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THEOLOGY AND MORALITY.
BY
N. PROWER, B.A., OXON.
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THEOLOGY AND MORALITY.
Nothing is more noticeableamong leading modern scep-
tics than the vehemence with which they repudiate the
charge that their preaching will end by proving disastrous
to what is commonly called morality, and to the general
principles of right'and wrong. Indeed, some of them ac-
tually claim to exalt these principles into an even higher
position than that which they have previously occupied,
and contend that right and morality will obviously be
more revered when worshipped on their own account, than
when merely followed as adjuncts of, and because included
by, a dogmatic theological faith, Now the question of
whether morality will be able to stand, supposing religion
to die out, is one of enormous importance ; and to a lay-
man of good general education but small theological at-
tainments, it is of special interest, because he will the
more readily, we may suppose, unite himself to Chris-
tianity, and its dogmas if he feel that religion is the main,
if not the only, guarantee of a sound moral system,
Whether this is a high ground on which to become, or
remain, a Christian, is quite another question; but, in
these days, when highly educated young men are dis-
tracted by the claims of conflicting philosophies, and
when the standing ground of every proposition is in-
quired into, any additional proof of the necessity of
Christianity is, ¢f ¢ be demonstrably a fair one, of some
use. Moreover, (since trees are judged. by their fruits),
if morality can be proved to be a natural and necessary
a.
4
fruit of religion, and to be producible by no other tree,
we are bound in fairness to conclude that tree to be
healthy. Nor is this question a fanciful or an out of the
way one; on the contrary, it is what thousands of edu-
cated men are discussing and thinking of every day.
Nothing, perhaps, facilitates the breaking away from
faith zo much as the conviction that one can be just as
moral, and what is called “ good,” without a supernatural
creed,—the deduction of course veing that such creeds are
unnecessary.
This view is especially attractive not only to well edu-
cated but also to partially educat«l men, who have neither
ability nor opportunity to arrive at on opinion for or against
Christianity by the laborious process of studying its evi-
dences; who are unable to weigh the authenticity of the
Greek Testament againsé destructive German criticism ;
to whom the Bampton and the Hibbert lectures are alike
unknown, and who find, if possible, even Butler to he
uninteresting, The quarrels over the authorship of St.
John’s Gospel reach them not; Dr. Pusey, Mr. Hatch, Dr.
Jowett, Cardinal Newman and the other theological con-
troversalists fight in an arena into which they cannot
enter. Indeed, even the well-educated are apt to find,
when they step into this arena and try to gauge the
strength of these combatants, that they grow more con-
fused than enlightened. What, then, are they to do?
Possibly an argument ab extra, if I may so call it, may
reach those to whom theology itself is unintelligible.
Englishmen are proverbially open to the reasonings of
common sense, and it is their boast that they are so.
Fairness and moderation are among the best of our, char-
acteristics. Cardinal Newman, in his Apologia, deplores
the difficulty experienced: by those who try to “ work an
Englishman up to a dogmatic pitch.” We love a compro-
mise and care little for logical consistency. What, for
5
example is the Episcopalian Church but a via media be-
tween Rome and Protestantigm—whether a logical cne it
is not my province to determine? Now, it is possible that
this very sense of fairness, this very desire to weigh fully
the views of others, is inimical to the formation of fixed
religious opinions, and makes us suspend our judgment
until we begin to think we need not judge at all. The
question of the relation of religion and morality is, there-
fore, of interest and importance, and in examining it I
propose to begin with what I venture to call the historic
method of inquiry :—I will try to show that a decadence
of morality has always followed or accompanied a de-
cadence of religious faith ; that the fall of the former is
a consequence of the fall of the latter; that where a tem-
porary survival of morality is found it is the result of
some special circumstances; that those circumstances
cannot last long, and that when they are removed the fall
is only all the greater for being delayed. Now, it will
perhaps be contended that if a loss of faith in false relig-
ions is followed by a fall in morality, nothing is proved
as to the objective truth of Christianity—since what
one false creed can do and yet be false, Christianity may
do too, and be false also. To this contention I have
only to answer that the proof of the objective truth of
Christianity is not my business in this paper. There is,
however, a more cemplete answer to that objection,
which J hope to give later on.
Proceeding then to the historic method, I have decided,
on mature deliberation, to omit all mention of the history
of the Jews, because it is open to a sceptic to say that it is
very fine and very easy. to prove what I like about a
special race whose history is mainly known to us through
the Bible—which they regard as very poor history: and as
an ex parte statement. Let us therefore go to the Athen-
ians and see what their beautiful and glorious history
. i)
teaches us on this point. After the second repulse of the
Persians (following on the battles of Salamis and Plata),
the state of Attica rises into importance, and begins to
produce that unparalled succession of statesmen, phil-
osophers, poets and historians that have made for that
little spot of land a name that shall endure as long as the
earth exists. And in this succession of wonderful men
we find, (as I hope to show,) that the moral tone declines
in proportion ‘as the faith in the gods dies out. Let us
consider, very briefly, the views of Socrates as far as they
bear on this point, and how the Athenians regarded him.
Socrates was emphatically a searcher a/ter truth, and his
genius was analytical and what is usually called de-
structive, as opposed toconstructive. His famous erotetic
method of argument must have had for its main effect
the suggesting of thought. The Athenian image-maker, or
herdsman would be set cogitating over the why and
wherefore of things he had never dreamed of inquiring
into before. Now, when this habit of inquiry had become
second nature, the constructive philosopher could step in,
but the age of disintegration had to be got through before
that of redintegration could find congenial soil. How
was Socrates’ teaching received by the Athenian Demos ?
We all know that he was accused of atheism, and had to
drink the hemlock. I am aware that there was another
count in the indictment, but the gravamen was infidelity.
What his real opinions were on the subject of theology it
is hard to say. A purely analytical and questioning mind
is very apt to end by regarding the supernatural as an
insoluble problem, and by adopting, therefore, what
would nowadays be called an agnostic position. It is in-
credible that he could have believed in the objective ex-
istence.of the numerous Hellenic divinities, but he need
not on that account have objected to the worship of them,
or denied that there was beauty in the belief. But his
LEEPER ERT TN eciee e
7
views were eminently practical. Students will recollect
that Xenophon, in his Memorabilia of Socrates, tells us
how the great philosopher used to laugh at those whose
whole philosophy consisted in abstract speculations as to
the origin of the world, etc., and used to say that a deeper
and healthier philosophy would be arrived at by the plan
of questioning closely and thoroughly the phenomena of
every day life. The process of boldly and honestly ask-
ing the reasons of why every thing is done as it is, and
why men approve of this and not of that, and what are
the real causes lying at the root of such things, was the
means by which Socrates pr» »osed to approach the deeper
and more general questions. But the .thenians as a body
were not prepared to look with any favour on this method
of inquiry, especially when they began to suspect that
under cover of so simple a plan (leir cherished concep-
tions might be rudely attacked and swepi away. Zeus
and Athene, Ares and Hermes, were real enough to the
Demos, though they might be sneered at in the salons of
“thinkers.” And, among the philosophers themselves,
down to the time of Socrates, the tendency had been to
embellish, add to, and rehabilitate the glories of the gods
rather than to deny their existence. The old dogmas
might have been “restated,” as the modern phrase goes,
but they were not actually denied. Where these philoso-
phers were original, it was only on the most abstract sub-
jects, and their ideas were simply grotesque. They loved
to discuss the cosmogony, but their knowledge of that
subject was hardly equal to that of Ephraim Jenkinson,
and their ceuperstition was as gross as that of the crowd
to whom they lectured. Now the Athenian public did
not in the least object to having new beliefs thrust on
them én addition to the old ones; on the contrary, they
swallowed the principle of “development” with an
avidity that is astonishing, though I will not say unparal-
8
leled: When a certain point of credulity is reached, a few
dogmas more or less do not seem to make much differ-
ence, Lord Lytton, in his work on the rise and fall of
Athens, says, very truly, that superstitious people can
rarely reject the superstitions of another creed. But
when a philosopher arose whose continual questions were
“why” and “wherefore” it was quite a different matter,
and something, it was felt, really had to be done. That
something was the hemlock. But when Socrates lay dead
- the reaction came; the new cause now boasted of a mar-
tyr, and the impulsive Greeks were soon ready to cry
“ Peccavi.” Accordingly, Plato is permitted to develop
his master’s doctrines as he pleases, while Aristotle, after
him, though intensely unpopular on account of his politi-
cal opinions, is never molested merely on the score of his
abstract beliefs. But, to prove the decadence of morals
in Athens, we must turn from the philosophers to the
poets, and then the gradual declension from a pure toa
morbid tone of thought is marked with teri:..le clearness.
The three great tragedians, Auschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides, afford ample matter for the proof; of what I
have urged. Auschylus represents the age immediately
preceding Pericles rather than that of Pericles himself,
for, though he lived during the administration of that.
statesman, the formation of his mind took place in the
time of the Persian wars and Themistocles. In adopting
this view I follow Mr. Groteand Lord Lytton. He repre-
sented, therefore, what. I venture on calling the thorough-
ly theological epoch, by which I do not mean that no
philosophy was then in existence, but that it had not yet
taken the form of questioning the existence of the gods.
AXschylus merely intellectualizes, as it were, the gods of
Homer, and therefore he need not detain us, especially as .
he is the least known and read; at present, of the three.
But in Sophocles the ruling idea is Fate, above and
9
a
beyond the gods; the power that will shape our ends,
rough hew them as we will; that lowers over the hori-
zon of human hopes and ambition; that appears when
and where we cannot foretell, leading us whithersoever
we would not. This is now the great “force behind
nature,” as modern thinkers would say, that is called in
to supersede the caprices of the Olympian divinities ; im-
placable, unappeased by hecatombs or prayers, “ for of
this divinity alune ts tt impossible to go to the shrines or to
the altars, nor does she hear sacrifices.” These words do not
come from Sophocles, but the sentiment is his. Morality
does not seem to be lowered in the dramas of this middle
period ; but if we wish to see how mere sophistical rea-
soning and casuistry can be at last worked into every
cranny of the human mind, till a healthy and spontane-
ous judgment becomes completely impossible, let us turn
to Euripides. And a little of the general history of
thought at that time must be here inserted, or the causes
of the morbid views of Euripides cannot be completely
understood.
