities such as Odin, Jahveh and Zeus.  It is to the\nemancipation of the conscience of humanity from the paralysing guidance\nof the great ecclesiastical corporations of the past that we owe that\nfamous band of scholars, who, antecedently convinced on moral grounds\nthat such conceptions of the Divine were sheer profanities, set about\nan exhaustive study of the origins and text of the biblical literature,\ntogether with an equally painstaking research into the history of\nkindred religions, which has resulted in the vindication of the root\ndoctrine of prophetic and ethical religion--the absolute and unlimited\nsovereignty of the moral law, and the consequent identification of\nmorality with religion.  They have made sacerdotal, sacrificial\nreligion an impossibility to all who are at pains to inform themselves\nof the facts: they have banished for ever the presence of that--\n\n  God whose ghost in arch and aisle\n    Yet haunts his temple--and his tomb;\n  And follows in a little while\n    Odin and Zeus to equal doom;\n  A God of kindred seed and line;\n  Man's giant shadow hailed Divine.\n\nAnd now there comes a stanza of haunting beauty, the ethic creed set to\nmusic, a pathetic pleading, a self-abasement, in the presence of the\nImmensities around us, and yet a passionate vindication of man's right\nto sit in judgment on an idol-god such as this!\n\n  O streaming worlds, O crowded sky!\n    O life, and mine own soul's abyss,\n  Myself am scarce so small that I\n    Should bow to Deity like this!\n  This my Begetter?  This was what\n  Man in his violent youth begot.\n\nThe lesson of history and comparative religion could not be more\nperfectly summarised.  The sovereignty of conscience could not be more\nmasterfully asserted.  Of old we learned that man was \"made in the\nimage of God,\" but now we see that the--\n\n  God of our fathers, known of old--\n    Lord of our far-flung battle-line--\n\nhe to whom we still raise our supplicating cry--\n\n  Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,\n  Lest we forget--lest we forget!--[2]\n\nwe know that he is made in the image of man.  Unless a movement of\nretrogression sets in; unless we have to submit to a paralysis of moral\nstagnation, the day must inevitably come when the \"Lord God of Hosts,\"\n\"the Man of War,\" \"the God of Victories,\" whom Spanish viceroys and\ncaptains are incessantly invoking in their proclamations, will be swept\ninto oblivion with the curse of war which gave them birth.  But that\nhour of retrogression and decay shall never sound for humanity.  A\nnation here, a people there, may drop out of the ranks; the last\nremnant of empire may fall from their unworthy hands, but as I have\nfaith in the eternal order, as I bow before the everlasting Power which\nmakes for moral progress, I know that war has served its purpose\namongst men, and that the day _must_ come when it will be finally\nabolished as unworthy of rational beings.  At any rate, the war-god is\nnot he in whose image the perfected man was made, for--\n\n          This was what\n  Man in his violent youth begot.\n\nThis god was made in the image of man.\n\nAnd as the mist of the phantom deity floats aside, there dawns a fairer\nvision of the veritably Divine presence on the reverent soul of the\npoet.  No eye of man hath ever beheld him: it is a vision of the\nspirit.  And as the language of souls is silent, he can say nothing of\nhis God, though he is so conscious of his everlasting presence.  If\neven his solemn speech, the voice of the poet, \"far above music,\" could\ntell of his God, then would he be but the idealised image of himself.\nHe may think, he does think far more deeply than the most adventurous\ntheologian, but he may never speak.  The mind must commune with itself.\n\n  The God I know of, I shall ne'er\n    Know, though he dwells exceeding nigh.\n  _Raise thou the stone and find me there,_\n    _Cleave thou the wood and there am I,_\n  Yea in my flesh his spirit doth flow,\n  Too near, too far for me to know.\n\nI must confess this fills one with an immense reverence, a feeling of\ninexpressible awe.  Yet, there is no fear associated with the emotion,\nbut only a sense of unearthly peace which almost asks that the silence\nmay be prolonged so that thought may have further scope.  \"Raise thou\nthe stone . . . cleave thou the wood,\" and we are in the presence of\nthe Everlasting; soul is face to face with the Soul of the world.\n\n  Yea, in my flesh his spirit doth flow,\n  Too near, too far for me to know.\n\nIs this mysticism?  I know not by what name to call it, except that to\nme it is a reality transcending any merely sensible experience one ever\nenjoys upon this earth.  It is the kingdom of the Unseen; but only the\nunseen things are real and eternal, for they are the hidden springs of\nexistence and life.  Can one resist the melancholy, the sense of tears\nin things when we reflect that, like our own bodily frame, the whole\nvisible world is hastening to dissolution?  From the infinitesimal\ninsect whose earthly career is rounded off in a few moments, hardly\ncome before gone, to the longest-lived of living beings, to the oaks\nthat stand beyond a thousand years, to the hills that seemed so\nenduring that the Hebrew poet called them \"everlasting,\" to this earth,\nto planets away in the infinite azure, from the grain of sand to the\ntotality of creations, from first to last, it is true that all is\npassing away.\n\n  _Sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt._\n\n\nThe melancholy Heraclitus, whose philosophy allures while it saddens\nus, declares we never traverse the same river twice; the water over\nwhich we once crossed has long since sped away to the eternal seas.\nSeneca, centuries ago, noted the same of our own bodies; the process of\ndissolution is continuous, until at length the restorative power itself\nwill desert us and the process will be complete.\n\nBut at the heart of this universal impermanence there is a soul of\nreality which the poet discerns amid the fleeting atoms of the stone\nand the fibre of the growing tree.  It is as though we found ourselves\nin a vast hall, filled to repletion with machinery in every condition\nof motion, from the slowest and scarcely perceptible movements of the\nhour hand of a watch up to the incalculable rapidity of a fly-wheel.\nAll is flux, change, consumption of energy, wear and tear of the\nmachinery itself.  We know it must run down sometime, we know one day\nit must all be renewed.  But amid all this instability we are well\naware that there is a secret source of power, a centre whence a renewal\nof energy ceaselessly arises.  Without its incessant action not one\nsingle movement in that vast hall could be obtained.  It is the one\nreal thing amidst a world of others which are wearing and wasting away\nand therefore in a true sense unreal.  The secret spring whence the\nenergy is generated may be invisible, but we _know_ it is somewhere,\nand if any one denied its existence we should not take the trouble to\nanswer him.  A faint, halting symbol is this of the eternal and\nunchanging reality at the heart of the worlds--a dim light whereby to\nillustrate the most solemn of truths, that always and everywhere, in\nthe lightest as in the greatest movements of nature, in the fragrance\nof a flower, the iridescence of a crystal, or the fierce energies which\nshoot up mountains of hydrogen flames hundreds of miles high from the\ncrater of the sun, we have the revelation of \"a Power without\nbeginning, without end,\" [3] permanent while all is in a condition of\nceaseless flux and change, living while all around are hastening to\ntheir deaths, the one only truly existent Being anywhere, the hidden\nsource of all existence and life.\n\nSo far, we are justified in saying that we stand on the ground of\nindisputable fact.  It is no mere hypothesis of science, still less a\nfigment of the metaphysician's imagination, or an outpouring of a\npoet's inspiration, that Permanence is the indispensable postulate of\nthe commonest facts of material existence.  