CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ON THE NATURE OF MAN

Importance of the study of the nature of man—The nature of man as the foundation of morality—Greek worship of human nature—Matriopathy of ancient philosophers—Rationalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—Degradation of human nature by religious doctrines—Influence of these conceptions on actual life and on art—Reaction of the Reformation against the degradation of human nature—Mutilation of the human body by primitive races

Notwithstanding the real advance made by science, expressions of discontentment with it are familiar. Science, it is said, no doubt has ameliorated the material conditions of human life, but is powerless to solve those moral and philosophical questions that interest cultured people so deeply. In this region science has done no more than to destroy the foundations of religion. It has robbed mankind of the consolations of religion without being able to replace them with anything more exact or more enduring.

It cannot be disputed that a general uneasiness disturbs the world of to-day. Although his environment is most favourable to the fulfilment of many of his capacities, man finds himself without orientation when he has to determine the course of his life, or to explain to himself his true relation to such categories of humanity as family, nation, race and human race. This uneasiness reveals itself as discontentment, and it leads to pessimism or to mysticism. Most of the philosophical systems of the nineteenth century were steeped in melancholy, and led straight to a denial of the possibility of happiness and even to an advocacy of extinction. The frequency of suicide has increased greatly among all the civilised peoples. There is no need to tabulate proofs of a notorious fact.[1]

A remedy for this malady of the age has been sought in the attempt to restore religious and mystical faith. On all sides have sprung up efforts to found new religions or to amend the old. Many defenders of science have gone the length of admitting its incapacity to solve the problem of the existence of man; they have held that that problem was insoluble for the human mind. Such a depressing conclusion has been formulated in spite of many attempts to reach a rational conception of the universe and of man.

It is no new thing to ask if there be nothing but faith to control human conduct and to lead mankind towards universal happiness. Men of science and philosophers, in many ages, have thought that human nature itself could provide all the materials for a rational morality.

In the ancient world and, above all, among the Greeks, human nature was held in high esteem. The Oriental races, predecessors of the Greeks in civilisation, generally represented their gods as fantastic or grotesque beings, composites of men and animals. The Greeks made gods in their own image, giving them all the most beautiful qualities of the human race. Such a conception was a dominant factor in ancient Greek life and civilisation. The adoration of Man embraced the human body, and led to the despising of every mode of tampering with the natural body. Thus, for instance, shaving[2] of the face was regarded as a humiliation, for a smooth chin gave an unnatural, womanish cast to the face of a man.

The adoration of human nature by the Greeks appeared in Greek plastic art, and was the cause of its excellence. The ideal of art was to copy, in the most faithful way, the most perfect example of the human body, and Greek artists made measurements of the body so accurately that modern science has confirmed their chief results.[3] As sculpture most completely realised the Greek ideal of the human body, it became almost a national art among the Greeks.

Greek philosophy had an equally high opinion of human nature, of the human body, and of representations of the human body. Just as Greek art aimed at the presentation of the body of man, so Greek philosophy proclaimed the nobility of all human qualities, and inculcated the doctrine of a harmonious development of all sides of human nature.[4] Such a doctrine was formulated by Plato, and became a fundamental principle of the Old Academy; the New Academy assumed it, and handed it on to the Sceptics. According to Xenocrates (fourth century), who belonged to the Old Academy, happiness consisted not only in the possession of human virtue, but in the accomplishment of all natural acts.[5]

The principle of a worship of human nature is in itself rather vague, and it is not surprising that disputes and contradictions arose in relation to its application. Thus Plato excluded pleasure from his conception of the good, while Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, held a contrary opinion. For the latter pleasure was the natural motive of human action, and its attainment was associated as intimately with the perfect life as beauty and health were associated with the perfect human body.[6]

Under the name _Matriopathy_ there arose, in the ancient world, a doctrine the object of which was the study of the goal of natural morality. This doctrine was held by many philosophers, but these applied it to the details of actual life in very different fashions. Thus, for the Stoics, the _summum bonum_ and happiness, the most lofty aim, could not be found except by conforming life to nature. Conduct was to be brought into harmony with the rational order of nature in such a fashion that every conscious and rational being would perform no actions that could not be deduced from the general law.[7] The same principle of a life in harmony with nature led the Epicureans to the conclusion that “pleasure is a natural good, that is to say, a condition conformable with nature, and so bringing with it intrinsic contentment.”[8] Setting out from the same fundamental principle, the theories of the Stoics and Epicureans led in opposite directions.