The Athenian public was the most educated public
that the world has ever seen, or, probably, ever will see,
and their natural bent lay in the direction of philosoph,
and metaphysics. We owe that last word to Aristotle,
who flourished later than the time of Euripides, but the
studies usually understood to come under its meaning
were in full flower in Euripides’ time. The age of
Sophocles was an age of doubt, but all history shows us
that the generation in which doubts first begin is not
very different from the preceding, because the effects of early
education are not easily got rid of. But when.there arises a
generation that was not even taught religion, morals and
ethics are apt to alter immensely. How far the new
views had permeated the masses at Athens it is impossi-
ble to say. That a reaction did once occur in the direc-
Cd
tion of upholding dogmatic faith is proved by Euripides’
play of the “ Bacche,” and that very same play proves
how degraded and superstitious in its essence this reaction
was. But, meanwhile, all writers agree in bearing wit-
ness to the lowering of public morality. The dikasts
became more and more corrupt; the agora, became the
arena for personal quarrels instead of naticnal discussion ;
jaxury and wealth increased and venality increased
pari passu. Things at last reached the stage described in
the “Knights” of Aristophanes, but even in Euripides’
time they were bad enough. The most morbid, to my
mind, o: the plays of that poet is the “ Alcestis,” though
the “ Bacchee” is even more instructive in revealing the
state of thought of of the times. Unless the “ Alcestis’’
is intended for a comedy, (which has been maintained,
though not with much success), the ideas the Athenians
had still left concerning the gods must have afforded in-
controvertible proof of the saying that when religion is
cast out superstition frequently remains. The two
characters who appear first on the stage are both of a
supernatural order, Apollo and Death. Apollo begins
with a soliloquy, and on the appearance of Death the two
begin disputing and abusing one another in a style for
which the term “undignified ” would bea mild one. Of
the other characters, Hercules, (a demi-god and the son of
Zeus himself), is very near being vulgar, and affords some
colour for the hypothesis that the whole play may bea
comedy, while his personal combat with Death at the
tomb does not elevate the conception of either a demi-god
or a spirit. Alcestis herself is represented as doing a
noble act, but not a single memorable speech is put into
her mouth, except a few lines which the inevitable
“ Therapaina” relates that she said on bidding farewell
to her couch. Admetus is simply bencath contempt, and
Pheres is painfully commonplace. The farewell to
ipides’
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11
the couch and the address of the chorus to fate are posi-
tively the only passages worth remembering for their
own sake. But the miserable, forced sophistry of the
argument between Pheres and Admetus is interesting as
a study of morbid mental anatomy, and an audience that
could have enjoyed it and sympathised with the speaker
must have been of interest in the same way. But when
we turn to the “ Bacche” we see how low a great poet
can sink, and what stuff he can write, when he panders
to the superstition of the mob. A wave of reaction to-
wards the grosser portions of the Greek mythology must
have swept over Athens, and Euripides, who was of a
pretty practical turn of mind, determined to write a play,
to set forth the bad end of one who declined to worship
and adore—whom ? not Zeus, not the national Athene, not
Ares, but Bacchus; Bacchus in his grossest and most de-
graded form. The play is a short one, and the plot is
simple enough. Pentheus, the infidel, is cut off in the
midst of his infidelity, and meets his fate at the hands of
the god and of the drunken female votaries of his wor-
ship. The play positively seems written to promote the
vice of drunkenness, and one cannot help wondering if
Athens were troubled with a “liquor question,” and if
Euripides were specially retained on the side of the bar-
keepers. But there was, beyond doubt, a reaction at this
period in favour of the “good old times,” and if we wish
to see a really talented representative of this reaction let
us turn to the comic poet Aristophanes. The only person
in our own history who can be compared to him is Swift,
but the dean of St. Patrick’s is mild and refined when
measured against the Athenian. Aristophanes assailed
the democratic government of his country with a viru-
lence that, if directed against any other government in
the world at that time, would have ensured his, own,ar-
rest and imprisonment. But his satires disclose a state! of
12
life and thought and manner that justify the strongest
condemnation, and if any good could be done by drama-
tizing the lowest phases of Athenian life, and exposing
the state of Athenian socicty, we can hardly blame the
man who tried todo so. The unfortunate thing was that
the Demos was now so demoralized that citizens flocked
in crowds to laugh at representations of their own filthi-
ness and corruption, and Aristophanes, of course, knew
them well enough to know that they would. His fav-
ourite trick was parodying the pompous sophisms of
Euripides, who was, it must be confessed, a tempting sub-
ject. The leading point in the opinions of Aristophanes
was his contempt for the mob government into which the
Athenian democracy was sinking, and his love of simpler
times when manners were more austere and public virtue
more inviolate. In the play of the “Knights” he
launches a terrible invective against the leaders of the
Demos, especially one Kleon, whom he represents as a
Paphlagonian slave, the Demos being brought in as his
owner, who, at the end of the play, transfers his favour
to a still greater rascal. The gradual declension in
the characters of the statesmen (or rather mob ora-
tors) who swayed successively the votes of the Agora
is unmistakable, both during the Peloponesian war
and after it. The “Frogs” is mainly directed against
Euripides, and the ludicrous position in which Bacchus
is placed in this drama is thought by many to be
intended to be a caricature of the “ Bacche.” He takes
the opportunity of ridiculing a famous line in Hippoly-
tus, in which Euripides makes a character, when accused
of an untruth, reply, ‘My tongue swore, my mind is un-
sworn,” an answer which might be'twisted into a defence
of what is now called by certain people “ mental reserva-
tion," —though it is only fair to say that it bears a more
innocent constrnction as used inthe Hippolytus. And, to
igest
ama-
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e the
that
cked
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fav-
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18
turn to the degradation of politics, how different was the
conduct of the Athenians towards Alexander of Macedon
to what it had been towards Darius and Xerxes! But
Athens has already detained me long enough, and if it
has been tedious my apology must be that my love of the
literature and history of that wonderful spot makes it
hard for me to quit it. The same result, however, is
shown—and on a gigantic scale—in the history of Impe-
rial Rome. Philosophy did not find an entrance into her
social lifie until she came in contact with Greece, and
“ Grecia capta ferum victorem cepit.” But by the time of
Cicero an Athenian education was much sought after by
the Roman youth of the upper classes, for the Romans
were not so narrow-minded as to refuse to admit that
foreign teaching could be better than their own. So con-
temptible a feeling was far from the minds of that great
and generous nation, which, excelling all the world in
battle, was content to allow to Athens, in the domain of
letters, the palm she justly claimed in turn for herself on
the field of Mars. Jealousy is the involuntary tribute
paid from the small to the great. Those, therefore, who
had passed through the Athenian academeia were wel-
comed, as men who had been among associations that Rome
as yet could not give, und had breathed an atmos-
phere that at Rome was breathed not; who cou!d not
have walked those magio.groves, where each tree seemed
to resound with the tongues of the dead, without drink-
ing in something of a softer and a diviner spirit; who
could not have-gazed at the grey stones of the Acropolis,
teeming with the associations of the immortal heroes of
past ages, without acquiring something of that sense of
reverence which was nearly inexplicable to the ruder
Roman; and who might have been excused if they bore
back with them a filial love for the tiny stream of the |
Ilyssus which they found it hard to transfer at once to.
rushing and dashing Tiber.
14
Cicero contributed very largely to the spread of the
philosophic spirit, and it will at once occur, for instance,
to us, that in his famous treatise “de Senectute” he re-
gards the existence of a future life as a question that he
does not pretend to settle. But in his speeches before the
Senate aud the judges it must be admitted that there is
not a shred of atheism; on the contrary, he frequently
adjures the gods and is fond of allusioas to the Sybilline
Fates and so forth, knowing, of course, exactly what
would suit his audience. Indeed the great difference be-
tween his public specches and the philosophical disserta-
tions that he composed in his own study is so great that
a reader not intimately acquainted with his style might
almost doubt if they were composed by tk. same man.
But as he had been brought up under the theological sys-
tem he shows no signs of bad morality, though some few
‘ of his letters and one or two of the Philippics may per-
haps be called coarse, though they are ‘ess so than the
works of our own Swift and Smollet. Cicero had been
educated under a theological system, and its effects indis-
putably remain. When we pass to the Augustan age,
the names which most readily occur to us are those of
Virgil and Horace, of which Horace is the most valuable
for the purposes of this paper, as Virgil’s greatest poem
was on a subject unconnected with Roman contemporary
thought and life. « point of attack has been made out
of his eclogue to Alexis, but, (I think), rather unfairly,
as it is obviously an imitation from a Greek model, and
there is an unreal air about the whole’ piece. But in
Horace there is a great deal of useful information, and
some light is shed both on the state of theology at the
time and on that of morality. To begin with the former,
we find, as might be expected, that the poet’s views on
the future life are rather vague and somewhat gloomy.
Beyond the single line “ sedesque discretas piorum,” there is
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15
little or nothing to lead us to think that the “ good” will
have a happier time in Hades than the “bad.” On the
contrary, the main reason why we are not, according to
Horace, to trouble ourselves about the great questions of
this world is because in the next it will be all the same.
This point is more important in conuexion with his views
on morality, of which we will speak presently, but, to
keep to theology proper, we find the Olympian divinities
continually invoked, but with a playful sense cf unreality
running through the invocation ; continually spoken of,
but in a manner that does not connote the idea of devu-
tion. It has often occurred to me that Horace poured
out his libation to Bacchus with feelings very much akin
to those with which we nowadays pick up a horseshoe
on the road. He would not have felt quite comfortable if
he drank without pouring out a few drops to the rosy
god, and many of us will only omit to pick up our horse-
shoe when we are walking with somebody whose ridicule
we have reason to fear if we do so. On the other hand,
when Horace speaks flippantly of his gods he does it in a
sort of apologetic way that leaves us with the impression
that he must have looked over his shoulder, while writ-
ing, to make sure that they were not coming. There is,
however, nothing approaching a real prayer in his poems,
and, as Mr. Hurrell Froude (in his “ Remains”) says, “a
man who does not pray must have taken a long and com-
plete farewell of all real religion.” Surely nothing is
truer than this. Horace had a sort of half faith ; and the
husk of superstition remained when the kernel of religion
had passed away; let us, before we blame him, examine
ourselves, and be certain we are not a little inclined in the
same direction. He was, like most imaginative men, sub-
ject to moods, in some of which he would be drawn to-
wards credulousness, and in others towards sceptical in-
quiry. This being the state of his theological belief,
16
what was his philosophy? It is generally said to be
merely “carpe diem,” but it was a very refined form of
that principle, and a man who quoted Horace in defence
of a life of excess and debauchery would grossly mis-
represent him. The key to his view of happiness in life
is found in the stanza, “ Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit,” etc., and the ode beginning, “ Nun ebur neque
aureum med renidet in domo lacunar.” It combined a firm
belief in the joys of moderation and “ modestia” with a
deep conviction that the real happiness of the truly wise
man lay in the world within, not in the world without,
and that the really highest enjoyment was the conscious-
ness of content, and of purity of life and aim. The real
riches, according to Horace, were those of the mind, not
those of the pocket, and the happiest man was he who
was freest from anxiety and worry, and from the torments
of an evil conscience.
The light shed by Horace on public morality in Rome
is not particularly cheerful, but it reveals a far purer state
of things than that whicl. existed a century later. The
vice most especially called nowadays immorality was un-
doubtedly very common in Rome, but probably not more
so than in all other countries at that time. The Roman
family life was exceptionally pure, the family tie excep-
tionally strong, and the victims of the immorality of the
city were either of foreign extraction, or else from the
very dregs of the populace. It will be remembered that
Lydia, Glycera, Lalage, Chloris, etc., are all Greek names,
so that (if they had any existence at all) they were for-
eigners, not Romans. The Roman policy towards religion
was one of universal toleration. Ovid makes a country
divinity exclaim, ‘“ Rome is a worthy place, where every
god may go,” and certainly !’ome received the religions
of all races with open arms. ‘che city had by this time
become the dwelling place of merchants and others of all |
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17
nations, and these were allowed the free worship of the
gods of their country, provided they did not interfere
with other people doing the same. So far, so good; but,
as this community of religions existed side by side with
the new philosophies, the multiplicity of faiths tended
still further (inevitably) to confuse the average Roman
mind. The Epicureans and the Stoics had numerous fol-
lowers at Rome, and Plato was much read among the
upper classes. Aristotle also was eagerly studied; and,
in short, not only every god, but every school of thought
found an ample field for its extension in the Eternal City.