We have no explanation to\ngive as to the _method_ of such action as has been described on the\npart of the invisible and universal Energy, for we cannot even explain\nthe _nexus_ between an act of human volitional energy and the raising\nof an arm.  There are the facts, demonstrable and undeniable, but the\n_how_ of those facts, no man on this earth knoweth or perhaps ever will\nknow.  Well may Browning profess himself content to endure in patience\nthe ignorance which is our lot here, if only at length \"thy great\ncreation-thought thou wilt make known to me\".  The \"great\ncreation-thought\" cannot be known now.  Watson is as sure of it as his\nspiritual ancestor:--\n\n  I trust it not this bounded ken.\n\nBut though the \"creation-thought\" cannot be fathomed, though we cannot\n_comprehend_ the nature of the ultimate Reality, the fact of the great\nexistence and omnipresence is clearly _apprehensible_, and therefore\nmust be acknowledged as a demonstrated fact by every man.\n\nAnd, if such be the case, in what sense is God \"unknown\"?  Unknown,\ncertainly, in the sense that he is unseen, but we now know that the\nonly real things are those of the invisible world.  God is unknown\nbecause incomprehensible, now and always, here and hereafter, in this\nlife and in all possible lives.  The Infinite must ever be beyond the\n_comprehension_ of the finite.\n\n  Though saint and sage their powers unite\n  To fathom that abyss of light,\n  Ah! still that altar stands.[4]\n\n\nBut the Divine is not beyond the _apprehension_ of man's mind, and as\nfar as I can by diligent reading of Mr. Spencer attain to his innermost\nmeaning, I do not think he denies this fact, as he most unquestionably\ndoes not deny the validity of religious motion, which, arguing against\nthe Positivist philosophy, he rightly contends cannot, in its highest\nsense, be associated with any being other than the Highest of all\nbeings.  \"What's in a name?\" I ask, and whether a man calls himself\ntheist or agnostic--so that he does admit something greater than man,\nand does give us scope and opportunity for the exercise of those powers\nand emotions which refuse to be bounded by, or satisfied with, the\nmerely phenomenal and transitory, but are ever seeking for communion\nwith the Noumenal and the Eternal--in my judgment matters very little.\nThere is a higher synthesis in which partial truths are being\nconstantly taken up and reconciled in some fuller and more luminous\nexpression, and I have no doubt that that scientific reconciliation of\nmaterialism and spiritualism which is now progressing so rapidly will\neventually be effected between those who now call themselves theists\nand agnostics.\n\nTo ethical idealists the great question is this: Does your belief make\nfor reverence; does it subdue your soul with a sense of the wonder and\nmystery which are everywhere so conspicuous in nature; does it foster\nthe growth of your spiritual powers as opposed to the merely animal\ninstincts of your body; does it make you more moral, fill you with an\nincreasing enthusiasm for the good life for its own sake?  Or, on the\nother hand, does what you profess dishearten you, fill you with\nmelancholy and foreboding and a sense of the unprofitableness of\nthings, of the apparent aimlessness of all that is going on or being\ndone, of the fruitlessness of all human endeavour?  Is the sigh of the\ninspired sceptic, \"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,\" ever and anon\nrising from your heart, and are you losing your faith in yourself and\nhumanity?  That is the test of a faith--what it does for you, and you\ncould have no better one.  The fact that he worships an \"Unknown God\"\nmeans no shrinking of enthusiasm in him who believes that that\neverlasting Power, which science no less than philosophy commands him\nto believe, is identical with that very Power which is conspicuously\nworking in the universe for universal aims which also are good.\nOutside a handful of men of no consequence amid the thundering assent\nof the overwhelming masses of mankind, the course of things here is\nupwards.  Instinct suggests it, reason proclaims it, history confirms\nit.  But there are no two supreme powers, and therefore that Power I\nreverence--\n\n  The God on whom I ever gaze,\n  The God I never once behold--\n\nis also the everlasting \"Power which makes for righteousness,\" that is,\nfor moral progress, the only progress ultimately worth caring about.\n\nMen crave to see God.  \"Behold I show you a mystery.\"  There are two\nincarnations.  There is the incarnation of God in flesh and blood, in\nChrishna in India, in Jesus in Palestine.  Men have, men do worship\nthese men as gods.  But there is a higher incarnation, a sublimer\ntheophany.  There is that before which all incarnations, all saviours,\nhave ever bowed down in lowliest adoration; there is that whose\nobedience they would not surrender if \"the whole world and the glory\nthereof\" were given to them.  There is that which is older than man and\nhis redeemers, higher than the stars, vast as the Immensities, ancient\nas the Eternities themselves, and in this incarnation man may see God.\nWhat is it?  It is the moral law, the eternal sanction crowning the\nright, inborn in rational man, the very soul of reason within him,\ninborn in things--the law which no man ever invented, which never had\nbeginning, which can know no end, because it is the Divine order\nrevealed to earth.  It is the necessary nature of the one essential\nBeing, and we recognise it because \"we are his offspring,\" because like\nhim we are Divine.\n\n\"Unknown God!\"  Yes, but not here.  As long as I have the instinct of\nethics, as long as I feel myself constrained to bow down in the dust\nbefore goodness, to deem myself unworthy to tie the latchet of the\nshoes of the hero or the saint; so long as I see the course of the\nworld steadily, undeniably, ascending the sacred hill of progress, so\nlong must I confess that the Power behind the veil, behind the world,\nis a moral Power, that that Power recognises the validity of moral\ndistinctions as I do, that the ethic law is his law, that when I live\nby that law I _see God_--\n\n  The God on whom I ever gaze,\n  The God I never once behold,\n  Above the cloud, beneath the clod,\n  The Unseen God, the Unseen God.\n\n\n\n[1] These words were written during the opening days of the late\nSpanish-American war.\n\n[2] _Recessional_, Rudyard Kipling.\n\n[3] Herbert Spencer, _First Principles, passim_.\n\n[4] Mrs. Barbauld's fine hymn, \"As once upon Athenian ground\".\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\n\"A CHAPEL IN THE INFINITE.\"\n\n  Our little systems have their day;\n  They have their day and cease to be;\n  They are but broken lights of Thee,\n  And Thou, O Lord, art more than they,\n        --TENNYSON, In Memoriam.\n\nThe supreme value of the two great poets of the Victorian era is this,\nthat they have attuned their song to the expression of modern thought\nconcerning those transcendent realities which must ever possess an\ninexhaustible interest for mankind.  Thus we see, in an age which\nacknowledges the complete emancipation of the human reason, the\nsupremacy of conscience, the inviolable rights of private judgment,\nTennyson has sung of an \"honest doubt\" wherein there \"lives more faith\"\nthan \"in half the creeds\" and councils of ecclesiasticism.  Browning\nhas faced the riddle of the universe, the bewildering mystery of a\nworld of pain and sorrow, with unconquerable courage and hope.  His\nmusician, _Abt Vogler_, believes in eternal harmony, with Plato and\nCarlyle:--\n\n  There shall never be one lost good!  What was, shall live as before;\n    The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;\n  What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;\n    On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.\n\nAnd, being no dreamer or pessimist, seeing reason at the heart of\nthings, and good the final goal of ill, he\n\n  At least believes in soul, and is very sure of God.