The Roman philosophers adopted the principle of a life strictly natural. Seneca, for instance,[9] enunciated the maxim: “Take nature as your guide, for so reason bids you and advises you; to live happily is to live naturally.”

Without following through the centuries the development of the idea in detail, I may content myself with saying that resort has been made to it, wherever there was sought, outside the sanction of religion, a rational principle to guide human conduct. It recurs even among those convinced Christians who rebelled against the asceticism and hatred of human nature that became prevalent in the early centuries of the Christian era.

The Greek conception of a life in harmony with nature found its most complete development in the rationalism of the Renaissance, and of the centuries that followed it. Hutcheson,[10] a Scotch philosopher of the eighteenth century, insisted that right was with the thinkers of the naturalistic school, and that the realisation of their ideal was to be considered as the highest virtue. He thus placed himself directly against the Scotch clergy who asserted the greatest contempt for human nature. Buckle[11] proclaimed that it was a high honour for Hutcheson to have been the first Scotchman to raise his voice publicly against the degrading views of his time.

The French philosophers of the eighteenth century, who sought to replace the religious foundations of conduct by rational principles, again had recourse to human nature. Not long before the French Revolution there appeared a treatise in three volumes, written by Baron d’Holbach, and entitled, “Universal Morality, or the Duties of Man based on Nature.”[12] Frankly a materialist and atheist, that writer laid it down as an axiom that “to be universal, the moral law must be founded on the essential nature of man, that is to say, on the properties and qualities found constantly in the human being, and that distinguish him from other animals.” To be well assured, “morality presumes a science of human nature.”[13]

The principle of ancient philosophy reappeared in the works of rationalists of the nineteenth century. Wilhelm von Humboldt declared that “the ultimate ideal of man, the ideal prescribed for him by the irrefutable and eternal laws of reason, consisted in a development as harmonious as possible of all his qualities in their entirety.” The modern historian, Lecky,[14] defines the aim of life as the full development of all that exists in the proportions determined by nature.

Philosophers and historians are not alone in the adoption of Greek rationalism. Many naturalists, and among these some very distinguished authors, have spoken in the same sense. It is easy to see the Greek principle in such phrases as those of Darwin[15] when he wrote: “The term general good may be defined as the means by which the greatest possible number of individuals can be reared in full vigour and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are exposed.”

Georges Seidlitz,[16] an advocate of the great English naturalist, got still nearer to the conception of the ancients. According to him, the moral and rational life consisted in “the accomplishment of all the functions of the body, in due but full proportion.”

Herbert Spencer,[17] in analysing the aim of existence, came to the conclusion that morality should be adjusted so as to make life as full and complete as possible. As a criterion of physical perfection, the English philosopher would accept only the complete devotion of all the organs to the accomplishment of all their functions, while his criterion of moral perfection was contribution to the general good. These views are plainly, if not exactly, expressions of the Greek ideal.

While, then, rational philosophers in all the ages have sought the foundation of morality in human nature itself, and have held human nature to be good, or even perfect, many religious doctrines have displayed a very different view. Human nature was regarded as being composed of two hostile elements, a body and a soul. The soul alone was to be honoured, while the body was regarded as the vile source of evils. Such a view led to the flagellations and torturings of the body which form so strange and so widespread a phenomenon. The Hindu fakirs who swing themselves on hooks, the dervishes and Mussulman Assouans who beat in their skulls with clubs, the Russian Skoptsy who emasculate themselves, and many other instances make it plain that natural perfection is not taken as the basis for conduct.