It was not till after the Augustan age, however, that athe-
ism becomes very largely held. The philosophies were
studied side by side with the old creeds, and though the
former were accepted in theory, the latter were still held
on to in fact.. The Roman mind was more conservative
than the Greek, and less inclined to receive new ideas as
guides in daily life, though they might meet with a sort
of intellectual assent. But if philosophical ‘ideas were
held by the understanding, while the precepts of the
waning religion were still followed out in life, it merely
shows again that the generation which first becomes scepti-
cal does not depart much from its old habits of life and
feeling. The “paterfamilias” was almost as much re-
vered, and quite as powerful, in the time of Augustus as
he was in that of the early republic, and corruption in
public official life was probably not much worse. The
offices of state were still objects of ambition to the best
men in the country, and had not yet become prizes for
mere adventurers.
But when we turn from the times of Horace to those
of Nero and Juvenal, we find that the decay of public
virtue and private morality had become far worse than
anything had ever been in Athens. Never, in the course
of the world’s history, was government in : more corrupt
18
state; never was power in the hands of more utterly un-
worthy holders; never was luxury seen on so enormous
or 80 barbaric a scale; never was morality in such an in-
expressibly degraded condition. Theold Roman patrician
families, whose remote forerunners had sent the “ Proud”
Tarquin back to his ancestral Etruria, whose near prede-
cessors had destroyed Carthage, and defied the phalanxes
of Pyrrhus ; the old Roman plebeians whose fathers had
demanded and obtained their rights as men on the Mons
Sacer; both these were now equally the slaves of whom-
soever the Prestorian guard might choose to salute as Im-
perator. And to whom did the Imperator confide the im-
portant offices of government? Was it to men like the
Fabii, the Scipiones, the Bruti, or to any other old hon-
oured races whose representatives were still living, and in
whose veins the old blood was still flowing? No; they
were entrusted to freed slaves, to palace favourites, to all
the worst and most degraded persons who might have
found means to make themselves useful to the Imperator
and his guards.
The governors of the great Roman provinces could not
become very much more rapacious and corrupt than they
had been; but, in the days of a century back, however
personally greedy or tyrannical a proconsul might have
been, he was at any rate a good public officer in the sense
of a serviceable representative of Roman majesty; pa-
triotic towards the senate and people at home, and very
far removed from being an object of contempt. But the
“libertinus” who was sent in the days of Nero to some
distant proconsulate was the representative of nothing
that was any longer worth representing, and he was not
only hated, but began gradually to be despised. Verres
might have taken his standing on the old saying, “ Oderint
dum metuant,” and have maintained it with success; but
the “fear” was not to last forever. The state of morality
See eM ood TORS GS
Le
19
in the city may best be realized from the evidence con-
tained in the satires of Juvenal, though Tacitus and
various other writers are not without all requisite infor-
mation. Nothing is more exquisitely instructive than to
compare the general tone of Juvenal with that of Horace,
both as regards the question of theology and that of
morality. While Horace holds a sort of undefined posi-
tion with regard to the gods, Juvenal tells us that “ not
even boys believe that there are ghosts and a nether
world and a Stygian lake, and Charon with his myriads
of men in one boat ;” and he then goes on in the next few
lines (sat. ii.) to give an unconscious proof of the good
and salutary effect of a belief in another life, by request-
ing the Roman youth of the day just to suppose for a
moment that the souls of the dead do live, and to ask
themselves what the spirits of their great ancestors would
think of the way they were every day thinking and act-
ing. No doubt such reflexions would have been suf-
ficiently unpalatable to the Roman public, unless indeed
they had already forgotten the very meaning of shame.
The generation that flourished in Juvenal’s time had
not even been taught as children any religion worthy of the
name, and to this fact the whole difference between their
morality and that of their grandfathers in the time of
Horace is, I thiak, to be traced. I hope to prove this
when I come to another portion of my paper. Any re-
ligion there may have been in the days of Juvenal was
utterly debased and degraded, like Athenian religion at
the time of the “Bacche,” with this difference, namely,
that the harder and coarser character of the Roman gave
to vice a barbaric and coarse aspect that it never wore
with the cultured Athenians. But it is not only in
ancient times that we find material on which to ground
the induction by which to proceed to the universal pro-
position I have brought forward with regard to the rela-
20
tion of morality to religion, England went through a
period of disintegration of religious thought at the time
of the commonwealth, and the laxity of morals in the
days of Charles II. was the result. It is only those who
have studied that time pretty carefully who are aware of
how faith had become de,;raded into superstition. Every
one knows how James I.’s pamphlet on witchcraft stirred
up the superstition which the new faith had been for sixty
years endeavouring to weed out of theold. But it is only
from stray passages in not very widely read books that
we find how the very worst features of Romanism were
the longest in survival, and how every sort of magic was
sought after and held to. Mr. Lilly’s work on “ Astrol-
ogy” appeared in the time of the commonwealth, and is
dedicated to no less a person than the historian Whitelock,
a prominent member of the Long Parliament, and Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal in the time of Cromwell. Div-
ination was much consulted by both sides during the
civil war—by the Puritans as well as the cavaliers—and
all unusual circumstances were regarded as good or bad
omens. Clarendon himself condescends to notice the fact
that the King’s standard was blown. down by wind when
he first set it up, at Nottingham, at the beginning of the
war, and he says that that circumstance caused great
gloom in the royal camp. It is elsewhere said that His
Majesty himself was much moved by this event, and
when we consider what his bringing up must have been |
we can hardly wonder at his apprehension.
The decline of religious faith, again, was one of the
chief causes of the French revolution, and all the horrors
which we associate with that event. And we all know
that the revolutionary views, such as find their outcome
in the assassination of kings and emperors, invariably go
hand in hand with atheism. All the modern Nihilists are
openly infidel; and, indeed, no theological faith, let us
o ®
21
hope.. could ever be found to inculcate the gospel of
dynamite and poison. A Deity who could have ordered
the murder of the late Ozar of Russia would be infinitely
worse than none at all, and we have reason for joy in the
fact that the Nihilists have not at present attempted to .
find such'an one. But it is competent to me to point out
how the extreme revolutionary party in Europe always
identifies itself with atheism, and #f the views of right
and wrong held by the Nihilists are logically deducible
from atheistic ethics that fact will in itself be worth a
load of argument.
I have tried to show by the historic method that a
lowering of the moral tone in a race is the natural result
of a giving up of religious faith. The next portion of
this paper will be taken up with an attempt to show that
this sequence is perfectly logical, and that nothing else
can be looked for. And let us first examine a point that
has been noticed in reference to both Athens and Rome,
namely, that the generation which first receives infidelity
does not show any great change (as far, at any rate, as
others can see) in their views of right and wrong, but
_that these views become lowered in the generation that
follows.
We hear a great deal of how so and so, who is a pro-
nounced sceptic, is nevertheless a very good man, a good
citizen, a good husband, an honourable person and so
forth, and he is pointed to asa proof of how needless a
creed is to make a man all that he should be; and that
such persons exist there is no need to deny. Bt the
whole matter is surely explained when we reflect inat the
sceptic of to-day was taught Christian morality as a child,
and that the same views on right and wrong will be held
by him when religious dogmas have dropped away. I
have known several such persons myself, and I have no
doubt that others will corroborate what I say. It is more
22
especially the case with men of high education and deli-
cate sensibility, who would be only too glad to believe if
they could, and who make up, as it were, for their reluc-
tant conclusion against the truth of Christianity by a still
greater determination to practice her beautiful precepts of
conduct to fellow-man, with an inconsistency, if you will,
but the logical falseness is ‘“splendide mendax.” These
men would give all they are possessed of, in many cases,
to be able to hold what they were first ‘aught, and, when
they find they cannot do that. they at any rate do what
they were first ¢old. But what will the case naturally and
necessarily be with the sons of these men? The father
was taught as a child not to lie because the Bible forbade
it, not to slander because the Commandments told him
not, not to bear hatred towards his brother because the
serm jn on the Mount had declared him who did so to be
a murderer; but when this same man bye and bye
teaches Ais own son not to lie, and slander, and hate, and
adds that these things are ‘“ wrong,” what can he say if
the child asks why they are wrong and on what authority
they are forbidden? Is he not dumbfoundered? He is
convinced that they are wrong, but the grounds of his ’
convictions have been cut away, and the erection of the
principle of wrong into a sort of transcendental abstrac-
tion may be all very well for him, but will be utterly
beyond the comprehension of his child. How is the
child to take in such an idea as that there are two great
essences, the Good and the Bad, and that all actions are
to be regarded as tending to, and suggested by, the one
or the other? What is his young brain to make of long
philosophical definitions, which, after all, if the sophisms
and long words he swept away, merely amount to saying,
“Tt is wrong because it is wrong?” And, should the
father merely tell his son to consider these things as
wrong because his parent tells him they are so, those
23
acquainicd with the spirit of this age will know avout
how far the paternal pse dizit is likely to go. And the “
children are right from the infidel point of view, because
the father is bound to give his reasons, since by reason
alone are his views supposed to be formed.
Whenever a generation has grown up without knowl-
edge of a Deity the light it has shed on the question has
been a lurid one, and we have no shred of reason for
hoping it will now be otherwise. I have heard it urged
that a knowledge or recognition of right and wrong is
inherent in every one, and that no absence of theological
belief will be able to eradicate it, whether fathers and
teachers can give reasons for it or ne. Now, with regard
to this objection, which is frequently urged, let us first
enquire into what grounds there really are for its being
entertained. Is it not the case that among those who
have never really held to religion there is a certain quota-
tion continually at hand, and which they frequenily bring
ont, namely, the lines “ There’s nothing either right or
wrong, but thinking makes it so?” And what is really
meant by this? I am entitled to suppose that those who
use it intend it to mean that every principle must be en-
quired into afresh with a view to the establishment of
some newer and better criterion by which to determine
whether it is good or bad, for that the present artificial,
religious criterion has merely made people adopt a jidg-
ment which habit has confirmed, but which does not rest
on a sure or correct foundation. Now by what criterion
will actions be judged by those who reject a personal
superintending Deity ? These persons generally answer
that it will be by the effect of the action on “humanity”
or on “the State.” And so, forsooth, we are to hesitate,
on various occasions as they arise, whether to tell the
truth or a lie, balancing the probabilities as to whether
the community will best be aided by the one or the other.
24
Besides, intellectual confusion will arise, for what one man
thinks good for humanity another will think bad, and
therefore the same action will be regarded as good by one
and bad by the other; nor will there be any judgment to
which either can be expected to defer. I am quite well
aware that there are plenty of sceptics whose regard for
truth and so on is as good as that of Christians, but that
is because they practice the precepts of the faith that has
dropped from them, instead of logically following out
those of their new doctrines. They give up religion
because they say there is no proof for it; reason is their
guide and their king; and by reason alone, therefor an
they claim to be judged. And how is the morality oy
still, for the most part, practice defended by pure recson ?
Can it be so defended at all? Let the “ good of human-
ity” be given as the criterion of the worth of an indi-
vidual action, and we are instantly brought face to face
with the question of what is the good of humanity ; and
until that question is answered in such a manner as to
leave no doubt that the answer is correct, we are as far off
from any Satisfactory basis on which to build the new
svstem of ethics as we were before. The child alluded to.
above has an absolute right, we must remember, to de-
mand of its father a complete and logical reason why
such and such words and actions are wrong; and not.
oniy is the child entitled to ask such reason, but the father:
is bound to be provided with an answer, for, except by rea-
son, he has no ground, and can claim none, for regarding
the actions or words as wrong. To be unprovided with
alogical answer, and yet to call the word or action wrong,
is to give up the very principle for which he is (logically)
supposed to be contending. The Christian father is, in-
deed, the more logical of the two, for in his prohibitions
of lying and slander, etc., as mentioned above, he says
that since all things which God forbids are wrong, and
25
all lying and slander, etc., are things which God forbids,
therefore all lying and slander, etc.,are wrong. Youmay
assail the facts, as asserted in his premisses, hut you caniot
assail the conclusion if his views in his premisses are true.