\n\nHere are the three imperishable realities--God, Soul, Hereafter.  Of\nall the rest is it ultimately true which the weary preacher said:\n\"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,\" or, as the modern Ecclesiastes has\nit: _Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse_.\n\nIn the words of the opening stanzas of the \"In Memoriam,\" Tennyson is\nevidently affected by the spectacle the world exhibits to the\nthoughtful man in its multitudinous religious sects and segments, and\nthe strange contrasts the national, political and ethical unities of\nmankind present, with their theological divergencies.  As we have seen,\nthe etymology of the word \"religion\" signifies that its intent and\npurpose is to bind men together, whereas, as we mournfully confess, it\nhas hitherto proved a fruitful source of schism and division, national\nas well as individual.  It is only since the much-despised and\ndenounced \"world\" and its modern civilisation has effectually curtailed\nthe offensive powers of corporations, synods and inquisitions, that\nreligion has ceased to outrage the public conscience by repetitions of\nthe enormities of former times.\n\nAs the sweep of his vision ranges over past and present, the poet is\nenabled to estimate these fragmentary philosophies aright; he sees them\nin their proper perspective, in their relation to the infinite Reality\nbehind them.  He calls them \"little systems,\" \"broken lights\": he is\nable to forecast their future; \"they cease to be\".  There is but One\nEternal, \"without shadow of change or turning\": \"And Thou, O Lord, art\nmore than they\".\n\nThis is the fact which weighs so heavily with the thoughtful and\ndiscriminating minds of the day--that all the apocalyptic theologies\nand religious philosophies which purport to reveal the unspeakable\nmystery known to exist, though hidden from our sight, end only in\nbelittling it.  Doubtless an element of accommodation is discoverable\nand essential in the purest thought of the unseen order; our thoughts\nof the Soul of souls must be such as our spirits can supply.  Men so\ndivided in belief as Kant and Newman have both recognised this fact,\nthe only difference being that, while the former understands the creeds\nand their tenets as symbols wherein man, striving to express the\ninexpressible, finds relief and rest to his spirit, Newman looks upon\nthem as so much history, which if a man shall not accept as fact,\n\"without doubt he shall perish everlastingly\".  To him, as to all who\nreally stand by their order, the New Covenant is a revelation, complete\nand final, of all that can or will be known of the transcendental\norder.  It claims that \"a door was opened in heaven,\" and those\nmysteries made manifest \"to little ones\" which had been \"hidden from\nthe wise\" and far-seeing philosophers of old.  It claims to be \"the\ntabernacle of God with men,\" \"God manifest in the flesh,\" or in\nsacraments, rites and symbols--nay, it is the \"city come out of heaven\nfrom God,\" it is the cathedral of humanity.\n\nThis was believed profoundly, almost universally, in the days before\nthe flood--the flood of knowledge let loose upon mankind, beginning\nwith the days of the Renascimento and continuing down to our own.  But\nthe philosopher-poet of the nineteenth century sees nothing of it in\nthe altar and system set up in this Western world.  Like the rest, it\nis, to him, a \"little system,\" which ultimately ceases to be.  The\nheavenly city fades into an earthly chamber, the vast cathedral of\nhumanity dwindles to a spot on the horizon, it shrinks to the\ndimensions of \"a chapel in the infinite\".\n\n\nThe first great shock to the pretentious dogmatism of the Western world\ncame with the discovery of Copernicus and Galileo that the current\nastronomy was fundamentally wrong.  No sun-star or swarm of worlds in\nthe infinite azure could be so precious in God's sight as this earth of\nours, it was believed, for had it not been chosen as the scene and\nstage of that transcendent act whereby the Deity had consecrated\nhumanity for ever to himself?  Now it turns out that the physical\norigin of this world of ours is precisely that of others, while, so far\nfrom being the centre of the universe, it is but a speck in infinity,\npositively invisible from any of the million suns that light the\neternal way from our own central orb to the infinities that range\nbeyond.  The ecclesiastical mind of those days astutely fastened on the\ncharge of impugning the sacred record of Moses--itself a phenomenal\ninstance of incompetent infallibility--but the real explanation of\nGalileo's persecution lies in the fact that, with this earth in a\ndependent position and in ceaseless motion, the whole system of\ntheology suffered a serious shock.  Where were heaven and hell in the\nnew version astronomy gave of things?  Where did Jesus' spirit go on\nhis death?  Where is limbo, and where is purgatory?  Whither did he go\nwhen he ascended bodily into the air?  Since this earth is uncounted\nmyriads of miles from the spot in space which it occupied this morning\nwhen we awoke, what became of the inspired geography of the _terra\nincognita_, according to which the several receptacles of spirits were\nmapped out with such unfaltering precision?\n\nWith the vanishing of the pre-eminent claims advanced by a rudimentary\nscience on behalf of this earth, and supported by the unsuspecting\ntheology of the childhood of the world, the earth-born philosophy of\nthings wrapped up in its fate must also disappear.  While the earth\ndwindles into a spot in endless space, its \"little systems\" share its\nfate, and our Western cathedral shrinks to the dimensions of \"a chapel\nin the infinite\".\n\nOr, look at the matter numerically.  Jesus, who avowedly confined his\nmissionary efforts to his own race, \"for to them only am I sent,\" is\nmade by the writer of Matthew's Gospel to give a world-wide commission\nto his disciples on the very eve of his mysterious disappearance from\nearth: \"Go ye and teach all nations,\" he is reported to have enjoined\nupon them.  Peter, doubtless, was present upon this occasion, or, at\nany rate, we cannot conceive him ignorant of the commission; and yet we\nfind him refusing point-blank to admit Cornelius the centurion--the\nfirst candidate who offered himself--into the Church, and, according to\nthe Acts, a sheet full of animals had to be let through the roof of his\nhouse before he could be turned from his purpose of confining the new\nreligion exclusively to Jews.  The explanation, of course, of such\nuniversality as Christianity has attained is mainly due to the\ninfluence of the cosmopolitan Saul of Tarsus, though the idea of an\nOecumenical Society was by no means his original thought.  The Stoics\nwere full of the ideal, and the Cynics before them, while Socrates\nrefused to describe himself as a citizen of Athens, but claimed the\nwhole world as his fatherland, and the outer barbarians, as the\nexclusive Greeks styled them, he called his brethren.\n\nAnd, now, how many of the human family are enrolled as \"citizens of the\nholy places\"; what numbers assemble for worship in the great cathedral?\nStatistics are unnecessary, but we cannot but remember the temples to\nGod raised in other ages and other lands, which endure to this hour,\nimperishable witnesses to a truth which is \"the light of life\".  What\nthat truth is, we shall see later.  But when we remember the great\npre-Christian systems of the East and of Egypt, and the very stones dug\nout of the earth cry aloud in witness to the eternal truths, God, Soul,\nHereafter; when we realise the devotion of martyred Israel to the faith\nof their fathers, and the great Mohammedan revolt against the\ndogmatical puerilities of the sixth century; when, I say, we remember\nthat one and all endure to this hour, and in unimpaired vigour, and\nstill more, when that absorbingly interesting study known as the\nscience of Comparative Religion has shown us that of orthodoxy is true\nwhat is true of all religious systems--that it enjoys a monopoly of\nnothing save of errors peculiar to itself, and that of its doctrines,\nall that is true is not new, and all that is new is not true--we are in\na fairer position to estimate its precise place and influence in the\nworld and the sources from which it has drawn its inspiration.