Buddha[18] in the clearest way showed his belief that human nature was base. Coming out from the apartments of the women, there came to him a “vivid idea of the impurity of the body, a feeling of repulsion from it, and of blame of it; regarding his own body and seeing its wretchedness, he began to despise it, and to formulate conceptions of impurity and purity; _from the sole of the feet to the crown of the head, to the limit of the brain, he saw that the body was born in impurity, came from impurity, and always let itself be drawn to impurity_.” These reflections led him to the conclusion: “What wise man, having regarded his own body, will not see in it an enemy?”

Towards the end of the old world, the Greek theory of human nature yielded to a very different conception. The opposition between the opinions of the Stoics on morality, and their admiration of human nature, led Seneca, one of the last Roman Stoics and a celebrated contemporary of Jesus Christ, to break completely away from the ancient doctrine. Convinced of the moral weakness and imperfection of man, and of the persisting power of evil, Seneca declared that human nature contained a vicious and essentially evil element. This element was seated in the body, which he regarded as so essentially vile that it is to be despised. Our body was no more than the dwelling of the soul, its temporary home, a place in which it cannot be at rest. The body was a burden which the soul would be rid of, a prison-house from which it would escape. According to Seneca[19] the soul must wrestle with the body, for the body brings to it nothing but suffering, while the soul is essentially pure and spotless, and as much above the body as divinity is above matter.

A dualism still more pronounced was characteristic of the early Christian view of human nature, and led to the depreciation of the body as compared with the soul. In the fourth and fifth centuries of our era such a view was so dominant that a struggle against the material side of our nature became a rule of life. The most absolute asceticism spread throughout the Christian world.[20] A struggle against hunger, thirst, and desire for sleep, rejection of all pleasures that come from impressions of sight, of hearing, or of the palate, and, above all, abstention from sexual intercourse, became, in the opinion of believers, the true aim of human life. The conviction that human nature was essentially corrupt led to a declaration of war against it; all the pleasures were forbidden, even the most innocent of them being thought vicious. What could be more in contrast with the calm and joyous philosophy of the Greeks, for whom there did not exist the idea of a struggle against the supposed corruption and imperfection of man? The dualistic theory made such demands on its proselytes that these, absorbed in the salvation of their souls, sank from the physical point of view to the level of wild beasts. Hermits resorted to the lairs of animals, abandoned their clothing and went about naked with shaggy and disordered hair. In Mesopotamia and a part of Syria there arose a sect of eaters of grass; these were people who had no dwellings and who ate neither bread nor vegetables, but wandered on the hills and fed on the herbage. Cleanliness of the body was regarded as an indication of corruptness of the soul, and among the most highly venerated of the saints were those who took no care of the body. Athanasius relates with approval that when St. Antony, the father of monks, became old he never washed his feet.[21]

Such doctrines soon brought about a most serious perversion of the innate instincts of the human race. The senses of family and of society became so weakened that fanatical Christians were more than indifferent to their kinsmen and countrymen. One saint was venerated because he was hard and cruel only to his relatives. It is told of the Abbot Siseuss that on a believer asking to be received into the convent, he inquired if the suppliant had any one akin to him. “I have only a son,” said the Christian. “Well, then,” said the abbot, “take your son and cast him into the river, for thus only may you become a monk.” The father set about to do the bidding of the abbot, and it was only at the last moment that the order was recalled. For admission into a Christian community it was necessary to renounce one’s country.[22]

Such ideas have struck a deep and enduring root. In the opinion of the ministers of the Scotch Church of the seventeenth century, according to Buckle,[23] there was nothing so surprising as that the earth could contain itself in the presence of that horrid spectacle, man, and that it did not gape, as in former days, to swallow him in the midst of his wickedness. For certainly, in the created universe, there could be nothing so monstrous and so horrible as man.