But the infidel father is in no such impregnable position ;
his proof of the wrong is not forthcoming, and I would
be glad to learn how it is ever to be produced. When I
have pressed this point on sceptics of my own acquaint-
ance, they have generally answered that a man has in-
stinct as well as reason, and that in the immense majority
of cases instinct is healthy, and will point in the right
direction. Now, without being accused of pessimism, we
may fairly claim to examine a little into this instinct, and
see how it comes to be what it now is. The instincts of
each given person at the present moment are, surely, the
combined effects of the good and bad he has inherited
from his father, and of the good and bad habits and
thoughts which he has during his whole life formed
within himself. A man’s instinct, therefore, will be good
or bad according to the proportion of good and of bad
that existed in his father and has become developed in
himself. The principle of memory is considered by
modern writers to be closely allied to the principle of
hetedity, and one writer indeed, (a sceptic) has recently
gone so far as to say that “ what memory is, that is here-
dity.” And, therefore, the instincts of the existing sceptics
who were educated as christians will be due, not only to
their own early imbibition of christian ethics, but to the
ideas held by their ancestors, who were all christians,
Now the power of. the well educated to conquer instinct
by means of reason is considerable, and though not suf-
ficient to subdue the original desires in one generation,
yet it may do so to a great extent in the second. Let us
take an instance froma fact well known here. When
Englishmen emigrate out here and settle permanently, if
26
they have attained manhood and are formed in mind by
the time: they arrive, they do not, (as a rule) alter much
in character and tastes, but remain more or less throughly
English ; hut the children of these men, born in this country,
become thorough Canadians,—whether the father encour-
ages them todo so or attempts to prevent them. But
were the same Englishman to bring up his family in
France, where the difference is greater, it would be several
generations before his offspring would become throughly
French. An English schoolmaster once told me that
he had observed in some boys of Huguenot descent a
special quickness in learning French. It would probably
take them a generation longer to become exactly as
Spaniards, if he settle in Spain; while, were the father to
take up his abode in the celestial empire, it would bea
great many generations before his descendants would be
completely inured to the Chinese habits of thought and
life. Thus the decline of instincts from those inculcated
by christianity to those which are (as I hope to show by
and by) the natural and logical outcome of pure ration-
alism would be slow ; and the slowness would vary in pro-
portion to the impurity of the form of materialism adopted
by the mind in its stead. I say the mind because the
convictions can alter in one generation, while the feelings,
instincts, and prepidices, &c., &c., cannot. The next
point to be proved iu connexion with this part of my sub-
ject is that the instincts bred by christianity actually are
better than those which are produced by any other creed,
or by no creed at all; and this is not a matter of great
difficulty, for a very small knowledge of ancient history,
and of the present condition of non-christian nations, will
show us that a higher standard of right and wrong is
inculcated by christianity than by either the Pagans of
ancient times or the various non-christian beliefs of our
own. What other creed ever gave birth to such a precept
nind by
r much
roughly
ountry,
encour-
n. But
mily in
several
roughly
ne that
escent a
robably
ctly as
ather to
ld bea
ould be
gkt and
ulcated
how by
ration-
in pro-
adopted
se the
eelings,
e next
my sub-
ally are
creed,
f great
history,
hs, will
ong is
rans of
of our
precept
27
as that of treating our neighbour as we would he should
treat us? In what other creed is personal revenge con-
demned? In what other is the duty of helping one
another as brothers so insisted on? It has often been
said that there were not any hospitals or orphanages in
heathen times. The duty of supporting the sick and
orphans outside our own families is the offspring of chris-
tianity, and the close relation between this duty and
religion is shown in the beautiful french name for a hos-
pital,—the “‘ Hotel-Dieu.” To compare christian morality
with that of existing heathen nations, sucb as the tribes
of Africa, &c., is quite unnecessary. In urging this point
I have, for the first time, considered christianity as des-
tinguished from other creeds instead of merely contrasting
theological faith in general with infidelity, but this only
establishes an argument a fortiori in my favour, namely |
that if a lower type of religion involves in its fall the fall
of good morality also, how much greater will be the lapse
of the moral tone under the fall of purer and higher reli-
gion. Surely common sense tell us that, the higher the
point we fall from, the greater the fall will be. If then,
reason fails even in one generation to give a satisfactory
logical basis for the division of right and wrong, and if
instinct fails in a few generations to do what reason no
longer commands, by what sort of social compact, by what
laws of society, will an infidel state be able to live ?
Supposing, as suggested above, that “the good of the
state” be taken as the summum bonum, and that actions
are regarded as good as bad according to their bearing
on the State’s welfare, it becomes an interesting matter to
show (if possible), (1st), that there will be actually no
sound guarantee for the keeping up of any ideas of right
' and wrong, except in the sense of useful, or expedient, and
useless or inexpedient; (2nd), that even this low criterion
will not receive sufficiently definite and widespread in-
28
terpretation to prevent infinite confusion as to whether
given actions are to be called good or bad, (when judged
by it); (8rd), that no interpretation can be (logically) ax-
thoritative ; and (4th), that a thoroughly low moral tone
will be the necessary result. Now these four propositions
are distinct, though connected, and must be discussed one
by one. First, then, to a nation which declines to recog-
nize any theological system, some other criterion of what
is right and what is wrong is an absolute necessity, and
since they who form this nation decline to admit the exis-
tence of any other world, their swmmum bonum, their ideal,
their base of morality, must be bounded by this world in
which we now live; must be in this world and of this
world; and what cannot be proved to bring happiness or
wealth, or glory or what not to this world, and to them in
it, must not claim a place (consistently) in their notion of
right. Butasthe wholly uninterrupted pursuit of his own
happiness by each individual will, of course, be frequently
inimical to the well-being of the whole community, it will
be incumbent for the community to lay down certain
rules to prevent the actions of individuals from clashing
with the happiness of the community, and that same com-
munity must also, unless human nature strangely alters,
support it’s commands by the sanctions employed by all
existing nations,—finds, imprisonments and so forth,—all
in order to give effect to the right of the state to control
the individuals who compose it. But the difference be-
tween the action of this state and that now taken by
existing states is this, that existing states are guided by
known principles of right and wrong, whereas the evolu-
tion of some means whereby to distinguish right from
wrong will be just what the infidel state will have to
discuss. The only principle that the state, qud the state,
can possible hope to evolve will surely be expediency.
Its legislators reject any supernatural order of things, and
to whether
len judged
zically) ax-
moral tone
ropositions
cussed one
8 to recog.
on of what
essity, and
it the exis-
heir ideal,
3 world in
nd of this
piness or
0 them in
Notion of
f his own
requently
ty, it will
certain
clashing
ame com-
Ply alters,.
ed by all
brth,—all
0 control
ence be-
aken by
hided by
he evolu-
rht from
have to
he state,
ediency.
ngs, and
29
this world offers no criterion but its own advantages. In
order, then, to secure a maximum of these advantages, it
is clear that a criterion of good must be adopted which
will exclude all other aims,—at any rate from authoritative
recognition—except the attainment of this ‘maximum.
And how will any criterion be found except in the “ utile,”
the “ expedient,” the “plan which conduces to the good
of the majority” and soon? I have attempted to show
that good instincts cannot be relied on for more than a
couple of generations, or so, and when the old ideas of
right are gone, this theory of procuring the purely selfish
happiness of the individual and the purely temporary
happiness of the state will lead to the contemplation of
given actions from some such point of view as the follow-
ing :—how will what I propose to do tend to my own
advantage, and how to that of the country at large?
Should both these questions be answered in a satisfactory
manner (é.e., a manner satisfactory to the questioner) no
further hesitation need be felt in proceeding with the
action. That such a course of action may, in a great
number of cases, be utterly wrong, as we now understand
the word, is quite clear. That this will most certainly be
the case I will try to show in proving my fourth propo-
sition (¢.e., the degradation of morality), but I hold, (2), that
no interpretation of this principle of expediency can be
sufficiently widespread to prevent confusion as to what it
is and how to apply it. Now the fact that thinking men
have, in all ages, held different views one from another as
to what will be for the good of the state is perfectly well
known, and it is also indisputable that no one school of
politicians or economists has yet, arisen which has so fully
and completely explored and explained the whole art and
science of politics as to practically end all sensible dis-
cussion of the matter among intelligent men. Various
attempts have been made to bring politics within, the
80
range of the exact sciences, and no one attempt has been
successful. Mr. Buckle’s History of Civilization is a bold
and able work, but it did not convince, (though it inter-
ested and charmed), the average intelligent mind. And
the science of politics has not advanced since his time at
such a pace as to give any real hope that inductive reason
will ever bring it within her range. The many motions
of the human mind are too various to be counted on
beforehand, as one could count on the chemical changes
of a human body. At least, this is a very fair conclusion
to draw from the small progress made by politico-philo-
sophical studies, as distinguished from the large advances
achieved by physical science. At any rate, until a great
deal more has been done than has been done at present to
form an intelligent and authoritative science of what Mr.
Herbert Spencer calls Sociology, we are without ground
for imagining that the infidel state will be able to set forth
and enforce such a complete and elaborate view of the
mutual duties of man and man in all the various relations
of life as will satisfy all thinking men of its unimpeachable
truth. And to suppose that all will follow it, except where
obliged, is to expect a great deal of human nature; for, in
cases in which the theory laid down by the state interferes
with each man’s pursuit of his own happiness, unselfish-
ness will have made wondrous progress indeed if the man
will prefer that of the state. (But I see no possible ground
for supposing that such universal rule will ever be found,
so that the question of whether it would ever be followed
is, to me, one of speculative interest only). Thirdly, let
us see whether any interpretation could be, in any high
rense of the word, authoritative. Asthatterm is commonly
understood, it would not properly apply to a rule a man
imposed on himself, because what a man imposes on him-
self he may afterwards, whenever he choose, release him-
self from. The idea of authority involves the imposition
81
of a law from some exterivr source, and postulates, there-
fore, two distinct persons (at least) for the carrying out of
its own meaning,—namely the person who imposes the
Jaw and the person on whom the law is imposed. But
who will impose the law in the infidel state we are con-
sidering? The people asa corporate body. Andon whom
will it be imposed? On the people as individuals. Now
with actual laws and statutes, taken by themselves,—in
actual rules and by-laws, etc., taken by themselves,—the
same principle may ba said to hold good throughout
existing nations,—namely that men impose them on them-
selves; but this objection is not of real force, for two
reasons,—firstly because the laws and rules, etc., in exist-
ing countries arv the outcome of principles of right and
wrong which vere originally given to them (as they hold)
by the Deity, and not evolved by themselves, and, secondly,
becausethese laws, etc., only apply to the actions and words:
of men, and do not touch their thoughts and beliefs, (which
are admitted to be beyond the ken of the state), whereas the
infidel community will have to give its laws and regulations
the force, not only of civil laws but of religious principles
also. Now the difference between a law and a religious
principle is just this, that a law we are not called on to
approve of but only to obey, and, so long as we obey it, no
one troubles whether we regard it as just or whether we
abuse and find fault with it, but in the case of a religious
principle we are called on to agree with its truth and
justice, and not only to obey it but to do so on the ground
of its being right. Therefore the infidel state must either
neglect to provide anything corresponding to, or taking
the place of, the religious principle, or else it must pro-
duce some law of right and wrong which while not pre-
tending to be (like a religious principle) held to for its
own sake, must nevertheless be so widely agreed with as
to furnish to every one a guide of life. But since no
such guide can be found, and since an authoritative
principle, (in the sense of a principle imposed from above ‘
and unquestioned,) is an impossibility to infidels, there will
be, and can be, nothing whatever to prevent the indivi-
duals in this state from doing whatever they like within
the actual criminal law ; they have no theory of morality,
they have no guide of life, they have no reason for good
deeds, excepting such theories, guides and reasons as each
may evolve for himself. Many in this state of the same
way of thinking may and will join clubs and associations
for the propagation of their own special ideas, and those
ideas themselves will, if what I have said on the gradual
fall of instinct is correct, grow worse and worse every
generation ; while the various schools of thought on these
‘subjects will become more and more numerous, and their
arguments more and more confounded, till at last the
one real guide set by each man before himself will, by
tacit consent, be that guide to which man without God
must eventually turn, to which alone he can turn, and at
whose shrine alone he can consistently worship,—and
that is se/f. Self is worshipped in many cases, as every
one knows, by professed christians of every church and
sect, but in the case of the infidels there will be no hope
of showing, in such a manner as to logically convince the
intellect, that the worship of self is in any way wrong,
and consequently there will be no hope, either, of winning
them from that worship. The christian has all the incen-
tives to be self denying that an atheist has; the state, the
poor, his relations and friends, all wnake the same cla‘tus
on him that they make on the sceptic, and he has the
precepts of his creed in addition, which the atheist has
not,—therefore it is a fair argument @ fortiori to say that
if the christian with his double incentive towards self
denial still remains:selfish, the atheist, with one incentive
only to self denial, wil! be even more sure todo so. And
this argument holds good even supposing the instincts of
the infidel are on a par with those of the christian ; ¢. e.