\n\nEven of the comparatively few in the vast family of humanity who own\nits supremacy, how many can repeat its shibboleths in common?  And if\ndisunion, the true mark of error, be at work among them, can we believe\nthat the future is reserved for it?  It is unquestionable that the\ncultivated intellect of the Continent is profoundly estranged from the\nversion prevalent there, while it is only the spirit of compromise, so\ncharacteristic of the race, carried into the domain of dogmatism which\nprevents a similar insurrection in England.  If the sacerdotal lion can\nlie down side by side with the Broad Church lambs, it is only because\nthe wicked world, symbolised for the moment by the strong arm of the\nlaw and the public sense of decency, curbs the ferocity of heresy\nhunters and bids them look to their manners lest some worse thing\nbefall them.  It is felt instinctively that the popular phylacteries,\nthe peculiar trappings in which Divine truth has been set forth in\nEngland, are not worth discussion among serious men.\n\nAnd this will help us to estimate at its true value the argument which\nlost John Henry Newman to rational religion and won him for Roman\nCatholicism.  What finally decided him that the Ultramontane version of\nreligion was the true one, was the famous _Securus judicat orbis\nterrarum_ of Augustine.  The verdict of the world is against you, he\nhad urged against the Donatists, and what was conclusive against them\nappeared to be conclusive against Anglicans, who could only appeal for\nsupport to their own kith and kindred.  However that may be, what\nanswer is forthcoming to the retort which the phenomena of to-day\nunmistakably suggest?  If the universal consent of the fourth century,\nsemi-barbarous, uneducated, profoundly credulous, and avowedly\nuncritical, serves to prove the truth of that form of Gnosticism known\nas orthodoxy, what are we to say of the uniform rejection of it, as\nsuch, by the decidedly cultivated intellect of the nineteenth century?\nIf the prior unanimity was adequate to prove its dogmatic truth, why\nshould not the spectacle offered by educated Europe and America be\nsufficient to show its groundlessness?  Whatever it may be to \"babes\"\nand \"little ones\" to whom it loves to appeal from the \"undue exaltation\nof intellect\" which can see no basis whatsoever on which to rest the\n_historical_ Christianity of the Churches, certain it is to those who\nknow, it is among those things which \"have their day and cease to be\".\nIt cannot be a cathedral vast as the race, it can never be more than a\nsystem among systems, a chapel isolated in the infinite.\n\nThe truth of this will be more clearly seen if we reflect on the nature\nof the claim of the Churches to be in exclusive possession of Divine\nknowledge, the sole revealer of God to man.  Ever since the words of\nthe Gnostic gospeller, \"He shall lead you unto all truth,\" were\nwritten, it has been claimed that the authentic medium of Divine\ncommunications has been a corporation or a book, one or the other being\naffirmed to be an exhaustive and infallible philosophy of God and man.\nSolomon is said to have had grievous misgivings as to the Lord of\nheaven and earth being enclosed within the temple he had built, but no\nsuch anxieties beset the framers of the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds, or\ntheir imitators in subsequent ages.  What a spectacle for gods and men!\n\"All truth\" summed up in Thirty-nine Articles, or a score of\nOecumenical Councils!  It is the profanity, I had almost said the\nsacrilege, of it, which is so shocking to the instinctive reverence of\nour minds.  And what truths, too, are commended to our keeping in these\ncanons and articles!  Beginning with the natural depravity of human\naffections, purposely inflicted upon us because of another's\ntransgression, we are taught, as a direct corollary from this, that the\nDeity is no more moral in his emotions than ourselves; for, in order to\nright the first wrong, he is made to perpetrate another which no one\nwould hesitate to pronounce immoral in us, _viz._, the chastisement of\nthe innocent in the place of the guilty.  We need say nothing of the\nlie direct and overwhelming which the unanswerable facts of science, in\nmany of its departments, give to the whole story of \"the fall\" of a\nfirst man, and the consequent superstructure which the perverse\ningenuity of man has erected upon it.  We need only confine ourselves\nto the plain fact that the so-called scheme is an outrage upon the\nethical nature of man, and therefore that it can never have emanated\nfrom God.  In the latest explanations of \"the Atonement,\" the Anglican\ntheologians explain it away, \"the redemption\" of Jesus being no more\nthan the example of his saintly life and his uncomplaining submission\nto death.  The angry God, who will not relax his frown save at the\nsight of blood, is conveniently forgotten in the more refined circles\nof ecclesiasticism, and is now left to the meditations of Little Bethel\nor Breton peasants.\n\nAnd this is a Divine revelation, a heavenly system of truth so far\nbeyond human reason, and so intrinsically unrelated to any of our\nfaculties, that it could never have been discovered by man's\nintelligence, but only preternaturally communicated from without!  To\nPaul, who is alone responsible for the famous scheme, this is the\n\"wisdom hidden from the ages, which none of the princes of this world\never knew\"--his peculiar way of describing the superiority of his\nteaching to that of the Greek masters like Plato and Aristotle.  But\nthe civilised world--the _orbis terrarum_ of the nineteenth\ncentury--holds with Socrates that the moral law is supreme over gods\nand men, and believes that Mill and Carlyle are safer guides when they\nteach, that no less than the best moral emotion discoverable in man may\nbe ascribed to the God of men.  \"Depend upon it,\" says the great man of\nhis hero, Frederick the Great, \"it is flatly inconceivable that moral\nemotion could have been put into him by an entity which had none of its\nown.\"\n\nMeanwhile, if the universe be good at heart, if reason be indeed its\nsoul, the tendencies of modern thought must be leading mankind to some\npredestined end.  The movements known to history as the Renaissance,\nReformation and Revolution, accomplished results which must endure to\nall time; they marked the great stages in humanity's onward march.\nTo-day, when systems and schemes of religion are going to pieces like\nthe dust of the dead, when mystery and miracle are becoming unthinkable\nthings in a world where all is law; when the most imposing pretensions\nare subjected to so minute and pitiless an analysis; when every dogma\nof council or creed can be tracked and traced with an unerring\nprecision to root ideas which govern the human mind in its undeveloped\nstages; to-day, when, in spite of the destructive work being done, a\nreverence and a true zeal for truth reigns as it never did before in\nthis world's history, when the sense of the responsibility and\nsolemnity of life weighs upon men so profoundly, there must, I say, be\nsome goal towards which humanity is moving, there must be some\nsynthesis which shall reconcile for them their aspirations and their\nknowledge, some harmony which shall resolve the discordant notes of\nlife--in a word, there must be some\n\n        Far-off, Divine event\n  Towards which the whole creation moves.\n\n\nWhat is that event?  