It was to be expected that when such conceptions prevailed, celibacy and repudiation of the reproductive instinct should have been made obligatory on the clergy. The words, reported by St. Matthew (xix. 11, 12), that “there be eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” were interpreted by some as implying a voluntary renunciation of marriage, while others insisted on the literal meaning and in consequence mutilated themselves more or less completely. The breasts of women were removed to eradicate the maternal instincts. But it is only the sect of Skoptsy, by no means a small body in Russia, that applies the gospel command in this stringent fashion. The wish announced by St. Paul (Corinthians vii. 7), “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I; but if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn,” soon became a command, and since the fourth century the Catholic Church has advocated celibacy of the clergy, although it was not enforced until the eleventh century (under Gregory VII.). A low view of human nature has survived in the Catholic Church even to our own times. Pope Leo XIII., in his “Encyclical on Freemasons,” proclaimed it.[24] “Human nature,” he said, “was contaminated by the Fall, and as it is therefore much more prone to vice than to virtue, in order to attain virtue it is absolutely necessary to restrain the wild impulses of the soul, and to control the appetites by reason.”

Art has reflected the Christian conception of human nature. Sculpture, which played so great a part in the ancient world, and which was intimately associated with Greek ideals, began to decline rapidly in the Christian era. It lasted longer in the Roman Empire of the East, but in Italy it was almost completely forgotten by the eighth century. Painting survived, but not without undergoing an extraordinary degeneration. All the Italian works of art of the Carlovingian period, displayed the utmost indifference to natural form, and a loss of the sense of harmony and beauty. Later on, Italian art fell lower still. “No one dreamed any longer of studying nature or of observing the human body. An epoch in which the interference of supernatural forces was generally accepted, and in which the conception of the universe was founded on a contrast between the natural and the supernatural, could not admit in its art the rule of natural law or a natural order of events.”[25]

The intimate connection between the depreciation of human nature due to Christian doctrine and the inferiority of the art of the middle ages cannot be denied. Taine[26] writes of the period as follows: “If one considers the stained-glass windows or the images in the cathedrals, or the rude paintings, it appears as if the human race had become degenerate and its blood had been impoverished; pale saints, distorted martyrs, virgins with flat chests, feet too long and bony hands, hermits withered and unsubstantial, Christs that look like crushed and bleeding earthworms, processions of figures that are wan, and stiffened, and sad, upon whom are stamped all the deformities of misery and all the shrinking timidity of the oppressed.”

The art of the middle ages fell lower and lower until the Renaissance, with its return to the Greek ideal, brought new vigour. The great masters of the Renaissance were in addition scientific men who had studied mathematics and who employed the technique of mensuration; such were Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Angelo, and others. The return to the Greek ideals and to nature brought with it the taste for beauty.

When the ancient spirit was born again, its influence reached science and even religion, and the Reformation was a defence of human nature. The Lutheran doctrines resumed the principle of a “development as complete as possible, of all the natural powers” of man, and saw in that ideal a guide for humanity. Compulsory celibacy was abolished, and free play was given to all the tendencies in conformity with the laws of nature.[27]

Besides those whose religion led them to despise the human body, there have been many savage races and tribes who have practised mutilations of the body. It would be a long list were I to set out all the modes in which the human body has been disfigured. Treatises on Ethnography and the volumes of travellers contain a multitude of details of this sort. The hair, the teeth and the lips have been subjected to treatment with the object of making them as unlike the natural condition as is possible. Many of the lower races discolour their teeth, or remove some of them, or file them to points. Others insert in the lips pieces of wood, of stone, or of bone. A whole chapter might be occupied with an account of the disfiguring devices of tattooers. The skull, the breasts, and the feet, have all been subjected to deforming treatment.

Although there is not enough evidence to set down these practices to the existence of definite and self-conscious religious or philosophic doctrine, it is at least certain that the people among whom they occur are far from revering human nature in the fashion of the Greeks, but rather attempt to distort it in accordance with their own taste. Discontent with the natural conditions of existence is, as we have seen, so widespread that there is good reason for an inquiry as to the existence of some general principle underlying this diversity of opinion regarding human nature. I have already shown that this question of human nature has for long interested mankind, and has shared largely in the formation of ideas of the good and the beautiful. It is not too soon to submit the problem to rational investigation, using those rigid methods of science which have been learned in our epoch. I shall try to give an exposition of human nature in its strength and in its weakness. But before passing to man, I shall survey the lower forms of life, hoping to fix some landmarks that will be useful in the study of the larger problem.