admitting, for the moment, a point I do not at all admit.
But I must keep quite closely to the particular points I
have brought forward, in the order I have assigned them,
or I shall have to overstep the bounds I have set myself
for this paper. The next and last proposition of the four
‘that I advanced concerning the infidel state is that a
thor oughly low tone of morality will result from the state
of things that I have tried to show will prevail in it.
But I do not mean to make this proposition in the least
dependent on the truth of the other three; I only discussed
them first as somewhat leading up to this last and most im-
portant point. Let the interpretation discussed above be
as widespread and well understood as possible and the
result on morality will be no better. Let it be considered
then, and with impartiality and care, whether the worship
of self will or will not, must or must not, become the
sole ultimate rule of life to infidels,—even though in-
fidels are found now who are as devoted to their friends
and to humanity as can be possibly desired. First, then,
how far will pure reason defend men from this cult of
Selfishness? Is it possible, for instance, for pure reason to
upset the views of the Nihilists in attempting the life of
the Czar of Russia? It may be possible, but it is far from
easy. A man convinces himself, reasoning from such data
as are at his command, that the enormous nation of Russia
will be infinitely benefitted by the termination of the
autocratic form of government—which we may freely ad-
mit—and that the murder of one Ozar after another will
end in the Royal party giving way,—which is highly
probable,—and then from these two propositions he decides
that killing the Czar is for the good ‘of the state, and that,
therefore, he is doing right in attempting to do so, and in
tisking his own life in the dtteriipt. Tne fact of his fisk-
84
ing his own life is worth recollecting as proving the
intensity of the man’s convictions. To upset this chain of
reasoning we have to prove to the Nihilist that, let the
benefits to Russia from regicide be ever so great, murder
is, and always must be, utterly and completely wrong.
And here comes in the old point of the lack of any criterion
for proving to him that actions are wrong, except that of
the good and bad of the state; and even that criticism is,
in this case, uncertain (as I have tried to prove that it is
always sure to be) because if the Nihilists were to call on
you to prove that his course would ultimately destroy
Russia, instead of helping her, however sure you may be
that it would bo so, the proof is not particularly easy.
-You might answer, for example, that such a course as
murder would cut at the principles of law, but the Nihilist
would reply that those principles themselves were on
.their trial, and that they might be found to need re-
modelling. And the average person has not, as a rule, a
a great shrinking from doing a little evil that great good
may come, Do we not sympathize with Bassanio when
he entreats the Doge to set aside, just for once, the letter
of the Venetian law in favour of his friend? And who.
would not prefer that Antonio should escape by such
means rather than by a contemptible quibble about the
difference between flesh and blood? Of course the Doge
was right to refuss Gassinio’s plea, but the admission of
this only comes from. ‘owledge of statescraft, and is by no.
means an instinct, nd even the recognition of the in-
evitable wickedness of murder, however noble the end in
view, is far from being universal. Did Cicero feel so very
sure that Cesar Should not have been murdered? A
Christian of course has only one answer, but I doubt if
the same certainty will be found outside the Ohristian
fold. And when we turn from the political to the social
principles of the Nihilists and adyanced Republicans of
g the
lain of
let the
jurder
prong.
terion
hat of
ism is,
at it is
all on
ustroy
ay be
easy.
rse as
ihilist
Te on
ed re-
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good
when
letter
who.
such
at the
85
Europe, we find theories that are, if possible, still more
-repugnant to our Christian nature. Of many of theso
theories one cannot even write, and yet it may be doubted
if even the worst of them are to be proved inexpedient by
the agency of pure reason, I use the word “ inexpedient”
rather than “ wrong” because there are some amongst
them who would rid themselves, if possible, of the words
“right "hand “ wrong,” as having a connotation they do
not recognize. It may be roughly said that the extreme
Republicans and Social Democrats of Europe are mainly
to be divided according to their opinions as to the relations
of individuals and the state. One school holds that the
state is everything and that an individual should so live
as to confer the greatest happiness on the community,
sacrificing himself even as the ancient Romans were so
- proud todo, The other school considers the government
. and the state machine as a necessary evil,—necessary to
prevent violence and robbery and so on,—and that the
functions of this government should be pared down as far
as possible, in order that the indiviclual should enjoy a
maximum of liverty. The former of these theories is not
. very likely to be realized unless some supernatural belief
inspires the citizens with a feeling of the glory of self-
sacrifice, as was the case with the Romans, while the latter
does away with patriotism altogether, and elevates selfish-
_ ness into a positive ideal. Should any one doubt the effect
of absence of patriotism, such as is inculcated by the latter
school, let him read the history of, the decline of. empires
in all ages, and he will see how large a factor in producing
such decline an unpatriotic spirit has always been. Horace
points with great clearness to the difference between the.
_ old spirit of the Romans, in the early days of the Kings
and the Republic, and the luxurious selfishness prevailing
in his own; the private houses were then, in old times,
_ built of turf, the public buildings and temples of the gods
86
were decorated with marble; the private purse of the
ancient Roman was short, his public one was long:
“Thon, all ‘were for the State,” as Lord Macaulay says,
“For Romans in Rome's quarrel spared neither land nor
gold,” etc..—there is no need to quote such well-known
lines. In the times of Horace all this was changed; it
was the private villa that was decorated with marble
columns and ivory ceilings, and the temples of the gods
had to shift as best they might. Yet this latter system
is by no means undesirable to the school of thinkers
who would merge the state in the individuals composing
it. According to those who so think the argument
-runs thus ;—all these individuals taken together are the
state ; if, then, they are rich the state is rich, if they are
happy, 80 is the state. From this proposition they infer
that where all the people in a country are looking out for
their own welfare, the community approaches most clo-
sely to the ideal of what it should be,—care being of course
taken that no one shall so pursue happiness as to prevent
others doing the same. Devotion to the state in this
,country will be positively discouraged, because it will tend
to making the community something else than an other
name for the individuals composing it. However, there is
not likely to be very much of such devotion, so the question
of its discouragement would be of little practical impor-
tance. To those who appreciate the higher side of man’s
nature the picture of such a state as this is gloomy enough,
yet how does pure reason prove it to be anything else but
desirable? What is the wse of the higher qualities in a
purely infidel state constructed on principles of logic and
common sense alone? What, in short, would become of
the finer side of human nature ?—and yet, from their own
premises, what need become of it? They look to. the
complete cessation of wars in the world, and science will
minimize all chances of accidents, so that heroism will be
of the
long:
says,
d nor
nown
ad ; it
iarble
» gods
ystem
inkers
posing
iment
re the
ay are
infer
ut for
t clo-
ourse
event
1 this
l tend
other
ere is
pstion
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ough,
e but
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ic and
me of
own
9. the
b will
tl be
87
absolutely, unnecessary. Indeed, many look on this qua-
lity as rather more harm than good, as tending towards a
disposition to quarrel. Readers of the “New Republic”,
will remember how Mr. Mallock makes one of his charac-
ters say that he looks forward to the time when all shall
be completely cowardly, so that these may never be any
more fighting in the world. And, from his own point of
view, there is nothing to be said against him. The New
Republic was, no doubt, a aiceuiiee but it is an interest-
ing work as showing, in a pleasantly readable form, what
the logical carrying out of certain views would be, and
the proposition I have just quoted is by no means the
most startling of those that are arrived at. It need hardly
be said that the qualities most particularly known as the
christian virtues will be completely starved in the cor-
munity we are considering. Such qualities as self denial.
and patience, for instance, will be out of place in any land
where individual happiness is the summum bonum. The
head and reason will condemn them, and the heart and
instincts will ultimately follow,—though indeed, there
may be some cases in which the gradual weeding out of
such sentiments will be very slow. There remains to me
now ons more aspvct of the question beyond those I have
up to now been considering. I have always admitted,
argument: grotid, that the one point of happiness will
actually be secured by infidels, and that all that need be
said against them was tkat this earthl, » Jiness would
be purchased at too great a cost. But we mzy now go on
to consider whether these people will be even happy, or
whether, perchance, their swmnum bonum may not prove
somewhat difficult of attainment. Now whether honesty
is always the best policy in this world, as é# #s now coms-
tituted, is not a very easy question, yet I helieve that it is
‘asually answered in the affirmative ;—is it is commonly
held that the “ good” (as the word is now understood) do
88
actually enjoy’a happiar life in this wozid than the bad.