Unless a man is prepared to say that the present\nchaotic condition of religious thought is to perpetuate itself, or that\nwe are to revert to the ideal of mediaevalism--a world iron-bound by\nthe dogmatism of self-appointed representatives of \"all truth,\"--or\nunless we are to expect a mental paralysis consequent upon a universal\nscepticism, there must be some definite bourne for which the forces now\nat work in humanity are making.  We are not able to believe in the\nperpetuity of an unstable equilibrium in the world of mind any more\nthan in the universe of matter, nor does history show any warrant for\nthe expectation that the world will return to the discarded ideal of a\nmediaeval theocracy, nor does the language of modern agnosticism, with\nits hesitations and falterings, encourage one to believe that therein\nis a solution, complete and final, of those obstinate questionings\nwhich beset us.  No; we believe with Kant in the indestructibility of\nthe religious sentiment.  We hold that if the soul of man have not\nwhereon to feed, it will feed upon itself to its own destruction.  We\nare persuaded that the Infinite which is necessary to _explain_ the\nfinite, is alone adequate to satisfy its desires.  Our faith is in a\n\"religion within the boundaries of mere reason\".\n\nIn the first place, its beliefs are the one element of truth in all the\n\"little systems\" of this and of all time.  It is here they touch the\nconfines of the eternal.  It is in this centre of changeless truth that\nall their wandering, broken lights do meet.  This is the one reality\nbehind the phantoms and phenomena wherewith they have been perplexing\nand confusing man's thoughts; it is at the same time the great ideal,\nthe passion for which is the star of life.\n\nWhat a majestic source of unity is there here!  The soul positively\nthrills at the thought of the boundless possibilities of good which\ncentre in this conception of religion.  That which the faiths of the\nworld aspired to do, might hope to become an accomplished fact did\ntheir votaries believe with Shelley that only\n\n  The One remains, the many change and pass;\n\ndid they obey the ancient prophet's command, \"Depart from your idols\".\nFor what are all the current creeds and orthodoxies of every age and\nland but so many \"idols of the market place,\" veritable _simulacra_ or\nimages of something ineffable, beyond the power of man's mind to\ncompletely conceive, or of his stammering tongue to utter?  They served\ntheir purpose in the childhood of humanity, they were schoolmasters to\ntrain it to higher things, tabernacles of skins wherein to enshrine the\nHoly of Holies in rude and uncultured times.  But now that humanity is\nreaching the full stature of its manhood, is it not time to preach from\nthe house-tops what philosophers have been thinking ever since the\nemancipation of European intellect, aye and before it too, in the great\nMoorish schools, which sprung up before the scholasticism of the middle\nages?  Is it not time that intelligent clergymen of every school in\nChristendom should openly declare in their pulpits what they think,\nbelieve and discuss in the privacies of their studies?\n\nIf truth is the one thing which never yet did men any harm, tell them\nthat the universe is not built upon the narrow plan they had been\ntaught of old; that its age is immeasurable; that man has been an\ninhabitant of this fragment of it for a hundred thousand years at\nleast; that there never was any such being as a first man, some seven\nthousand years old; that his existence, his history, is a myth, traced\nupon the cylinders of Babylon; that man never fell except to himself\nand his own conscience; that the \"redemption\" scheme is an idiosyncrasy\nof Paul; that a priesthood is avowedly a pagan conception, and\nsacrifice a relic of barbarism.  Tell them this, for you know it is\ntrue, and that your creeds and confessions are false.  Speak out as\nyour conscience bids you speak, that yours is no temple of truth, no\ncathedral vast enough to hold the race, nothing but the dim shadow of a\ngreat reality, one of \"the many which change and pass,\" a spot in\nboundless space, \"a chapel in the infinite\".\n\nFor the truth of rational religion is that into which all that is true\nin lesser faiths resolves itself.  Where they agree with it they are in\nagreement amongst themselves.  Where they depart from it, there begins\ndiscord--sure sign of error--the confusion and strife of tongues, the\njangling contradictions of men.  Are we then dangerously out of the way\nin believing that that wherein all the sons of men unite is the\nveritable goal towards which they are consciously or unconsciously\nreaching--\n\n  _Tendentes manus ripae ulterioris amore?_\n\n\nAnd there is one other unmistakable evidence that the stream of\ntendency is in our direction.  I allude to the predominant influence in\nour age of science, not merely physical, but science in all its\ndepartments.  It is welcome to us as the very handwriting of the\nEternal, as a revelation of the workings of the Infinite Mind.  Every\nnew discovery is welcomed by us as a further revelation of the Being\nwho \"is for ever reason\".\n\nBut to the \"little systems\" science can only be welcome in so far as it\nfits in with the petty scale upon which their theologies and\ntheosophies have constructed the universe.  At first, everything is\npassionately denied, a cry of horror goes up in the land that science\nis engaged in an attempt to dethrone the God of their theology.  And\nthen a few years elapse, and for very shame's sake they set about\nexplaining how that the \"God of knowledge\" [1] has much in common with\ntheir theosophical Deity, and that by a dexterous manipulation of\ninfallible texts and articles of religion, a _modus vivendi_ may be\narranged between the two.  This is the kind of dialectic that goes on\nat every Church Congress--men who know in their hearts that the\n\"inspired\" anthropology of the Bible is contradicted, fully, flatly,\nirreconcilably, by the undeniable facts discovered by science, continue\nto mystify themselves and their hearers alike by all the pleadings,\nglosses, evasions and refinements at their command, with a view to what\nthey call a \"reconciliation between science and religion\".\n\nScience and religion, we protest, need no reconciliation, for they\nnever were at war.  Not religion, but pseudo-philosophy and so-called\ntheology--this it is to which science is an implacable and\nirreconcilable foe.  And she will never cease from her determined\nopposition until the ecclesiastical idol vacates the very last niche it\noccupies in its \"chapel,\" clothes itself with the white robe of\ncontrition, and sits humbly upon the stool of repentance awaiting a\nscientific absolution.\n\nFor us, such reconciliation is an unmeaning phrase.  We never professed\nto follow aught but reason's kindly light, for that we _know_ to be the\nDivine Light in us.  And, therefore, all that comes to us in reason's\nname, comes accredited, as though from the innermost court of the Great\nPresence itself.  We discard nothing but what offends reason and its\nascertained laws; we bring everything before its bar.  Science is to us\na Divine revelation, its teachings are among our inspired literature.\nNo need therefore of reconciliation between religion and science when\nwe resolve both, as in a final synthesis, into the root fact of all\nthis wondrous universe--eternal reason.  And because of this, a faith\nsuch as ours is part of the order of imperishable realities, for the\nkingdom of reason, like the throne of the Eternal, is for ever and ever.\n\n\n\n[1] _Deus Scientiarum Dominus._\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\n\"THE OVER-SOUL.\"\n\nThe most serious errors in the philosophical and religious domains are\ngenerally found to be nothing but the exaggeration, or the minimising,\nof a truth, very much as evil, physical and moral, is often the\nprivation of a corresponding good, the absence of something which ought\nto be present.  Year by year the vast majority of religionists in this\nWestern world are seriously engaged in the commemoration of a\ntranscendent mystery, the humanisation, or incarnation, of the Deity in\nthe person of the Prophet of Nazara.  