Let us consider the grounds of this belief, If happiness
consists in objective surroundings only, in office, wealth,
power, influence, and so on, no one can possibly hold
that scrapulous honesty is always, or even generally, the
best policy. Surely those who climb into the highest
and most prominent places in this world are not the
very scrupulous. Surely those of sensitive conscience and
scrupulous honour, who decline to lay themselves out to
please those in office and who would rather lose any re-
ward or position than seek it by questionable means, who
refuse to “make up to” influential men or to disguise
their real opinions to court the popular suffrage, who act
on each occasion simply and solely with a view to doing
what is right and what is their duty, and not in order to
conciliate the approbation of the great of this world,—
surely these do not win the tangible prizes? But the
proverb about honesty is true after all, and the meuning
lies deep in the recesses of human nature. It is true
because the man who has not “ got on,” as the world calls
il, in the matter of money and position, but who has failed
because of a determination alw:‘’s to prefer the honestum
to the utile, is happier and more proud within himself, and
consequently more to be envied, than the man who has
surpassed him in the race of life by employing the means
which he himself has declined toemploy. The knowledge
that one is the real and intrinsic superior of the man who
has been more successful, and that that superiority consists
in the possession of a “ mens conscia recti,” is a far greater
source of happiness to a man of a high type of nature and
constitution than the success itself could ever be. Let us
now turn to the infidel state we have been considering
above, and show how the aspects of this question are
altered when the principle is applied toits denizens. But -
- ‘Wwe may notice that there is a certain group of cases in
89:
which, even with things as they now are, the proverb is
hardly true. Its truth has been explained as lying not in
the tangible advantages obtained by the honest, but in their
ease of mind. This argument understands the word honest
as equal rather to “ honourable” than to mere honesty in
the rense of not cheating and stealing,—as equal, that is,
to its ancient meaning rather than its modern. In the
sense of mere abstinence from dishonesty, as the word is
commonly used now, the proverb ought to be true of any
well governed country, and true of all classes in it. But -
the class, or group of cases, in which the saying would '
not be true when interpreted in the sense I have given it,
is the class of men in whom the instinctive knowledge, or
consciousness, of right and wrong is so defective that the
fact that they owe their success to questionable means
would in no way interfere with enjoyment. But, if they
still fail, after the employment of these questionable
means, they are unhappy from failure, and from failure
alone, since they have not the consciousness of right to
support them,—nor would it support them (as members
of the class mentioned above) even if they had it. Now
in the infidel state, after a certain time, this consciousness
will have worn away, so that there will be nothing to
interfere with the worship of success, except, of course,
such motives as personal disinclination, arising trom indo-
lence, etc., or the direct worship of pleasure as such. In
other words, all will pursue success as an ideal except those
who, being rich to start with, do not regard the increase
of their wealth and influence as a great enough object to
induce them to take the requisite exertions to obtain it;
and those who, from merely desiring to enjoy the
moment, do not care whether they go-up the hill or
down it. Both these classes act on prudential motives
alone, and neither has any claim for consideration
or pity for their non-achievement of glory, or power, or
40
whatever it may be that. they would otherwise have been
striving for, With the exception of these classes, more-
over, all who fail to command success will fail to attain.
happiness also,—for they are not comforted by the consol-
ing reflections of a “ mens conscia recti.” 1 am of course
supposing that a sufficient amount of time has elapsed
since the state became atheistic to allow the instincts
and theories derived from christian days to die out. In
an infid« of the present day, whose ethics are christian
though 1:;.. ivets are not, the satisfaction derived from
consciousness «° right is probably just as strong as in a.
Christian. Nor is there any need to deny that in a few
exceptional cases the old sense of right and wrong will
live on even when religion has completely disappeared.
But in the immense majority of mankind a disbelief in the.
Deity will be followed by a worship of self, and I am un-
able to see how a student of history can deny this propo-
sition. But what sort of happinss will, after all, be
attained by even the successful in tiis state, and by those
who, from prudential motives alona, do not care about
success? Now the relation between happiness and the
_ surroundings that conduce to ease and affluence is not to
be readily fixed. There are some in whom, beyond doubt,
happiness is dependent, almost entirely, on the comfort and:
prosperity of their objective surroundings; who are nearly
certain to be unhappy when these are uncomfortable.
Probably this would be the case with a far larger number
than in a Christian state, since there would be less induce-.
ment to look for sources of happiness elsewhere, but it.
may be allowed that there would still be some who would.
find enjoyment from the inner storehouse of the mind
rather than trom outside comfort and riches. Whether.
there will be much food for enjoyment for this latter class.
is a question we will come to presently, but let us first
consider how much happiness can be secured by those,
41)
who only look to their objective surroundings. If we
refer to writers of all ages, ancient and modern, Pagan and
Christian, we get only one answer. A little money and no
anxiety is better than a great deal with the cares and
responsibilities which its possession involves. This opin-
ion has been expressed in some form or other by writers
of every land, language, and religion; Virgil and Horace,
Swift and Fielding, are all agreed on this point. To quote
passages would be an endless task, and as everybody’s
memory will supply him with a large stock there is no
need to do so. What great truth is there lying at the
bottom of this belief in the “ deceitfulness of riches?”
Probably it lies in the fact that among the many sides of
human nature there are some to which material luxury
fails to minister. Comforts, in the long run, secure more
animal happiness than great luxuries do, and when we
rise from the animal to the mental side of man’s nature,
the blessings of the “ golden mean ” are still more appar-
ent. That riches involve cares, and that office brings
more worry than privilege, has been found out by all
thinkers and philosophers from time immemorial. Per-
haps I may be told, in answer that the everyday action
of the world gives the lie to the dictum of the
writers and philosophers; that these are days when
everybody is making haste to be rich and that
when riches increase they do, in spite of all com-
mand to the contrary, set their hearts upon them,
and that offices and honours and titles are still eagerly
sought after in spite of the cares they bring with them.
But to say that these objects are pursued and to say that
they bring happiness are two different assertions, and
though there is no denying the former there is a great
deal to be said against the latter. To argue that they
would not be followed unless they brought happiness is
to argue in the teeth of all experience of human nature.
42
Men frequently'strive ‘for objects which yield them no
happiness whaever; it is almost impossible to read any
biography and not see this. Now the successful winners
of wealth and office in the infidel state are no more likely
to obtain happiness as a necessary result than they would
be under the present ‘state of things, while those ‘who
attempt the following ofa Horatian line of philosophy are
without any real basis for supposing that they will be
completely happy, for the Horatian must be “Integer
vite © “lerisque purus;” he must feel the existence of
sumeiinng higher within his own mind and constitution
than is offered by external wealth and show, and he must
be al. ver <. the purer and simpler times of the past
before barbaric luxury had obtained sway over the world,
and before the race for wealth had crushed all idealism
and beauty out of nine tenths of his fellow men. In short;
the saying about honesty discussed above fails to be true
in the infidel state, for the person who fails to obtain suc-
cess owing to scrupulousness, under the materialist
regime, will not have the comfort from within himself
that will fall to the enviable lot of one so failing under a
christian system. Love of the beautiful and poetic is pre-
eminently the offspring of religion, and is not (or has not
yet been) found in materialistic nations or ages. Horace
had, may be, only a half-belief in the gods, but the beauty
of his conceptions rose from the half of him that believed,
and not from the half of him that denied. The sunset of
faith is a very different *phenomenon from the night of
developed materialism. There is no real poetry in that
night; unillumined by moon or stars, unbroken by any-
thing but the cry of some one or two, here and there, who
dream of higher things and wake abruptly only to find
that the lowest depth of murky darkness has become
a yet lower deep. What poetry was produced by the
age of Juvengl? He was almost the only writer of the
48
age who wrote poetry even in the sense of verse, and his
lines are memorable for their subject-matter alone, and not
for any “invention,’—the true meaning of poetry—in
their composition. The intimate connection between re-
ligion and the higher and more etherialized side of man’s
nature affords considerable indirect evidence of the truth
of the former, and I hope in a future paper to say some-
thing more on this point. But, to return to the infidel
state, if even the rich are got wholly happy, what is to
lighten the burthens of the poor? What will become of
those who, distanced in the race for material prosperity,
sink into the hovel or cellar, with all the miseries now
attendant or. that condition, but with no cherub Hope
from the Pandora’s box to leaven the lump of sorrow ?
The lot of the poorer workmen in cur great cities is quite
wretched enough already, even with the hope of another
world to lighten it, and the pursuit of earthly hap-
piness will have a strangely mocking sound to those
whose main struggle is against actual destitution and
starvation. The toiler of to-day can look out through
his factory window and picture to himself another land
beyond, where the drudgery of toil shall be exchanged
for endless joy, and the thought may add brightness
to his heart and vigour to his arm; but how shall the
same man be comforted when scientists and philoso-
phers have made him believe that there is no such future,
and that his monotonous toil on this earth is the sum
total of his whole existence. What is then to gladden
the leaden-footed hours, in which, should his thoughts
wander from his work, they will have little to fly to, save,
probably, to a comfortless home, with squalid children,
whose mouths would lack bread should he, in despair,
cease to go through his daily task? Will any system
secure happiness that takes away from us the hope of
seeing again our lost friends in another world ? Will any-
44
thing reconcile us to injustice in this world but the hope
of all being made right in the next? Surely this point of
happiness must be given up to us.
_ There remains to me one point on which I propose to
dwell. At the beginning of my paper I said that I might
meet with the following objection to my line of argument,
namely that if heathen religions could support, morality
and yet be false, Christianity could also support morality
and be false too. And I thipk some sort of answer to
this objection can be made without assuming the direct
work of an apologist. Int) theology proper I have no
wish (and little ability) to stray ; I am only a layman, and,
like a good cobbler, I have no wish to go beyond my last.
But, without borrowing from the works of Butler and
Paley, I think some suggestions may be offered, which,
when followed up and thought out at leisure by any who
may care to do so, may lead to the conclusion that Chris-
tianity is objectively true. The first suggestion is that
while the Greek and Roman mythoiogies sank in a short
time under the attacks of rationalism and philosophy,
Christianity has endured the sharpest blows of all sorts of
antagonism for eighteen centuries, and still remains a
great power in the world—whether increasing or decreas-
ing in strength it is hard to say, but still a power,—
retaining in her service the majority of the greatest intel-
lects of the age. Another suggestive line of argument
may be drawn out from a comparison of ancient mytho-
logies with Christianity. These old religions contained a.
mixture of truth as well as error, and they had many
points in common with Christianity, not only in their
morality but also even in their theology. Now I hope to
show that the portions of. those creeds in which they
resembled Christianity were the portions from which the
good morality proceded ; and that the special points which
. differentiate Christianity from these religions are all emi-.
45
nently adapted to a healthy ethical tone. Let us examine
these old religions ? The same remarks may be applicable,
mutatis mutandis, to all of them, for all I know to the
contrary, but I choose the religions of Hellas and Rome, .
simply as being those with which I am best acquainted.
A very good summary will be found in Lord Lytton’s
“Rise and Fall of Athens” of the way in which the
Hellenic religions became gradually developed. His
object, however, being historical merely, he does not take
any especial care, in his handling of the subject, to dis-
tinguish the false from the true, the healthy from the
morbid, among the belief and imaginations of the warm
blooded Greeks. The elements in common with Chris-
tianity are worth searching for, and I will try to enumerate
them, in order to show that there was more moral truth
in the ancient religions than is commonly supposed. Now,
although the Greek and Roman religions were polytheistic,
yet there was a vein of practical monotheism running
through them. This is shown by nearly all writers in
some form or other, but the chief evidence lies in the use
of the word “ eor ” in the Greck, and of the words “ Deus”
and “Numen” in the Latin languages. It would seem
as though, after all, let the individual manifestations of
the Divine principle be what they might, yet there was a
Godhead somewhefe which showed itself in each and all
of them; as though it were this common Divine essence
for which men looked, and to which they prayed under
the name of Zeus or Hermes or whoever it might happen
to be; and as though the condition on which divinity
was to be attributed to these individual gods was the fact
of their sharing in this essence. “ Numen ” is a word used
in so many different ways by Virgil alone that to attempt
to give any oie English word or phrase for it would be
- a fruitless waste of time. But as a general rule it may
be fairly construed “the Divinity,” and is used in that
46
sense in many cases where no one particular God is present
(as far as we can tell) to the Author's mind; while 9; and
Deus are often used in a similar manner. Take “Deus
nobis heec otia fecit,” for example, and who is to say what
God is meant? Ifthe writer had been a pure polytheist
he would, surely, have mentioned the divinity to whose
beneficence his “otium” was to be attributed, And it
may also be remarked that Virgil put this sentiment into
the mouth of a shepherd, who would probably cling to
old faiths as much as any one, and that if the common
people had held to pure polytheism Virgil would have
been sure to have shown that they did so by the language
he put into their mouths, He had quite enough dramatic
talent and instinct to put into the mouth of Tityrus the
sentiments appropriate to such a character. Even when
the gods are spoken of all together, as, for instance, in
such passages as ‘“ Divém inclementia, Divém, Has evertit
opes” it would seem as though a sort of singularity ran
through their action. Thus, in this particular instance,
where the ghost of Hector speaks of the gods having des-
troyed Troy, he does not say “the majority of the gods;”
through we know that, according to the story, Venus: at
least was on the side of the Trojans. Another point of
truth in the ancient creeds was their ethical teaching,—
as far as it went. We find that, for the most part, the
actions called by Christianity “sins” are condemned by
these religions also, This is not in every case true, and I
have certainly no intention of “ begging the question ” by
appearing to assume that whatever Christianity condemns
is wrong ; but I merely wish to call attention to the fact
that a large number, perhaps the majority, of the actions
considered wrong in the old religions are also considered
wrong in Christianity, though in a different way, and by
a different chain of reasoning, Other points could be men-
‘tioned, but I must go on to consider the points of ethical
47
and dogmatic teaching which differentiate Christianity
from other creeds, and will try to show that these are
eminently healthy in the morality they produce, and
eminently suited to supply the various needs of humanity.
The most obvious distinguishing point in connection with
Christianity is its capacity of adapting itself to the yarious
nations and races of the world, so that there is no country
to which it is unsuited. It may be, (as indeed seeems to
be the case) that different forms of Christianity are suiteble
to different races; Roman Catholicism, for instance, being
apparently appropriate to the Latino-Celtic races, while
the Teuton and Scandinavian prefer Protestantism ; but
the main doctrines,—or, at least, the more obviously dif-
Serentiating doctrines,—of Christianity are common to both.
Of the various Protestant religious systems, again, each
seems to suit best some particular class of society or type
of character, but the difference, between the more pre-
valent forms of faith is very small in proportion to the
vastly important doctrines which all hold in common.
Are not the Romans, the Episcopalians and the others all
alike in holding to the Divinity of Our Lord, the existence
of a future state of rewards for the good and punishments.
for the bad, the necessity of repentance after sin, the for-
giveness of such sin after such repentance, the resurection
of the body, and other doctrines? Do not all say the
creed? Far indeed is it from me and from my thesis
to discuss such subjects as these ; I only mention facts in
order to bring’out what I mean to advan, namely that
the differences between the various forms vu: Christianity
are small compared with the points held in common, while
the essentials and spirit of Christianity are adapted to all
nations and all characters. This universality of adapta-
bility cannot be predicated of any other form of religion
whatever. We can imagine all the world as ultimately
‘Christian, but we cannot imagine all the world as em-
48
bracing any other existing faith. Who, for instance, can
conceive of Mahommedanism as the prevailing creed of
the United States? Now this distinguishing “note” of
Christianity is an eminently good and sound one, ar n-
tains, I think, considerable evidence of its objective .. uth.
But far grander and more suggestive evidence will be
found when we turn to the consideration of the indi-
vidual differentiating points of Christianity. I recollect
once reading an article in an English Review in which
the writer was discussing the question of whether demo-
cratic or conservative views in politics were most favoured
by Christianity, and after he had gone into the point at
some length he said that anyhow, whether we decided
that Christianity was in favour of equality or not, there
was no doubt of its being in favour of Fraternity. Now
this appears to me to be so completely true as ev to
express, in one word, the leading characteristic of 'e
tianity as distinguished from other religions systems.
Each scheme of religious belief or philosophical teaching
has its ideal of life ; its rule of conduct ; and Christianity
is no exception. Speaking from the outside point of view
I have all along adopted, I should certainly say that the
leading ethical doctrine of Christianity was brotherhood.
It is no answer to this to throw out the usual sneer as to
the quarrelling and bickering of Christian churches and
sects with one another, * because this quarrelling’ and
bickering is not part of the teaching of Christianity, but
is eminently opposed to it. Proof of this may be found
by referring to the list of the specially Christian virtues
given by St. Paul. Besides, such of the members of the
various Christian bodies as go to synods and congresses
-are not typical representatives of the average members of
those bodies. The kind of man who likes to get elected
as a lay member of a church conference is probably an
* Whicb, by the way, is ludicrously exaggerated. ,
49
excellent character in many ways, but he is not, as a rule,
a good type of the average educated and thinking laymen
of his church. He is too often a person deeply imbued
with a sense of the immense importance of the special
points which distinguish his own denomination from
others, and determined to press these into the utmost pro-—
minence ; while his utterances are not restrained by the
strong sense of responsibility that is felt by his clergy.
The smaller the points, indeed, the more he enjoys the
discussion of them; nor does this mean necessarily, that
he is narrow minded at héart, but his feeling is something
akin to the pride that a member of a club or association
frequently feels in acting as champion of the special cus-
toms and traditions of that association. Add to this that
some minds have a natural liking for small details, and
. that it is the purpose of church assemblies to discuss
differences rather than points on which all are agreed,
and I think the apparently unchristian tone of these
meetings, against which so much sarcasm is hurled, ‘will
be sufficiently accounted for. I touch on this subject
because the proceedings of such assemblies are often
pointed to asa proof that fraternity is not now-a-days a
characteristic of Christianity, and I wish to show that the
party rancour of these meetings is only to be taken as re-
presenting the views of the people from whom it proceeds,
and not those of the bulk of the members of the religions
bodies. A “representative” is a fine title, but it is not
always to be taken in its literal meaning. And now let
us turn to the positive evidence for regarding fraternity as
a distinguishing mark of Christianity. I have observed
above, in some connection, that Christianity alone had
built hospitals and orphanages, and so forth, and I exem-
plified the connection between religion and the spirit that
keeps up such institutions by citing the French name for
a hospital,—the ‘ Hotel Dieu.” No heathen extended his
3
50
self denial furthur than his own family, as a matter of
duty ; though some showed it towards intimate friends as
a matter of spontaneous feeling. To “the state” there was,
perhaps, even more devotion in ancient times than in
modern ; but the feeling sprang from the intensely strong
sense of membership in their community that characterized
‘the early nations, and was in no way connected with
sacrifice in the sense of giving up to those with whom we
have, from a selfish point of view, no concern. A man
who fights well in a battle field, in order that his own
country may win, is no more self denying than a boy
who plays well in a football field, in order that his own
school may win; or, rather, the love of ourselves in our
individual capacity is swallowed up by a pride of our-
selves in our capacity as members of a certain association.
The latter feeling may be infinitely higher than the former,
but it is not self denial pure and simple. Patriotism has
been described, let us remember, as “ the noblest form of
selfiishness,” and there is a great deal of truth in that des-
cription. But'the Apostolic command to christians to
bear one another’s burthens is not qualified by any limi-
tations as to the race or creed of the person whore distress
we relieve. Now where we have no sense of community,
or identical interest, with one for whom a service is done,
such a service is wholly unselfish: otherwise it is only
partially so; and the inculcation of the duty of perform-
ing such wholly altruistic actions is a differentiating mark
of Christianity. In a case in which our own interests and
those of others coincide, no moral credit can be claimed
for any benefits we may confer,—a point which Mr.
Herbert Spencer seems to miss,—but an ordinary human
being may fairly be thankful when such occasigns arise.
Mr. Spencer contends that too much “ altruism,” as he
calls it, would end by ruining the community, and that
where pach man looks after his own interests, in an honest
51
way, the good of the whole will naturally follow. Now,
as there is a certain amount of truth in his views as to’
the dangers of excessive “ altruism,” it is as well to try to
find out what the attitude of Christianity upon the subject
really is,—not, immediately, in order to praise or condemn
that attitude, but merely to see what it actually is, and
then to inquire into its suitebility to the existence of a
healthy ethical tone among men on the question of their
duty to one another. Mr. Spencer’s objection to excessive
altruism, or acting for the good of others, is that people
will look to their neighbours to bear their burthens for
them, instead of bearing them for themselves. He also
rather implies that Christianity aids and abets this depen-
dence on others by inculcating so strougly the duty of
helping those who have need. But does Christianity
give any colour to the casting of our burthens on other
people ? On the contrary, the theory of individual respon-
sibility is held by every christian church. And if it be
argued that nevertheless the tone of Christianity is in
favour of an inclination to shirk responsibility, let us look
ai the actual words of the New Testament on the subject.
We are told to bear one another’s ‘irthens, but told also
in the same breath that each mau must bear his own
burthen. The latter precept is in the form of a statement,
as if it were a perfectly obvious fact, and the command to
bear one another's burthens must not therefore be taken
in such a sense as to destroy the force of what is stated
as an existing truth. How theologians may explain the
two texts I do not know, but to an ordinary intelligence
the logical and sensible explanation seems to be this;
that while it is our duty to help our friends by suggestion,
example, &c., the ultimate responsibility for following
or rejecting such suggestion or example rests on the
individual who is the object of our care; in other words
that our own affairs we are Jownd to settle, and are
: 52
answerble for the settling of them, (whether we will or
no,) while, as to the affairs of others, we are to do our
best, in a fitting and inoffensive manner, to give a help-
ing hand where we can, but we do not take the respon-
sibility off our friends’ shoulders. For instance, suppore
I go to some friend for advice as to which of two
courses to pursue when in some temporary difficulty, and
suppose his advice is the opposite to whe .y own judge-
ment would have suggested, the ultima, responsibility
of taking his advice or following my own opinion rests
on myself; and, if, after weighing the grounds of his
op*nion, I still decidedly prefer my own, I onght to act
on my own, and even if I do act on his advice after all, *
the responsibility for results rests on me. Surely this
view is a sound and practical one, and eminently adapted
to the development of the spirit of helping one another
without losing the sense of individual responsibility : and
such a reconciliation as is here afforded of the principles
of mutual help and of minding one’s own business could
not, I venture to think, be improved upon by modern
political pnilosophers. But this “note” of Christianity
beings no element of compromise into its command to
relieve the necessities of those in actual want. A starv-
ing man must be fed even if he is starving from his own
fault; and in no other system is this duty insisted on.