As might be expected, the\nupholders of this belief are by no means all agreed as to the manner in\nwhich this momentous event came about, and, while there are many\nprepared to speak of \"Our Lord Jesus Christ\"--and we certainly feel no\ndifficulty in so speaking of an elevated and saintly spirit such as\nhe--all are not prepared to subscribe to the precise formulation of the\nmystery as given in an Athanasian creed, or a homily of a fourth\ncentury father.  Beyond admitting in a general and rather vague way\nthat Jesus is \"Divine,\" many people are not prepared to go.  They would\nshrink from saying that he was the Infinite and Eternal, from whom all\nthings derive their being; they see no necessity for believing in the\nstory of his miracles, or the legendary account of his appearance in\nthis world; above all, his virginal conception and birth they often\nrepudiate in terms.  They are coming to see--these open-minded men and\nwomen of the Anglican body--that the pre-eminence of Jesus must rest,\nnot upon miracles, but on morals; that it is not his mystic offices,\nbut his moral grandeur, which makes him to be so great a figure in\nhistory.  In a word, that it is not his miracles which prove his\nteaching, but his teaching must authenticate his miracles.\n\nNow, all this is, of course, very hopeful, and makes directly for that\nreconstruction of religion on an ethical basis which we conceive it our\nduty to press upon the attention of our age.  Venerable to us is the\nmemory and teaching of the last of the noble line of Jewish seers.  Not\none of the masters of the Church ethical, whom we obediently follow,\nbut has exhausted, one might say, the possibilities of speech in their\nreverence and admiration for the great spirit of Jesus.  When Immanuel\nKant published the _Critique of the Practical Reason_, old men and\nthinkers of the Fatherland were moved to tears at the thought that the\ngreat deliverance had come at last, that a man had at length arisen who\nhad penetrated to the core the significance of the great prophet's\nteaching.  The only true commentator on Jesus and his religion is\nImmanuel Kant.  Heretofore, men have followed Paul, Athanasius and\nAugustine; it is high time the ethics of Kant were substituted in\ncolleges and seminaries of the clergy, and our ministers of religion\ntaught to interpret the Gospel from the standpoint of the moral law\ninstead of the imaginary dogmatics of Paul, and the dialectics of\nAthanasius and Augustine.\n\nBut the doctrine of incarnation unquestionably embodies a great element\nof truth, which it were our very serious loss to overlook.  It supplies\nus with an admirable illustration of what was asserted in the\nbeginning, namely, that an error is but a truth misstated, either by\nexcess or defect.  The Christian, or rather the ancient, orthodox\npresentation of the dogma errs in both ways.  By excess, because it\nproclaims a man to be the personal Deity, that the flesh and blood of a\nmortal being is adorable, as is the highest Being, with the supreme\noffices of religion.  It proclaims that Jesus was not a human\nindividual or person at all, but a Divine being energising in two\nnatures, the Divine and the human, so that when he used the pronoun\n\"I,\" it was the Deity himself, not a man, who spoke.  I say this is a\ngross misstatement by exaggeration, unknown to the prophet himself,\nunknown to his followers and biographers, and unknown to many Christian\nwriters before the fatal epoch of Athanasius, who emphatically assert\nthat Jesus is not to be worshipped as the Father.[1]  The doctrine errs\nalso by defect, because it fails to recognise the divinity of all the\nsons of the Supreme.  Jesus is made to be exclusively Divine, the sole\npossessor of Divine sonship, and only through him are others put in the\nway of attaining to the same privilege.  \"But as many as received him,\"\nsays the Alexandrian rhapsodist who wrote the prologue to the fourth\ngospel, \"he gave them the power or the faculty to be made the sons of\nGod, as many as believe in his name.\"\n\nThis account of the matter we conceive to be immeasurably below the\ntruth.  No mediator is needed between the soul and the Soul of our\nsouls; no intercessor or redeemer.  This perverse conception originated\nin the supposition that man was, and is, a fallen and a falling being,\nowing to the fatal legacy bequeathed by our presumptive parent, Adam;\nbut Genesis being wholly and avowedly mythical in its opening chapters,\nthe Pauline dialectic in the fifth chapter of the Romans falls to the\nground, and with it the laborious argumentations of the epistle to the\nHebrews, which essays to prove that the most sternly anti-sacerdotal\nprophet who ever lived was a full-fledged priest; the man who never\nconducted a ritualistic service in his life set forth as \"a high priest\nfor ever according to the order of Melchisedech,\" the only and eternal\nredeemer of humanity from the consequences of the misdeeds of an\naboriginal parent who had no existence.  No; before Agamemnon men were\nbrave, before Aristides they were just, before Jesus they were in their\ninnermost selves divine, and this in essence is the doctrine of the\n\"Over-soul,\" associated, as far as this expression goes, with the name\nof the latest of the prophets of ethics, Emerson.\n\nWe are all incarnations, flesh-takings, of the infinite.  Not only so,\nbut the very unconscious universe, the silent, but ever-living nature\nis but the garment which clothes the Invisible, and in clothing reveals\nhim; the beauty of nature is the veil, growing slenderer with every\nfresh access of knowledge, which scarce conceals the Great Presence.\nVanini was thrust into the dungeons of the Inquisition at Naples on a\ncharge of atheism.  \"Atheism!\" contemptuously retorted the wretched\ncaptive, \"I could prove God from that straw,\" picking up with his feet\na fragment of the bed on which he lay in fetters.  For the universal\nLife was in the straw.  The life in that slender ear is one with the\nmighty pulsations of the ocean, the growth of the forest, and of the\nworld of men, and the illimitable stars beyond.  The being is one, the\nlife is one, and above all, the mind, the exclusive endowment of man,\nis one too--one in us, one in the Supreme; we share it, for \"we also\nare his offspring\".  There is only one Soul--the Divine, and the souls\nof the sons of men are, not so much images of that, made in its\nlikeness, as it itself, in essence one, yet, participately, in every\nhuman being.  \"I have said, ye are gods, and sons of the Most High,\nevery one,\" quoted Jesus with approval.  So says Emerson, and this is\nhis doctrine of the \"Over-soul\".\n\nAfter thus indicating in general outline the essential features of this\nculminating teaching of ethical religion, it may be well to trace its\nhistorical development.  It will be found to be, not an original\nspeculation of our own teacher, but a precious belief held by elect\nsouls in all ages to embody the truth of the relations between what is\n_called_ the Divine and the human.  I say \"called\" because this\ndoctrine annihilates the distinction.  As the electricity in the\natmosphere may annihilate space by enabling us to flash a thought\ninstantaneously even to a world whose distance is measured in millions\nof miles, so does this sublime conception of the great Oneness shatter\nthe foundations on which all _outside_ redemptions, priests,\nsacrifices, formalisms, rituals, sacraments, devilry, hell fire, and\nthe rest repose, by showing every man that he is his own priest and\nsacrificer.  No anointing or ordering can make him more than he is in\nhimself (not through Christ or any man), the true-born son of God, one\nin nature with whatsoever is Highest in existence.  Boldly does Emerson\nfling out his challenge--\n\n  Draw it thou canst the mystic line,\n  Rightly severing his from thine,\n  Which is human, which Divine.\n\nWe cannot.  In our innermost selves we are Divine.  We may say with\nEmerson, on the heights of the holy mount, when we have by long thought\nrealised the truth, and by living the life which is alone worthy of\nsuch a conception, \"I the imperfect adore my own Perfect\".  We seek to\npray, we would fain worship.  Then look no more into the skies; there\nis nought but vapour there and the silent worlds that shine eternally.\nLook not in the churches and the temples, for they are made by men's\nhands, empty of the Divine Presence as a mausoleum is of life.  Let us\nlook into ourselves for the true Shekinah, the true manifestation of\nthe Divine, nay, the truly Divine is there.  The Good in man, that is\nGod; that alone is worthy of our adoration and our love.\n\nI do not think it can be questioned that this is a noble conception of\nman and God and their mutual relations, and as far as one can judge of\nthe trend of modern thought, it would appear that only on some such\ngrounds is the intelligence of the age prepared to recognise theism as\na possible belief.  The conception of the Deity as a Being anterior to\ncreation in existence, eternally dissevered from it in being, an\nexternal object, so to speak, of admiration, reverence and fear, seems\nincomprehensible to the modern mind.  It certainly did to the whole\nidealist school of Germany, to such thinkers as Hegel, Schelling and\nFichte, to deeply religious spirits like Coleridge and Wordsworth, to\nEmerson in America, and Carlyle in England.  The \"immeasurable\nclergyman\" [2] view of the Deity, seated somewhere in the skies, and\nlistening all day and night to the Hallelujah Chorus, is now wholly and\nabsolutely impossible outside little Bethel and Bibliolatry.\n\n\nBut the truth must be confessed that in refusing to acknowledge what\none may call an outside deity, an \"absentee god,\" who pays periodical\nvisits to his creation and acts only at the instant request of prayer,\nwe are reverting to religious ideals that had their home in the land of\nthe Indus and the Ganges, a thousand years before Christianity was\nheard of.  It is the knowledge of this fact that fills one with\nstupefaction when we think of Exeter Hall and the type of Christian\nmissioner who goes out to assail the venerable beliefs of Hindooism,\nwhen our cultivated men, our Emersons, Coleridges, Carlyles and\nWordsworths, are positively reverting to the ideals of ancient India.\nThe doctrine of the Over-soul, essentially shared in by all men; the\nbelief that man is not in name, but in reality, not through the\nvicarious intercessions of another, but by his own nature, a Divine\nson, is in essence a form of Hindoo thought, and the recent\ntranslations of their sacred books enable us to read that truth there.\n\nThe Jewish conception of the Deity was utterly opposed to this.  In\nthat theology the Supreme Being was ever transcendent, and probably\nJesus, a son of Israel, was not greatly removed from this belief.\n\"Salvation is of the Jews,\" he proclaimed.  Certainly there are no\nindications in the three earlier gospels of any such teaching as that\nof Emerson, though it is found, in suggestion at least, in the fourth\ngospel.  Christ is made to say in one of those lengthy speeches at the\nclose of the book, \"If any man will keep my words, I will come to him\nand my Father will come to him, and we will take up our abode with\nhim;\" and again, \"I and the Father are one\".  Here is a suggestion,\nfaint enough, of the teaching that the Divine is present in the hearts\nof the just, of the ethically good, but there is a world of difference\nbetween that and the essential Divinity of every human soul, because\npart of the Over-soul, which is one in all men.  No; Jesus was a son of\nIsrael, and his ideals were those of his race.  The few words quoted\nfrom the fourth gospel are in the spirit of the larger belief, but they\nare Neo-Platonic in their origin, as is the whole Johannine gospel, and\ncannot be taken as fairly representing the mind of the greatest of the\nJewish seers.  If we would see the Eastern teaching in the West, we\nmust search, not the Old or New Testament, but the pages of the\nAlexandrian School, of Philo, and above all, of Plotinus, who believed\nthat the supreme truths were learnt, not by study, nor by revelation\nfrom without, but in an ecstasy of the soul, losing itself in the\ncontemplation of the Divine--in the \"flight of the alone to the Alone\".\n\nNow, that which Plotinus considered an extraordinary occurrence, an\nexperience perhaps only possible to elect spirits, men at length began\nto look upon as the truth of the normal relations between their Maker\nand themselves.  Of course, so stupendous a change took centuries in\nevolution, and, naturally, the Christian Church and its clergymen gave\nit no sort of encouragement.  It would never do to preach abroad that\nevery man was his own priest, and so we wade through the whole of\nmediaevalism without finding any recognition of the great teaching.  It\nis only when we are in the comparatively modern epoch of the fourteenth\ncentury that we find it in Eckhart, the German mystic.  \"There is,\" he\nwrites, \"something in the soul which is above the soul. . . .  It is\nabsolute and free from all names and forms, as God is free and absolute\nin himself.  It is higher than knowledge, higher than love, for in\nthese there is distinction. . . .  I have called it a power, sometimes\na light. . . .  This light is satisfied only with the super-essential\nessence.\"  It is ever entering \"into that unity where no man dwelleth,\"\nwhere there are no distinctions, \"neither Father, Son, nor Holy Ghost\".\nIt is the plain of the Great Silence, the centre of the immovable\npeace, an Inner Sea whose still waters are nevertheless bounded by no\nshores.  It is the sense, rather it is the reality, of the Infinite in\nman, that of which all seers have dreamed under many diverse forms.  I\ntake it to be the Nirvana of Buddha, the eternal silence that follows\nwhen the last of the avenues of sense has been passed, and the soul\nenters at length into the possession of itself, that is, into the\nrecognition of its infinitude.  It is what Jesus means when he speaks\nof the faithful ones--they who have endured even to the end--entering\n\"into the joy of their Lord\".  It is the apostle's unspeakable peace,\n\"the peace of God, which passeth all understanding\".\n\nAnother of the school of Eckhart, Tauler, gives his own experience, and\nit is not dissimilar.  He finds his soul \"so grounded in God that it is\ndissolved in the inmost of the Divine nature\".  No man, he says, can\ndistinguish between the sunshine and the air.  How much less the light\nof the created and the uncreated Spirit!  We are lost in the abyss\nwhich is our source.  \"From the place whence the rivers of waters go\nforth, thither do they return.\" [3]  Those words always haunt one with\na sense of the mysterious.  They seem to say that the beginning and the\nend of all are the same--the abyss of the Infinite.  Emerson believes\nthat man came forth thence, is there now, and abides there for ever.\nAnd surely Tennyson's lines must occur to the memory of every one:--\n\n  When that which drew from out the boundless deep,\n  Turns again home.\n\nTo begin to think at all, is to be brought, at length, to thoughts such\nas these--the thought of the Inner Sea, on whose still and boundless\nwaters all is silence, peace, God.\n\nAfter two centuries the teaching reappears, not in the pages of\nprofessional divines, or the denizens of the cloister, but in the\nphilosophy of modern Germany.  Schelling carries it still farther by\npronouncing that there is but one reason, one mind, the human and the\nDivine being identical.  The lines of Paracelsus are inevitably\nsuggested:--\n\n  O God, Thou art Mind!\n  Crush not my mind, O God!\n\nFichte, in his _Characteristics of the Present Age_, pronounces the\nindividual to be but \"a single ray of the one universal and necessary\nthought\".  \"There is but One Life, one animating power, one Living\nReason . . . of which all that seems to us to exist and live is but a\nmodification, definition, variety and form.\"  And, finally, he goes so\nfar as to say that it is only _by_, and _to_, mere earthly and finite\nperception, that this one and homogeneous life of reason is broken up\nand divided into separate individual persons.  What a piercing thought!\nSurely it is almost past believing that the eternal Life is itself in\nus, nay, that it is we; that in very literal truth we may say, \"I and\nthe Infinite are One\".  Only one who could speak in tongues of men and\nangels is fit to hold discourse on thoughts so sublime, but it is\ndifficult to discern a flaw in the arguments of these prophetic souls\nwho have dared to believe and to preach to men, \"Ye are gods, and sons\nof the Most High, every one\".\n\nIt is a doctrine we learn only from the new masters.  Nothing half so\nfair, so radiant, did we hear in days of old, so rich in promise, so\nfull of inspiration and helpfulness.  \"You are an adopted son of God,\"\nit was said.  There is but one natural son, the Messiah and Logos,\nJesus Christ.  Through him alone we have access to the Divine, apart\nfrom him we are children of wrath; only in him are we \"light in the\nLord\".  \"He that believeth not the Son hath not life, but the wrath of\nGod abideth with him.\"  To this hour do they say these things, but we\nwho have been privileged to hear wiser words, diviner voices, know that\nnothing can come between our lonely spirits and the Great Alone--no\nChurch, no Book, no Messiah, or Saviour.  We are greater than all that,\nfor the eternal soul of man is within us, heir-at-law divine of the\npromises, and in its _own_ right a natural son of God.\n\nBut to continue.  The scattered rays of this wonderful gospel are\nfocussed in the transcendental teaching of the last of the ethical\nprophets, Waldo Emerson.  In him the truth shines forth as the sun.  We\nhave seen the germ of the doctrine in the fourteenth and fifteenth\ncentury mystics, its resurrection in the noble school of German\nidealism which grew out of the teaching of the great master himself,\nImmanuel Kant.  The man who introduced it to England, the link, so to\nspeak, between Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and Emerson, was Coleridge, for\nwhom there is but one reason, shared in by all intelligent beings,\nwhich is in itself the universal soul.  To this profoundly reverent\nthinker reason is not a faculty, much less a property of the human\nmind.  Man cannot be said so much to possess reason as to partake of\nit.  He in whom reason dwells can as little appropriate it as his own\npossession, as he can claim ownership in the breathing air or take in\nthe canopy of heaven.\n\nNow, this is essentially what Emerson means by the Over-soul.  It is\nthe universal mind, the light which lighteth every man that cometh into\nthe world.  It is one and identical in all men, even as the sun in the\nhigh heavens is one and the same for every dweller in the solar system.\nYea, more than this, we cannot shrink from the consequences of our\naffirmation, the mind in man is not conceivably other than the Mind\nwhich is self-subsistent and infinite.  After what manner shall we\nconceive of the intelligence which laid down the foundations of the\nworld, traced the pathway of the stars, fixed the laws which nature has\nimmutably obeyed from the eternal past even to this hour, if we\nconceive it not after the manner of the mind in us which has at length\ndiscovered these laws?  How can we hold one intelligence to know and\nanother to originate them?  As truth is one and identical for all\nminds, so must be the intelligences which know and originate that\ntruth.  Hence, you will see that for thinkers[4] such as these\nagnosticism is the plainest of paradoxes--a bald contradiction in\nterms.  It affects to be unable to discern Mind in the cosmos when it\nis exercising that very mind in formulating its doubts.  It is as\nthough a man should go hunting his house for a light with a candle\nburning in his hand.  What on earth can we be searching for when the\n\"candle of the Lord,\" as Locke called it, is the very illuminant we\nmust employ in our search?  \"Tell me,\" Emerson would ask, \"the truths\nyour sciences establish, the principle of your philosophies, are they\nvalid for all intelligences or only some?\"  Surely, for all\nintelligences, you will reply.  \"Then, I will urge, these truths must\nbe one and identical if all intelligences admit them.\"  Certainly.\n\"How, then, can there be any doubt but that intelligence itself, mind\nitself, is one and identic in all men, since all think alike of the\ncosmos, and one and identic also in that everlasting Cause of the\ncosmos whence, you yourselves admit, all things derive their being?\"\n\n\nAre we asked for the supreme object of religion?  Here it is, unveiled\nso far as mind and speech of man may discover the great reality.  It is\nthe God, not \"who dwelleth in inaccessible light, who is enthroned on\nthe floors of the heavens,\" or \"walks on the wings of the winds\"; it is\nthe God who is \"not very far from any one of us,\" for he is in us, in\nvery deed and truth; he is the mind, the intelligence; he is the soul\nof man, and yet the \"Over-soul,\" the soul of all souls, and we are not\nso much made in his image, as it was taught of old, _but we are he_, we\nare the Divine, there is no line of division 'twixt us and him; the\nlight in man, the good in man is God.\n\nPray no more, then, we urge, to the skies, nor in a holy city or\nconsecrated shrine, a temple, though it were of gold.  Like the angels\nthat stood by the open, empty grave of the Christ and said, \"he is not\nhere,\" your souls cry aloud that therein alone is the infinite Soul\nwhose truth and being alone can satisfy your own.  This is the temple\nnot made with hands of man, in which alone the Supreme can be enshrined\nand worshipped, \"Foolish doctor, foolish doctor,\" says Carlyle of\nJohnson, who went tapping for ghosts in Cock Lane, \"thou thyself art a\nghost!\"  Foolish and superstitious beyond bounds, we may say, is the\nman that thinketh to find the light of life in a church when it cannot\nbe found within himself.\n\nHe who has steeped his soul in this teaching will need no more to\ncommune with an imagination in the heavens, an anthropomorphic deity in\nthe skies--it is a merciful thing we see no more of these painful\nprofanities upon the canvases of our artists--nor will he need that his\nsoul should rise on wings of fasting and prayer \"to pierce the clouds\"\nwith his importunings and entreaties.  No, his communings will be with\nhimself, his worship of the silent sort, for he knows now _that there\nis no God anywhere who is not within him_.  He will need no Chrishna,\nBuddha or Christ to \"make intercession with the Father\" for him, no\ngod-babe in a manger or deity walking the earth in sorrow or expiring\nin shame, for lo! the Divinity is also every son of God, and suffering\nhumanity is ever with us, the repression of the flesh is an unceasing\nsacrifice which we offer up in the temple of our bodies out of\nreverence for the Divinity within them.\n\n\n\nNOTE.--The best account of Emerson's ethical and speculative teaching\nis to be found in Cooke's _Life of Emerson_, obtainable through Green &\nCo., Essex Hall, Strand.  I am indebted to it for much of the\nexpository portion of this chapter.\n\n\n\n[1] The fact that Petavius, a Jesuit theologian, felt it his duty to\ncondemn several ante-Nicene writers as heretical, though honest,\noffenders against orthodoxy, is evidence enough that Athanasianism is a\nspurious development unknown to the earlier ages.\n\n[2] Tennyson's description of the \"average Englishman's\" theology.\n\n[3] Ecclesiastes i. 7.\n\n[4] And, we add, for ninety-nine out of every hundred philosophers of\nrepute.","title":"Morality as a Religion: An exposition of some first principles","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":74018}