I would be glad to enter somewhat more fully into this
part of the teaching of Christianity, but I do not wish to
seem to digress from the rule I have laid down, ?. e. that
of merely mentioning the points of Christianity that appear
to be eminently suitable to man, and leaving others to
draw conclusions. If these points of ethical teaching are
more suited to mankind than any other that thinkers have
yet devised, though in no way can the objective truth of
* It is of course his duty, if he advise me at all, todo so to the best of
his ability.
rill or
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adge-
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pted
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iples
ould
dern
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58
the christian religion be concluded as an actual consequence,
yet some amount of probability may be pretty fairly
inferred. I will only mention one more distinguishing
“note” of Ohristianity, and will then briefly sum up
what I have urged in this paper. Religious systems are
frequently to be readily distinguished from one another
by the different lines they have adopted in dealing with
the every day worldly life of their adherents ; some laying
down elaborate rules of condu::t, (like the Jewish,) and
others leaving men pretty much to themselves, as was the
case with the Roman and Hellenic religions. Between
these lines of action Christianity holds a middle course,
not laying down a'number of rules to cover individual
actions as such, but supplying us with a sufficient stock
of general principles of conduct to enable us to judge, by
reference to these principles, what our course of action
ought rightly to be. Thus we are neither hampered and
tied in by the cords of elaborate and petty regulations,
nor, on the other hand, are we left floundering in a sea
of uncertainty without a light house by which to shape
our steps. We have principles upon which to form our
judgement in each affair as it arises, without our indivi-
dual actions being prescribed for us. I am not aware
that any other religion has adopted this method ; most
others, if not all, having either left, their adherents to
their own devices, (provided they committed no actual
crime) or laid down a system of rules that gave the
human judgement little or no scope for deliberation. If
this lines argues health in Christianity, I think the point
is not unimportant, as the question of how to reconcile
the existence of the independent judgement of man with
ethical laws laid down by a system has always been a
puzzle to thinkers and to statemen alike. *
And now, what is it that I have been urging ? Of the
historical portion of what I have said there is nothing
54
further to be remarked ; I answer for the accuracy of the
facts I have mentioned, and it is for others to accept or
reject the conclusions that I have attempted to'draw from
them. And, for the rest, I will briefly recapitulate what
I have brought forward. I am the first to admit the fact
that among the present generation of agnostics and infi-
dels there are many who are actuated, in their schemes
‘for the regen” stion of morality and society, by the best
and purest of motives; and that their love of humanity
urges them to as much unselfishness as love of God could
urge a christian. But this unselfishness is a part of the
creed they have rejected, not of the new creed they have
adopted instead. They cling to their old teaching as
to their duty towards their neighbour with the same
tenacity with which some of those who have cume to live
in the New World keep up the beloved habits and cus-
toms that link them with their past life in the old. But
their children have no such abiding memories, and can
accept the new state of things without a sigh. This
second generation, unhampered with any idea of loving
their neighbours as themselves, will devote themselves to
a discussion of what is right and what wrong, without
any preconceived ideas as to there being anything beyond
themselves to work for or even to sigh for. They cannot
look back from the domains of materialism across an ocean
of doubt and uncertainty into an old land of faith, and
propably they count themselves the happier for their
inability to do so. Instincts themselves with these people
will alter, before many generations have passed, and, if
no next world be believed in, what will be the ruling
force in this life? I contend that it will be selfishness,
and for the reasons that I have stated at length above.
This selfishness will only be stopped by the actual criminal
law; and this law, (I omitted to mention,) will have to
be of terrible severity, since a hungry man will have no
55
reason for preferring the endurance of hardship to stealing,
unless the prison is such a dreadful place that any con-
. ceivable misery outside it would be preferable to a sojourn
within its walls. The hungry man in our own time has
the precepts of his religion to urge him to every, attempt
to earn his bread by honest means before he gives way to
temptation, and he has its terrors also to look forward to
if he steal. Of course no one desires tiat such a consi-
deration as fear should be brought forward as an element
in anyone’s determination to act rightly, but, though, in
the case of a man who continually does his best to follow
the precepts of his religion, this element may become com-
pletely eliminated, yet, with low and debased natures,
who are not accustomed to take right action upon the
simple promptings of their ow n better judgement,—trained
by a long course of religions instructions,—and to men
who have never been under humenizing and elevating
influences, probably the belief in a future penalty of some
severe kind is not without a strong deterrent effect. It is
incorrect to suppose that the brutalized and criminal
classes do not believe in a future state, for the evidence of
prison chaplains, jailers, and other persons specially
qualified to form an opinion, leads to the conclusion that
they do believe in some kind of penalty * in another world.
This consideration is probably one reason why the death
penalty is so much dreaded, and it is certainly a cause of
the infreyuency of suicide. The increase in the percentage
of suicides in Germany has been attributed by thinkers
in that country to the increase of materialistic and infidel
views. And thisis very likely, for who, when in hopeless
misery would “grunt and sweat under a weary life but
that the dread of something after death puzzles the
will,” etc.? To resume the thread of what I have urged,
let us suppose an infidel state to have grown up, and to
* Of what kind this penalty may be has of course no bearing on the question.
have existed as an infidel state long enough for the ins-
tincts and habits of thought logically generated by atheism
to have taken complete possession of the minds of the |
people, and what is likely to be the result ? Their ideas
' being bounded by this world, their summum bonum must
be sought in this world also, and their hopes and aspira-
tions bounded by it. Laws and philosophy will be, in
the end, equally impotent to induce the majority to adopt
any other end and aim than self, and the selfish desires—
riches, office, etc.;—and these laws themselves will only
be obeyed in so far as they are supported by threats of
penalty, since there will be in them no element that will
ensure their being respected, owing to the absence of a
religious principle as their nominal foundation. ‘A Deo
lex” is a theory that gives to many people the requisite
patience to obey cheerfully a law of the state which they
may consider a very bad and unjust one, but the citizens
of the infidel state will have no such motive, and indi-
viduals will evade a law they may happen to dislike
from the mere fact that by no principle but necessity do
they hold their actions bound. If history is more clear
on one point than another in cénnexion with this subject,
it is on this, viz.: the decline of patriotism as a conse-
quence of a decline of religious faith. The real fact pro-
bably is that the higher side of human nature is, as it
were, starved under a materialistic régime, while the lower
desires,—the money making capacity, etc.—are given a
a correspondingly high position. A country governed by
the “bourgeoisie” will usually prefer its material interests
to:its honour in cases where the two may happen to clash,
and this will of course be specially the case with a country
whose rulers and other inhabitants do not even pretend
to care for other than their purely selfish interests. And
if they do not care to work for their own country except
where their individual interests would be benefited by it,
57
@ fortiori they will do nothing for the good of countries
and people that are not connected with them. They will
strive for happiness alone, and will they obtain it? Even
if confortable objective surroundings are sufficient to attain
it, without any higher graces of the mind being necessary
it will only be attained by the minority. The majority in
anv country, (as éven Mr. Stuart Mill admits, and as Mr,
Adam Siwzith most distinctly asserts,) will always be poor ,
and what is to lighten the hard lot of the poor if this life
is regarded by them as the sum total of their existence ?
Even people in fairly comfortable circumstances are fre-
quently overtaken with the feeling that there are more
pains than pleasures in life; even to them there come
occasions in which the sky seems to have lost its blue
and the herbage its green, in which no object in life
seems worth the striving for, and in which we seem to
have neither the will nor the power to take up and carry
on our daily cross. Who of us has not felt this? Yet,
with those who are tolerably comfortable, life on this earth
contains, and must contain, more of happiness of a purely
selfish kind than it offers to the poor toiler, so what must
these feelings be to him ? All the evils of this world, with
no hope of joy in another existence; what a picture is
here! Yet it is a perfectly true and fair one, and nothing
in it, as far as I can see, is in any way exaggerated. Pro-
bably it will be said that, if Christianity be false, the
inculcation of its doctrines for the sake of the good they
may effect is a highly immoral and degrading course to
take. I hold this view also, so strongly indeed as to
agree completely with the forcible language of Professor
Huxley, who wrote, in a recent article on the subject in
the “ Nineteenth century,” that, in his opinion, whatever
might be the amount of wickedness and immorality pro-
duced by a generation of infidelity, the lowest depth of
meanness would not be reached ee began to
58
teach Christianity, knowing it to be false, in order that a
certain result might be produced by it. I quote from
memory, but I am sure that I have not overstated the
force of his words. But the fact that Christianity actually
does produce this good, and that no ethical system has
yet been yet thought out that even the thinker himself
- has really hoped could do more, and the fact that the
Christian system is suitable to all men and all times,—all
these facts, I say, afford evidence, though not proof, that
Christianity is true. Probably these can never be a better
indirect argument for the truth of Christianity than Bishop
Butter’s Analogy, a work which is far more valuable than
Dr. Paley’s Evidences, as the latter work is, to a great
extent, specially directed against the particular attacks on
Christianity that were made by the Deists of that day.
‘Butler’s work is a book for all time, and is as valuable
now as when it was written. But the-actual proof of the
objective truth of Christianity is not what I have been
trying to give,—except by throwing out one or two sugges-
tions which may lead to trains of thought on the subject,
from which some definite conclusion may be finally arrived
at. For the rest I have contented myself with trying to
prove that a lowering of the toné of morality has always
followed a decline of theological belief, and that such
lowering is the perfectly natural and logical consequence.
I will conclude with a word as to how, in my opinon,
the question of the truth of Christianity should be ap-
proached and studied by an educated man who has begun
to feel grave and radical misgivings upon the subject,
I believe he will find nothing worse than to sit down to
read with a frantic determination to prove Christianity
‘right: if possible, and to give the utmost weight to all
arguments that he may find to tell in her favour. For he
will never be able. to forget that:this is his desire, and,
©’ therefore; during the petiods in which ‘the objections to
~~,
59
Christianity press most nearly home to him, he will be
' gure to remember that, in his investigation into the matter,
he has not given these quite fairplay ; and will then be
bound to confess that the particular position he holds with
regard to the question is, therefore, slightly more in favour
of Christianity than, in perfect fairness, it ought to be;
and the hold that the arguments on the Christian side
l ., have obtained over him will thus be considerably
t weakened. In other words, the lurking knowledge that
r he has set out on his inquiry with the spirit of an advocate
rather than that of a Judge will oblige him to feel that his
n conclusion will, in consequence, be untrustworthy. Let
t him, therefore approach the subject with his mind com-
n pletely without preconviction, and even without a desire
7 to come to any particular conclusion ; and let him, for a
le long time, refrain from even asking himself to which end
e he is tending. And, in ridding himself of prejudgement
n in favor of Christianity, let him recollect that there are
s- other prejudices than those generated by religious cre-
t, dulity,—that there are prejudices generated by the catch.
bd words of the materialistic philosophers, * many of whose
to many of whose aphorisms and maxims involve a petitio
78 principté every bit as much as do any of the dogmas of
h theologians. Let him recollect also that proof of the truth
e. or falsity of matters concerning the soul, the existence of
another world, etc., is out of the question, and that con-
clusions must be arrived at from probabilities ; and that
the rules that govern mathematical reasoning are not the
only rules of thinking in existence. Let him discuss the
question freely and fairly with intelligent men of all
schools of thought, in order to see upon what foundations
each builds his conclusions. This will lead him to see
that the habit of unconsiously begging the question is
Sa OCS eS
* E.g.“ Denon apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio.” This
may do for some studies, but not for philosophy.
60
found equally among all parties, and will cause him to be
careful before coming to a very decided conclusion upon
any particular point. Finally, let him not worry himself
for too long at a time over any one part of the matter, but
rather take time to let the evidence soak into him, and
rest while it is doing so, or work at some other part.
Frequently it will happen that one side of the question
will shed light upon another ; and, as information from
outside will sometimes be of much assistance in the same
way, it will do him no harm to read, during his inquiry,
on other subjects. * I think it is not too much to hope
that the result of such an inquiry will be that one who
pursues it may be ultimately induced to return home from
the mazes of uncertainty to the old light that seemed
clear to him early days, and to penetrate through the
finely woven arguments of the Greeks and the Germans,
“ To where, beyond those voices, there is peace.”
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.
Duc me, Stella Dei; per ceca crepuscula duc me,
Nox atra est ; nequeo, Stella, redire domum :
Tu, tu, siste pedes, non fas mihi tota videre
Lumina, sit modo fas, Stella, movere pedem.
Non sic usque fui, nec opem Stelle usque poposci,
Optavique diem ;—nunc, Dea, siste pedes~,
Tum lucem petii claram, spretoque timore,
Jactabam ;—oh, sceleris, Stella, exis usque memor ?
Tu, que me per secla juvisti, in secla juvabis,
Per mare, per terram, Lux mihi donec erit:
Me quoque, mane novo, celestes undique vultus
Quos dilexi olim, perdideramque, petunt.
* Inductive Logic will, I think, be useful.